Author Topic: The Death of the Space shooter  (Read 28222 times)

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Offline AlphaOne

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Well as far as I know FS2 is still considered by many game magazines as a reference game for the space shooter genre. Also I saw in a tiny show about computer games and software a small reportage about FS2 and it is still considered one of the best space shooter games off all time.

So you can not blame the game but rather blame Interplay for not knowing how to advertise a very good product. You can have the most fenomenal game of all time but if noone knows about it then they wont buy it hell they wont even try the free demo.

Also i blame the loads of dead brain idiots out there who play CS & Co. 8-10 hours a day. 9 out of 10 people that i have met and are gamers prefer to play CS and similar games that give a try to an actual inteligent game or should i say a game wich actualy chalangers you to think before you shoot.

Also blame George Lucas for the last Star Wars series. They were good i enjoyed watching them but they were far the original series.
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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I completly agree. FS2 was not advertised at all. People didn't know it existed until they found it by accident sitting on a shelf at the local computer store.

And for those new to the space shooter, tey were probably picking up X-Wing Alliance or Wing Commander because those were well know brands.

You can't blame FS2 for killing the space shooter. Instead, blame Interplay for their lousy marketing non-existing advertising.

If there was ever an example of how not to release a game, FS2 was it. No advertising, no buzz, no marketing strategy...nothing! They just shipped it to stores and left it at that.

Even people like myself who were into space games didn't know FS2 was out. I only became aware of it when i got a free copy of Freespace 2 Colossus with my video card a few years ago.



 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
And still, FS2 is the best of them. Wonderfull music and story, fast battles, cool graphics and desgins. Everything a player wants.
When X-style open-ended universe-wide playing in which you can own massive fleets and space stations and switch between tiny fighters to gigantic capital ships is implemented in FS2, then it will be the best. Add realistic physics and a few other goodies and it will be unbeatable. But it is not the best. It's not exactly not the best... it's just right now, the different types of space sims are so different it's difficult to compare them.
Except if you added all that stuff, it wouldn't be Freespace...it'd be something else.
You don't need to force that type of stuff onto the player, you just need to make it an option that a mod can take advantage of. Wasn't there a thread earlier about trying to implement an Elite-style trading system?
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

  

Offline Flipside

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
It would be nice to have that kind of flexibility, though X3 has its own problems that are inherent to that engine type, i.e, Pilot AI which isn't noticeably better than Freespaces, since collisions are often fatal (which is actually the way I think things should work, but I can understand why it doesn't in FS) and, in the immortal words of Montgommery Scott, 'The more complicated they make the plumbing....'

I'm not certain making the FS2 engine all-singing all-dancing is really the way to make it the best, the most flexible, certainly, but there's usually a trade-off somewhere along the line.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
It would be nice to have that kind of flexibility, though X3 has its own problems that are inherent to that engine type, i.e, Pilot AI which isn't noticeably better than Freespaces, since collisions are often fatal (which is actually the way I think things should work, but I can understand why it doesn't in FS) and, in the immortal words of Montgommery Scott, 'The more complicated they make the plumbing....'

I'm not certain making the FS2 engine all-singing all-dancing is really the way to make it the best, the most flexible, certainly, but there's usually a trade-off somewhere along the line.
I had actually been referring to X2, I've never played X3. There were only a few things I didn't like about X2, and one of them was that I didn't quite like space combat.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Ah, sorry :) X2 was a fine game, but yeah, combat was wierd, it never felt quite like it 'meshed' properly with the game, it sort of sat halfway between Freespace physics and I-War physics.

 

Offline Cabbie

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
All these Elite type complex sandbox games seem to be the rage right now and that’s fine with me. But I would prefer developers to spend their time and effort simply focusing on making the space combat as solid and intense as possible. Instead of spending months programming a huge universe and a complex economy why not put that effort in making a well thought-out (Single and Multiplayer) dynamic campaign instead ala Falcon 4?

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Falcon 4 has to be one of my favorite games of all time, after Freespace and a few other things you guys probably haven't heard of (Panzer General, Team Apache, anyone?). Now a Dynamic campaign in space- THAT would be interesting! Most space games give you the feeling of being isolated, with nothing really important going on around you even though you have a vague idea of battles taking place here and there.

Falcon is complicated, but if you're a flight simmer that's a good thing. You call it a "niche" game, but realistic flight sim is a very large niche, with thousands of people playing it and two major industry magazines. You can't say that about space sims or even FPS (a lot of people play FPS, although most of them aren't hard-core gamers- they buy some stereotypical WW2 shooter and throw it away after maybe a few weeks- that's why there's no major game magazine specifically for shooters).

If you're looking for a niche game, Freespace is it. Not many people still love it- it's very much a cult thing. Although there isn't much multiplayer action anymore and you have only one campaign in single player, IMO what keeps that game going is FRED. Think about it, guys- wouldn't you stick with X3 or Tachyon a little longer if there was a large online community pumping out new campaigns?

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
One of the reasons freeform sims are so popular is that you don't need the fanbase to pump out campaigns... you make your own as you play. The problem is that these sims have design flaws that narrow down your choices if you want some desireable outcome.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I saw a post and had to register

someone said that people prefer games that they don't have to learn to use, that you don't have to think to play, like FPS's

I fall into that category, that is in fact, why I love space shooters

they are very natural for me, I can't tell you how gleeful I was when I found out battlefield 1942 had flight, and I can't tell you how frustrated I was when I found out you had to lock the throttle through a spare axis or something and that the flight model in general was trash

I love flight sims because they let me tune in and turn off and just hunt <except the nebula missions, I have to turn on the HUD for those, and I hate that> I love to just get in open space with a myrm or perseus <god I effing love the perseus> full of guns, maybe a few rockeyes or on the odd occasion some infyrno's and just go hunting

I love the game "Janes fighter anthology" <with accuracy mods, god the f-117 really needed it's fuel cap fixed> because I can just fill the sky with fighters and just take them down <or bombers and toy with them :D>

FPS's on the other hand, well, damn, they're always forcing you to do a puzzle or some crap before you can shoot more stuff, space shooters I have yet to encounter any kind of puzzle, flight sims I have yet to encounter anything requiring more thought than a carrier landing

I think the space shooter suffered a lot because for awhile there we had almost no space battle sci fi, it was stargate, farscape, others that elude me atm, I'm hoping battlestar galactica will help, I'm looking forward to a good newtonian space shooter

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I saw a post and had to register

someone said that people prefer games that they don't have to learn to use, that you don't have to think to play, like FPS's

I fall into that category, that is in fact, why I love space shooters

they are very natural for me, I can't tell you how gleeful I was when I found out battlefield 1942 had flight, and I can't tell you how frustrated I was when I found out you had to lock the throttle through a spare axis or something and that the flight model in general was trash

I love flight sims because they let me tune in and turn off and just hunt <except the nebula missions, I have to turn on the HUD for those, and I hate that> I love to just get in open space with a myrm or perseus <god I effing love the perseus> full of guns, maybe a few rockeyes or on the odd occasion some infyrno's and just go hunting

I love the game "Janes fighter anthology" <with accuracy mods, god the f-117 really needed it's fuel cap fixed> because I can just fill the sky with fighters and just take them down <or bombers and toy with them :D>

FPS's on the other hand, well, damn, they're always forcing you to do a puzzle or some crap before you can shoot more stuff, space shooters I have yet to encounter any kind of puzzle, flight sims I have yet to encounter anything requiring more thought than a carrier landing

I think the space shooter suffered a lot because for awhile there we had almost no space battle sci fi, it was stargate, farscape, others that elude me atm, I'm hoping battlestar galactica will help, I'm looking forward to a good newtonian space shooter
I have only two words for you. Unreal Tournament.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Ayup, that pretty much sums it up.

    |[===---(-         
    ||
 =(||==)_
    ||_____|
 =(||==)
    ||                   
    |[===---(-                             

"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I saw a post and had to register

someone said that people prefer games that they don't have to learn to use, that you don't have to think to play, like FPS's

I fall into that category, that is in fact, why I love space shooters

they are very natural for me, I can't tell you how gleeful I was when I found out battlefield 1942 had flight, and I can't tell you how frustrated I was when I found out you had to lock the throttle through a spare axis or something and that the flight model in general was trash

I love flight sims because they let me tune in and turn off and just hunt <except the nebula missions, I have to turn on the HUD for those, and I hate that> I love to just get in open space with a myrm or perseus <god I effing love the perseus> full of guns, maybe a few rockeyes or on the odd occasion some infyrno's and just go hunting

I love the game "Janes fighter anthology" <with accuracy mods, god the f-117 really needed it's fuel cap fixed> because I can just fill the sky with fighters and just take them down <or bombers and toy with them :D>

FPS's on the other hand, well, damn, they're always forcing you to do a puzzle or some crap before you can shoot more stuff, space shooters I have yet to encounter any kind of puzzle, flight sims I have yet to encounter anything requiring more thought than a carrier landing

I think the space shooter suffered a lot because for awhile there we had almost no space battle sci fi, it was stargate, farscape, others that elude me atm, I'm hoping battlestar galactica will help, I'm looking forward to a good newtonian space shooter
I have only two words for you. Unreal Tournament.

haven't hit that one yet, I'll go hunting, thanks

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
You haven't played Unreal Tournament?

    |[===---(-         
    ||
 =(||==)_
    ||_____|
 =(||==)
    ||                   
    |[===---(-                             

"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I spent two years doing nothing but RTS

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
All I can say is that I was really missing out on all things freespace. I only discovered Freespace 1 because of my friend next door and he got it in 2003! I think I may have seen FS2 on a shelf but I had no idea what it was. When I played FS1 I was obsessed. It was the best space sim I had ever played. I often found myself asking my friend to borrow the 2 cds so I can play the campaign all over again. When I heard of FS2 from him I jumped on my seat and searched the internet. Imagine my happiness when I found HLP and those huge complete FS2 downloads.

My oppinion of the Space Sim failure: Indeed, terrible advertising. I never heard of the greatness of the Freespace series until 2005. And then there are those FPSs which clogged the market, personally I'm an RTS lover. Most of the games I have are RTSs and 2 good ones are coming out next year. Hard controls? Indeed, but I take the time to know the keys which I need most of the time (the critically aclaimed 'B' key for targetting bombs!). I am greatly saddend with the lack of awesome space sims like FS2. Really, all I see recently are those crappy open space sims like Freelancer and the X-series. All of the recent space sims seem to open like that! Personally, I'm getting tired of games where you play as a mercenary, there are just too many of them IMO!

What would it take to revitilize the genre? I don't know. All I can say is hope things get better. Those of you who know me should know my mod. I have never really officially announced it and I have no intension of doing so other than post pics. Why? It's a long term project that MAY become the next great space/mech/whatever sim or RTS. If a new, better, and easier engine comes out them I'm on it. So far FS2's engine is perfect for my project. I won't go into rambling details, but I have great hope for this story.
I have created a masterpiece.

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
The reason why the Space Shooters we're abandoned is beceuse the fact that the games were focussing to much on the veterans. You always needed a joystick to play, the system requirements where extremely high, and it was difficult for beginners to start. And when beginners don't get in, and the veterans go out, you've got a problem. The game that could have relaunched the genre was Freelancer, (mouse controls, easy to do, fun, low system requirements etc.) but it was released to late, and the game didn't give much profit to microsoft, since it was developed since 1997. The only thing that can save us, is Elite 4, but that is now as invinceble as an shivan fighter on sensors before the great war.

 

Offline bloated

  • 27
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Quote
You haven't played Unreal Tournament?
lol I find that amazing.....

I spent 3 years playing Unreal tournament off and on and wihtout a doubt loved it to death.... I still try to play it on occasion and while the graphics are old and dated the gameplay is as frenetic as ever along with the soundtrack and attitude.

Unreal 2004 was a big jump forward in most regards but the insults went backward..... while the graphics and gameplay were comparable in quality until you changed the announcer back to the original voice was terrible and almost all of the new insults were just plain silly and worthless.

they just released another Unreal Anthology I think I'm going to buy this time around it has all of the Unreal games included I have all of them save the original Unreal and Expansion which I played and finnished years after Unreal tournament was released..... but I don't have originals of them.

depends on price.

Joshua I agree and disagree... the whole point of the Sci Fi flight sim was to use a joystick and Freelancer may have been a step forward in some ways but it offered no joystick support at all which hurt it quite badly.

I finnished Beta testing a Sci Fi flight sim a few weeks ago that was ok but had nothing compelling to offer and overall was a step backwards, it was neat but hadn't improved over time I believe the game designers were harkening back to the good ol' days but the good ol' days are done and gone if you can't build on success then your doomed to repeat the failures of the past.

Freelancer was pretty close to an MMORPG given the time spent warping and the faction system within the game, it was also late and catered to a non-existent audience while abandoning the core one.

it was a risk and it disapointed because it abandoned the main audience condeming them to playing the way teh programmers decided and dictating to gamers a new way to play rarely works.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I'm going to move this to Games and Gaming, since it is now covering a whole spectrum of games.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
You haven't played Unreal Tournament?

No, and I hope I never do.
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