Originally Posted by ChipMHazard
He doesn't have to prove anything in that respect when it's his opinion on the matter of game quality. That's the thing about opinions, everyone has one and they are all valid.
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That's the thing, if he just likes something better and states his reasons, I couldn't agree more.
Thing is, there's a claim of antiquation of PS1 systems due to being a decade old. I find that hypocritical, because the current systems aren't new systems, they're just different design choices that haven't really been used in a MMOFPS yet. They're untested on this scale, but that doesn't mean they're actually new systems or design choices. The problem is that it shows in gameplay problems why those design choices wern't made in 2001-2003, as they were available then as well as options.
Hence I'm questioning that claim and would like to see some evidence of this supposed antiquation. In fact, when I compare design elements, the "new" systems seem more antiquated and conservative to me and horseshoed in.
Don't forget, the MMOFPS genre is still being pioneered. So anything applied from (traditional/conservative) multiplayer FPS games is actually a form of conservatism. Even if you could argue retaining PS1 stuff is also a form of conservatism, the PS1 systems were actually a progressive mixture of evolutions of RTS and FPS game mechanics. The gameplay that's copied now from "modern games" seems primarily based on quite traditional FPS design vision.
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Personally I think that PS1 is better balanced, features better metagaming and I would like to see underground bases again. I don't see PS2 being so much inferior as much as I do incomplete, I guess that in some ways that could be viewed as being the same thíng.
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I can agree with that, I think the game hasn't lived up to its potential (virtually at all yet) and that this is primarily due to not learning from PS1 and evolving the systems, but starting from scratch and radicaly reinventing the wheel and forcing it into a square, because the other games are squares.
I mean, Far Cry 2 pushed the envelope of solo player FPS gaming in a lot of ways, things that PS1 already did with several free roaming open worlds (!). PS1 did things no game had ever even dared dream off and it had more ambition than technology could chew at times. But is PS2 beyond enlarging the scale really evolving the genre and ambitious in evolving things? PS2 is a bit of a mix-match of hit and miss design and perhaps too preoccupied with matching solo-mini multiplayer games to be really as ambitious to push the envelope and screw FPS gaming conventions as much as the original Verant team did. :/ Don't get me wrong, PS2's engine and graphics push the envelope by miles, but as of yet I don't have the same feeling about the gameplay and it just feels unrefined and a step back, rather than forwards in that respect.
That's why PS1 remains such a source of ideas.
@Assist: October '03. Not '04, you're right on that one. However, it didn't lose the amount of pop you suggested (it lost around 10% pop then) and the pop was quite stable after the Flails had been nerfed. In fact, people started to come back prior to the bending.
And you honestly can't compare it to other MMO's. Different genres of games attract different playerbases, not to mention marketing efforts of other games being much better. In fact, one could argue that being one of the only FPS games (if not the only one from a rather unknown developer, Verant) on a monthly subscription was a much bigger issue than gameplay. And not actually selling in European stores where everyone else got their games and learned about the existence of games might have had something to do with not getting wild amounts of players in as well.
Most people never heard of it, so how could they ever flock to it?
You're not being fair and rather closeminded to the existence of external factors to the game. Pinning everything on core gameplay is just weak. Besides, the marketing effort this time around was far more encompassing and far more internationally oriented and viralled on youtube. Youtube was in its infancy during PS1. In fact, I'm not even sure how often I saw a Youtube video at that point since my connection had been a 4k modem for a long time. In fact... I know off players who tried to play PS1 with a 4k modem...
Your comparison is extremely unfair and I'd like you to at least admit that.
As for elements missing, it's more than that. Why? Because we're talking about the presence of substitute systems. Some can't be helped due to graphical demands, but some are simply a choice for a different gameplay flow.
A central building with a clear perimeter, or a group of buildings with no clear perimeter are the different design philosophies for bases. Things like that are conscious design choices and were based on wanting to do away with epic choke point holds, which is to a point quite understandable as it could get really messy with all the "300" last stands.
However, they went too far and that's a design comparison that isn't a simple 1-2 fix.
2013-02-27, 10:12 AM
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