The Heart of RTCW/ET
Hi guys,
I have been thinking about this a lot during the course of planning my next project, and I find it surprisingly difficult to nail it down. Say somebody were to make a game "in the spirit of RTCW/ET", without being a direct clone. What would be the essential elements to keep the game's feel alive?
Part of the difficulty is that ET is pretty fragmented, with ETMain and ETPro playing considerably differently on pubs, and then ETPro competitive matches are a whole different beast again. Perhaps it would be better to focus on RTCW instead, which seems to be considerably less fragmented.
It would really help me out if you could rate the following elements on a scale from 1 (irrelevant) to 5 (essential) to how important you think they are to defining the nature of the game:
A) World War 2 Theme
This includes the basic armory (tommy guns, heavy weapons, etc) and the "warlike" feeling with explosions going on around you, and possibly tanks and stuff like that.
B) Shooting Mechanics
This includes both the nerfed Q3-like movement physics and the tracking based shooting with a fairly low time to kill (compared to other modern military shooters), simple headshot hitbox, no aim down sights, etc.
C) Class Based Teamplay
Which means that everybody has an important role in the fight and you kind of depend on each other (although this is somewhat washed down on ETPro publics which are essentially medic murder simulators, aren't they?).
D) Objective Gametype
In particular the stopwatch mode and multi-stage maps, so each map is essentially a little story rather than just an open kill arena.
E) Spam and Gimmicks
This includes all the ways you can contribute to the fight without actually shooting people in the face. Everything from the revive needle to mortar strikes or handling gun turrets.
This isn't meant to be a survey, so please answer any way you like. I'd love to hear any additional thoughts you have on this and to get some discussion going. Also are there any major things you would change about either RTCW or ET if you had the power to do so? Maybe incorporate elements from other games you've enjoyed?
Thanks in advance!
I have been thinking about this a lot during the course of planning my next project, and I find it surprisingly difficult to nail it down. Say somebody were to make a game "in the spirit of RTCW/ET", without being a direct clone. What would be the essential elements to keep the game's feel alive?
Part of the difficulty is that ET is pretty fragmented, with ETMain and ETPro playing considerably differently on pubs, and then ETPro competitive matches are a whole different beast again. Perhaps it would be better to focus on RTCW instead, which seems to be considerably less fragmented.
It would really help me out if you could rate the following elements on a scale from 1 (irrelevant) to 5 (essential) to how important you think they are to defining the nature of the game:
A) World War 2 Theme
This includes the basic armory (tommy guns, heavy weapons, etc) and the "warlike" feeling with explosions going on around you, and possibly tanks and stuff like that.
B) Shooting Mechanics
This includes both the nerfed Q3-like movement physics and the tracking based shooting with a fairly low time to kill (compared to other modern military shooters), simple headshot hitbox, no aim down sights, etc.
C) Class Based Teamplay
Which means that everybody has an important role in the fight and you kind of depend on each other (although this is somewhat washed down on ETPro publics which are essentially medic murder simulators, aren't they?).
D) Objective Gametype
In particular the stopwatch mode and multi-stage maps, so each map is essentially a little story rather than just an open kill arena.
E) Spam and Gimmicks
This includes all the ways you can contribute to the fight without actually shooting people in the face. Everything from the revive needle to mortar strikes or handling gun turrets.
This isn't meant to be a survey, so please answer any way you like. I'd love to hear any additional thoughts you have on this and to get some discussion going. Also are there any major things you would change about either RTCW or ET if you had the power to do so? Maybe incorporate elements from other games you've enjoyed?
Thanks in advance!
i object!
please make it a direct clone, only with better graphic and newer gaming shit, like built in voice, overlay, match-making, you know - what today games have!!!!!!!!11
but same fast-shooting mechanic
FOR CASTERLY ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!! :~>
I think one of the charms of ET is that here are so little different guns (which is easy for new players)
The explosions aren't really necessary since i already get a 'warlike' feeling if someone shoots at me.
The trucks & tanks are imo something RTCW/ET can't go without.
So i think if someone made an RTCW/ET-like game it doesn't really matter if it's set in 1945 or 2045 but it doesn't need 50 diffferent guns like COD/CS (+ we need trucks/tanks!).
B) Shooting Mechanics 5
No arguement about this; should stay exactly the same
C) Class Based Teamplay 5
In my opinion this is also a big + for this game.
It makes it so you can have different skills in different areas (pro fieldops/pro rifler/pro engi smg landminder/...)
D) Objective Gametype 5
Without having the need to set a good time/break their time people will just pick a good spot to camp and stay there, making the game less interesting.
E) Spam and Gimmicks 5
This is also something that you don't see in other games (spam being available without being on a killingspree (except flashbangs/nades)) which i like in ET.
People keep talking about a new game that is RTCW/ET-like but i'm 100% sure it will never come close to it.
If you like a game you will keep playing it, no matter what it looks like.
All we need (imo) is an easier way for new players to get into ETpro / competition. (+ solid anti-cheat but that's something we never had so ..)
Regarding trucks and tanks, how do you feel about the ET method of vehicles-on-rails, as opposed to driving vehicles yourself? ET maps are usually not the type of size where driving vehicles around makes a lot of sense, so I assume that should remain so.
Regarding C: Specialising in different skills is also possible with different loadouts (e.g. in CS you have rifle experts and AWPers). But in ET, especially the engineer is required to finish a map. Dirty Bomb softened this up, so that engineers are still useful but not required any more. What are your thoughts on that?
I presume you mean with "vehicles-on-rails" that the tanks/trucks have a set path?
About driving vehicles yourself, I think it would be too hard to balance;
- Should you be able to damage players while they are inside the vehicle?
- How much (reduced) damage while they take?
- Will the driver be killed when they vehicle is disabled (damaged)?
- How will you kill drivers if you make vehicles indestructible?
- Wont vehicles just be used to block important paths?
- Probably more i can't think of atm.
What i like about the ET classes in 3on3/6on6 is that you actually need to think what class to pick (as a team) to fulfill the objective;
- Cant just go 6 engi's if you need to blow up an objective (best have some medics to revive or cover while they plant).
- Cant just go 6 medics cause you need an engi (attack).
- You can go 6 medics but it's better to have a fops and/or engi for the spam (defense).
- At some stages you can opt to have 2 fops or 1 fops and a soldier (but it will probably harm the defense/offense if the panzer/airstrike misses so thats where skill comes in)
- Other people can probably express this better than me but i hope you get my point.
and I love it, Ive tried these slow fps such as Counter Strike / Call of Duty etc... i dont like it cause u dont need any real skill, + the fact to need lots of hit to kill is better cause there are less lame camp..
please keep that movement and hitboxes system alive, these quake mods are just more skilled
I guess that's why games like CS are called tactical shooters, whereas ET is more strategic in nature (though not nearly as much as e.g. Battlefield).
otherwise im almost agree on 100% with Nickje that made a very good analysis and reply ;)
well done mate
B, 5! If someone likes ironsight he can bing low fov on mousewheel...
C, 5! but it cant be too complicated, atleast if u want a game for competition
D, 5! This is not an FFA/TDM/CTF Game like Quake or a 30 mins corner wanking like CS, neither a close enough style Cod
E, Depends! Mounted guns on tanks/vehicles are ok, but there shouldnt be much vehicles like we had in UT2004. Maybe a fun mode could have it... but not competition. Maps shouldnt have too much guns around. Arty, Support, Panza, heavy weapons, landmines, etc. Must have :)
B) 5
C) 4
D) 4
E) 4
Simply because it just presents the 'good vs evil' so well and makes feeling part of a team easy. I'd say it's not that important as a theme but capturing the 'team vs team/good vs evil' really obviously would be best(dont make it too individual skill based).
B) 5
As long as its fast paced and team based I honestly couldn't care about things like ironsights etc. As long as there is no difference from hipfire 'statwise' = accuracy of rifles is the same from hipfire and ironsight then it doesnt impact the game if a person prefers ironsight or not.
C) 5
Definitely to put even more emphasis on teamplay based, creating a solid team composition is the most important thing. Don't over do it tho (like i feel dirtybomb is doing) by creating giant differences in classes. Keep the differences small apart from the obvious class differences.
D) 4
personally objective/stopwatch type gameplay is the one for me, but as long as the team based style is there I dont really care that much. I've really enjoyed playing capture the flag/bf3 style point control gametypes aswell when playing with league teams. But if you want more ET capturing gameplay SW objective would be the main one.
E) Define spam and gimmicks, ET/RtCW have a main gameplay element with its amount of spam compared to CoD/CS which makes it so great. But if you mean like deployable turrets and drones and shit, no thanks for me.
F) 10 community accessibility, by which I mean after the first couple patches SD allowed/gave the community all the tools it needed to create whatever it desired to make the game bigger and more established(tweaking, maps, tj modes, etpro just examples)
Bad strafers will say ney
Think bad strafers (like me :p) will lose interest and stop playing.
Maybe it will make the game more ninja-like but i think it will be abused (save stamina, then take obj and just run with medpacks) on maps like adlernest (docruns).
So it's important to limit/balance it somehow, but I still think it's more fun overall.
Either way, the source is publicly available for both games, as well as Q3. If you plan to emulate either. Have fun. https://github.com/id-Software
Also might as well:
A) 1 - No one here is playing the game for its theme or what it looks like. From my experience people tend to dislike futuristic crap (What was that recently super overhyped FPS that launched on consoles and PCs only to never been seen on the face of the earth again merely a week in? Titanfall? Or was it Destiny? Or the new CoD? I think they all fit the pattern - really), but are otherwise entirely indifferent.
B) 5 - Can't really decide which I prefer more, ET or RtCW in terms of shooting. Both have their appeal. RtCW would probably be harder to master, but also more ... "beginner" friendly as bigger spreads (see bf, cod, cs series) can be helpful to people that aren't necessarily on target or good with tracking to begin with. Where as in ET you have to adapt to the knockback and recoil upon being hit a lot more. It's a tie, really.
C) 5 - Medics aren't necessarily OP, sure they have their benefits. But the majority of complains you'll have received over the years are by players being spawncamped by... better players. It's really not the classes' fault. In RtCW there's no weapon pick up, which kind of makes the medic role very dependent of their team for ammo, perhaps that's something to look into. If anything's OP in ET it's the knockback on hit by Garand/k43 :(
D) 5 - I've always been a fan of stopwatch, also heavily plays into a much faster and less campy game. CTF control points (ie BF) or Rush type of objectives (which is really just a modern SW) can be equally fun. Anything but round based LMS/Single objectives is fine, really.
E) 5 - To an extend, spam as in airstrikes, artillery, nades, rifles, mines, mgs, are all fine and dandy. But introducing vehicles in the form of bf3/bf4 would never work with the game and even less so in a competitive environment.
TAKE YOUR TIME AND CHECK SOME IMGS ;)
money ruins all xD
Seriously though, I used to think ET being free would mean it would soar in popularity... didn't happen... And besides, it's a nightmare to keep a free community cheater-free (I mean an even bigger nightmare than it is anyway).
What do u mean? I think ET was pretty much popular back in the days?
Games which are continuously supported by the original developer seem to do much better, and we are seeing this model increasingly often now. Even Splash Damage finally seems to be aiming for this with Dirty Bomb.
Programmer nerds dream
B 5
C 4
D 4
E 1