Interesting report of Future of the Military Shooter from GDC | Forums

[FI_FlimFlam]

Gamespy reports on the presentation by RedStorm's Christian Allen (who worked heavily on GRAW for the XBox360) on the future of the Military Shooter.

It's a good read even though it's labled as if it's for the XB360.

In reports:

Basically, Allen said that if developers want to make their mark in the war gaming arena, their best bet will be to do whatever it takes to distinguish it from the rest of the titles in the market.

I find that funny especially with what happened with Lockdown and the imeptous to simplify the Rainbow Six games the game to make them have a wider appeal. Which on some (not all) levels directly contradicts what Allen maintains.

Still worth the read. I just wish there was a complete transcript of his presentation that I could find.

[TexasRanger_562]

Full article is here:
http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox-360/tom.../698246p1.html

You can probably email the article's author, Will Tuttle, for the full transcript of the interview. But he might keep it as a trade secret. Because if the entire transcript goes public, then that defeats the purpose of being the only magazine to have interviewed Christian Allen.

[bdr41]

Originally posted by TexasRanger_562:
...that defeats the purpose of being the only magazine to have interviewed Christian Allen.

It wasn't an exclusive interview, it was a recap of a GDC 2006 presentation by Allen.

I would guess Tuttle digitally recorded the speech. Maybe he can be bothered to post an mp3 of it if he's allowed to.

[KungFu_CIA]

Good article.

There is tons of irony oozing all over what Christian Allen said that apparently UBI is turning a blind eye to... At least, for R6 since they did publish GRAW for 360 and presumably will for the PC.

What I found really interesting and was nice to hear someone in the actual games industry say is gamers in general are moving more toward realism-based games and that their percieved reality of what modern day warfare is -- and this includes R6 -- Is gleamed from movies and TV which we all know is NOT reality, or remotely realistic even with movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down which try and paint a more gritty, realistic picture of contemporary warfare.

This one aspect is something UBI needs to get through their heads as far as R6 goes because they keep insiting on making these "Hollywoodesque" story-driven and character driven games that ultimately just reinforce stereotypes and the sanitized, Arnold Schwartzenneggar/Steven Segal-type of "warfare" which just does not and will not "cut it" in the future according to Christian.

I also thought the part about knowing how to balance gameplay and various features a game can offer is another cue the UBI devs (or whoever) should listen to when making the next R6 because it is exactly as he said: Just because you can have 50 weapons doesn't mean you need to have that many and just because you can make maps equal to 200 KMs, doesn't mean you need to make maps that big just for the sake of having a "big" map as a gameplay "feature".

Once again, thanks for the great article

[kimi_]

I doubt that Will transcribed the entire interview...but I was at the session, and he definitely got the beat of what was discussed.

Here's a blog entry where I talked about the same session. Some of the info overlaps Will, some doesn't, I think.

[TexasRanger_562]

Kimi, you are really cute. I just noticed.

[Defuser]

I enjoyed this - I thought it highlighted the necessity of the 'design decision' in the tactical shooter genre. I liked the fact that he highlighted that 'niche' games are developing in the area of realistic shooters and that developers should concentrate on getting their one area of (chosen) expertise right at the expense of focusing on areas in which it is not needed or irrelevant for them to do so.

He also straddled the boundaries between 'realistic' and 'believably realistic' or rather, 'what is plausible'. As long as it stays plausible, and stays playable, people stay happy. Plausibility and playability, people! It doesn't HAVE to be hyper-real. As a realism player myself I'm always on the look-out for outrageous mistakes in games - if I can be fooled into thinking that what I am playing has at least some correlation with reality, then I am immersed. Case in point - the flight model for helicopters in Operation Flashpoint. It is woefully inaccurate - not a helicopter in the world behaves like it does in Operation Flashpoint. When it first came out, I didn't know any better. It wasn't until I'd played a number of chopper sims (ahem, Commanche Ho***) that I realised any different. To anybody who hadn't played them, or was aware of the difference, they 'seemed' as real as they should be.

Now, I'm not suggesting that games teeter on the edge of being 'discovered' to be false, and propogate falsehoods at the expense of believability - they don't. The flight model was chosen in Flashpoint because choppers are notoriously difficult to fly and not crash with. The chopper flight model that was chosen in Battlefield 2 is ever so slightly more real than the Operation Flashpoint one. Is it more enjoyable? Yes, to an enthusiast. It ensures you need skill (if using a joystick) to be able to pilot the chopper (this is a game balancing issue to ensure only the most capable pilots choose to pilot instead of everyone trying it). In Flashpoint, you could just pick up and play with the choppers. Perfectly enjoyable, and at no cost of believability to the average player, it does absolutely no harm.

Games with 'hightened realism' are 'doing' realism in a day and age where it is beneficial to claim the greatest degree of authenticity in a gaming environment. For example, games that claim hyper-realism still make the mistake of visible rifle tracers in day time and on riflemen. This doesn't happen apart from in very specific circumstances and even then, overwhelmingly machinegunners use tracer rounds, and even then every few rounds or so, as a guide. This is a gaming design decision because they want you to know - who is shooting at you, and where from. They are kept 'in' to make sure you are aware of the direction of the threat in a game and how to circumnavigate it. One of the first things you do in a game, when fired upon, is to work out where it is coming from. Without positional sound, and no tracers, this is next to impossible, a guess at best. It helps the player, and with next to no cost to believability, and is an effective design decision. Some would argue that if you got caught out, or were silly enough to get shot, that it's your own damn lookout, and you failed. I'll address this later on. But the vast majority of people do not think like this - and should not be blamed for doing so.

A number of gaming conventions have grown up around the 'tactical shooter' genre - a breed of 'game realism' that now exists of its own self. A sort of alternate 'game reality', constructed from games that provide you with this false sense of reality - a false sense of what real combat on what a real battlefield is like. You'll never even get anywhere near that experience on a computer, fortunately, but instead we have an acute impression of what it is like from a number games. Different games based in this 'reality' take and borrow ideas from others until this false representation becomes the standard by which in-game tactical realism is judged. The 'rifle tracers' is just one aspect that is found in most titles and taken for granted by most gamers. Another is the lack of bleeding and the need to attend to your own (and others) wounds, effective stamina modelling and the effects of weight on a soldier's ability to fight. While all these have been attempted, they are rarely done so with any degree of hyper-realism (stamina bars in no way convey combat effectiveness). Instead, they are carefully chosen, game-balanced additions, additions to the 'realistic shooter' game dynamic, chosen to add a degree of depth and extra strategy to the gameplay.

Choosing how much you want to represent reality is not a question of how challenging you want the game to be - it doesn't have to be that way. Raven Shield chose not to represent reality in how its tangoes were portrayed - they were crack shots at any range, hyper aware, and only their reaction times limited their abilities. They were also placed in unbelievable positions and strongholds. This was to provide you with more of a challenge and necessitate the player's involvment with key areas of gameplay. At higher levels, they were simply inhuman and in no way an accurate reflection of a human being.

A classic example of the 'design decision' in tactical shooters is the 'shoot through walls with a .50 cal' or completely real ballistics. Gamers simply do not want to be punctured without knowing what the hell just happened to them. It is important in games that everyone gets a chance - it is important that there is at least some semblance of being able to make a difference in game, that the player's actions mean something. Not only would .50 cal shooting be abused by some in the single player, it would be the people's bane in multiplayer. Hence, it is not included, despite the fact that to do so would be to completely represent reality. People bemoan the fact that it doesn't, but the simple reality of the situation is one of fairness, balance, and the enjoyability of the experience.

Here's where I want to present the alternate side of the argument - going back to those who want to have no tracers, why not give it to them? We have the peculiar and somewhat bizarre situation nowadays of a large group of somewhat realism savvy players who are aware of numerous mistakes made in games and want to strive every onwards to complete realism. With the simple addition of a number of toggleable options in games like these, this particular breed of gamer can have their whims catered to. This does not have to necessarily effect widespread multiplayer - niche servers can be developed. This breed of gamers is in the vast minority - it is considered the 'hardcore'. Take for example the original Rainbow Six. The original completely misrepresents the idea of what a counter-terroist siege and ensuing raid is like. It gets many of the details and realism right, but fails completely on the speed and time involved in raids. In short, it is woefully slow. This was a design decision (and a symptom of the technology at the time too, no doubt). At the time, nobody apart from the most dedicated to the reality of event thought of this as unrealistic. Everyone was too caught up in 'one shot kill' to notice and the various other revolutions R6 brought to the gaming table. Reality, in this instance, was bizarrely not as important as the new and more sensitive shooting game dynamic brought forward by R6. The one shot kill and the commitment to reality was something in Rainbow adhered to as a matter of normative correlation with the book and an attempt to 'do something different'. If they had wanted to truly represent a raid, they would have had a lot more things such as fires, tangoes executing hostages much more dynamically, the aforementioned faster speed... the list goes on... Swat 4, even as a recent game, follows the majority of these conventions laid down at the very birth of the genre - the snail's pace of Swat is testament to this. No raid is as slow as Swat 4's is. This is squarely a design decision, and not an attempt to represent reality.

The reason why the majority of these factors are not included is simply 'for fun'. For the gamer, even the hardcore gamer, a feeling of helplessness and the feeling of being needlessly punished is galling and disappointing. Without the opportunity to learn how to game in order to induce otherwise, the game is doomed to failure. The vast majority of people do not want their carefully planned raid to go FUBAR at the slightest oppportunity. They do not want to face such hiccups, because to them it breaks the game's flow and contradicts the aforementioned 'game reality' (in contrast to actual reality) and takes them out of the experience of playing a tactical shooter that makes pretensions to reality.

This works in the opposite direction, too. Lockdown is principle example of this. Jar the player with too many schoolboy errors in a game known for its commitment to 'game reality' and you have an unhappy customer base, bemoaning the lack of realism and effective game dynamic. There are many aspects of the lack of realism featured in Lockdown repeated in other big selling names in the world of tactical shooters, but they are not highlighted or less noticeable because they follow game realism and not actual reality. We don't pick up them (as a vast body of gamers) because we don't know any better (again, as a collective). Interestingly, the errors featured in Lockdown magnify the lack of realism taken for granted in other games - like the 30+1 mag rule rarely present in other games, but bemoaned in Lockdown. The lack of proning, so normally not an issue in other games...

What I am saying, game reality doesn't have to be completely represntative of actual reality to provide you with an effective and enjoyable gaming experience which FEELS authentic. The way this translates into actual game specifics and actual game dynamics is a complicated and intricate process straddling the boundaries of plausability and playability. Allen credits 'gritty' war movies as increasing the player's perception of what is 'real' in war. I think games themselves have also had a hand in this, but only in the sense that they propogate the vision of combat reality so often taken for granted as the standard of authenticity most games reach for.

In conclusion, Allen highlights that if it 'feels real' (to the vast majority of gamers) and plays well enough, then that is enough for the vast majority of gamers. For the hardcore, provide simple options and tweaks to satiate their desire for heightened realism - but for the most part designers should endeavour to emulate this 'game reality' as best they can.

[DreamMarine]

Jesus, Defuser, your texts are REALLY long. it always takes some time to wade through it!

I am not sure, if i got your point. AND i am not sure, if you can find some kind of "gameplay formula" which works for every game and every player.

One word about rifle tracers: For all i know, they are used just in military and NOT in any kind of "police" forces like the HRT or SWAT or GSG9 for example.


Actually, I do NOT agree that you should give everybody everything what he/she wants!!! (This matter came up before when it was about respawns)

And here are my reasons for this:

1) If you want to make a game that appeals to everybody it will actually appeal to nobody REALLY in the end, because it is usually a weird mixture of concepts and visions. It's the same with people: People who want to appeal to everybody won't appeal for anybody REALLY in the end! (To get a little bit philosophical ;O) )

2) Reality "based" games like R6 (in some sense R6 is a kind like a simulator) are about DREAMS!!!

Don't underestimate this emotional element of this whole R6 matter! Players want to BE a R6 member. They want to get challenged. They want to be forced into using their brains in an entertaining kind. They want to be IMMERSED!!!

At least, this is true for the SP and MP COOP experience. As was stated otherwhere the MP adversarial experience seems to differ significantly. In the latter, the players look for a kind of contest-like gameplay.


So, as a game developer you have to have clear VISIONS about a game. And you should not sacrifice TOO much of it in favor of an (assumed) better appeal to a wider audience.

And I think that it's this direction, Will Tuttle is arguing.

[KungFu_CIA]

Defuser:

DreamMarine has a more conscise summation of what Christian Allen is saying I believe.

I also agree with DM, in game devs should NOT give the player everything they want because the minute you do this is exactly the minute the game tries to appeal to everybody, but ends up appealing to nobody because it is TOO customizeable and doesn't concentrate on specific areas (strengths) which made the game unique from the start.

This is what I think is happening with R6 and needs to stop because as stated on another thread, they keep trying to homogonize the R6 franchise to be like every other high selling shooter out there to get a supposed "wider audience" and in the process are destroying the very identity which made R6 different and unique from other games in the first place.

Normally, the idea of giving the player numbers of of options is a welcome one... But the big problem as evidenced by Lockdown is most of the time devs don't provide the options in satisfactory ways and thus, gamers don't want options because there is more of a chance the devs will screw it up.

Case in point: Respawns.

I don't think people would be so anti-respawn if they were done in a more unique, or realistic manner like limiting the number of respawns per round... But the model Lockdown used was the old-school, insta-respawn model from arcade games like Quake and UT which promotes absolutely no thinking (tactics) and destroys the very identity of R6 in the process. So, as an unfortunate side-effect, players are now apt to just say "NO" to any kind of options that most other games have because they fear they will ruin the core gameplay and core identity of the series and in UBI's case, I am afraid I have to fully agree.

I also think Christian Allen is saying -- as an aside more than a actual design decision -- That the player's frame of reference outside of games is more robust than in previous years because of films like SPR and BHD which paint what gamers consider "realistic" portrayls of combat... But that still don't convey the realities of combat that should NOT be put into games simply because they would make them not fun to play.

His example of breaking your virtual ankle when spriting from gunfire is a prime example. Bleeding and having to be tended to by medics is another.

[DreamMarine]

Ups, yes, it was Chritian Allen, not Will Tuttle. Copied the wrong name!