Sure signs of the apocalypse #1: Another New X-Com game

[Julhelm]

Totally unlike XCOM am i rite?

Nope:

The thing with Rainbow 6 is that that too was a horribly flawed game marred by shit AI. Milsim nerds always talk about the amazing tactical realism of R6 while I distinctly remember it being an exercise in trial & error.

Don't even make me start on Terror From The Deep.

COME ON TEARS OF HATE FROM FANBOYS.

Well it can't be any worse than the massive nerdrage MS Flight has unleashed.

[Zaune]

Obviously, planning involves setting map waypoints for every soldier on your team

I always found it hilarious when people fawn over how "tactical" and "cerebral" R6 was.

By contemporary FPS standards it was actually pretty successful at making you apply your brain as well as your trigger finger, but the formula only really worked if you were after a moderately realistic simulation of CQB/hostage rescue. When the game designers started throwing in missions that broke that formula it suffered a bit.

[PeZook]

By contemporary FPS standards it was actually pretty successful at making you apply your brain as well as your trigger finger, but the formula only really worked if you were after a moderately realistic simulation of CQB/hostage rescue. When the game designers started throwing in missions that broke that formula it suffered a bit.

In its time it might've been revolutionary, but Swat 3 came out hot on its heels and blew it out of the water as far as tactics were concerned. An excercise in setting waypoints for your dudes who can't handle moving through a door if the WP is set two metres too much to the left isn't tactics

Plus of course R6 had the hilarity of untrained college students spinning around and headshotting your entire squad with a Scorpion after you jumped them, because if you were leading the group,the dudes following you wouldn't shoot anybody.

[Stark]

By contemporary FPS standards it was actually pretty successful at making you apply your brain as well as your trigger finger, but the formula only really worked if you were after a moderately realistic simulation of CQB/hostage rescue. When the game designers started throwing in missions that broke that formula it suffered a bit.

Almost as successful as Space Hulk. Only, Space Hulk had less cheating and didn't make the player spend half an hour plotting out which corridor their dudes would get one-shot killed by someone facing the other way. Is it really a 'cerebral' shooter if all the thinking is done on a top-down map?

If the R6 formula wasn't so fundamentally dogshit, the 'shooter' part might have actually been good. Sadly, as anyone who knows their history can attest, it wasn't.

[Julhelm]

I bet Stark will love this article:

Ten reasons why Ghost Recon
is still the greatest tactical shooter ever!

BF3, Call of Duty, MW? Pfffft. We're still waiting for the renaissance of this. One shot, one kill, and no damned health packs. You know, a simulation.

[Alkaloid]

Well, yes, the AI in Rainbow Six was shit, I am aware of that. I didn't say 'take rainbow six and drop it into X-Com, I said something in that style could be fun. If your team actually have AI and can try to counter shit going wrong, or yes, actually see more than two feet in front of them, I think it has potential.

[Stark]

I bet Stark will love this article:

simulation.

SAY NO MORE!

And Alkaloid, that's why people corrected you by saying 'SWAT 3/4 was way better at all that stuff'. Frankly, heaps of 'consolified' 'for kiddies' shooters have interface or control elements that render R6 a complete dinosaur. You don't need to be simhard to have either lethality or control.

Unless of course 'simhard' is the goal in itself, as in the hilarious article above.

[Starglider]

I don't see why game designers would pay attention to anything in this thread when you completely dismiss popular games and legions of fans as dumb/'fatty'/stupid/irrelevant/etc. Unless you are an hobbyist making an 'art' game, the objective of game design is to make a game that will be popular with reviewers and players. Having lots of ardant fans is a good thing. X-Com and Rainbow Six were wildly popular and profitable games. Analysis that would be meaningful to professional game designers must account for why this was so, how to recreate it, and if you do perceive glaring flaws you must explain why the game managed to succeed despite those flaws and why trying to take those flaws out is less risky than just reproducing the original formula. I am quite happy to confirm that X-Com:EU was full of glaring flaws, but it would be stupid to deny that it was a hugely compelling and atmospheric game (for a large number of players).

[Stark]

If anyone was talking about sales rather than quality you might have a point.

But you apparently just raid 'repeat 20 year old game is better than alterntives' when the developers themselves make it clear they're not replicating a 20 year old game, so....

If they re-released UFO now it'd be a shitass lazy heap of shit no matter how many retentive fanboys bought it. This is why people are talking about features and play rather than publishers bottom lines. Maybe you think you're the only person who understands branding? Double

[Starglider]

If anyone was talking about sales rather than quality you might have a point.

You can go on about your own personal subjective mastubatory 'quality' all you want, what amuses me is that you actually seem butthurt when developers pay no attention to you. Sure marketing can drive sales in absence of quality, but vice versa is also true and quality is actually cheaper when designed in. A useful argument for game quality will make that point to the publisher, probably in about 20 powerpoint slides.

the developers themselves make it clear they're not replicating a 20 year old game, so....

The developers on this project said 'we love the old game, it was great in so many ways, but it needs updating for two decades of gaming progress and in any case we'd suck if our modern dev team couldn't outdo two guys in a bedroom'. That is a good philosophy. Unqualified whine-fests are not useful, relevant or for such old games even entertaining.

[Stark]

You can go on about your own personal subjective mastubatory 'quality' all you want, what amuses me is that you actually seem butthurt when developers pay no attention to you. Sure marketing can drive sales in absence of quality, but vice versa is also true and quality is actually cheaper when designed in. A useful argument for game quality will make that point to the publisher, probably in about 20 powerpoint slides.

Too bad nobody is talking to publishers or developers then, I guess. People are speculating on the content of the game and how good/bad the approach the developers take will be... and not expecting this to have any impact on anything beyond 'I told you so' rights. Maybe we should consider why you think everyone possesses delusions of grandeur?

Ok guys - Starglider says any and all speculation about games in development is cancelled unless it has associated audiovisual material presented to publishers.

The developers on this project said 'we love the old game, it was great in so many ways, but it needs updating for two decades of gaming progress and in any case we'd suck if our modern dev team couldn't outdo two guys in a bedroom'. That is a good philosophy. Unqualified whine-fests are not useful, relevant or for such old games even entertaining.

So when you say that they shouldn't listen to anyone talking about all the changes that would be expected in a 20 year old format, you mean they already admitted broad changes are required to a 20 year old format? Thanks for showing up! I guess some people understand that expectations might have changed, regardless of how many nerds post angrily on the internet about how many copies of UFO they own.

What's amusing is that people on this board have said 'its pretty sad that <insert XCOM remake> can't outdo two guys in 1991' heaps of times. When I say it or Vympel says it, 'unqualified wine tasting'. When developers say it, it's BRILLIANT TARGETTED MARKETING ROI FOCUS SALES BATTLESPACE.

Are you aware this project only exists because fat people whined about the 50s third-person remake so much it demonstrated a market for a simple remake? Its my understanding the 50s game is even delayed, because they're adding in stuff people whined about. Uh oh!

[PeZook]

BF3, Call of Duty, MW? Pfffft. We're still waiting for the renaissance of this. One shot, one kill, and no damned health packs. You know, a simulation.

Replays = tactics

It's great that people get hung up on the things you can do (OMG YOU CAN GO PRONE AND SET ORDERS!), and not how these things are done (witness OFP's "Going prone takes five seconds", or "five keystrokes to tell your guys to go somewhere") or if the things you do are actually tactically useful in any way, much less in a way they're used in real life.

Did you see that picture of a guy going prone in a corridor (because it made his conefire smaller)? TACTICAL SIMULATOR

It's funny because tactics are about decisions, not fighting your in-game avatar to make him do what you want.

[Coalition]

One stunt they could do is text files for the weapons, research topics, etc. This allows people to import new weapons into the game, add them to a research tree, modify the tree, etc. They would have to set up a standardized format so modders can add items and projects.

Add a similar method for adding in new aliens, and you can have a game that people can enjoy for years after, using it to make new games.

[weemadando]

I saw screens. There were hex grids.

Anticipated response:
NOT TRUE SUCCESSOR THIS SUCKS I HOPE FIRAXIS DIE

[Stark]

I guess they already fought fat people to a standstill with hexes in Civ5, so they figure they can keep using them. Thank fuck; no more guys running in ridiculous zigzag patterns!

[MKSheppard]

Analysis that would be meaningful to professional game designers must account for why this was so, how to recreate it, and if you do perceive glaring flaws you must explain why the game managed to succeed despite those flaws and why trying to take those flaws out is less risky than just reproducing the original formula.

IIRC, Rainbow Six and it's quick near-sequel Rogue Spear worked because:

• It was one of the first shooters to have near completely unique levels, with very little texture or object reuse.
• Several of it's levels were rather atmospheric, especially the ones where you had to coordinate near-simultaneous assaults at the same time in order to achieve your objectives.

That said...the industry caught up rather fast with R6, and it was also horribly flawed; like the aforementioned people hanging up at corners and the fucking stealth missions.

Rainbow Six 3 killed the franchise because it made opening doors a lethal action, because you:

Put away your weapon or device to open the door (or pick the lock, or plant an explosive charge); and you couldn't get your weapon back until you had done an elaborate animation, at which point the bad guys inside had noticed the explosion and shot you fifty billion times as you slowly put away the detonator trigger.

Seriously, how hard is it to hand off the detonator to the third guy in line in your squad and tell him by voice to blow the door; or hold your MP5SDKAFAJS one-handed while you turn the doorknob?

That said, if I was designing a 'spiritual sequel' to Rainbow Six; I'd focus on unique locations that place great value on dynamically entering from multiple locations simultaneously; and try to incorporate a deeper strategic layer into the game itself.

Instead of the strategic layer being a simple planning map where you place waypoints; put the player in charge of the counter terror operation itself; and give him options that change the way the shooter portion plays out.

Get the option to string along the terrorists in order to gather more information on them and the layout of the location in question; have the choice of cutting the power to the building, or playing rock music extremely loud; so that when you assault at 3 in the morning, everyone inside has gotten less than 20 minutes of sleep in 48 hours, slowing their reaction times, stuff like that.

[Vendetta]

Rainbow Six 3 killed the franchise because it made opening doors a lethal action, because you:

Put away your weapon or device to open the door (or pick the lock, or plant an explosive charge); and you couldn't get your weapon back until you had done an elaborate animation, at which point the bad guys inside had noticed the explosion and shot you fifty billion times as you slowly put away the detonator trigger.

Rainbow Six 3 "killed" the franchise by having really successful multi. Which is why RS:Vegas was built from the ground up as a multiplayer game, and sold shitloads because of it.

[Stark]

It's so 'not hard' the SWAT games did it fine. The R6 games were flawed and the franchise run into the ground by people who didn't care until it because a shooter in 2007 or whenever.

[weemadando]

More Fatnerd rage indicators.

Apparently this isn't a true reinvention. It's actually serious pseudo sequel to the FPS set decades after that first invasion in the 50's.

[Ryan Thunder]

I guess they already fought fat people to a standstill with hexes in Civ5, so they figure they can keep using them. Thank fuck; no more guys running in ridiculous zigzag patterns!

What would anybody have against hexes?

[Stark]

Serious go check civ5 forums. They have different properties with siding, stacking, adjacency, and they LOOK FUNNY. In short nerds hate change,even when if they were half as smart as they thought they were they'd know hexes are Just Better.

[Nephtys]

Honestly, I was kinda relieved in many ways when I saw the screenshots. It addressed a few potential issues, and seems to be focused on delivering accessability as well as some modernization of the tactical combat.

For example, TUs are now some sort of sliding bar, and hexes don't appear to be the 'One unit one hex' sort of thing, but rather zones in which it costs X TUs to get to. this has the same rough effect as the old 'one square, one thing' system, but has less 'pennycounting' TUs and leaves them in larger discrete packets.

Another thing is that complex inventory is done away with. I really didn't need to know that my guy has a grenade on his belt instead of on his vest, for example. Your guy now just has 'A frag grenade' or 'a medpack' somewhere, and presumably can carry one or two weapons to swap to (based on the pic of a guy with a rifle and pistol). Also, Ammo seems done away with. That's bloody fine. You NEVER ran out of bullets in one of those old X-COM games. Only heavy weapons like missiles should be tracked individually anyway.

Another is that there seems to be some form of 'stick to' cover. A few troopers in the tactical screenshot are ducking against a rock or tree, and have a shield icon. Presumably you can stick to cover for more defense, which sounds fine to me.

As for Aesthetics, that's where they're throwing a bone to the retropeople. That Transport plane? That's a fucking Skyranger. Down to the VTOL engines, stubby wings, and those bigass wheels you can hide behind. The Base? That's X-COM HQ alright. Complete with multiple obvious labs, workshops, living quarters, the Geoscape command center, Hangar, Alien Containment, and some sort of horrific stargate portal to hell in the basement. Gone are the 'I am A 1980s comic book superhero' leotards X-COM troops wear, replaced by more gears of war/40kish body armor.

[Stark]

I dont' want to sound lazy and unwilling to look myself, but I'm at work.

Neph, do they still have the TU/energy bars being separate? I think they tried to differentiate terrain by how much 'energy' it took to cross it in the older games, which led to some bizarre results. I don't think any other game ever tried to do it that way, using different values for terrain instead.

[Nephtys]

It appears that there's only one bar for TU/Energy. Likely, the concept of Energy was dropped. Honestly, I can't recall almost EVER running out of energy in the old games.

Probably that's been simplified to merely some sorts of terrain eat up more TU to cross.

[Stark]

Yeah, they didn't even use energy with smoke or stun, I think; it was just there to annoy anyone in a map with lots of corn. :V

Is cover placed on hex edges or mid-hex?