Spayce Shotters: Is the genre back?

[Stark]

The X-Wing games and Klingon Academy i'd argue seemed like they tried to minimize downtime as much as possible. Especially true for their sequels.

You might say that, but remember that you're a sim guy. You don't mind an objective like 'fly to point 15km away'. In a regular (modern) game that objective might be interesting because of the terrain, or the trash mobs on the way, or something; in a space game its 'point nose at dot, go get a beer'. I mean they eventually boiled Wing Commander down into WCA; literally a series of spawn points. I think the framework of space games (ie near-zero terrain, huge empty arenas, radar simulation, etc) was both popular at the time because of its technically non-demanding nature and has since fallen way behind the curve. All those sim trapping were arguably just the 'flavour' of the 90s as seen in other genres; deep down the games were simple, but could appear very attractive (like WC's sprites or Xwings textures) and the terrible mission structure actually played the the expectations or needs of the audience of the time.

As a comparison, 'fly 15km in a straight line' isn't uncommon in a space game from the 90s. In modern games, OFP had similar shits like 'walk over bland terrain to objective point' and it was clearly way more boring than its peer shooters.

I'd speculate from the state of other, similar genres that a space shooter to suit the sensibilities of a modern audience would need to have a number of qualities, the most difficult of which would be combat that is interesting in a non-sim way - no, people do not find TURN RIGHT MASHING MISSILE BUTTON to be interesting. It'd need to use modern storytelling methods (heavy scripting rather than cutscenes or audio), there'd need to be a much higher emphasis on the feel or the visceral nature of what was going on, and replacing switching in and out of mission/menu with the modern smooth flow in and out of cutscenes or QTEs. Boring combat aside you could easily take a Modern Warfare approach to space shooters and sell the game as a pilot experience, rather than a 'simulator'.

[weemadando]

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

That's not everything. Many of the titles that we release also contain expansions, additional content, director's cut, better hi-res movies (which were sometimes part of special limited releases). So while it's true that people already own these games, many of them repurchase them for the additional content they missed out in the first place.

One word of Caution. EA is being very tight with GOG about expansions. I think only a single EA release on GOG has come with its expansion.

WC1, WC2, Privateer, Syndicate. All missing their expansions on GOG.

It's actually because the IP for those expansions are fucking confused, EA might have owned the original game, but didn't necessarily own the expansion pack IP. Hence this bullshit.

[Alyeska]

It's actually because the IP for those expansions are fucking confused, EA might have owned the original game, but didn't necessarily own the expansion pack IP. Hence this bullshit.

That claim has been thrown around. But I seriously don't believe it. It seems EA has a very tight contract with GOG and didn't realize GOG wanted the expansions but won't release them without explicit contract allowance. They had to make a very special allowance for a single Ultimate to get its expansion. EA has total control over the vast majority of those expansions and isn't letting GOG have them.

[weemadando]

The problem is that the studios that made the expansions and retained some rights to them have been bought, sold, closed and shuttered and reopened and rebranded so many times that EA might own the name, Activision owns the code and Warner Bros owns the franchise.

IP is a fucking debacle. It's why so many "abandonware" titles are just that - no one can wrangle the rights holders into one place to post the code on any number of sites where people will pay for it.

[Stark]

If they appear on Origin and not GOG, who cares? The owner can sell (or not) stuff they own any way they want. Its not like anyone is missing out on quality anyway.

Tolya, do GOG have any capability to be more extensive in their retools of old shit?

[VF5SS]

It'd interesting to experiment how to add tension to even watching a radar screen. Cuz like Stark said, modern games have more a chance of random mobs coming to kill you. Going back to some old animus like DYRL, you can certainly make a guy watching a radar screen for a few seconds pretty interesting. It also kind of flows from an old SNES game I used to played called Turn and Burn: No Fly Zone. You're an F-14 (as god intended) and you got yer super long range missiles but even launching one didn't guarantee a kill because your target could spoof it with countermeasures.

Imagine swathes of enemies on the horizon of your radar and you've only got so many long range missiles. You don't have enough information as to which enemy is the most dangerous so you take your chances and try to take out the big guns.

Maybe you do take out a bunch of deadly targets or maybe you don't. A few dots disappeared but you won't know which ones until they get into range. If you're unsure, you might bug out in fear of being killed.

Then again, PC games so infinite save and reload lawl

[Stark]

Even with missile play 90s Western games were like Wing Commander or Freespace, where they 'balanced' them by either having near-useless tracking or doing fuck-all damage or carrying two of them. The idea you could build a whole came around managing missile locks and watching outrageous missile chase spam and thousands of explosions never occured.

Because if you make it MORE SIM or MORE REAL, you're making it MORE GOOD. Right?

When you have a genre where the core play activity is 'turn in circles and miss a lot', there's no mystery why it died.

[CaptHawkeye]

Radar in games can be interesting as long as it's not A. The core of the game and B. Not implemented like the simplistic all-seeing-eye sensors of shooters and Ace Combat.

Strike Fighters and Dangerous Waters have the done the best jobs at simulating radar operations to me so far. Though Dangerous Waters has you stare at the screens excessively.

When you have a genre where the core play activity is 'turn in circles and miss a lot', there's no mystery why it died.

Yeah. I used to feel bad for the space sim and action flyer genre, but now i'm really seeing that they really only have themselves to blame for it. That's just what you get for obsessively clinging to tradition.

[Stark]

Radar play doesn't have to mean SLEW TADS AROUND CONTACT AND SET TO TSW-AB MODE. It can just be messing around with target management, cooldowns, line of sight, etc. The sim-radar thing is dead boring horror less than 100 people in the world enjoy; but everyone likes 3D tactical displays with swooping arrows and popout battle cameras and giant red warning banners.

[CaptHawkeye]

Yeah it doesn't have to be a lot. It just has to be more than "THIS IS A TARGET/THIS ISN'T". The only time i've ever seen a space sim do something more interesting than that with sensors was Klingon Academy.

[Stark]

If KA had had a system map (or something), there was certainly a lot of shit you could have done with the intermittent contact ECM business.

[Anacronian]

Are there any games other than Independence-War that allowed for Newtonian movement?

Doing that well might be a way to spice up the experience, At least you cant just fly in circles and shoot shit up in I-war without dying really fast yourself.

[Stark]

Yeah, raising the barrier to entry by requiring specific skills is a great way to revitalise a genre. :V

And sadly Iwar's combat was still really, really bad (not helped by the terrible UI designs) in that it was sim-heavy and not very interesting. The first half dozen missions are amazingly boring, which doesn't help either.

What's needed is content that is accessible and actually fun and keys into the sort of things modern gamers like to do, and not some super-complex attempt to simulate something so few people care about.

[weemadando]

Tachyon: The Fringe had elements of newtonian movement along with the usual WW2 in space.

[VF5SS]

Yeah you held down the slide button and you could turn without changing your flight path.

[Ford Prefect]

I'd speculate from the state of other, similar genres that a space shooter to suit the sensibilities of a modern audience would need to have a number of qualities, the most difficult of which would be combat that is interesting in a non-sim way - no, people do not find TURN RIGHT MASHING MISSILE BUTTON to be interesting. It'd need to use modern storytelling methods (heavy scripting rather than cutscenes or audio), there'd need to be a much higher emphasis on the feel or the visceral nature of what was going on, and replacing switching in and out of mission/menu with the modern smooth flow in and out of cutscenes or QTEs. Boring combat aside you could easily take a Modern Warfare approach to space shooters and sell the game as a pilot experience, rather than a 'simulator'.

You may not remember, but we had a discussion about a space shooter that I'd like to make if I was infinitely wealthy, which aimed more at a sort of Alpha Protocol-style narrative experience and had the player equipped with a more dynamic giant robot, which could do things like key off space debris for parkour, grab onto shit and throw it etc. I think if you moved away from the 'space fighter' and towards something with arms and legs you could get something more interesting going because there'd be more options beyond moving and shooting. I mean Zone of the Enders isn't hugely complex or anything but it's a lot more fun than something like Freelancer because you can do shit like chuck enemies into each other, chop them up and so on.

[Anacronian]

Tachyon: The Fringe had elements of newtonian movement along with the usual WW2 in space.

Yeah that's true, I Had forgotten about that game - come to think of it wasn't there also a slide button in Freespace 2 - i vaguely remember one but it's been so long since i played it?

[Steel]

Tachyon: The Fringe had elements of newtonian movement along with the usual WW2 in space.

Yeah that's true, I Had forgotten about that game - come to think of it wasn't there also a slide button in Freespace 2 - i vaguely remember one but it's been so long since i played it?

The way Tachyon did it was a bit broken though, as if you went into slide mode after using afterburners you would keep your massively increased afterburner speed, thus allowing you to disengage from all the AI enemies who couldn't do this, and you were practically faster than shots and missiles too.

[VF5SS]

Yeah I remember the slide mode was horribly abused in online play to the point where you couldn't engage anyone easily and had to wait for them to screw up.

[CaptHawkeye]

I never played Tachyon online because back in the day it was out I didn't have an internet connection. I had a blast with it back then but I doubt a game made just like it would hold up today. Thinking about it also makes me realize, hyper gates are the laziest way for a developer to simulate faster-than-light travel. Couldn't you just limit that shit by other means? "Oh noez after a jump your warp core needs to cool down/re modulate/etc."

[Jade Falcon]

There have been a few space games from small European developers, but in many cases they're either horrible to play or badly bugged. For example, one called The Tarr Chronicles had intro and missions movies that in many cases would flat out not play on peoples systems. It wasn't just an isolated case either, it happened to a lot of people and often the dev team had either disbanded, closed down or flat wasn't interested in sorting the problem.

[Alyeska]

First two missions on SOL Exodus. The missions are a tad long and tiresome for what they want you to do. Third mission reset my pitch invert and now refuses to go back making flying impossible.

[VF5SS]

Just invert the y-axis on your mouse outside of the game

Or turn your controller upside down like when they infect you with confuse in some games.

[Alyeska]

Just invert the y-axis on your mouse outside of the game

Or turn your controller upside down like when they infect you with confuse in some games.

Joystick, not mouse. And I would have to manually undo that after every game.

[Stark]

Yeah that's true, I Had forgotten about that game - come to think of it wasn't there also a slide button in Freespace 2 - i vaguely remember one but it's been so long since i played it?

While using a game from 2000 as a cue to bring a genre back is a bit strange. :v FS2 had directional thrusting (so you could technically skid or something) but it wasn't until the SCP that it worked 'properly' with decoupled heading and vector. I'm not sure it ever added anything to a game though; its just a thematic gimmick.

Hawks, I think the 'jump gate' thing (which wasn't very common back in the day) is just an excuse to have more actual structures in space. Most of these games aren't dreamed up by people with a vision of people living in space; its just a few big ships, a bunch of fighters, and maybe some rocks. The X series was a notable exception, that tried to show a fully-functioning space society rather than a huge empty vacuum full of enemy spawn points and 'nav points'. But then, it was a much more ambitious game for all its failures.