Which Fps Changed The Face Of Their Genre?
The007
Join Date: 2004-08-15 Member: 30640Members
Join Date: 2004-08-15 Member: 30640Members
in Discussions
My friends and I were debating this for the past month. While the majority says Doom or Halo...I think Half Life is a well produced game with high values and introduced an actual in depth atmosphere with complex situations and excellent AI...(in 1998).
What do you think?
What do you think?
Comments
But what about Tribes? Tribes introduced vechiles while the Unreal series showcased a feature called mutators which changes the the gameplay small or very drastic. However Half Life has a large mod library.
DOOM: lighting, z-axis
Quake: first truly 3D FPS, multiplayer, mods
Half-Life: strong story component (IMO), extreme modability, great support from developer. CS.
System Shock 1&2: combined FPS and RPG elements
UT2k3: ragdolls (I think they were the first)
Deus Ex 2, Chronicles of Riddick, DOOM3: dynamic lighting
Thief 3, Riddick: body awareness
Half-Life 2: real-world DX9 visuals, believable NPCs
Goldeneye: first worthwhile console FPS
Some of these, clearly, are more significant developments than others. I'd say the single biggest leap made by any game was Quake 1's transition to true 3D. Everything else has been adding elements to that formula.
Any others from there? It's hard to say. Halo was a great leap forward for its physics and graphics. Thief was arguably the first FPSneaker. But these are smaller enhancements, rather than advancements of the genre.
In my opinion, the FPS genre is reaching a ceiling... the full limits of its gameplay style have been reached, and new life is being found by games like Thief because they take the FPS "interface" and put it in new genres. Half-Life 2, DOOM3, and Stalker are evidence that we are rapidly approaching photo-realistic graphics... look at games just a few years ago for proof of that. Where do we go when we reach that ceiling? I'm not sure.
quake & counterstrike (afr reminded me of the latter)
quake set the precedent for Half-Life, Quake 3, and a good quarter of the other "big" FPSes. Counter-Strike, although it now pales in comparision to the games and mods available today, was simply groundbreaking when it was first released.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In my opinion, the FPS genre is reaching a ceiling... the full limits of its gameplay style have been reached, and new life is being found by games like Thief because they take the FPS "interface" and put it in new genres. Half-Life 2, DOOM3, and Stalker are evidence that we are rapidly approaching photo-realistic graphics... look at games just a few years ago for proof of that. Where do we go when we reach that ceiling? I'm not sure. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
the cieling tends to rise with each new generation of games. take the unreal 3 engine vid for example, 20k plus polygons per character model, and it's still far from photorealistic. until the day a regular home computer can raytrace games photorealisticaly at 100 fps, we're not anywhere near the peak. besides, there's always holograms B<.
Quake was the first large-scale multiplayer game. Sure, Doom existed before then, but it did not use the power of the Internet to allow multiplayer gaming. One had to use their phoneline and make a 1-900 call to some server out in bumsville at some by-the-minute rate. As a result, Doom was mostly reserved for LAN play. Quake brought the whole gaming community together. QuakeCon used to be the biggest and best thing since sliced bread back in '96-'97. It was a tournament where thousands of players would come together and see who the best player was. I don't know if Doom had any such thing, I'm sure it did, but it was never as large. Affordable high speed connections also arrived around the same time Quake did, which introduced terms such as LPB and HPB. The transition was interesting to watch. At first, there were few cable and DSL users, but within 2-3 years, most people ditched their dial-up connections to remain competitive.
Doom introduced the concept of mods, but at an extremely limited capacity. One could change the graphics around, play around with the weapon stats, and make new maps, but that's about it. There was no scripting, because it was probably never intended to be moddable. Quake on the other hand introduced QuakeC which allowed mod makers to change the game as they saw fit. TCs(mods) such as capture-the-flag, team fortress, navy seals (CS progenitor?), and hundreds of other mods came into existence.
Quake also introduced the high-end graphics card market into gaming. GLQuake was introduced, which added openGL features to the game and allowed for hardware acceleration. This mostly happened after Quakeworld came out. I won't talk much about Quakeworld, but it was a very interesting piece of software that doubled the number of people that could play on a server, allowed for custom skins, and introduced the concept of prediction to shrink the gap between HPBs and LPBs, among other things. Back to graphics cards. New people to the multiplayer community probably don't remember graphics card manufacturer 3Dfx, which was the largest graphics card maker at the time. People started dropping hundreds of bucks on graphics cards, for the first time, to put that extra edge in their game. New graphics cards manufacturers cropped up to try and get a piece of the new market. NVidia was one of these companies, and it grew to eventually buy out 3Dfx. Before graphics cards, the speed of your computer was determined by the almighty megahertz. It was really a different time.
In closing, Quake was a radical shift to multiplayer gaming that previous titles such as Doom did not provide. It shaped the multiplayer community as we know it today, and it really hasn't changed much since then.
Also of interest was how Planetquake.com began as a little Quake fansite, and Quakespy was a free server browser for Quake/Quakeworld. They later merged and became the Gamespy giant.
Edit:
Some quakespy/planetquake/quakeworld history for anyone interested.
<a href='http://granzeau.com/~gonzo/quake/' target='_blank'>http://granzeau.com/~gonzo/quake/</a>
Battlezone?
*loads up H3 and throws another guy off a 10-storey building*
You can say "Well this game added this, blah blah blah" but the truely revolutionary games are the ones that people notice the most.
This is a no brainer. Let me prove my point with a simple graph:
<img src='http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/9100/under3.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Although Ultima Underworld is a brilliant and underappreciated game, this is a flat out lie.
Talking about changing the genre, Looking Glass' masterpiece Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri has been totally forgotten so far. 3D outdoors combat in rolling terrain including a team you can command, and all this way back in 1996. Terra Nova still kicks the **** out of all other 3D action games I've ever played. I just wish someone would modernize it.
<i>Notice the reflection of the water. Also, those hills are not there to limit the playing area. You can jump jet there and run to see what's behind them if you want to.</i>
<img src='http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/6/198916/terranov_screen001.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://www.cdmag.com/action_vault/terra_nova/shot9.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
<img src='http://www.cdmag.com/action_vault/terra_nova/shot7.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Oh, and Forlorn's graph sucks. Doom popularized the FPS genre, not HL.
Everyone knows that HL turned FPS genre from something 'neat', like any other type of game, into something huuuuge.
In case you guys don't realize, a contest was just held... where CS, run on the HL engine, was given a 100,000 dollar purse. Anyways...
I like how you guys will mention every other game besides HL, as some kind of insignifcant attempt to hide the truth.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I think you fail to grasp the meaning of the word revolutionary, Forlorn. It means change, and this isn't done by popularity alone. By your definition, Myst is the most revolutionary game in existence. Or any Blizzard games are revolutionary. This usually isn't the case. These games are most often a borrowed formula, with a cleaned up presentation and aggressive marketing.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Myst was popular? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/confused-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> It might have been a quick gaming fad but died out rather fast... and it's sequels recieved little attention in comparision to the first game.
And yes, Blizzard games are revolutionary. The interface for commanding in Blizzard games is so well done, Flayra decided to copy it into NS.
The only reason something ever becomes popular, and most importantly, has <b>lasting</b> popularity is a clear indication of what's revolutionary or not. And why is that? Popularity brings change.
The graph is just to give an idea of what HL did to FPS gaming. All of the other "revolutionary" concepts in this thread are no more than mere advances in the realm of FPS gaming.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Fuelled almost entirely by the word-of-mouth of drawn-in gamers, Myst slowly began climbing to the top of sales charts. By the end of 1994, it was the most popular game in the world and would hold the number one spot for years. As late as the week ending January 11, 1998, PC Data (now NPD Market Tracking) reported that Myst had sold more than any other game, including Quake II and Tomb Raider II.. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.tiscali.co.uk/games/myst/history1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.tiscali.co.uk/games/myst/history1.html</a>
So, its popularity were neither insignificant nor short lived.
Half-life is an okay game. It had a solid presentation, much like Blizzard's games do. The thing is, it wasn't revolutionary. My argument is, that Quake had a relatively large following for its time. It shaped the online gaming community with the introduction of clans, huge LAN tournaments, online leagues, mods (one that even turned the game into a flight sim), etc. Half-Life's contributions are paltry to those who have played Quake, and its wide popularity is only because the game arrived while a large world demographic was making the leap onto the Internet and a large community was already established from Quake for it to inherit. Granted, most of the Quake community switched to Half-Life as soon as it came out, or upgraded to Quake 2, so the game receives basically no attention these days (Tenebrae anyone?). Anyway, I'm adamant that Quake is the defining moment of multiplayer gaming, and receives top prize. If you can find reasons why HL became so popular, besides the one I've stated, it might sway this stubborn old git. (Note: you can't say that HL's mods are better without having played the original Quake mods such as Airquake, 3WCTF, Team Fortress).
Lights are considered entities, so yes, Quake had them and Half-Life built upon them. Heck, Doom had them.
If you want to read about what entities were in Quake, here ya go. I'm sure you don't really care though. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<a href='http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake/spec/quake-spec34/qc-enty.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake/spec/q...c34/qc-enty.htm</a>
I don't believe Quake had any decals or transparent textures though. Coloured lighting might have come in with GLQuake, but I remember it looking really bad. I do recall a large buzz surrounding graphics cards that supported coloured lighting.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Fuelled almost entirely by the word-of-mouth of drawn-in gamers, Myst slowly began climbing to the top of sales charts. By the end of 1994, it was the most popular game in the world and would hold the number one spot for years. As late as the week ending January 11, 1998, PC Data (now NPD Market Tracking) reported that Myst had sold more than any other game, including Quake II and Tomb Raider II.. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.tiscali.co.uk/games/myst/history1.html' target='_blank'>http://www.tiscali.co.uk/games/myst/history1.html</a>
So, its popularity were neither insignificant nor short lived.
Half-life is an okay game. It had a solid presentation, much like Blizzard's games do. The thing is, it wasn't revolutionary. My argument is, that Quake had a relatively large following for its time. It shaped the online gaming community with the introduction of clans, huge LAN tournaments, online leagues, mods (one that even turned the game into a flight sim), etc. Half-Life's contributions are paltry to those who have played Quake, and its wide popularity is only because the game arrived while a large world demographic was making the leap onto the Internet and a large community was already established from Quake for it to inherit. Granted, most of the Quake community switched to Half-Life as soon as it came out, or upgraded to Quake 2, so the game receives basically no attention these days (Tenebrae anyone?). Anyway, I'm adamant that Quake is the defining moment of multiplayer gaming, and receives top prize. If you can find reasons why HL became so popular, besides the one I've stated, it might sway this stubborn old git. (Note: you can't say that HL's mods are better without having played the original Quake mods such as Airquake, 3WCTF, Team Fortress). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am corrected. Myst was the most popular and revolutionary game, but then the "FPS" that changed the genre was HL, because First Person Shooters have shooters in them. Which myst does not... so technically it disqualifies this game from the topic.
Guess I was out of the norm by not liking myst, but holy damn 12 million units is one tough number to argue against.
Learned something new in this thread...
Seriously, Doom got a heck of a mainstream media coverage. It also turned the id guys into millionaires (which was a new concept in the gaming industry), and begun the "game designers are more than mortal men"-fad, which thankfully died when John Romero crashed and burned. HL is a big thing, yeah, but it's fame surpassed that of Doom only when its multiplayer potential was discovered. Doom still remains the first FPS phenomenon (but not the first FPS, not by a long shot). I remember the media popularity it garnered very well indeed. I was 14 at the time, and I remember being dumbfounded that people who didn't know a thing about games knew about Doom.
Oh, and one more FPS from the annals of history:
Midwinter (1989)
A strange combination of RPG and FPS, Midwinter's main claim for fame was its absolutely huge, completely traversable map. This game sported polygonal enemies and structures, and a fractal-based landscape - all on Commodore Amiga, no less.
<img src='http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/pc/unsung_heroes/screens/midwinter1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
Then came Half Life. A first person shooter with a plot, that actually had impressive AI (for its day, keep things in context), that did not have a super gun, that walked the line between realism and sci fi realism, that hit you with new thing after new thing, utilized other characters in the game, and (for its day) had impressive graphics for an FPS.
No other FPS had ever delivered such advances in a package so well organized and well packaged, and that's what made it revolutionary. It not only captured the minds of gamers, but it grabbed mainstream interest. Not to mention the release of its very easy to use SDK enabled the most influential multiplayer game of all time, Counter-Strike, to be created and released.
Half Life's fame surpassed Doom's when HL won nearly every possible worthwhile gaming award the year it was released. Every standard that had been set by other games Half Life built upon and blew away. Think about it. All of those other games formed the base for Half Life's success. Half Life's multiplayer potential gave it longevity, but Half Life had already beat Doom in terms of being "revolutionary."
Half Life was the first really intelligent FPS. The shoot 'em up element remained strong, but the plot and mystery surrounding the game kept players interested in what was really going on.
DOOM: lighting, z-axis
Quake: first truly 3D FPS, multiplayer, mods
Half-Life: strong story component (IMO), extreme modability, great support from developer. CS.
System Shock 1&2: combined FPS and RPG elements
UT2k3: ragdolls (I think they were the first)
Deus Ex 2, Chronicles of Riddick, DOOM3: dynamic lighting
Thief 3, Riddick: body awareness
Half-Life 2: real-world DX9 visuals, believable NPCs
Goldeneye: first worthwhile console FPS <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
very true
HOWEVER, I know your wrong with wolfenstien 3d, there was a called "catacombs: the abyss" which was FPS and came out before W3d
What do you think? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would honestly say Startsiege tribes, the first major online FPS to incoorporate vechiles and alternative forms of movement (i.e. JetPack).
I think it revolutionized tactics in onlime gaming.
Though half life by itself is another good example.