Best of First-Person Tactical/Wargaming

[dslyecxi 23]

Ok, very nice article. All we need now is more people like yourself to saturate the FPS community with these concepts.

The only thing I disagreed with - Binoculars.

In reality they are quite unsteady and moving with them as portayed in RO .... I don't feel it is realistic.

Given the choice between RO's/AA's setup and the one we find in OFP, I have to give the nod to RO. Is it the epitome of realism, on the other hand? No, and I should probably update the article to say so.

Glad you liked it, btw. Thanks for the feedback.

[GoOB 0]

Great article! Most of the stuff I already had a sense about seeing as I've played the games but it was still really nice to get an overview of them. Again, very good work.

And E5: New Jagged Union is definatley on my to-buy-list after reading this article and playing the demo. Can't beleive I missed it... After playing the demo some more though, I'm glad I did - Cumbersome action system to say the least :S

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

great great great, may I hotlink this to a different forum?

[BlackScorpion 0]

I did.

[dslyecxi 23]

great great great, may I hotlink this to a different forum?

Link it wherever you want, the more exposure it gets, the better.

[DCurrahee 0]

Reality based FPS bible

Amen Dslyecxi

[scruffy 22]

A nice article and very interesting read. (and I stumbled upon the Brigade Demo on your site, too. Didn't know it was out)

There's one thing I think should be mentioned in the article though.

A feature that is in OFP and what I really miss in other games: The bullet originates from the gun!

Opposed to it just spawning in the middle of that flying camera you move through the level...

I would love to see this in more games, but the only one I can think of is OFP (I read something like that would be in RO, too. Anyone can approve that? It's still a month until the box release here)

With this system I think you'll need True First Person and Freelook to get the full potential, but this way you can get better simulated recoil and you got the moving POI from shift with 3D ironsights also included.

The best thing about this is the feeling about where youre bullet will land from just looking at the gun. When the first R6 or GR came out this was no problem as there was no gun but as we now see it in our hands in every game it bugs me when you move with the weapon maybe swaying a bit and then suddenly the bullet leaves the barrel on a 45° and hits the floor/ceiling

Another "bug" that really bothers me is also removed with this: You'll never ever get shot by a few hairs spying over an obstacle. Like in OFP you can spy over a ridge and see the enemy, but to shoot him you'll have to move your gun over it, too.

[USSRsniper 0]

Nice artcile, this would make my game of the dreams. But with few thing added like realistic helicopter flying and airplanes......... but it would be impossible to play game when you need to read like 50 pages(or more) to fly fully simulated helicopter...    

[sputnik monroe 102]

People play Falcon and it's instrucitons are over 600 pages long. Not to mention people play steel beast and I'm sure it's not a sloutch when it comes to realism either.

If people can't learn to fly or operate any of the vehicles they can just play as infantry or something.

[DBR_ONIX 0]

but it would be impossible to play game when you need to read like 50 pages(or more) to fly fully simulated helicopter...

Exactly.. Thats by biggest problem with people complaining about stuff being unrealsitic in games..

Developers HAVE to make bits of games "unrealistic" in a bid to make gameplay either more fun, or possible..

A good example of this, Lock On : Modern Air Combat.. The control sheet for that is around 7 pages, the game is extremely hard to use (Unless you want to sink a lot of time into the game to learn, but not many people are willing to do that)

Anyway, it was a good article, hopefully a few devlopers see it

- Ben

[nyles 11]

but it would be impossible to play game when you need to read like 50 pages(or more) to fly fully simulated helicopter...    

Exactly.. Thats by biggest problem with people complaining about stuff being unrealsitic in games..

Developers HAVE to make bits of games "unrealistic" in a bid to make gameplay either more fun, or possible..

A good example of this, Lock On : Modern Air Combat.. The control sheet for that is around 7 pages, the game is extremely hard to use (Unless you want to sink a lot of time into the game to learn, but not many people are willing to do that)

Anyway, it was a good article, hopefully a few devlopers see it

- Ben

The key here is scalability. There is no reason why a game can't scale down its complexity, so the common player can get into it easily, automating complicated things (autopilots, automatic gear shifting, etc).

As long as these advanced features can still be used manually by a player, if he choses to, and allow him to be at a slight advantage over those players using the easier to handle automated processes, when used, there is absolutely no problem with games being scalable for me personally.

Scalability is only dangerous, if the simplified process can be used to perform better than someone using the manual process to full effect.

Take gear shifting in cars in the game Mafia as an example: You could decide whether you want to do the shifting yourself or let the computer do the shifiting for you, which worked most of the time, but very often - especially in criticical situations- made the car act a bit weird due to the gear shifted to early or too late or just differently than you would have shifted manually. With you being in control of the gear shifting, you had more work to do, but on the other hand you had more direct control about your car, making thigns possible that probably would not have worked as smoothly with automatic gear shifting.

Many of the things mentioned in dsylecxi's article could work the same way as long as the Game Design considers to have the simplified variant be at a slight disadvantage and be it just by being slower. You have to include shadow costs to balance scalability, but it's absolutely do-able. It just might require some thinking.

[Nathan Bedford Forrest 0]

^^^ What Nyles said.

[Jinef 2]

Nyles on a completey different subject.

I saw uTw has a Red Orchestra server and you were playing on it.

There is a few people on Zeus who play RO but dislike the lack of cooperation on public servers? Mind if we come on sometime?

[dslyecxi 23]

The article has been updated slightly on the third page to reflect the fact that the Wargames League mod for OFP is fantastic and would've been extensively featured in the article if only I'd been familiar with it before having started writing it.

[Jinef 2]

Oh right .... You should come to Zeus. We use WGL5 a lot .. lot lot.

Go in ze MP thread to our link to find out more. Or drop by on our teamspeak sometime.

[dslyecxi 23]

As an update on this, PC Gamer UK mentioned this article in their latest issue. They ended the mention with "You'll never look at Operation Flashpoint the same way again", so hopefully it'll act as nice PR for OFP as well as myself.

You can find the article linked on the front page of my site.

http://dslyecxi.com/

[Baphomet 0]

This guy loses a lot of credibility by having anything positive to say about games that employ an expanding ring system.

They're about as unrealistic as you can get. It's a lazy developer's way of amalgamating sight sway, impact of movement, and the inherent accuracy of the weapon into one unrealistic package.

Ideally, the only true realistic gunnery will result when you can custom-train your sights, games implement limited IK and weight/tension values to players, and their weapons. To simulate proper sight sway, and overcompensation for recoil, which can push the muzzle in different directions based on how that individual manages it, and the inherent performance of the weapon.

This would require considerable reasearch on how trained and untrained individuals handle recoil with each firearm, but I'm confident that someday, this will become a reality.

In this I would hope to achieve some kind of empirical way of realistically aiming and shooting as opposed to the overly-accurate stock OFP aiming system, or the seemingly random law of averages spraying that pervades so many FPS games utilizing the expanding ring system.

Quote[/b] ]I didn't spend enough time with Trespasser to notice that, and really, I didn't want to include games that did something "first" but not best. Red Orchestra currently does the "resting weapons on the environment" thing better than anything else, so even if I had considered Trespasser, RO would've still "won" so to speak.

Trespasser however, could allow you to custom-train your sights, in other words, I could manipulate my wrist, arm, etc to hold the gun in any way I liked, be it "gangster style" or upside down, but the true usefulness of it was more appreciated when I was able to line up my iron sights intuitively so I could shoot more accurately at certain distances. The last configuration of your weapon/arm/sight position was returned when you put away and retrieved your weapon, making it a tremendously useful feature.

And yeah. Shooting pistols gangster style and watching certain ones whack you in the face or fall out of your hand from the recoil was also another short lived but entertaining novelty. Another first for Trespasser, incliding IK for weapon handling, offering some of the most realistic looking recoil (in spite of one hand "imaginary two hand" usage).

I really want more games to use this even in a limited capacity. Recoils should be fluid and based on the power of the cartridge and the strength/skill of the operator. These should be variables that are calculated in terms of in game physics.

[Rg 0]

As an update on this, PC Gamer UK mentioned this article in their latest issue. They ended the mention with "You'll never look at Operation Flashpoint the same way again", so hopefully it'll act as nice PR for OFP as well as myself.

You can find the article linked on the front page of my site.

http://dslyecxi.com/

Very cool man.

PLEASE also post this in the "next Gen game" section. I really hope the devs see this artical and your site and try to incorporate all they can into "Game2".

[hellfish6 7]

Just saw the article, spent an hour reading it. Brilliant job!

[dslyecxi 23]

This guy loses a lot of credibility by having anything positive to say about games that employ an expanding ring system.

"This guy" being me.

I appreciate you having a hate-on for expanding reticules, but if you note what I'm actually saying and don't jump to the conclusions that you went to, you'll see that I'm referring to them SPECIFICALLY in Raven Shield and no other games, and I use this funny word called "despite" which strongly implies that it's unusual for a game without ironsights to do such a good job of modeling the various factors that end up affecting weapon accuracy in a combat environment.

If you'd like to actually address what I said, feel free. To say that I "lose a lot of credibility" from that one thing is both ridiculous and insulting, as it shows that you didn't try to comprehend what was being said and instead took it as an opportunity to preach the ironsight gospel to someone who is already converted.

[Stendac 0]

Wow, it's really cool that Mr. Pearson mentioned your article.

I was impressed by the organized presentation and the video clips to back up your points. Your high school teachers must be proud. A+.

By the way:

Your Action-Action Reports are interesting to read, but I wish there were some video clips to go along with them. Your narrative builds the mood so well that I wish I could see it in video for myself.

[kernriver 4]

As i said on may 29th, the article is awsome! Of course, i saved all the vids on my HDD.

The reason i'm writing this is: Dslyecxi, i hope you would edit your article and add Armed Assault in it (ironsights, weapons recoil etc. etc. observations) when it's released...i wouldn't have anybody else do that kind of precision work but you!

[Jinef 2]

Maybe someone should do something similar with all the helicopter games/simulations out there :P

So far the best for me would have to be:

Apache vs Havoc & Commanche vs Hokum :

- Gameplay

Flight Simulator 9 :

- 'Feel' of aircraft

Longbow 2 -

- Systems Simulation

- Realism

It is dissapointing how overlooked this genre is really.