...but don't tell me "nobody wants that", because i most certainly do!
But, but... you're a nobody!!
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[Game] Battlefield 3
- Thread starter Ralfst3r
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But, but... you're a nobody!!
DICE, like TWI, see the SP campaign as practice for MP. A chance to do everything and try everything at least once, with a dramatic backdrop.
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The Fault Line Episode 1 video that they released, while rather scripted, still managed to look good and gave the impression that you had at least some freedom to move around (even tho you most likely won't).
But this Episode 2 just made me sad. What were DICE thinking? Why show off such a heavily scripted event? Do people think this is cool? Personally I was just cringing throughout the video.
Who wants to bet that if you try to improvise and stick your head out at a time when you are not meant to, you'll get a bullet between your eyes 100% of the time?
The graphics, animations and sounds are of course great, more than great even, best I've ever seen. But if the whole SP campaign is so heavily scripted, I'd rather watch a good war movie.
And I agree with what was said a few posts back, I too would pick a non-scripted SP experience any day of the week. An SP experience where I can actually choose how I want to play and approach a certain situation. Do I go for a frontal assault? Do I flank from the left or the right? Even very basic and simple options like these would do wonders in my eyes.
There's absolutely no freedom of choice in any of the modern FPS games, you just walk down a set path with little to no variations. The replay value is absolutely non-existent.
... oh well...
Fingers crossed that the MP is good in BF3, cause that's really why I play FPS games anyway..
But this Episode 2 just made me sad. What were DICE thinking? Why show off such a heavily scripted event? Do people think this is cool? Personally I was just cringing throughout the video.
Who wants to bet that if you try to improvise and stick your head out at a time when you are not meant to, you'll get a bullet between your eyes 100% of the time?
The graphics, animations and sounds are of course great, more than great even, best I've ever seen. But if the whole SP campaign is so heavily scripted, I'd rather watch a good war movie.
And I agree with what was said a few posts back, I too would pick a non-scripted SP experience any day of the week. An SP experience where I can actually choose how I want to play and approach a certain situation. Do I go for a frontal assault? Do I flank from the left or the right? Even very basic and simple options like these would do wonders in my eyes.
There's absolutely no freedom of choice in any of the modern FPS games, you just walk down a set path with little to no variations. The replay value is absolutely non-existent.
... oh well...
Fingers crossed that the MP is good in BF3, cause that's really why I play FPS games anyway..
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Its kind of annoying in the vid how the guy who's playing as the player character...really isn't playing. His NPC buds are stacking onto cover and moving methodically, but he just sits half a foot away from the cover...in fact at one point, when the first guy goes prone and crawls forward, he sits in front of his teammates still in cover and exposes himself to the sniper! And they don't say a word! I don't know, its just seems like it would be cooler and more immersive if your AI teammates would look out for you...but not in the form of HL 2's AI help. "DON'T FORGET TO RELOAD FREEMAN!" "GOTTA RELOAD DOC!" ugh!
As for the AT causing too much damage - the video cuts out like right after the rocket hits the building, all you see is some crumbling concrete and the already creaky letters fall down. Wasn't there an earthquake? Wouldn't one think the buildings are weakened?
As for the AT causing too much damage - the video cuts out like right after the rocket hits the building, all you see is some crumbling concrete and the already creaky letters fall down. Wasn't there an earthquake? Wouldn't one think the buildings are weakened?
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It will be horribly unbalanced with silly weapon mechanics, and suffer the same issues (PB, balance issues, vehile issues) that they've had in every other game since 2142 (whish has been 3 titles ago).
Yup, not looking forward to it.
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If it's anything like BC2 I'll be able to put C4 on jets and fly them into tanks.
Yup, looking forward to it. Fly it like you stole it or don't fly it at all. If there was one thing I did well in BC2 it was fly like a madman like the pilot from the A-Team.
Yup, looking forward to it. Fly it like you stole it or don't fly it at all. If there was one thing I did well in BC2 it was fly like a madman like the pilot from the A-Team.
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I agree with that ... the singleplayer campaigns in both Rainbow Six 3 and Ghost Recon were some of the most fun I've had in singleplayer. There was a loose story, but the unpredictability of each battle is what made it a blast.Speak for yourself mate, some of the best SP gaming i've done in war themes shooters had no protagonist, no real storyline or arc to speak of, and that is precisely why i loved them.
I'm talking things like the R6 games, which basically had no story at all, you where just sent on random missions that got progressively more advanced, and that was it really. Sure they tried to link the missions togeather in a plot of sorts, but really, all you did was play individual missions.
On paper that may sound incredibly simplistic, but in practice, it kicked arse! It was differen't every time, and your play was never constricted by BS plot devices and scripted "ohh teh drama" moments and rubbish cutscenes. It was tactical gaming, the pure essence of what a war game should be in my mind, and not a sappy hollywood war-movie wannabe.
I'll take that every damned day over a CoD style SP, without question or hesitation. Of course, you're free to disagree, and feel that's not what you want from an SP game, but don't tell me "nobody wants that", because i most certainly do!
That said, I DO enjoy a good scripted game. The problem is that the genre of scripted/cinematic war games has been so over done lately that it's harder to get excited about them. It's too bad, because there is definitely an art in crafting a great scripted experience.
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That's precisely the problem right there, SP campaigns like this are made for people who don't like SP, who view it as expendable aslong as the MP doesen't suck, who view it as nothing more than a tutorial mode, to be played once, und precaisly vonce! And then it's MP for the rest.
Well i do like SP, when it's good SP, but in shooters, that has become a rare thing indeed, because all we get are flashy hardscripted MP tutorials ment to be played once.
Sorry, but that's a waste of everyone's time, and saying "but the MP makes up for it" is no excuse, if the game's all about the MP anyway, then just make it the best damned MP game that it can be, throw the developers who where making the expendable play-once SP at it too and make it even bigger and better.
If you are going to make an SP though, then make it a good SP, one worth playing over and over again, something that people who actually do care about SP would want to play, something that isen't hardscripted.
There's a difference between using scripted events carefully, and hardscripting the whole game, it's the difference of a game that has some planned dramatic moments, versus making a rail shooter.
HL2 style SP would be the first kind, and CoD style SP is just a rail shooter.
There's also a difference between scripting and hardscripting, good scripting is leaving breadcrumbs for the AI, to give them sensible options for the various situations they could be in, whereas hardscripting is dictating their every move and action, basically, the same thing you do when you're making a cutscene, only in real time.
Infact lets take an example, F.E.A.R., a very mediocre game in most respects, but a perfect case study in how to do scripting:
Fear used both scripts and hardscripting to good effect, every fight you got in had scripting up the bum, but you never really noticed that, because they where not hardscripted events.
Every battle zone was littered with scripted options, and the AI was free to chose what scripts to exicute on the fly, if you where standing in one place, they would take cover and fire from cover in sensible places, but if you flanked them they would adapt, they would relocate, if you hid, they might try rushing you, if you threw a nade at the cover they where obviously going for, they would abandon the plan and do something else instead, like run away, or stop and return fire, they woulden't just run over to the grenade and sit on it just because they where planning to sit there.
The scripts here where only used to create the illusion of the AI performing tactics, but they where never hardscripted, if you changed the situation, they would adapt and try new things, and thus, the same room with the same soldiers in it would never play out exactly the same, the soldiers would choose different cover, and you could try different approaches, and they would adapt.
But it also had hardscripting, this was used whenever there was a spooky moment, when Alma would show up and do something for instance, but thease where used to good effect, and used sparingly as minor setpiece events.
Now contrast that to something like the CoD games, where hardscripting is used and abused in allmost every fight, where every time you enter a certain room, you can be damned sure that every enemy in the room will perform the same basic actions every time, if a guy is told to run over to some nearby sandbags and fire from cover there, then he allways will, if your teammate is told to take cover in a certain place, he allways will, if respawning enemies are told to snipe from some place, you can whack-a-mole them in that location endlessly, everything is set in stone.
And you can usually find ways to break thease scripts, just by taking cover in a location the Dev's did not anticipate, you can break the chain of events that are supposed to occur, and the AI will never adapt.
This is lazy and bad scripting people, the only reason it is like this, is because it's easy to do, damned easy.
There is no good reason why games like CoD could not also do propper scripting like in Fear, and the only reason they don't, is because it's cheaper and easier not to, and they figure that SP is expendable anyway, only ment to be played once to prepare for MP, and that's that.
It's rubbish, they cheaped out and cut all the corners, and that's all it is, and it seems that's all BF3's SP will be aswell.
And yes, then there's juxtaposition, the other major flaw of thease SP campaigns; how over the top they are.
This is story writing 101, you cannot pull people in, and get them emotionaly invested in what's going on, unless they can somehow relate to what's taking place.
This is why Die Hard is a classic, and why G.I. Joe (the movie) is not.
Die Hard was allways grounded just enough that you could be invested in what was going on, despite beeing an over the top story where a man survives things by the skin of his teeth that he probably shoulden't have, it's just grounded enough that we can suspend our disbelief.
No such luck with G.I. Joe, where the laws of physics are cast by the wayside in every action sequence. Ohh it's a flashy spectable allright, worth watching once just to see the flashy effects of it, but only once, because at no point can you invest in what's going on, or what the charecters are going through, it's just an endless parade of flashy effects happening just because it looks cool.
The bottom line is, Die Hard i would gladly watch again, and have several times, G.I. Joe i would not.
The irony here is that the less action packed approach, is actually the more powerfull, suspensfull and action packed one, because the audience can relate to it on some level, and get invested in what's taking place.
Whereas the no-holds barred action fest falls flat, it's just too much, and we're just sitting there watching the spectacle, laughing at the cheese factor, and at how ridiculous it is, but we do not feel enthralled in the action at all.
And the same applies to games, and especially a war game set in what looks like the real world. There has to be action, and it certainly should be exciting, but piling it on too thick is going to break it, and sever the emotional connection with the player, less is more here, you need to suspend disbelief, or you are just making a flashy spectable shooter, that we'll play and forget instantly.
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BF3 is not a tactical shooter that could be compared to R6 games at all. And if all games were like you wanted them to be, book and dvd sales would go back up to the level of their highest points in history. It's simply ignorant to expect a R6 campaign for a Battlefield game and it's incredibly hypocritic to say at the same time that HoS' SP was going to be totally awesome.
Now simplified: The majority of players prefer a dramatic SP experience that will be remembered and not playing boring missions with no connection whatsoever. Besides it has a training effect for MP. Writing a novel with every post won't make your posts any more correct btw.
You're expecting apples to taste like lemons.
Now simplified: The majority of players prefer a dramatic SP experience that will be remembered and not playing boring missions with no connection whatsoever. Besides it has a training effect for MP. Writing a novel with every post won't make your posts any more correct btw.
You're expecting apples to taste like lemons.
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It's not about being a tactical shooter in its purest sense, it's about making the AI smart enough so that it doesn't need to be scripted to the most minor detail in order to perform somewhat adequately.
A dramatic experience doesn't need to stem from scripted events. In fact, I would say non scripted events, where you feel your decisions actually have an effect on how the game plays out, provide a much more dramatic experience (and better training for MP as well, to be honest). In addition to that, it adds re-playability, since a mission could play out very differently depending on how you approach it.
PS! What you call "writing a novel", others view as expressing one's thoughts in a clear and in-depth manner. Whether or not what is said is correct or agreeable to people is beside the point.
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If the poster has nothing elso to do than write two pages about a pointless topic like this then he earns nothing but disrespect from me, because I don't consider a person like that worthy of having a discussion with.
Hoping BF3 campaign would be something different is pointless and while R6 games sure were fun(and they actually did have a story), it's nothing you could compare.
Hoping BF3 campaign would be something different is pointless and while R6 games sure were fun(and they actually did have a story), it's nothing you could compare.
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Or maybe it's just the fact that his views don't coincide with yours what's making you feel this way?
In any case, on the same topic of heavy scripting and poor AI. I think a very evident example of that is the "Combat Training" feature of Black Ops. The bots you can play against there are just horrible. The most pathetic part is that if you crank up the difficulty, the way they have compensated for their crap AI is by basically giving them wallhacks and aimbots.
Even the bots for the original Counter-Strike were much more advanced and that game is what, like 10 years old now?
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Way to miss the point entirely Drakon.
I never said BF3 should have a campaign exactly like the one from R6, i merely held up R6 as an example of how an SP campaign can be done in a different way, that doesen't require a cinematic approach, and be damned good at it too.
I can hold up many other examples too if you want, that did things entirely different to both the R6 series, and the CoD style, and which also rocked, and where worth playing many times, even if they where linear.
They all have one thing in common though, they where well made, and did not rely on hardscripting, they did not try to force non-interactive story telling into an interactive medium. Even if they did have an entirely linear progression and storyline, they where propper interactive experiances, that would adapt to the players movements and play, instead of treating the player as a "go here and stand in this spot to trigger the next scripted event" pawn.
They where also well written, making good use of juxtaposition, and drama that actually felt dramatic due to good use of juxtaposition, aswell as grounded gameplay mechanics that could suspend disbelief, and didn't make you feel like a neigh immortal super beeing, but you actually had reason to fear the enemy, mechanics that did not rely on the enemy beeing plot-conveniantly stupid just so the player can defeat them in a pre-planned way (such as a sniper who can't hit the broad side of a barn, because that woulden't be conveniant for the plot).
If your plot can't exist without the presense of plot-conveniance, then your plot sucks, and you need to do a re-write.
And i'm sorry you can't stand to read big posts, i really should know better than to expect people to read anything, on an entirely text based medium like what an internet forum is.
I never said BF3 should have a campaign exactly like the one from R6, i merely held up R6 as an example of how an SP campaign can be done in a different way, that doesen't require a cinematic approach, and be damned good at it too.
I can hold up many other examples too if you want, that did things entirely different to both the R6 series, and the CoD style, and which also rocked, and where worth playing many times, even if they where linear.
They all have one thing in common though, they where well made, and did not rely on hardscripting, they did not try to force non-interactive story telling into an interactive medium. Even if they did have an entirely linear progression and storyline, they where propper interactive experiances, that would adapt to the players movements and play, instead of treating the player as a "go here and stand in this spot to trigger the next scripted event" pawn.
They where also well written, making good use of juxtaposition, and drama that actually felt dramatic due to good use of juxtaposition, aswell as grounded gameplay mechanics that could suspend disbelief, and didn't make you feel like a neigh immortal super beeing, but you actually had reason to fear the enemy, mechanics that did not rely on the enemy beeing plot-conveniantly stupid just so the player can defeat them in a pre-planned way (such as a sniper who can't hit the broad side of a barn, because that woulden't be conveniant for the plot).
If your plot can't exist without the presense of plot-conveniance, then your plot sucks, and you need to do a re-write.
And i'm sorry you can't stand to read big posts, i really should know better than to expect people to read anything, on an entirely text based medium like what an internet forum is.
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Grobut atleast makes the effort to explain his point of view in a manner what could be expected in rational discussion rather than just handwave it "novel", "holywallotext", "not majority view" or so which would just be insulting fallacies.
Or let me guess - since this is RO2 fanboi forum (hurr, durr, logical fallacy here) if you like to express certain, possibly even bit negative point of views about mainstream games is not allowed due majority vote even when it's actually fairly well explained and following what could be expected from mature, rational discussion. Something you often complain lacking around here.
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R6 / early CoDs were dramatic? Sorry but you must have a different definition of drama than I do. Besides, since you seem not to have noticed: 1) We're talking about a 2011 AAA FPS 2) a battlefield game. Sure there are great many different ways of great SP experiences, but for a mainstream military FPS this is all you're gonna get, and looking at how desperately you're still writing testaments about the matter instead of simply putting up with it/ignoring it and waiting for MP info doesn't really let me take any of this serious.
CoD4 style SP with great pacing -less bull**** +more authenticity = good enough for what it is, THE SP OF A BATTLEFIELD GAME. Besides there will be earthquakes that devastate buildings and jet missions. You simply have wrong expectations.
CoD4 style SP with great pacing -less bull**** +more authenticity = good enough for what it is, THE SP OF A BATTLEFIELD GAME. Besides there will be earthquakes that devastate buildings and jet missions. You simply have wrong expectations.
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An earthquake that happens unexpectedly during a mission would have been interesting to see. It gives you a sense that there is an actual world in the story/game, more than just the war. Flying over the asteroid craters in Ace Combat 04 really made the world seem alive:
... too bad the spoiled the earthquake effect.
... too bad the spoiled the earthquake effect.
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