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Keeping your head down: Interaction with the game world

Kipper

Grizzled Veteran
Mar 25, 2006
707
114
Connecticut, United States
I played Gears of War for the first time today. It's a truly unique experience in the world of FPS games. Keeping your head down and moving from cover to cover are emphasized. As the player, you have a wide variety of manuevers to perform to interact with the game world and get yourself safely through a firefight. From behind cover, you are given the option to either aim your weapon and subsequently expose your head to the enemy or hold your weapon above whatever you're behind and blindly fire it at enemies. The game is built from the ground up to allow for fluid movement between cover and open areas.

This got me thinking about RO. In any given situation, you'd simply be kneeling behind a wall, or a large chunk of rubble. In Gears, you're firmly behind that rubble and pressed up against it. Which is more convincing? Need to advance but don't want to get shot by sticking your head out? A simple button combination has you quickly dash to the closest cover. RO makes claims of realism, but many times I had been put off by the "dated" methods of interacting with the game world. I'm not just talking about mantling either.

Despite how great it'd be to have the cover system employed in Gears, I wonder how to implement it into a game like RO. Would you move the camera to third person when taking cover? Would you keep it first person? Each view has its advantages. Arguably, third person would be best as it gives you a fuller picture of the environment that you would have in reality. First person deprives you of these cues that you would simply be feeling in real life. Third person can substitute these into the game. However, does this break immersion? A lot of thought would have to go into this and it would most likely need to be done from the ground up. UE 3.0 anyone?
 
you may want to erase that "Would you move the camera to third person when taking cover?" from your thread. or else i think all hell is going to break loose on you!
im not sure also about the automatic search for cover function, its interesting but im not sure...

maybe our in game character should have a automated "reflex" function, in some situations we react by reflex, without ordering our body to do it.
so when a grenade blows nearby, our character could close his eyes, and if he is real close to the grenade he would whipe the dirt out of his eyes automatically. our when a bullet flies by, our character should put his head down out of reflex...
or when hit by a bullet, fall down and hold the wound. and if possible pick weapon back up and use it.
 
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The switch to third person would be done to compensate for the fact that you are not getting important feedback through other senses as you would in reality. For instance, go outside to your car. Now, kneel and press your back up against the car and peek around the corner. You can do this easily in real life because you can feel the car and where you are as well as the edge of your "cover." In an FPS you don't get this feedback. A third-person view would substitute feel for a visual clue.
 
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Alot of people would have issues with a forced-relex setup.. people would argue it realistic, people would point out not everyone has the same reflexs as what's in-game, and people would say they would train themselves out of certain reflexes.. it's a lose-lose-lose unfortunately..

Also one thing I think people forget they can do often is Crouch-Run... to keep thier head down.. and help keep thier profile smaller while moving
 
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The switch to third person would be done to compensate for the fact that you are not getting important feedback through other senses as you would in reality. For instance, go outside to your car. Now, kneel and press your back up against the car and peek around the corner. You can do this easily in real life because you can feel the car and where you are as well as the edge of your "cover." In an FPS you don't get this feedback. A third-person view would substitute feel for a visual clue.

Congrats...you've discovered the constraints of game design that underscore 75% of suggestions threads. I like the GoW system, but honestly i would find it limiting in an online FPS. Mantling and fully fluid body control is a better wish as far as I'm concerned, but its a ways off for online FPS's I think. TWI did an amazing job with making movement feel fluid and natural on UE2.5, and in fact I believe they pushed the engine to its limits in this respect. What you are asking for just isn't going to happen in RO:O.
 
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Apart from the "shoot blindly from cover" part (since I know that my officers would have *****-slapped us back to tuesday for such a waste of ammo and lack of arms dicipline) I agree, more interaction with the world would be nice. Not only because of the cool-factor, but there are these small annoying things like having to run around a set of sandbags because they are just a wee bit too high to jump over, even if they hardly reach over your waist. It's an impassable obstacle that you don't count as an obstacle because your RL experiences tell you otherwise.


Also, I agree with that TWI has done a great job this far. I have still not seen this whole "rest your gun on anything" system in any other game. It's intuitive and smooth, so more of the same would be terrific. In this game or the next.
 
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The switch to third person would be done to compensate for the fact that you are not getting important feedback through other senses as you would in reality. For instance, go outside to your car. Now, kneel and press your back up against the car and peek around the corner. You can do this easily in real life because you can feel the car and where you are as well as the edge of your "cover." In an FPS you don't get this feedback. A third-person view would substitute feel for a visual clue.
That could be, but not having it at all is worse then being able to see while IRL you can only hear.
 
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I'd rather have a Vietcong style cover system, where you just stand up high enough to shoot over cover by pressing the aim button. Unlike RO though, how high you raise your head isn't limited to one height. And don't get why third person shooters with cover systems have you back pressed against cover, it makes looking out of cover slower, more uncomfortable, and you expose yourself more when shooting around corners. It's just meant to look cool.
 
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maybe our in game character should have a automated "reflex" function, in some situations we react by reflex, without ordering our body to do it.
I suggested that too once.
If a grenade explodes nearby your character should hold up his arm to shield his face, like the characters do in Morrowind when they find themselves in a sandstorm. Just a quick motion in. Or that they blink when a bullet hits something nearby or they turn their head away from it for a very short amount of time to protect themselves from splinters.
A random combinations of a few of those things (looking away for a splitsecond, shielding your eyes, blinking etc.) would not only make the game much more immersive, but it would also make supressing fire MUCH more effective.
 
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That would really be a nice addition, and certainly add to the immersion of the game, but I'm not sure if RO's engine could support such features. But I have to say, something like this needs to be added in the future, FPS games have really been in the same rut for a long time now, players need full body control; sure it would be hard to implement and master, but it would definitely be worth the hassle.
 
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The engine already registers it if you are almost hit, because that's when it triggers the suppression effects we have (blurring/blackening). It could trigger something else too I guess. Like a ViewShakeTrigger that jerks your view once as if your soldier would look away to protect himself from splinters. Or an animation of an arm coming up to shield your eyes from a grenade explosion etc.
It would be possible but I suppose it would be more effort than the devs are willing to put into the current RO when they are already working on their next project (if they even think its a good idea in the first place).
 
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Virtual reality *****es!

think if you could create a game that you would put a sensor on your head and be "connected" into the game, like matrix ****, except no needles in your head. Except that probably won't be happening for a long time....and thats the only way you could model the ability to seek cover as you speak of.
 
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I think they could add in blind fire if they take the Vietcong system and make it that when your weapon is collided and you fire without pressing the aim button you begin firing your weapon around or over cover without exposing yourself and you shift your view to it so you know how it's positioned. Of course, this wouldn't be in third person.
 
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Virtual reality *****es!

think if you could create a game that you would put a sensor on your head and be "connected" into the game, like matrix ****, except no needles in your head. Except that probably won't be happening for a long time....and thats the only way you could model the ability to seek cover as you speak of.

There allready is something with a sensor on your head that translates your head movement into ingame movement.
It's called TrackIR. Mostly used in flightsims i guess, but its also supported in Armed Assault, in wich you can use it for your soldier. You look a little to the left, your soldier looks to the left over his shoulder etc.
 
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