Board 8 > Reminder: Valve is pretty much the most important game developer around.

(+) Yeah! (+)

FPS' of the past decade are a cesspool of bad game design, I think steam is a great innovation and everything but saying that valve saved FPS is more incriminating than helpful

On a related note, I would honestly say that the most influential FPS in recent memory has been Modern Warfare.

That is not necessarily a good thing.

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Biolizard28 posted...
On a related note, I would honestly say that the most influential FPS in recent memory has been Modern Warfare.

That is not necessarily a good thing.

But not more revolutionary than Half-Life was.

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OctilIery posted...
But not more revolutionary than Half-Life was.

What got people so jazzed about Half Life again?

I'm being serious. I remember people going nuts for it at the time, but I can't remember why.

You could jump.

Punch_Sideiron posted...
OctilIery posted...
But not more revolutionary than Half-Life was.

What got people so jazzed about Half Life again?

I'm being serious. I remember people going nuts for it at the time, but I can't remember why.

I can go over it when I get home, although it tends to start another topic's worth of discussion.

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revolutionary =/= influential

it doesn't matter how novel and innovative something is if no one learns from it.

****, even after we've had games like silent hill 2, majora's mask, ICO, we STILL have a lot of game developers who don't understand that narrative in a game applies to all facets of its design, shoehorning massive dialogue sequences in between broken segments of gameplay is an ineffective method of storytelling for video games.

Punch_Sideiron posted...
OctilIery posted...
But not more revolutionary than Half-Life was.

What got people so jazzed about Half Life again?

I'm being serious. I remember people going nuts for it at the time, but I can't remember why.

It was an FPS that managed to convey a real storyline that wasn't joke-tier and do so in a tremendously cinematic fashion, without ever taking control away from the player. The significance of this is hard to overstate: think back to FPS' before it and none of them do this that well, unless you count System Shock 2, but that game was a huge outlier too and is super revered too. Then add on its mega-tight level design and new design approach through scripts and it's easy to see why it was so big.

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Liquid Wind posted...
revolutionary =/= influential

it doesn't matter how novel and innovative something is if no one learns from it.

****, even after we've had games like silent hill 2, majora's mask, ICO, we STILL have a lot of game developers who don't understand that narrative in a game applies to all facets of its design, shoehorning massive dialogue sequences in between broken segments of gameplay is an ineffective method of storytelling for video games.

While this is true, I'm not sure what relevance it has since no games I recall mentioned in here faled to be influential.

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people credit it with reviving FPS but I don't see half life as a blip on the radar compared to halo or call of duty, I think people get "I like this" confused with "this influenced things"

again, that's not necessarily a good thing on the part of microsoft or activision, just those two franchises are clearly the engine driving the FPS genre

KanzarisKelshen posted...
Punch_Sideiron posted...
OctilIery posted...
But not more revolutionary than Half-Life was.

What got people so jazzed about Half Life again?

I'm being serious. I remember people going nuts for it at the time, but I can't remember why.

It was an FPS that managed to convey a real storyline that wasn't joke-tier and do so in a tremendously cinematic fashion, without ever taking control away from the player. The significance of this is hard to overstate: think back to FPS' before it and none of them do this that well, unless you count System Shock 2, but that game was a huge outlier too and is super revered too. Then add on its mega-tight level design and new design approach through scripts and it's easy to see why it was so big.

That's a big part, but far from all of it.

For one, Half-Life was the game that took AI from a developer term to a full feature for FPS games, changing the genre from a run-and-gun genre to something that actually involved the player.

It also was one of the first where the enemies and weapons all felt really unique and individual; Rather than being "this enemy flys, this one is fast, this weapon is stronger, etc etc" Each enemy and weapon was vastly distinguishable, and even the core weapons were game-changing, as the way they were handled in Half-Life became the standard for the genre.

Valve also did a LOT with Half-Life that managed to bring mod communities, which had been growing steadily since Quake, to the forefrun, shining the light on several mods and even picking some up for professional use.

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Liquid Wind posted...
people credit it with reviving FPS but I don't see half life as a blip on the radar compared to halo or call of duty, I think people get "I like this" confused with "this influenced things"

again, that's not necessarily a good thing on the part of microsoft or activision, just those two franchises are clearly the engine driving the FPS genre

If you don't think Half-Life was important for the FPS genre then you're either blind or know nothing about the genre. It was a MAJOR factor at the time, got amazing amounts of attention all over the place, and was one of the biggest PC games period, at a time when FPS was still vastly considered a PC genre(something that wouldn't change despite a couple examples until the release of Halo).

Halo and Call of Duty were big too, mind you, but Half-Life was years before them, and both of them owe a LOT of what made them good to things Half-Life made standard.

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I think I would still say Goldeneye 007 was more influential than Halo in that departement, because Halo "merely" popularized FPS on console to great heights, while Goldeneye 007 showed the world "FPS on console can produce a fantastic game, you don't need PC for this genre"

If you don't think Half-Life was important for the FPS genre then you're either blind

valve and blizzard fanboys are the most unreasonable on this board lmao. I get on nintendo fanboys a lot for zealously supporting a company that isn't very good anymore but at least they tend to give reasoning for it(bad reasoning, but reasoning), the PC people just immediately jump to the tribal "us vs them" monkey mentality where anyone who disagrees with them is objectively wrong.

Halo and Call of Duty were big too, mind you, but Half-Life was years before them, and both of them owe a LOT of what made them good to things Half-Life made standard.

half of the things you claim half life made standard had been done before, I mean, wtf is this?

Rather than being "this enemy flys, this one is fast, this weapon is stronger, etc etc" Each enemy and weapon was vastly distinguishable

your argument is basically "in other games the enemies are different but in half life they're REALLY REAALY DIFFERENT". this just reeks of being suckered into mythology. and I actually agree with you to some extent but the way you choose to go about arguing it is so vague that I can only assume these thoughts only half belong to you

half of the things you claim half life made standard had been done before, I mean, wtf is this?

Most of them had not been done to the level Half-Life did them, and those that were were done rarely - Half-Life made them staples of the genre.

your argument is basically "in other games the enemies are different but in half life they're REALLY REAALY DIFFERENT". this just reeks of being suckered into mythology. and I actually agree with you to some extent but the way you choose to go about arguing it is so vague that I can only assume these thoughts only half belong to you

Or you could ask me to elaborate? Because it's a pretty well known bit about Half-Life; it was one of the most creative FPS games at the time as far as enemies went; each enemy was strikingly different, and who/what to focus and how to approach them boiled down to more than the genre standard "who does more damage and how do I need to dodge their attacks".

valve and blizzard fanboys are the most unreasonable on this board lmao. I get on nintendo fanboys a lot for zealously supporting a company that isn't very good anymore but at least they tend to give reasoning for it(bad reasoning, but reasoning), the PC people just immediately jump to the tribal "us vs them" monkey mentality where anyone who disagrees with them is objectively wrong.

You're stating a game that is WIDELY considered to be one of the if not the most revolutionary FPS games of all time to have been barely a blip on the radar, even with the reasons that have been given, and you think we're the ones that need to provide reasons?

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Ryo8889 posted...
I think I would still say Goldeneye 007 was more influential than Halo in that departement, because Halo "merely" popularized FPS on console to great heights, while Goldeneye 007 showed the world "FPS on console can produce a fantastic game, you don't need PC for this genre"

The thing, though, is that while Goldeneye was certainly popular, it wasn't really influential because it didn't change anything about it; the genre was still considered a PC genre until Halo came around.

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Liquid Wind posted...
If you don't think Half-Life was important for the FPS genre then you're either blind

valve and blizzard fanboys are the most unreasonable on this board lmao. I get on nintendo fanboys a lot for zealously supporting a company that isn't very good anymore but at least they tend to give reasoning for it(bad reasoning, but reasoning), the PC people just immediately jump to the tribal "us vs them" monkey mentality where anyone who disagrees with them is objectively wrong.

Halo and Call of Duty were big too, mind you, but Half-Life was years before them, and both of them owe a LOT of what made them good to things Half-Life made standard.

half of the things you claim half life made standard had been done before, I mean, wtf is this?

Rather than being "this enemy flys, this one is fast, this weapon is stronger, etc etc" Each enemy and weapon was vastly distinguishable

your argument is basically "in other games the enemies are different but in half life they're REALLY REAALY DIFFERENT". this just reeks of being suckered into mythology. and I actually agree with you to some extent but the way you choose to go about arguing it is so vague that I can only assume these thoughts only half belong to you

Nah, Rock's right. Half Life IS one of the biggest, most important games of the FPS genre. Ever. Halo made them workable in consoles, but from a design standpoint Half Life's impact was greater, regeneration or no regeneration. And no CoD game is influential enough from a mechanics standpoint to count. It was big and if you don't know why I recommend you take two seconds to google its innovations.

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You're stating a game that is WIDELY considered to be one of the if not the most revolutionary FPS games of all time to have been barely a blip on the radar, even with the reasons that have been given, and you think we're the ones that need to provide reasons?

considering that appeal to the masses is not a valid argument(and really the one that most of your post goes back to), yes.

And no CoD game is influential enough from a mechanics standpoint to count.

every other FPS that comes out is a CoD rip off, again, I would actually say that it and halo's influence is a BAD thing, much like how nintendo has ushered in gimmicky motion controls that don't work very well but every system has to have them to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but CoD is undeniably influential. I don't particularly like it, but it's probably the most emulated thing out there right now

Liquid Wind posted...
You're stating a game that is WIDELY considered to be one of the if not the most revolutionary FPS games of all time to have been barely a blip on the radar, even with the reasons that have been given, and you think we're the ones that need to provide reasons?

considering that appeal to the masses is not a valid argument(and really the one that most of your post goes back to), yes.

And no CoD game is influential enough from a mechanics standpoint to count.

every other FPS that comes out is a CoD rip off, again, I would actually say that it and halo's influence is a BAD thing, much like how nintendo has ushered in gimmicky motion controls that don't work very well but every system has to have them to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but CoD is undeniably influential. I don't particularly like it, but it's probably the most emulated thing out there right now

Do you even know what features most games are lifting from CoD? Because most of the features involved came from other series; they aren't CoD clones, they're just following the basic FPS formula as it is right now, with one or two minor things lifted from CoD.

You've still yet to give any argument as to why critics, designers, fans, and longtime gamers in general are wrong about Half-Life being revolutionary when I named several of the reasons it is.

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Bump because this is better than whining about Capcom.

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So Bio, since you're considering Half-Life part of "our time", what would you consider more revolutionary?

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I always saw the FPS volume of influence at 4 games

Doom, Goldeneye, Halo and CoD.

And Halo didn't really do anything special. It was just ridiculously popular and helped push FPS games even further. Then MW1 came out and now here we are. Even non-FPS games seem to be taking from the FPS genre at this point.

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Also, don't be too offended by that statement. I was never a huge FPS person. I've played games like Quake, Duke Nukem, Unreal, etc. I think had I been a PC gamer I'd have dove in.

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Goldeneye and CoD didn't really do much beyond be popular. They had a couple new features, but nothing major.

And though it was important, Doom was not as innovative as people make it out to be; it was pretty much the next obvious step and had few really significant changes. Still revolutionary just for the popularity it brought.

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lol

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Enemies in HL weren't that different. It was just "equip a gun and shoot it"

Doom was a *huge* step up from the games before it. First FPS with any variable height to the levels, first FPS where creatures existed beyond the room your character was in, first FPS with deathmatch, as I recall

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OctilIery posted...
Kotetsu534 posted...
If Activision (and Blizzard) didn't exist, FPSs and MMORPGs would be much less played than they are. That's quite a big consequence, on top of massive sales (only rivalled by Nintendo).

If Valve didn't exist FPS would very likely be dead as a genre right now.

These are both horribly wrong.

Halo would have happened with or without Valve (it was in development long before Valve released anything).

Call of Duty dethroned Halo. Without CoD, Halo would presumably still be on top of the casual space, or maybe Battlefield would have risen up (that series dates all the way back to 1999 with Codename Eagle).

For that matter, Counter-Strike probably would have still happened, it would have just been a Quake Mod (the Half-Life engine just being a modified version of the Quake engine. For that matter, the Call of Duty engine is also modified from the Quake engine...).

Now, if you said "Without Id, FPSs would have not been popular" then that I could get behind.

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DeathChicken posted...
Doom was a *huge* step up from the games before it. First FPS with any variable height to the levels, first FPS where creatures existed beyond the room your character was in, first FPS with deathmatch, as I recall

Nah. Discounting 70s experiments like...Maze War, I'm pretty sure Midi Maze/Faceball 2000 did deathmatch (predating wolfenstein).

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Halo was top of the FPS tree for over half a decade... and at no point did its playership rival CoD's today. Don't see why it would've randomly undergone a massive spike if MW1 had not been released.

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Kotetsu534 posted...
Halo was top of the FPS tree for over half a decade... and at no point did its playership rival CoD's today. Don't see why it would've randomly undergone a massive spike if MW1 had not been released.

Eh? Its sales numbers were increasing with every game, and it broke the day 1 launch records for videogames a couple of times (before CoD started to be the series to break the day 1 launch records).

I doubt it would have the same total sales numbers just because it's multiplat. But, I mean, Halo 3 was about 12 million on the 360, and Black Ops is like 12.5 on the 360. So...if you can imagine Halo continuing to grow, I doubt its sales numbers would be far off.

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Doom was a *huge* step up from the games before it. First FPS with any variable height to the levels, first FPS where creatures existed beyond the room your character was in, first FPS with deathmatch, as I recall

It wasn't the first for deathmatch, but it was also the first for dynamic lighting, and I believe the first to use non-hitscan weapons(although an enemy in Wolfenstein had used projectiles). However, all of these were MINOR technological leaps, and every game around Doom's era had such leaps because the genre was still young and being built from the ground up. Doom was not as innovative as people give it credit for.

Halo would have happened with or without Valve (it was in development long before Valve released anything).

First off, though it likely was, we have no proof it was in development before - The public didn't see or hear of the game until a year after Half-Life. Regardless, however, Halo was NOT the same game at the time, and took a lot of inspiration from Half-Life, as did every FPS at the time.

For that matter, Counter-Strike probably would have still happened, it would have just been a Quake Mod (the Half-Life engine just being a modified version of the Quake engine. For that matter, the Call of Duty engine is also modified from the Quake engine...).

Again, it might have happened, but not nearly the same. Without the massive amount of mod support Valve provided, CS would not have gained the popularity it did, and would not be a household name like it is today.

Now, if you said "Without Id, FPSs would have not been popular" then that I could get behind.

They would have been popular for awhile, but they would have continued to be generic, boring, and predictable. Without the new life Half-Life breathed in to them, they would not have lasted long.

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Worldwide sales:

Halo: Combat Evolved: Over 5M
Halo 2: Over 8M
Halo 3: Over 8.1M (as of Jan 2008, probably at least 1.5M more, VGC claims over 10M)
Halo: Reach: Over 8M

Modern Warfare: Over 13M
World at War: Over 11M (June '09)
Modern Warfare 2: Over 20M (as of June 2010)
Black Ops: no good figures, but broke many records, including all time sales record in US. Presumably continues to trend ahead of MW2

Modern Warfare 3: ???

Seems pretty clear Halo had more or less topped out with 3, while this generations CoDs have brought things into a whole new territory. To put things in perspective, it seems that sales of Black Ops on the PS3 alone (where it has sold less, of course) are about as big as Halo 3's total sales.

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Kotetsu534 posted...
Worldwide sales:

Halo: Combat Evolved: Over 5M
Halo 2: Over 8M
Halo 3: Over 8.1M (as of Jan 2008, probably at least 1.5M more, VGC claims over 10M)
Halo: Reach: Over 8M

Modern Warfare: Over 13M
World at War: Over 11M (June '09)
Modern Warfare 2: Over 20M (as of June 2010)
Black Ops: no good figures, but broke many records, including all time sales record in US. Presumably continues to trend ahead of MW2

Modern Warfare 3: ???

Seems pretty clear Halo had more or less topped out with 3, while this generations CoDs have brought things into a whole new territory. To put things in perspective, it seems that sales of Black Ops on the PS3 alone (where it has sold less, of course) are about as big as Halo 3's total sales.
Source?

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Without the new life Half-Life breathed in to them, they would not have lasted long.

hahahah wow.

Liquid Wind posted...
Without the new life Half-Life breathed in to them, they would not have lasted long.

hahahah wow.

You laugh and yet you can't argue against it.

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you're saying that FPS would literally not exist if not for half life.

I don't feel the need to argue with someone as far gone as you.

Liquid Wind posted...
you're saying that FPS would literally not exist if not for half life.

I don't feel the need to argue with someone as far gone as you.

I arguably know more about the genre and its history than anyone on the board, so it's a bit of a stretch to call me "far gone" in this discussion.

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even presuming that's true, being knowledgeable doesn't make you not insane.

Liquid Wind posted...
even presuming that's true, being knowledgeable doesn't make you not insane.

It means I know what I'm talking about here, unless you want to provide evidence otherwise.

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If it weren't for a game I like, games released afterward in the same genre would totally have not existed based on my factual foreknowledge of a hypothetical situation that never happened.

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Liquid Wind, you need to stop trolling.

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KJH posted...
If it weren't for a game I like, games released afterward in the same genre would totally have not existed based on my factual foreknowledge of a hypothetical situation that never happened.

Based on knowledge of the genre before and surrounding the game's release, and factual knowledge of the influence and impact the game had on the genre. My comments have nothing to do with me liking the game, but with the FACTS regarding the game.

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Liquid Wind, you need to stop trolling.

I'm not the crazy claiming that FPS would literally not exist as a genre if not for valve!

valve fanboys troll themselves, I don't really need to say anything -_-

Liquid Wind posted...
Liquid Wind, you need to stop trolling.

I'm not the crazy claiming that FPS would literally not exist as a genre if not for valve!

valve fanboys troll themselves, I don't really need to say anything -_-

No, you're the one misunderstanding the statement.

Dead genre=/=nonexistant genre.

A dead genre is basically a stagnant genre with nothing significant or memorable coming out. Adventure games were that way for awhile, and arguably RTS games, and FPS games were heading that way.

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