Tracing Trends: Multiplayer FPS

I remember hl dm it was so damn funny :) just used to trip mine rooms up and wait but sometimes I forgot about them myself :o

I knew this would get you guys going :D Unfortunately, I couldn't include everything - deadlines you know!

I loved MOH:AA multiplayer. Decent objective gameplay, a nice mix of semi-realism and arcade gameplay and some of the best designed and beautifull maps ever made. Shame they never made a decent anti cheat or new maps. Still a popular online game though.

RTT, at one point, I saw you link to a linux, free MFPS. What was it? It looked pretty darn good, at the time.

Hexen and Heretic. And Blood. And Wolf3D.

Originally Posted by Da Dego
RTT, at one point, I saw you link to a linux, free MFPS. What was it? It looked pretty darn good, at the time.

http://www.nexuiz.com/

it's quite good (especially considering its FOSS!), very q3-esque.

RTCW is possibly the best objective based fps mp game ever
ET is really good, but because its free you get a lot of idiots playing, i stopped playing after a month or 2 whereas i played rtcw for over a year

no one mentioned Renegade...

Renegade was the first game in 3D from westwood... it was an fps where u could play as a NOD or a GDI and try to destroy the enemy base , like playng in a big RTS with different classes of soldiers such as ET , veicles ( i think it was one of the first game with veicles like tribes ) and map were for each side u could try tattics...
well the game wasn't so good from a technical point of view becouse of its bugs and some problem with the 3d engine...
but it was one of the funniest game i have ever play and 2 years ago renegade's server were running with 60 80 110 ppl something that actual game can't do. And with a normal pc you can play it with no problems.

what else ? IN THE NAME OF KANE !!! :D

Enemy Territory MAn myself :)

Alos what was the one with the ex SAS guy Project IGN or something?

Originally Posted by kiljoi
Hexen and Heretic. And Blood. And Wolf3D.

That's what I'm talkin' about. Right arm pope...

IIRC ET was ranked 4th as most played games, and its name doesn't appear in this article?
I love ET since it isn't a frag based FPS.

Heretic, best FPS in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Nature
Wait a friggin sec... No Tribes!!!?????

Anyone?

I'm disappointed that Tribes was omitted as well. Most all of the description for Q3 *AND* UT could apply to Tribes... Multiplayer only (except for short tutorial), innovative maps creating seamless indoor AND outdoor play with no FPS drop, true 3D battles thanks to the jetpack (mid-air discing anyone?) Vehicles (both single and multi-player variety), multiple mission types (CTF, C&H, D&D, F&R, not to mention the user-created types.... Team Rabbit anyone??) .. 3 armors... over a dozen weapons (some armor specific)... skiing.. discjumping.. minejumping.. Heavy O.. Turtling.. Defensible assets... "Repair our generator!"... customizable team messaging/voice shortcuts... 32 player slugfests... The first time you learned how to take out the main enemy turret in Riverdance with a plasma rifle and grenades... Targeting laser light shows... dropping a mortar on someone's head from 350m away... Rain On My Grenade... Ski routes... Mods galore (Classic Renegades or Shifter anyone?!)

Oh yeah... Tribes also came out a year before Q3 and UT..
Ok, where'd I put my Thorazine.........

If UT07 brings back the sniper rifle, I could possibly be convinced.

The sniper rifle was replaced with the lightning gun in UT2003, but both weapons exist in UT2004. How often the sniper rifle appears depends on what maps you play. And there are so many maps in UT2004 (one of the game's strengths), that I'm sure you can find sniper rifle ecstasy again.

Great article. I came to it via http://www.joystiq.com/entry/1234000493071935/

I would have liked to hear your opinion about the upcoming Metroid Prime games in the Upcoming Titles section... It will be very interesting to play with touchscreen and that new Nintendo controller...

i like the other here was sad to see ET and RTCW left out of the list. I for one am looking forward to the ET: quake wars game, but probably more so for RTCW2 whenever thats coming out.

Well, I hate to sound like I'm dissing the article, but it seems to me that too many major milestones in the history of FPS titles were left out, a too many errors were made. For instance, Unreal Tournament actually DID beat Quake III Arena to the market; respectively, they came out in November and December of 1999, though admitedly, about a week apart. Also, UT undeniably had a better response; it won the majority of the "Game of the Year" titles, and it's still played much today.

As for forgetting games, I could perhaps understand leaving out some of the more obscure titles, but what about Perfect Dark? (Nintendo64 2000) Although its success was far more modest than that of many other titles, selling "only" some 2.5 million copies, it did a lot to evolve FPS gaming, particularly on the console, further.

Another question is, what is meant by "most acomplished FPS ever?" for Halo 2? It did not make the most sales of any FPS title; it actually appears to be third place, to Half-Life, and in first is GoldenEye 007. Respetively, they're at roughly 7.5, 8, and 8.1 million copies apiece. (Halo: Combat Evolved takes fourth)

However, it was still an interesting article to read as a glance at the direction FPS titles have been taking, and perhaps a shot at where they'll go; it has actually been an interesting path all along.

Oh, and Descent is most definitely a true 3D game, just as much as Quake. Both used full 3D for the arcitecture and player models/enemies, and both used sprites for some things, parimarily explosions. (sprites are used to this day for said purpose) The only way to argue that it wasn't the "first" would be to argue that it wasn't an FPS title, which would be a particularly hard sell. This is the reason why Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC 1992) was also overlooked; it was its use of full 3D that inspired the FPS revolution; John Carmack noted that the game was limited to a less-than-fullscreen resolution, (the rest of the screen held inventory and statistics) as well as the low framerate and high processor requirements, and proclaimed that he could make a more efficient game engine that could be done fullscreen, at 30+ fps. That game came to be Wolfenstein 3D, after numberous earlier EGA-based experiements.

Originally Posted by Da Dego
Wil, wil, wil. Where is Rise of the Triad?! Let's not forget the ORIGINATOR of the rocket jump, the gib, and the first game to actually allow you to leave the ground in more than a fall to your death. :)

Well, technically, Doom did actually have a rocket-jump, though it was a long-jump rather than a high-jump; it was necessary to get into the secret level of episode 3. However, ROTT did really do much more than that.

Originally Posted by Da Dego
By the way, Descent kicked ass. Still the most awe-inspiring, dizzying game I ever played. I REALLY WISH some game developers would decide to update it a bit graphically and re-release...drool...

Well, it would've helped if Interplay hadn't croaked so many years ago. Hence why there's no Descent IV or Freespace III, in spite of those being vastly powerful.

[edit: WHY did that part of my reply get mis-placed below a quote?]

Originally Posted by Da Dego
By the way, Descent kicked ass. Still the most awe-inspiring, dizzying game I ever played. I REALLY WISH some game developers would decide to update it a bit graphically and re-release...drool...

Core Decision: stand-alone multi-platform Descent 2-like 6dof game (ETA: 2007)
Into Cerberon: Descent 2-like multi-platform Doom 3 mod (alpha v0.02 available)
Orion Wing: Descent-like HL2 mod
Deep World: Descent 2 like stand-alone Windoze application (ETA: who knows)
D2X-XL: OpenGL port of the original Descent 2 with a lot of enhancements (available; supports Win2K/XP, Linux, OS X 10.4+; requires original Descent 2 game data)

;)

Wolfenstein 3D was as little true 3D as were Doom 1 and 2. Afaik Descent 1 was the first full 3D shooter game for the PC.

UT CTF was where it was at in 99 !

(real happening :P)
[Game over!]
[{Angel}Bladestorm captures the flag!]
[Blue Team win 3-2!]

Man that was an amazing 60 seconds so much so it still sticks with me, assaulting the enemy base on my own in november? december? (the sub level they slaughtered in the later versions), cutting every corner, jumping from fire, getting the flag, tele-dropping with it down to the lower level and managing every jump to save time on the way home, under fire the entire time, and being in mid-air to our flag as the Game Over! came up, only to have the flag capture and our win from a draw a few seconds earlier anounced after it :D

Enemy territory is awesome ...

Planetside is the only MMOFPS to date to me, unless you have 300+ players fighting over multiple battlefields at the same time and said battles running into each other, I can't really count it ;) I miss my Pulsar, but the game's gone down hill, gone stale (and SOE convinced me never to give them money again with what they did to SWG the month after I picked it up last year :( )