No, this is not a column about my own 10 New Year resolutions, I rather wish this would be FPS designers and editors New Year resolutions. :)

This idea popped up after making my own resolutions and moaning about Dark Messiah's single player with catacombs and undeads yesterday. It suddenly occurred to me that I had uninstalled Quake 4 last summer without finding a game to really replace it online since then. Thereafter, it reminded myself of PK and my beloved Doom3's premonitory disasters.

These suggestions could be seen as the Ten Commandments for next fast paced First Person Shooters, kind of the 10 wishes of a customer and a casual gamer, hoping for better days and a renewed success for that kind of games.


10 New Year resolutions suggestion for designers and editors :


1.I will not fill all of my game's maps with boxes.

I don't know if that kind of easy ways are regarded as an unchanging FPS tradition, but I am sure that by now it became a wearying and overexploited seam. Boxes are easily replaceable by any pipe, computer or rock, or whatever else for that matters, for tricking purposes.
(And please, catacombs with undeads need to be replaced)


2.I will provide a fun and pleasant game.

I remember the disappointment of some peeps when they discovered Quake 4's or Doom3's models. They expected varied, funny, female and alien characters, etc.
I remember the funny faces of Tank Junior and Orbb coming at me with their funny sounds in Q3. I remember the pleasure to see bodies blow in gibs after an air rocket, to punch a face or steal a gun, to make a barrel explode in D3, the PK stake gun, I remember people talking about the fun of using Q2 grenades, I remember Half Life laser mines waiting for you behind a corner and so on.
A game needs that kind of things, its own particular touch. Not too much is needed, it mustn't hurt the gameplay by being ludicrous or injurious to it, and it mustn't be inappropriate like a Q4 model taunting by silently holding its testicles.
It just needs these little things adding fun, providing a particular touch, taste, and fond memories of the game.


3.I will provide official servers around the world

Official servers are really important to inspire confidence to beginners and gather them. This is a normal support to the game and the community. This would help them staying up to date, too.
I'm pretty sure that something in the likes of 20 servers distributed around the world (Asia, Europe, North and South America ?), and supported for about 1 year would be enough, because the simple awareness of their existence would be enough.


4.I will design a real ingame tutorial for beginners.

An amazing thought : how is it possible that the untouchable basis of the Quake series, the strafe jump, isn't yet documented in the booklet of its 4th opus ? Same goes for its specific slide. Although, most people certainly don't read it.
Thus, as FPS have their own tricks, gameplay and weapons, the best introduction for a player certainly is to put the beginner in a step by step ingame tutorial.
There comes to mind the Half Life tutorial, the best one I ever encountered. I played it again and again and it was an entire part of the game. I can think of the training island of Guild Wars putting in scene the various effects of each skill. I remember the best way to mess around with your cfg or to discover a map : bots.
Mixing these 3 ideas you can have a perfect tutorial, a tutorial that would let a beginner learn about the concept of the game, its special movements, how weapons and armour interact on an inoffensive target, and what the different game types are about.
In the end our John "k1ll3r666" Doe would not be limited to serve as clueless fresh meat, whose first reaction will often be to type /quit and forget about multiplayer, when he does not simply uninstall the game.


5.I will not release a game which is not well-finished.

The reasoning behind this is simple : a game which is not finalized is a game which was not (correctly) beta tested. A game correctly beta tested is a game which was usefully beta tested by experienced players at an appropriate scale. Thus a successful public beta-test is the key to know if your game is finalized (or at least a private leet test if the marketing department thinks a public beta spoils the game or something).
Customers who buy a product should not have the feeling that they are those beta testers and that the game will only reach an acceptable level of finishing after months of endless patching, in any case, ipso facto, too late.
But a well-finished game isn't just a bug-free one, especially referring to point 8.


6.I will not market an add-on less than one year after the release nor a sequel or beta-test more than 3 years after it.

Sequels : I'm deeply convinced that one of the numerous reasons of the Quake 4 multiplayer's flop was the terrible duration between its release and that of Q3. 6 years ! How many for Doom ? It is quite absurd to have such a series slowly but surely forsaken, outdated, and regarding Quakers who end up being mostly unable to adapt to the slightest change.
Addons : they should come up as a means to wait for the sequel, or if the game activity is slowing down, not to split communities or as a way of milking cash from customers, like the Battlefield series.
In any case, multiplayer doesn't need addons, except for the buzz and the occasional comebacks.
Rising to that challenge of minimizing years of development to a decent period of time then becomes a quality pledge, the proof the series or the game isn't forsaken or Duke Nuked.


7.I will not release a game which requires a too recent and powerful computer.

I have the feeling that editors and engine designers forgot this both essential and simple point : a game must be playable to actually be played.
Of course sales from the buzz about the graphical engine should be an objective all in all long-term wise, but it shouldn't be the main objective, especially when it comes to series. The typical example could be Doom3 which was plain unplayable online for people that hadn't upgraded at its release. A playable game, in my opinion, would be a game in which you can get approximately 100 stable fps on a computer which has, at least, one generation delay for CPU and Graphics board, and those in an average range product. All in all today a new game with a 3ghz CPU or less and a standard GeForce 6xxx, or similar, computer should have 100 FPS, ingame, online and infight, with medium adjustments. This is what I call a playable game. A creative design is always better than a much too heavy engine.


8.I will design basic game features management.

To sum it up : competition mods like UTcomp, osp, q4max and so on just shouldn't exist, because they shouldn't be necessary.
I can't believe that Q4 and especially D3 for example came with such a lack of features after years of FPS mod development ; without *TVs, without decent ingame admin management and decent .cfg interfaces, without even brightskins ! Not even a decent demo recording for Doom3 ! An amazing reality.
I like what they did in Guild Wars : you can choose to watch last and best world class games with a little delay by pressing simple binds. Some kind of gtv/demo mix. I would like a similar system for FPS's : integrated gamers TV + a choice of the best available demos in the menu.
I would like something else too... : possible auto updates.


9.I will not tend to levelling down to close the gap between skilled players and newbies.

This politic is simply incompatible with the skill-based fast-paced FPS spirit. This is not really an issue right now, but I felt the need to write it down. Better safe than sorry.
The usual and sad way to close the gap between beginners and skilled players is to castrate every skill-based aspect of the game, be it movement, weapon design, and so on.
There are 2 classical ways :
-random shots : with strong hitscan weapons, random spread, and instakills.
-limited movements : when moving and jumping makes you unable to shoot accurately, when there is no special move like dodge keys, strafe jumping ability, and so on... And sprint binds which are most of the time an excuse to slow even more the base speed.
IMHO the point, behind the realistic leitmotiv, is to minimize ownages and suxages. Now that's a fantastic 2in1 system to protect casual players egos, as unacceptable as it is sportingly speaking. Randomness + small skill gaps = evil. Don't be tempted.
There is another possible way : the time-based levelling down, just like in MMOG's. It is not really an issue in FPS's yet, but it could become a reality. Check for example BF2 which has a system where better weapons are unlocked thanks to a points system. The more you play, the more you'll be stuffed. Let's just write it off for now, but we can imagine it could be a future temptation.


10.I will create a game which provides a viable antechamber to multiplayer (tourney modes).

Bots and a singleplayer mod are the easiest solutions to think of, perhaps not the best ones any more though.
There might be something a little bit more interesting in the likes of vehicle-based modes, onslaught or any kind of 32v32 flag or objective gametypes like BF, and so on.
Perhaps a little more adaptation and creativity could be thought of too, like a big cooperative or/and level-up based gametype, a kind of MMOFPS with its persistent world ?
I think it is still possible to stand for the original spirit of multiplayer fast paced games if they can at last be in phase with the times.


P.S. : sorry, my english sux (but sansai rox).
P.S. 2 : one quote as an international competition admins New Year resolution : 'I see myself more as a tdm’er (That's where the cojones are ;)' (c)prozac
P.S. 3 : This can be a set of New Year resolutions for next years too.