PC Gaming To The Next Level
Xander2KX April 3 2009
You probably think like me, computer multiplayer gaming is falling apart from its once huge popularity. The generation of people that lived this for around 5 year when it was at its best are getting older and times lack, but on the counter-part, games in the way they are released aren't attractive to the average player anymore. Accessibility and community tools, expensive hardware and games durability are 3 major problems that needs to be solved. Unfortunatly, it's only a gaming fan that will write his solutions and not a game maker because we all know game makers or producers definitly lacks brilliant ideas and don't have that finishing touch we always hope to get. Like always I start with 3 ideas and will end up with a hundred so try to follow! I'll be concentrating the situation a lot around the Call of Duty series, sorry if you are not part of this.
Remember the old MSN Gaming Zone? Or even which might still be working; the gamespy game lobbies? Those gaming lobbies were excellent back 10 years ago to get in touch with the community of a particular game and get into a game really easily. Now that has become what is known as Xbox Live or the Playstation Network. Thoses kind of utilities includes everything or near what we need to get the best out our multiplayer experience. A personnal identity; A gaming card showing our skills, statistics, trophies; Friends list; Chat room; Downloadable content. To this I would has a chat lobby to all games and an integrated league and ladder with professionnal rules. Now, what do we have for PC? Xfire for the friend list and easy 1 click to join your friend's server, and eh... internet itself to got in so many different gaming website or all kind, it's hard to find something or someone. How Xbox Live and PSN work is what we need plus what I said, but will we ever get this? Probably not. You might have heard of «Live for Windows» but hell, there's still like only 3 games made for that since 2 years. It doesn't work and I didn't like how it was done anyway. We shouldn't have to pay on computer also since we already pay for servers to play on. Needless to say the advantage of having such utility for computer gaming. It would make this whole cyber-gaming much easier by having everybody at the same place only to be divided by languages or part of the world. I guess it could be something great also if we had to have a single identity for cheating. Anyone caught would be tracked with his IP and couldn't get the chance to make another profile. I'm not saying we can't change our display name, this is something that must not be mixed like gamespy or ubi.com did. It has to work like xfire for example.
Another big issue is the computer hardware. It's expensive, but less expensive than 3 years ago at least, but it's not even strong enough. People can't afford to buy a new 2500$ computer every 2, 3 years and even less something as expensive as 6 to 7000$ only to last maybe 5 years to the max before a new technology comes out and keep you from playing the newest game at the maximum quality. Now it's pretty simple, we all know the technicians have the possibility to make ultra performant processors or graphic cards and they just don't do it. Why? To make money. Ok we all know that, but it's getting really annoying. The game Crysis has been made 1 year and half ago and to this day, only 3 to 4 cards can handle this game at 30 FPS in High Definition 1080p which is unacceptable since video games for computer are more common to not feel smooth if they are not around 91 FPS, at least for those who have experience with high frame rates. They make 120mhz monitors and Tvs now. It works together, we need to have around 120 FPS to get a great experience. We aren't even close to this even with the best cpu and 2, 3 graphic cards in Sli or CrossFire. So, either we make a high quality standard right now not to be modified for the next 5 years or more and produce the graphic cards capable of giving such quality or we stop making games that can't be played. It's very frustrating when you can't play the newest game and even more when you can because you upgraded your parts a year ago, but yet... you can't get more than half the quality. If only we could pay like 5000$ and be sure it will still be good in 10 years, but hell no. This is a solution here, but that will never be heard of course so we have to think of something else.
I remember playing Monster Truck Madness 2 for 5 years because it was a unique game, lots of fun, but also because standards weren't very high. I remember playing Call of Duty 2 and enjoy it for a year and half. But then I remember even more clearly playing Call of Duty 4 and being sick of it after 4 months. Sometimes, a good formula can't be duplicated and should simply be reintegrated in the newest game. Let's take for example the maps. COD2's maps were great, but it's completly the opposite with COD4. If by some mean COD4 has COD2 maps in it, meh I'm sure it would have been more popular and much more enjoyable. Then, the gameplay of cod2 did lack of a few things such as running and it was a game full of bugs, but firing and walking around was that much better compare to cod4 that just ruined it all. So how do you get the best of both games or multiple games and make it last a lot longer? Well hear me out with a lot of attention. This is very particular. I don't remember seing this anywhere, but my idea is the following. We need to have game publisher such as Infinity Ward that plans on producing a long series of multiplayer game such as Call of Duty to make some kind of Main game or lobby that gives you access to the game. I'll explain. Let's say you got Call of Duty 1 and you paid 60$ for it. The following year, Call of Duty 2 comes out. Now, maybe you don't have the money to pay 60$ for improved graphics, maybe you don't have the computer to run this game. What's the solution? It's simple. The newest game should be sold in different package. The first one would be the complete game including past and custom maps for 60$. Then you would have the chance to buy a map package for COD1 for like.. 20~25$. Maybe new weapons too or gameplay/gametype which could be a third package for 40$ So that way, you can still be playing COD1 but with the new stuff and it wouldn't interfere between version. There would be lobbies for COD1 v.1, v.2, v.3 etc. This must not be mistaken with new version with fixes. In the sametime, you could have leagues and ladder for each specifics version. I hope you understand my idea here. It's not a secret, what makes a game last longer is custom maps, custom mods and gameplay. What would make the game really last longer is if it had the producer to make it official.
Mixing my thoughts of the 2nd and 4th paragraph about the leagues and ladder, we need to have the producers and leagues official to work together. In general, all leagues are a joke, especialy CAL. You got this bunch of guys who decide what mod, maps and rules they want to there you got, you got the league. The sad thing is, we got pretty much nowhere else to go, so we do as they say and it angers me. The first change that has to be made is to no longer make game open source. Mod maker or even pro gamer change the configuration of the game so much it's nowhere close to what it is at the beginning. COD2/4 producer for example need to make their own in-game Match mode with simple rules changable such as time limit or maximum score. That way we wouldn't have to suffer the idealist rules of a bunch of little Counter-Strike Fan boys. It's not all thought. Game developpers need to put more time on making the gameplay perfect to their style, but yet.. not laggy, not random and even if it's an arcade game like Call of Duty.. you need to put more realism into it, because.. quite honestly, COD4 was such a failure.
