Forum replies – Page 2

April 28, 2012November 12, 2012

Friends lists are a bad benchmark of game popularity

VoodooMeatBucket writes… Somewhere in an old Whirlpool BF3 thread.

There was maybe 150 – 200 (130+ alone joined the WPP platoon) and now I would say there would be less than 50 and thats being VERY generous.

I don’t really feel this is a valid benchmark.

In my experience – sorry these titles are quite old.

q2-q3 reduced my friends list

ut-2k3-2k4 reduced my friends list each time

rtcw-et reduced my clanmates friends lists from the previous title

Vanilla World of Warfraft – Burning Crusade reduced my friends list

To be honest BF2-BF3 reduced my friends list the least because I played BF2 with casuals. They all play BF3. This is not to say that BF3 is “good” because of this, it is simply highlighting that friends lists are not a very good benchmark for player retention.

In all circumstances my friends list grew because of new players, with the exception of BF3 because I am not down with the hardcores.

April 28, 2012November 12, 2012

Sounds in FPS are not just for positioning

Parranoid writes… somewhere in an old Battlefield 3 thread on Whirlpool.

Quake and UT for armour/health/ammo pickups and CS for footsteps.

Some insight that newer FPS players might appreciate.

Sound for pickups were not just for positioning. Hearing a player pickup mega or an armour would then make you take note of the time on the game clock so you could come back later to contest the respawn.

On the flip side if you were getting the item and just drove off your opponent but did not kill them you could possibly delay till they are far enough away to not hear it. This would put their timing of the item off – based on the assumption that you picked it up as soon as possible after they ran away.

The obvious benefit from that is they will be hanging around waiting for it, but you could use it to offset multiple items so you have access to two pickups. Quite often the gap being too short and the other player getting one by default.

So not just for the here and now, but also predicting player movement with pickups in the future!

April 24, 2012November 12, 2012

I would say quake is not a fast paced FPS

Mav_au said..

Too old for fast paced 😛

.. somewhere in this thread.

The comment was made in relation to the new Tribes beta. I would say quake is fast paced.

Battlefield 3 is also fast paced, but in a different way. A more, twitchy way, which is funny because the Battlefield crowd on Whirlpool seem to think that “twitch” games are things like quake, COD (roll them together 🙁 ) and counter strike.

Checkout this random duel on my all time favorite map. Two of the best US players. Checkout 1:25ish. You don’t get quality like that in battlefield, or any current FPS for that matter! 😛

Is it fast paced? Sort of. Each encounter is significantly longer than a general encounter in Battlefield 3.

Here is an example of good Battlefield 3 infantry. Courtesy of the clanbase comp the Australian team won. I guess the closest you can get to the top quake players in the previous video.

Notice how all the encounters are very short. Short to the point that it is a “player who reacts first, wins” type deal. Compare that to the previous quake video. A few spawn kills may go that way, but generally there is a lot of tactics and drawn out encounters involved in converting each point. Primarily note the time of the first death, quite a while after the players have seen each other.

The tactics involved in the ongoing game for quake are extremely apparent. Back and forth, cutting the other player off, predicting movement and so on. This is not apparent at all in the Battlefield 3 video. In the Battlefield 3 videos defense it is a kill compilation so somewhat hard to comment on in that regard, but in my experience simply reacting first and putting fire on the target will win more often than not.

Being old and your reflexes getting slower is ok. Picking a game like Battlefield 3 over something like quake is a mistake because of age. If anything you would stand a better chance of playing an even game in quake. You will lack reflex time but can make up for it in other ways. In battlefield, and most of the current crop of FPS this is not the case. Reflex is all.

I might expand on this later, but for now this is it.