Innovative Game Features

Pretend the developers of your favourite games are reading this thread, and tell them what game features ( not graphical features, actual game features ) you would like to see them add. Try to be creative and different ( feel free to be weird ) and not just "better AI" and "pathfinding that doesn't suck."

What could they do which would be different and would impress you?

I'm going to make my pitch for online savegame backup. You have sites giving you free storage for source code repositories, huge email storage, all kinds of stuff, but automatic online back up of savegames would be brilliant. No more losing all your save games when your hard drive crashes, no more farting about in 10 level paths trying to find out where the *$(%* hell <insert game here> has hidden your save games and whether you need to backup anything other than the game files in order to make them work again.

Course I'll probably end up looking like a bit of a Richard Head when someone points out that X, Y and Z games already do this, but none of the games I like do it, dammit :P

Ok, pitch over. Pitch yours. ( Or pee on mine, as you prefer. )

Great idea, and it also gives you free copy control if you'd implement some secure login functionality...

Hmm savegames are not this important to me that i would be interested in storing them online and if i would be interested in them, i would prefer having them on my own drive somehow.

Would like that as well but would mean that savegames get down to reasonalbe sizes. SupremeCommander saves are 50mb, Sims2 has hundreds of megs for a full zone.
On my 30kb/s upstream connection it would takes hours to upload it, no chance.


My actually highest desired game feature would be a believable world with autonom agents, not this scripted and rule based only dumbheads that flood the games.
Something I can dive into and have a real influence.

I just want AI to catch up with graphics and physics. All the fancy graphics and physics doesn't hide the fact that games are little more than basic triggers and nothing interesting really happens. Often the only thing used cover the monotony of 98% of games is an interesting story. Otherwise you will normaly have experienced most of it in your first session.

AI on facials.

Playing Team Fortress2 made me realize how much more alive character models can feel when they're more than just being a static animated mesh.

I'd be happy to see developers put more weight on the character animations..

I've seen studios put alot of money in motion-capture /anim equipment with real people etc., but when you get to see the anim on the screen, it still sucks.
It's like somewhere along the line, someone says "ah, what the hell, let's cut the animframes in half", and you end up with something looking very "computerized" (lots of frame-tweening). Heck, I'd even wager it would be a lot more economic just having some of the artists model the movements on the computer.

oh, and facial animation is nice too.. :)

Monsters in games that have different "genetics" so they use the same basic structure but some are larger, some are thinner, some are smaller, some run away more, some are stronger or quicker etc. This would avoid having the enemies all look the same size and shape and being dealt with in the same manner. Would work great for goblins for example on a 3D RPG.

I don't care about fancy features or innovation. I just want to play games that are fun and look pretty.

AI already can surpass the graphical state of a game engine but sadly they normally stray towards wow factor. Most Rts Games Use time triggers to let it know your position,Unit types ect (sucks).And In Fps Shooters they already know how to get somewhere and where the weapons are

So Yeah a nice Emotion Engine Would be a well recieved addition to Game Content.

Currently Only The Basics are covered a to b use c on d if e=f the use big bazooka

I call for Live Progressive Emotion Ai
A system Which allow the Ai to Continue building on its own experience storing the infomation ready for next game Which Will allow for more dynamic Gameplay.

Just Think Mr X plays the Game and Totaly Canes the Ai Which Stores the Results OnLine.

Mr Y plays and takes similar actions as Mr X the Ai Alters its aproach and Stores results

Building a database of Solutions to different Scenes and compares it own happiness factors to take the most productive actions

This Kind of Method Could Add Normal Medium and Live Modes to games .Normal and Medium Working from predifined actions and Live Being a Global Difficulty Which increases with every players go.

Even Character studio has better realtime behavioural AI than most games. You can set up pretty interesting behaviours and watch characters interact in many different ways with one another.

Haven't played much F.E.A.R, have you?

Unfortunately neither processing power, or storage technology is up to that task for any games more complex than that which a simple expert system is sufficient to provide an unbeatable computer opponent (Tic-Tac-Toe, Connect 4 and such).

While not really innovative, if I could speak directly to developers (or rather publishers), I'd ask them to finish the game before pushing it to shelves. The classic example of course being KOTOR2, where the machete of story mangling was brought down on the entire last half of the game, the last patch officially released perpetually and irreversibly breaking the game, and rely on the community to fix it.

Better Quality Assurance would be my number one request of publishers / developers.

Also I'd like to see storytelling and puzzle solving (providing there are more than one way to solve any given puzzle) make a return. I mean it took nearly 10 years for a game (Bioshock) to reach the same potential of Zelda64.

So I should avoid KOTOR2 then? I enjoyed the first one but heard the second one was dubious.

Well playing KOTOR2 is like playing a Salvador Dali painting. Logic just completely breaks down near the end, and you're left with a big feeling of WTF? Obsidian acknowledged this, and even offered to finish the game post release, but Lucas Arts said no.

Basically the latest patch outright breaks the game for Jedis when arriving on the Telos polar regions (rather early in the game) leaving you perpetually stuck in some kind of debug mode, if you chose not to fight Atris' handmaidens (light side choice).

Thankfully a group of die-hard fans (known collectively as the "Sith Lords Restoration Project" - you can Google for it) have taken it upon themselves, to fix the game, and put as much of the cut content (which is actually on the game CDs) back in, and judging by their website a release should be out soonish.

Personally, I certainly wouldn't buy it, thus generating Lucas Arts any further income, considering how they treat their customers (not because it isn't a good game, because it is despite the many, many bugs and plot holes you could fly a Star Destroyer through). If you're not comfortable with flat out theft (which I feel is totally justifiable in this case), I'd try and see if I couldn't get a second hand copy.

Actually FEAR was one of the few FPS that had anything approaching AI in it. I finished that and liked it a lot.

Is the Extraction Point expansion any good?

I'd like to know about FEAR's expansion also, been planning to pick-up the gold edition sometime that included FEAR and it.

Anyways, got another 'feature' to add to the list, something that should have been in every online game......normalized voice-chat.

The amount of times I've played an online game where my recipients are either too damn quiet (requiring me to lower the games master volume so my already-max'd-out voice-chat volume slider is more prominent after I cranked my speakers up more), or are overloading their own mics, making it a static-fest for us with ears...

Whatever happened to implementing a function which forced you to configure your mic up so it hit the "sweet-spot" with regards to casual chat before you could actually use it in the game?
(cause I can accept some yelling if something urgent is occuring)

I'd like to see a game that doesn't pretend not to be a game. one that breaks the fourth wall. about two years ago i wrote a script for such a game, and it was great(Of course i did. Even my dung is great and smells like roses)

the main character, a woman(of course), spoke to you like a player, and it involved you in the story. you were a computer user who has control of time agents who have become lost through time.

it also featured revolutionary ai ideas, like a true friend/foe system where any npc could become your friend or your enemy depending on your actions.

Games just don't try anymore. And i blame consoles. Once upon a time pc developers made games for pc gamers. nowadays 99% of them make console games for console players and just shove out a badly coded pc port to make a few extra bucks.

It's tragic...


DEUS EX FOREVER!!!

I agree with erno to some extent. I remember when working on console titles the Publisher would want everything dumbed down so a novice gamer could get upto speed as quickly as possible. Out went all the cool little nuances in the controls that made games fun for the more hardcore gamer. Raplaced with very basic arcade controls.

Of course its all about money, so everyone from 7 years and up has to be able to play, give the title better chance of selling.

It's a shame though. I remember the original wipeout and wipeout 2. When you got the whole nose pitching right it was like surfing. Any you could get a thrill out of a good run that in later games was so dumbed down you didn't even have to look to complete it with a reasonably good time. (Good enough to see a large chunk of the game without trying).

I can count the number of games with that setup with one hand.....and that's excluding titles that do it once or twice for comedic purposes.
(actually, wouldn't even need a hand, only game I could recall was Omikron, albeit that game was riddled with gameplay and AI issues to have really stood out, even a cult hit)

@ Squareenix for Kh2
MAKE A GOOD MP SYSTEM!


..lol... that was fun....

Adds some new weapons and turrets you can stick to flat surfaces. The story becomes more confusing and nearly nothing gets explained.

Realistic dialog / conversations in rpgs, not using dialog trees but textual input with decent ai to converse with.

More turn based tactical games - like Combat Mission - WEGO not IGOUGO turn based gameplay is a lot of fun. - A game that has the looks of 'World in Conflict' could probably be also done as a turn based game, play by email.

FlameDuck: Thanks very much for the low down. Yeah if I was to get it, I'd get a used copy from ebay. However, it may be worth waiting for the patch of course :-)

Every character being unique. I'm loving Bioshock but the one thing that lets it down is that all the characters look the same, move the same, sound the same and say the same things. I would have empathised much more with the little sisters if they were all unique characters with their own look, accent, script etc. Oblivion the same.

AI & Realistic Dialog would be great innovations, however, IMHO, Multiplayer functionality can easily fill in their absence. Such Multiplayer functionality could be applied to a single-player game as well. A feature where real-world humans take control of NPCs and Enemies. Motivating players to play in the roles of NPCs and Enemies is where I think the innovation will occur.

Simon the Sorcerer did this! At some point you needed to talk to a bunch of Wizards. One of their first questions would be "So how did you know we were Wizards?", and one of the responses you could chose was "When I move my mouse pointer over you it says 'Wizards'". Cosmic Spacehead had similar moments.

While I agree with the principle, that's hardly innovative on its own.

They aren't really NPCs, if people are playing them. Besides it would be too expensive to hire a team of people to play your enemies in a supposedly single-player game.

Agreed, which is why I'm offering Character Building Points for playing these characters in my FPSRPG.

Which are worth what?

@FlameDuck: The Character Building Points can be applied to your personal Character Stats, Weapons, and Armor. This could also be a way to peek at a monsters stats etc. Just something slightly different than your typical RPG monster grinding.

game developers need to stop focusing on graphics, and work on content. Look at TF2, for example, the graphics are awesome, but in their own, unique, cartoony way. Games these days often are all the same, shoot up the bad-guys, do a little mario-style gameplay. Developers must begin to come up with original ideas, rather than copy off something else, up the graphics, give it a new title, and a new, crappy excuse for a story line. That's why I got into game programming and developement, to make sure that I don't make the same mistake others do and deliver something new and fun.

That and make animations more organic-looking :D

Hrmm... Well that's a terrible example then. Saying that game developers should stop focusing on graphics, and then giving an example with awesome graphics, which seems to be by and large the main focus of the game, doesn't do wonders for your position that graphics are unimportant. You should perhaps have chosen a game with terrible graphics, like Galactic Civilizations. Secondly the graphic style is not unique, because it's blatantly ripped off from "Evil Genius" and countless other games with similar graphics.

While I agree, your example is fairly flawed, for starters there aren't any original ideas in TF2, the graphics are state of the art, it has a new title (Its full title is Team Fortress 2, it is preceded by Team Fortress, Team Fortress Classic and Team Fortress 1.5) and has no story line what so ever, never mind a crappy one.

But why risk profits to come up with new ideas, when you can release something that has a track record of earning profits. This is the standpoint of most development houses.

IMHO, this leaves a lot of opportunity for us indies.

The answer to that is dead simple. For starters the "same stuff, different day" is a matter of diminishing returns. The development costs go up, the number of people buying tend to go down, and in some cases the actual game gets worse (I'm looking at you Prince of Persia). Meanwhile new ideas (like The Sims) manage to knock Nintendo off the top-ten best sellers list (so now they only have the worlds top 9 best sellers - how will they ever get any sleep).

Why risk innovation? Because the greater the risk, the greater the rewards - and nobody wants to end up like Interplay.

Wish Hollywood would produce some films worth watching. Your lucky to get one or two decent ones a year. And whats with all the Silly Super Hero spinoffs.

There are supposedly 11 films out by the end of next year with Iraq war themes, and 8/9 more super hero films.

And then you have stuff like Harry Potter movies, which has now beaten the James Bond, Star Wars and LOTR movie franchises.

Most people just seem to want to buy what they feel safe and comfortable with. Explains why FPS is so popular when often there is little that seperates one from another.