The last two or three CoD games have been pretty good at adding stuff beyond the game though. Whether that's DLC or services they have set a high bar even if the game itself is more or less the same thing.

Why no PvP Minecraft system yet?  That's what I want as the next big competitive multiplayer thing.  A mod for Minecraft that splits you into teams at opposite ends of the map, with a flag or something to guard.  A timer starts, like 7 game days or something.  Use that time for building and reconnaissance.  

Make a fort to house your flag, riddled with traps and reinforcements.  Mine like crazy for the raw materials.  Build weapons and hand them out.  When the timer expires, strike out and find the enemy.  Killing them means you can grab their stuff, but how will you take down their castle?  Mine in with diamond picks?  Create some piston-powered lava throwing device?  How about ideas to defend yours, traps that dump lava into rooms or flood rooms full of water, turning out all the lights in the process?  Buckets of lava to pour over walls at intruders?

So much possibility because of the open nature of it, so that's what's missing in a modern FPS to me.  All the maps are entirely pre-planned and beautifully balanced, but what if they had a little bit more adjustability?

Also, another thing I'd like to see is proper team recognition.  You got a bit of it in L4D2 Survival mode, where it'd record who you were with when you set your leaderboard times, but surely they can do more than that?

May as well put my comment here; I remember seeing that, but it's not quite the same.  It's just an FPS with deformable scenery, but none of the stuff I think would make a Minecraft PvP game exceptional.  Complete freedom to mine and build your own base, your own routes, your own equipment, and then entirely free choice over how to attack the enemy.

Is it?  I thought there was less to it when I read about it.  If so, it's what I want, although I still want to try PvP Minecraft.

n0face wrote:

Couldn't we just all have a fight in minecraft?

Yeah, but with RULES.

Just watching THE gun fight in Heat.
Got me thinking, gun sfx in FPSs has improved loads but it still isn't quite there.

The sound coming out of the gun is spot on in most games but the way that sound interacts with the environment is non existent.

Rarely is there any reverb or stiffling based on where the player is situated.
In a canyon or a cupboard the sound produced is the same.

Take for example Ragnarok on Halo 4. While I can hear my gun and others to varying degrees, if I stood at a base I would barely hear the centre of the map. Weapons of the caliber used even in loadouts would reverberate around that entire valley very loudly.

There was a good article on the BBC site not long ago about the sound of war, the most notable sound throughout the decades demonstrated in audio clips was the distant echoes of machine gun fire.
When I am next on a computer I will try and find a link.

Interesting.
It is something that isn't discussed in too much depth really.
Music gets a lot of attention sfx normally get "sounds amazing" but not much more in depth analysis.
BILLYYYYY!

Helloooo!

I tend to steer clear of these next gen type threads as it can get a bit tempting to spill beans. And after getting a bit involved with the old AvP thread on the old forum I'm not going to say what company I am currently working for.

Suffice to say, Liveinadive I am with you on the distant weapon sounds in halo, they are lacking. Pretty astute observation, and you're right sfx is not often commented on.  I do love the close up stuff mind!  Some of my favourite sound design in years !  

There are very few games that get this right, but the knowledge is slowly spreading. More and more studios are clocking that you have to do 1st person firing sounds, and then make several 3rd person versions of the same sound that are played back at different levels according to how distant you are.  Just turning a sound down and putting some reverb on does not make a sound feel distant!  You actually have to use recordings of weapons taken from different distances.

I did a weapon recording session recently with about 22 guns and just over 60 channels for the recordings. That was a lot of mics to set up!

Consoles already have the ability to switch audio content depending on distance, it's very easy. Making the content itself is a different matter and many studios either don't prioritise that amount of detail or can't fund it.  I was surprised that Halo 4 didn't do it considering they obviously spent a ton of cash on the visual effects and lighting.  And their audio is extremely well produced.  Priorities eh.

Dice have been pioneers in this and I can't wait to hear what BF4 sounds like, I'm sure it will put the rest of us to shame.  Other devs will hopefully embrace this level of quality and allow their audio staff to go wild with weapon audio design, but it's not necessarily tied to next gen hardware improvements, it's more a perception thing.

I can go into plenty more detail about specifics if you'd like me to put my dev hat on, I usually don't have it on here cos I just wanna take the mickey out of Knight but I'm always happy to talk about audio

I seem to recall them going on about how important the weapon sounds were, but obviously they only meant to the player themselves.

If I recall Billy's name correctly, I know where he works. And I have to say that I'm really excited for your game.

Of course if I'm not recalling correctly, it might be shit.

Are you excited for my Game?

I spent several days making the bullet time firing sound as big as I could, I think they just use the one version for every slomo shot as you can hear the pattern of the shell bouncing on the floor is identical each time.  The crazy gorey impacts is someone else though. Listening back to it now is funny, it's a long time ago I did that stuff.

It is a fun little game, hope they get to do another even though they laid me off, I'm happy with where I ended up. And would hate for more Brit studios to close even if they aren't the best on the planet.

I always get excited about entering your Game Dante!

Yeah I was about to say I'm sure I remember there being distant sfx in H3. Like Face, Valhalla sticks out to me, the sound of the hog firing in the distance is almost burned into my memory.

I hadn't even noticed it was gone in H4!

BC2 had better audio than BF3 imo, not to everyone's taste, but much more pronounced with lots of echo, guns went bang basically and there was all sorts of other stuff going on in the background. It was never great as a game play aid unfortunately, but BF3 seems very muted in comparison and has been plagued by audio bugs for most of its life.

Devs seemed positive at the start of the generation about console players moving to surround sound, remember when you used to hear about the lossless audio tracks on PS3 games. We're starting this generation with Nintendo not bothering with an optical out on the Wii-U.