Vapourware Features from old games you wish are done more often.

[Saint_Proverbius]

Name seventeen

Sims 1, Sims 2, Sims 3, Sims 4, Sims Medieval, Temple of Elemental Evil, Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 4, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Persona V, Saints Row 2, Saints Row 3, Saints Row 4, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and South Park: Stick of Truth.

 

[NecroLord]

You don't mess around Saint_Proverbius, do you?

 

[Semiurge]

Everything that Aliens vs Predator Classic 2000 did right.

 

[NecroLord]

Everything that Aliens vs Predator Classic 2000 did right.

Aliens vs Predator 2 is also great.

 

[Semiurge]

Everything that Aliens vs Predator Classic 2000 did right.

Aliens vs Predator 2 is also great.

It is, but it's also more scripted than Half-Life. This means that once you're done with the three single-player campaigns, you're done with them for good. There's no replay value.

 

[:Flash:]

Cool looking main menus.
View attachment 50193
We need more of this stuff.

How about cool installers?

 

[Humanophage]

The "chapter" system from Gothic and Gothic 2 which would advance & alter the world state as you finished certain main quests. It's a really clever and underrated way to show the passage of time and make it so NPCs aren't standing around doing the exact same thing for the entire game.

People talk a lot about day / night cycles and other NPC routines, and I agree those are important, but advancing the world state really takes it a step further in terms of making the world feel alive.

I couldn't agree more, but bizarrely, they'll start whining it's "backtracking" and "rehashing the same location".

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

You don't mess around @Saint_Proverbius, do you?

Those are just ones I've played, and those last two were TOUGH remembering. I thought for sure I was going to have to tap out at 15.

How about cool installers?

One thing I love about GoG installers is when it pops up a game they no longer have, like Duke Nukem Atomic Edition.

 

[Gargaune]

Having the saved games in the same folder as the game itself so I don't have to deal with this c:\windows\user\appdata\low\locallow\roaming\gamename circles of hell level of bullshit.

The install folder may not be practical since a lot of users will have their games in Program Files, which has various execution protections since Vista, but Maxie's right, the proper approach was a folder inside /Documents/Games/ and that was that. Nowadays, some will use /Saved Games/, some will use various paths in /AppData/, some will even do both with saves going in /Saved Games/ and configs squirreled away in /AppData/ or some other crazy shit.

The world we live in. You spend all day stepping in candy wrappers, walking past graffiti and upturned rubbish bins, then you get home to find your computer vandalised with digital litter and peepholes.

 

[NecroLord]

One thing I love about GoG installers is when it pops up a game they no longer have, like Duke Nukem Atomic Edition.

Since it's been a long while since I installed a GOG game, how are the current installers like?
Still shilling modern crap or are they keeping it classy?

 

[Damned Registrations]

A proper inventory system which doesn't require you to scroll down or up for ages trying to find that one item you need for some specific purpose.

I hereby sentence you to play an early 90's blobber RPG, and attempt to update your party's equipment when you find a new set of armour (8 different pieces, naturally) and need to transfer the hand-me-downs between your 6 party members.

 

[NecroLord]

A proper inventory system which doesn't require you to scroll down or up for ages trying to find that one item you need for some specific purpose.

I hereby sentence you to play an early 90's blobber RPG, and attempt to update your party's equipment when you find a new set of armour (8 different pieces, naturally) and need to transfer the hand-me-downs between your 6 party members.

Of course, nothing wrong in some inventory juggling.

 

[Baron Tahn]

A proper inventory system which doesn't require you to scroll down or up for ages trying to find that one item you need for some specific purpose.

I hereby sentence you to play an early 90's blobber RPG, and attempt to update your party's equipment when you find a new set of armour (8 different pieces, naturally) and need to transfer the hand-me-downs between your 6 party members.

M&M 3-5 PTSD *shudders*

 

[Lemming42]

Enemy surrender in action games. I remember being amazed seeing enemies give up in games like Soldier of Fortune and Rainbow Six, and of course SWAT 3 and 4. I thought it'd become more of a thing in the future as AI got better and enemy behaviour got deeper, but it seems like the opposite's happened, and nobody's even tried to play around with this type of mechanic in the last twenty years or so, barring stuff like Ready or Not which is just a regurgitation of the exact way SWAT 4 already did it. It's so dumb to be playing modern games that aim for "realism"/verisimilitude, but then you've still got some dumbass with a knife trying to kill you after all their friends have just been one-shotted and you're wearing the best armour in the game.

RPG developers in particular have really missed out here because it'd presumably be relatively easy to implement surrender and capture mechanics to let people roleplay as bounty hunters and turn captive enemies over to guards, but nobody's picked up on the idea except for a couple of New Vegas modders. Bethesda have missed a trick as usual in that Skyrim and Starfield actually do have enemy surrender, but all it means is that enemies will stand back up after ten seconds and start fighting again until you're forced to deal a fatal blow.

 

[Beastro]

Not something I want back, but this thread brought it to mind: what was the very last old style password game made?

 

[Eldrin]

Banters between party members without MC interaction that happen out in the world after a certain amount of time has passed.

It really irks me if cRPGs only allow the MC to interact with companions, especially if it's limited to only certain location where the party members you talk to give you a plethora of dialogue option from the get-go for them to infodump their backstory onto you. Ffs let it happen more naturally, let two or three of my party members talk about a topic without me having to interject or only allow more limited options to add something to the convo from the sideline instead of immediately becoming the core-lead driving the banter forward. Let it play out while we are walking through a dense forest map with encounters waiting to happen. Let them behave more like living people than just mindless dolls following you around.

I know that the old banter system had it's faults, like the world being still active with monsters sometimes attacking you mid-dialogue or weird conversations interjecting amidst a heated battle, but mods easily fixed the first problem just pausing the world on dialogue interaction. The 2nd annoyance requires just disabling/pausing the 'banter timer' before another talk could happen when the party engages combat. Even if that would be too hard to code, I would still take banters at exploration that could happen at weird times over talks only being at campfires or bridges, or only MC-initiated without party member talking amidst themselves - those just feel fake, oftentimes infodump without proper pacing and without companions interacting with anything other than the MC, chip away on the game's verisimilitude.

 

[NecroLord]

Enemy surrender in action games. I remember being amazed seeing enemies give up in games like Soldier of Fortune and Rainbow Six, and of course SWAT 3 and 4. I thought it'd become more of a thing in the future as AI got better and enemy behaviour got deeper, but it seems like the opposite's happened, and nobody's even tried to play around with this type of mechanic in the last twenty years or so, barring stuff like Ready or Not which is just a regurgitation of the exact way SWAT 4 already did it. It's so dumb to be playing modern games that aim for "realism"/verisimilitude, but then you've still got some dumbass with a knife trying to kill you after all their friends have just been one-shotted and you're wearing the best armour in the game.

RPG developers in particular have really missed out here because it'd presumably be relatively easy to implement surrender and capture mechanics to let people roleplay as bounty hunters and turn captive enemies over to guards, but nobody's picked up on the idea except for a couple of New Vegas modders. Bethesda have missed a trick as usual in that Skyrim and Starfield actually do have enemy surrender, but all it means is that enemies will stand back up after ten seconds and start fighting again until you're forced to deal a fatal blow.

Enemy surrender in Doom?