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Do We Need a Sequel?
I've
been thinkin' a bit lately; an odd thing for
a gamer to do, I know, but wait, it gets stranger.
I've been thinking: who cares about an Outlaws
sequel? Why should we want one?
Most people just pretty much assume that a good game
should get a sequel, and that the sequel would be
an improvement upon th' original. But working as
a tester with the "latest and greatest" games with
cutting-edge graphics engines has lead me to question
that assumption.
Yes, Outlaws' graphics engine isn't th' greatest.
But you know what? It does th' job. It can present
old Western settings in a believable, if slightly
cartoonish way. And right now its main attribute
is speed. On an ol' voodoo card I average about
70-80 frames per second. Without a 3dfx card you
kin still get fast framerates usin' th' MGL video
drivers. That makes fer some mighty
smooth deathmatchin'. When yer movin' that fast, ya
don't care too much fer looks anyhow. Ya ain't got
time ta gawk at scenery. Comparatively, th' latest
games run at somethin' like 10-20 fps on a similar
system. Gee, which game do YOU think will be more
fun to play?
Besides eye-candy, in what other
way can new games even TRY to compete
with Outlaws? Outlaws is smoother, faster and more
stable. It's less laggy and more intense. Th' movement
is quicker and more responsive than any other first
person shooter out there, period. Th' variety of
character and weapons are interesting and make for
great variety in multiplayer action, while at the
same time requiring skill and practice to master.
This isn't a game where you get th' BIG gun an'
blow everyone ta hell from a nice cozy camping spot.
So sure, it'd be nice ta see a sequel that kept all
those good things an' wrapped 'em up in a nice shiny
new graphics engine. But how likely is it that a
sequel could repeat th' magical performance of Outlaws?
It's difficult to quantify many things about th'
game an' it seems ta me folks would be hard-pressed
to replicate Outlaws' unique feel. In th' brief time
since Outlaws came out PC games have become HUGE
business, and development an expensive undertaking
where almost all of th' money goes to th' multimedia
effects. Th' developer invests huge amounts of $ in
th' game an' has ta recoup its investment as quickly
as possible by gettin' th' game into stores in a
hurry. Th' bigger money games nowadays may spend
several years in development but less than a week
in play-testing with a feature-complete build.
Can you really fine-tune a
good game that quickly? Well, you can, but th'
gameplay suffers. I'll bet ya Outlaws was play
tested fer a bit longer than that. That was back when
people had TIME ta make a game jus' right.
There are really only two things I would love to see
added to Outlaws; if these were in there I have no
doubt Outlaws would last "forever" -- not that it won't
but these'd cinch it. Th' first would be Direct3D or
OpenGL support. Th' Glide acceleration is great, but
who knows how long 3dfx will be around? They're
inevitably losing market share to other hardware
companies who are finally catching up to their level
of performance. Once nobody had Glide-compatible
hardware anymore, interest in Outlaws would probably
wane. It's hard to go back to software after
you get used to hardware accelerated graphics.
The second thing would be some kind of in-game
indicator of your ping to the other players. Lag
sucks, and I and others have had times where we become
downright dispirited about laggin' all th' time.
An in-game indicator would let us know who's laggin'
so we don't live in that horrible realm of doubt.
You'd learn who you could play good games with,
and who to avoid because of a bad connection. This
would make multiplayer quite a bit more enjoyable
and would put an end to the incessant arguments you
see about lag.
But, on the other hand, hardware is improving all th'
time. In a few years most people will have computers
that can run Outlaws in software mode at high
resolution and high framerates, so mebbe hardware
acceleration will be a moot point. On a similar note,
high-bandwidth solutions are gradually becoming
available to home users so bad lag will be less of
an issue as time goes on. An all DSL match, for instance,
might be able to support up to 100 players without
lag -- provided everyone's CPU and RAM were up to
th' task. Faster computers will mean people can
handle more players and more complex levels. Can
you imagine what a 50 player match on a level that
replicated a small Western city would be like? Wow.
Meanwhile, other "cutting-edge" games will continue
to add features that hog more bandwidth and processing
power. While they stay roughly the same speed,
Outlaws will only get faster!
Yes, the future for Outlaws is bright indeed. Let's
not worry too much about a sequel. The game we love
is here, now and for the forseeable future, and will
only get better and better as time goes on.
But what would we do if we could?
Check the
Outlaws Sequel Petition that ran on this site.
Okay,
if we're gonna do this we've gotta at least begin realistically.
First, there probably won't be an Outlaws sequel. Th' cold hard
facts of th' matter are that Outlaws, while I think it's done
pretty well in th' marketplace, has sold nowhere near th' number
of units as Quake, Quake II or even Lucasart's own
Jedi Knight. Whenever I log onto th' Zone I see about
four times as many people in th' Jedi Knight section as in
th' Outlaws section. Now even if, as I suspect, a higher
percentage of JK owners play online, that still means that
JK sold over three times as many copies as Outlaws. Now
if yer a marketing person at Lucasarts, which game are you
gonna tell them ta start makin' a sequel for?
An' even if they do go ahead with a sequel fer this lower-selling
title, we've gotta realize that they won't be able to put in
every single feature we can dream up. Frankly I'd be perfectly
happy if they used th' Jedi Knight engine fer an Outlaws sequel;
it'd save a lot of development time (ie money), it runs great
in Direct 3D, an' it'd only be appropriate considerin' they
used th' engine from JK's prequel, Dark Forces, fer Outlaws.
Anyway Outlaws isn't about th' game engine, it's about th'
gameplay.
My suggestions fer changes in an Outlaws sequel fall inta th'
followin' categories:
Story and Mood
Outlaws
is all about one man tryin' ta rescue his daughter an'
avenge his wife's death at th' same time. It's a romantic,
personalized story that works pretty well fer th' game.
I'd like to see th' sequel get closer to th' spaghetti
westerns of Sergio Leone that inspired so much of Outlaws.
Granted, th' fourth one,
Once Upon a Time in the West, was about a man seeking to avenge
th' murder of his brother. But we don't actually figger that out
until most of th' way through th' movie. In th' bulk of that movie,
an' in th' others like Fistful of Dollars, th' main
character is a mystery man. Clint Eastwood an' Charles Bronson's
characters are basically men in the West with guns and no job skills
during or after th' Civil War.
Playin' a gunman fer hire rather than an ex-Marshal seeking justice
opens up a whole lotta gameplay possibilities. I'd like to see
th' sequel a lot more open ended; more like a simulation of
mercenary life in th' West in th' late 1800's than th' linear story
of Outlaws. In keepin' with this more realistic approach I'd
trade in th' cartoonish characters for grittier types. An' in
th' graphic design as a whole I'd go for th' raw, harsh look
of Sergio Leone's opening title sequences that featured
words ripping or exploding across high-contrast tinted
still shots.
Graphics Engine
Like I
said an Outlaws sequel would be perfectly well off
with th' Jedi Knight engine. It'd save LEC th' time
an' money of makin' a new engine an' it's very fast
in Direct 3D which every single graphics card supports.
Now I know th' latest engines have multicolored lights
an' lens flares an' so forth. Well th' JK engine has
everything we need fer Outlaws: lighting, flexibility,
polygon-based characters, a true 3D environment,
support an' speed speed speed.
Well okay there's one thing I'd like fer Outlaws but I
really don't see any engine capable of it yet, an' we're
tryin' ta be realistic here. What I'd really like ta see
would be an engine that could do both landscape an'
buildings. JK's does buildings. I haven't seen any
first-person shooter engine that can do landscapes too.
So we'll jus' hafta be satisfied with th' rather
simplistic, flat landscapes possible with th' current
generation of graphics engines.
Character Generation
Outlaw's
characters, rather than it's graphics engine, are th'
real key to it's playability. Havin' six very different
models ta choose from really makes multiplayer exciting
and varied. An' th' enemies in th' single-player game
are quite well done, even if they're a bit cartoonish.
If we're usin' th' JK engine then we'll have polygon-based
character models fer th' sequel. Now th' first
computer game I can really remember
playin' with polygonal characters wuz an' ol' game called
4D Sports Boxing. Th' great thing about this game wuz that you
design yer own boxer an' completely customize his look,
changin' heads, shorts, an' even height an' build. It
wuz jus' a matter of alterin' th' size an' color of th'
polygons that made up the boxer. An' it even affected gameplay:
a taller character had more reach but wuz a bit more awkward
than a shorter character,
an' a heavier character wuz slower but had more power than
a lighter character. There wuz an infinite variety of combinations
ta create, an' some 50 or so very unique opponents.
Nowadays all th' first person shooters use polygon characters
but I still haven't seen one that takes advantage of th'
flexibility of polygons like 4D Sports Boxing did. I'd like Outlaw's
sequel to be th' first.
One complaint that ya could level against Outlaws is that
there aren't very many different bad guys; not th' bosses
but th' meat-an'-potatoes cannon fodder types ya gun down
by th' trainload. Well, if they're polygonal you could
make each guy (or gal) different. Different height, different
builds, different clothes, an' different weapons. I'd
also like ta see this variability extend ta their AI, so
that different baddies could be meaner, tougher, slower,
stupider or whatever than others. So basically each fella
you'd encounter would be an individual, unpredictable an'
unique. You'd even come to recognize some of 'em, so at
some point you might be thinkin' somethin' like "alright
I'd better get my shotgun ready 'cause ol' Lefty's around
th' bend here." Outlaws wuz different from all other shooters
in that th' enemies were humans, not animals, mutants, monsters
or aliens. This in itself made gameplay more intruiging,
and giving each man a distinctive personality would take
this depth ta an unprecedented level.
Now you could say that that level already exists in
multiplayer Outlaws in that each person plays differently
an' you learn ta adapt ta yer opponent's playing styles
as you play with them more an' more. But in Outlaws th'
external manifestation of a player's individuality is
limited ta 6 characters. With polygonal characters this
limitation would disappear.
In JK you can select from a few complete character models,
and change th' color of your lightsaber, but that's about it.
I think we could make a more flexible method.
You could design a specific,
recognizeable character, altering your sex, build, facial type
and color and
style of clothes. I'd also like to be able to choose
between right or left handedness (4D Sports Boxing could do that!).
So we really get to generating a unique character.
Build should affect gameplay, so that shorter characters
are harder to hit, thinner characters are quicker, beefier
types are more durable, an' so forth so that you could
tailor a character to suit your playing style and personality.
"Bad guy" types could wear all black, hotshots could wear
a bandolier or poncho, and so on. Maybe you could even choose
to wear your holster in different positions.
I'd also like to have a point allocation system so that you
could further customize your character by assigning a certain
set number of "points" to boosting his or her speed, strength
or whatever, or selecting items to begin with like more rifle
ammo or medical kits.
In fact I'd like to be able to select from a wide variety of
specific weapons. There were countless variations on th'
plain pistol, so why not be able to choose which type your
character would carry, some costing more character "points"
to acquire than others because of their inherent superiority
in range, accuracy, firepower, speed and so on. Th' JK engine
lets others see th' weapon yer sportin', an' this would
add another layer to character variation. Posses could
choose coordinating colors or weapons. I'd like a character
with a bandanna, black bowler hat an' a pearl-handled derringer...
Gameplay
The free flowing,
simulator rather than story style that I began to elaborate on
in th' Story an' Mood section would greatly impact gameplay. In
single player mode, instead of just taking on a linear sequence
of levels, our sequel could be much more open ended allowing you
to forge your own life on th' rough Western frontier.
You would begin as a new mercenary by choosing th' territory
ta start yer career in. I kin think of a few, ie th' Yukon,
California, th' western plains, Texas, th' Southwest an' so forth.
Each territory would have a main city or town that'd serve as
yer base of operations. So a game would begin with you generatin'
a character, pickin' a region on th' frontier an' ridin' inta
town with a gun, a horse an' a little spendin' money ta yer name.
I suppose th' game would hafta be financially driven, so yer motive
fer doin' anything is usually gonna be money. Anyhow ya wander inta
town an' from there what ya do is up ta you. This part of th' game
would take on many RPG elements, where you could meet th' local
characters an' figger out what ta do with yerself. Whereas in Outlaws
yer restricted ta a hunt of vengeance, in this game ya could do
whatever struck yer fancy. If ya wanted ta make money legally ya
could go ta th' sheriff's office, or th' post office, an' check
th' wanted posters fer rewards on Outlaws that you could bring ta
justice. If ya wanted ta establish yerself as a big man in town ya
could go ta th' local waterin' hole ta put yer gun up fer hire ta
th' highest bidder (biddin' wouldn't be too high at th' beginnin'
as ya haven't yet proven yer worth) or ta find someone ta pick
a fight with. An' if less respectable deeds
were on yer agenda ya could go check th' back alleys an' seedy dives
fer word on upcoming money transfers, local rich men an' so forth.
There would be many more characters an' civilians around ta talk
to (or shoot at). Some of these would want ta help you, an' some
of 'em would come ta be yer worst enemy. In any event there would
have to be a dialogue system where you can talk and interact with
them in a simple way. I'm thinkin' here of an ol' western game
that a friend had on his Apple called "Law of th' West." I can't
find any IBM versions an' that's a darned shame 'cause it was
a great game; basically ya went around town talkin' ta people, an'
if ya wanted ta start a fight you'd pick from a list of witty
insults an' th' lead would fly. Of course they could also insult
you! That game really had character, an' we spent many a gleeful
hour firin' off inflammatory remarks at everyone in town, from
th' local hayseeds ta th' local prostitutes an' th' sheriff.
It really gave you a sense of choosing yer own destiny.
So once ya find somethin' worth doin', th' shootin' starts.
If yer mission takes ya outside of town ya saddle up yer horse
an' ride off. If th' shootin' is gonna take place in town ya
loosen yer pistol in yer holster an' get ready fer action.
Each town could be split up into a number of actual levels,
so if you were robbin' (or guardin') th' bank you'd head fer
th' bank part of town an' that level would load. If yer vocation
took ya out ta th' local lumbermill, you'd ride outta town an'
th' mill level would load. These levels would be reusable fer
different situations, with enemies an' civilians placed accordin'
to th' current event. So if once you went ta th' mill ta scare
off th' local mill owner, later ya might end up in th' mill again
ta defend yerself against th' local sheriff an' his deputies.
As I mentioned before characters would be completely unique,
some faster or smarter or taller than others. Their appearance
and reactions might be randomly generated or, if they were a major
character, pre-scripted. Actually I would like ta see randomly
generated major antagonists, so that if ya go ta th' Yukon a second
time with a different character you'll cross ways with a different
"boss" character.
An' as I jus' alluded to yer actions in each mission would impact
what happened next, so that raisin' heck at th' mill would bring
th' sheriff down on ya, or bringin' an Outlaw ta justice would
get th' sheriff ta offer ya further employ (mebbe you could even
become sheriff yerself one day). An' if ya got too unpopular or
too rich or too bored ya could saddle up an' ride off inta th'
sunset, choosin' another territory ta explore.
As far as th' actual shootin' goes, Outlaws was revolutionary
in makin' ya reload an' get tired. Now that we've got a polygon
generated character we can add even more realistic factors ta
gunfights. I'd like ta see physical reactions
ta handlin' different weapons, so that a big gun like a
double-barreled shotgun would be more cumbersome an' harder ta
aim than a pistol, 'cause its weight would tend ta make ya overaim
if ya tried pivoting it quickly. I'd like ta see recoil knock
yer aim off, much as gettin' shot does in Outlaws. Right now
fannin' yer pistol simulates th' effect of recoil as it ain't as
accurate as shootin' it regularly, but in th' sequel we could
simulate this more realistically, so that each shot actually moves
th' barrel of yer gun more an' more off target an' ya hafta readjust
yer aim on' th' fly. Of course th' pistol's recoil would be piddlin'
compared th' th' recoil of, say, a sawed-off shotgun.
Yer character's chosen physique an' attributes would also affect
yer gun handlin', so that weaker characters couldn't handle
a heavy shotgun as well as a stronger character, an' would suffer
more from recoil. This might be offset by their increased speed
with a pistol an' faster reflexes in general.
Also with polygonic characters we could implement specific wound
areas, so that gettin' shot in th' leg wouldn't be as critical as
gettin' hit, say, in th' head, but it would slow ya down. A hit
ta yer gun arm would decrease yer accuracy an' rate of fire. It'd
be neat ta see hits reflected on a character's model, so ya could
tell if a guy wuz sufferin' from a suckin' chest wound. Ah, gory
details.
Th' one other thing besides horseback ridin' that I really missed
in Outlaws wuz th' classic one-on-one pistol duel. Granted ya could
simulate that in a pistol fight but what I wanna see is th' kinda
fight that relies on yer icy concentration an' split-second
reaction, where th' opponents stand stock still, starin' each other
down, each waitin' fer th' other ta make a move fer his gunbelt.
I want ta be able ta pick a fight or get challenged to one of
these formal duels. You'd enter a sorta "dueling mode" where you
couldn't move an' were stuck lookin' straight at yer opponent.
Instead of movin' ya yer keys or mouse would control yer hand,
so ya hafta move yer hand ta yer gun, grab it, draw, aim an'
fire, all hopefully more quickly and/or more precisely than yer
opponent. This would be a fantastic (an' mebbe final) way ta
finally tell once an' fer all who's th' fastest gun in th' West.
Multiplayer
Gameplay in
multiplayer Outlaws is fantastic: fast, fun an' furious. I'd
leave it pretty much th' same, with jus' th' additions of
weapons physics mentioned in th' previous section, an' th'
ability ta make yer own character as discussed under th'
Character Generation section.
Oh yes I'd also like ta be able ta have th' quick-draw duels
I talked about in th' last paragraph. Mebbe these could be
activated by each player typin' in a special command ta
enter th' "dueling mode" that you'd be able ta see by th'
player's stance. So ta start a duel two players would both
enter "dueling mode" an' then throw down!
Oh mebbe one other thing deserves special note: badges. In
Outlaws they totally unbalance th' game, so that someone with
a badge is pretty much gonna kill ya no matter what ya do
unless they really don't know what they're doin'. Th' really
sucky thing about this is that you can't TELL if someone has
a badge, at least not until they kill you. Well, since we've
got polygonal characters it should be pretty easy ta indicate
when a character is sportin' a badge by, say, havin' a big
blinkin' badge appear on their chest. Actually I suppose if
it were up ta me I'd leave badges out entirely, but some people
seem ta like 'em.
So th' gameplay is pretty good an' shouldn't be messed with
too much. What needs work is th' multiplayer interface an'
controls.
Th' current official multiplayer interface is Microsoft's Zone.
Ya kin real all about th' issues I have with this interface on
th' Zone page in the
domain section.
What Lucasarts really needs ta
do is ta incorporate th' multiplayer interface inta th' game
itself so ya don't hafta run Outlaws sessions through another
program. They should also set up their own servers specifically
for th' game.
So I envision somethin' like this: Ya select multiplayer. Then
th' territory map comes up, with each location representin'
a different Outlaws server. So I click on, say, th' Texas server.
Th' game starts as I ride inta town. I want th' multiplayer
interface ta take place THROUGH THE 3D ENGINE. So you walk inta
town, an' there are all th' players logged inta that server
walkin' around, carousin', talkin' or jus' hangin' out. Since we
aren't gonna be shootin' at each other there's no need fer a whole
lotta data ta transfer fer each player, jus' their rough position
an' facing. So we should be able ta get a good number of Outlaws
inta each server without too much lag.
Also, you'd only hear th' conversation of those people close to
you, that is to say only those people within a certain proximity
to you in th' server's "town" would see what you type appear on
their screen as chat dialogue. You'd be able ta call up a list of
everyone in town, but if ya wanted ta find someone in particular
you'd hafta search around town fer 'em. Now once you'd played a
while you'd get th' feel of where folks liked ta hang out. I
imagine those searchin' fer players fer a game would run around
on "main street" while others would know where ta look fer their
specific gang. You could sorta stake out yer own territory, an'
I kin see bar brawls breakin' out over people "sittin' at the
wrong table." If ya got really outta hand a server monitor, in
th' guise of a sheriff or deputy, could come along an' throw ya
in jail until ya cooled off some.
So how would a game start? Well, when ya enter town ya gotta
tie yer horse up somewhere. Yer horse should be recognizeable
somehow, like mebbe havin' yer name "branded" on their flank.
Ta host a game you jus' have people gather 'round yer horse
an' grab it's reins or somethin'.
Hosts need ta be able ta configure their games a lot more than
is currently possible with Outlaws. A host should be able to
enable or disable certain cheat codes, weapons an' items. So
you could start a game that had, say, automap an' crosshairs
enabled but
sawed-off shotguns disabled. This would save us from a lotta
th' bickerin' that arises from fellers not obeyin' th' declared
rules of a Marshal Law game, fer instance. There'd be no occasion
fer argument 'cause no cheatin' would be possible.
In a multiplayer game you should be able ta see everyone's ping
time an' packet loss ta th' server so ya kin tell who is slowin' th'
game down,
or whether or not someone's complaints of lag are valid. There are
a bunch've other little things, like bein' able ta whisper ta jus'
one person, or jus' yer teammates. Speakin' of which, a host
should have th' option of assignin' an' re-assignin' players ta teams
ta keep th' sides even (or uneven, whatever they want ta do).
There are other little things that I think I'll jus' add ta th'
next section, Sauce, as they occur ta me.
Sauce
Every good
batch of spaghetti western needs th' right spices in th'
sauce ta form a fully satisfyin' meal. Here are other ideas
ta fer th' sequel, small details that'd spice it up
jus' right...
Like any chef worth his hat, I'll add more as th' inspiration
strikes me...
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