The rise and further rise of the team-based online shooter.

[Matthew Kane]

So I've been seeing a lot of linkage to Team Fortress 2 over the last few days, bowled along to http://www.whatistheorangebox.com/tf2.html and great googly moogly, it re-ignited the level of enthusiasm I had for this game when it was originally announced (ten years ago or thereabouts).

However, other than watching the HW Guy video repeatedly and giggling like a retard, it did lead me to think about the demise of death-match and the title of the topic, mainly because I thought "Hang on, when TF2 was announced I was playing Q2:DM zealously, now I violently resent being forced to play anything where I don't have a squad to roll with. What happened here?"

Basically, deathmatch died is what happened. The dominant paradigm for PC shooters has shifted, almost in one generation, from the dominance of Quake/UT DM to CS's team-based play, leading to the modern team-based giants (Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, CounterStrike and its deriatives and any other MP shooter you care to name) all having their game-play be very much more communal than even the tighest of Quake clans.
In addition to the omnipresence of team games however, is the growing dominance of class-based, or at least limited gear-type, shooters, the days of Quake and carrying the weight of a small car in various fire-arms are well and truly dead it seems, there's than a little RPG even in the most run and gun shooter nowadays.

So...do you like this? Are you ok with the class-based nature of the modern online shooters? Do you like the way the genre has developed or do you hanker for the good old days of gleeful rocket discharges into crowds?

[Kate Baker]

As much as I love team play, I have to be in the mood to do it. You will find me breaking off from time to time in games like BF2142 or the new Quake Wars, when my team is not working together cohesively and I can do more damage as a lone wolf.

Honestly though, I think you'll find a sub-culture that will rebel against 'all team, all the time', and will then create mods to appease their death match needs. In fact, I've been playing on a Counter Strike server in a mod that is pure and utter DM carnage. It's a constant respawn, gun advance for every kill, with the win coming only after you've knifed someone.

[Valsira]

Well, if I feel like running around shooting stuff by myself I don't mind having to stick with the old games. What could anything new offer me, when that's all I feel like doing?

I remember reading about a shooter where it was you and one other guy, and you worked together as a pair as opposed to by yourself or with a team. It sounded interesting. I can't remember what it was called though. Anybody know?

[Sarcasmorator]

Army of Two, I think. EA, out this season sometime.

[scalzi]

"Oh my God! Someone touched Sasha! WHO TOUCHED MY GUN?!??!?!!"

One of the nice things about the Quake Wars demo is that it runs bots, so at least you don't have to wait on anyone else.

I'm not a huge fan of team-based shooters, because when I do deathmatches, what I really want to do is just kill people. I don't care about objectives and crap like that. This is, incidentally, why I enjoy the various Unreal Tournament games. I don't even bother playing the actual "tournament" section; I just go to the maps, drop a lot of bots into them and kill them all.

[Sarcasmorator]

God, I'm terrible at the UT games for some reason. Halo, now, that I can do well in. I tend to prefer team-based games, though, because in a deathmatch situation I always come in somewhere in the middle of the rankings. On a team, I at least feel like I can contribute something.

Plus, I like rocket launchers.

"Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe ... maybe. But I've never met opponent who could outsmart rocket."

[Nate_Trost]

It's requiring a tremendous amount of willpower to not play Teamfortress 2, they did a splendid job.

[Valsira]

That's the one, thanks.

I'm the opposite. I suck at Halo, but I'm pretty good at UT. Then again, that could be because I don't actually own an Xbox so I'm not used to the controls when I do get to play it.

[chemistboy]

In fact, I've been playing on a Counter Strike server in a mod that is pure and utter DM carnage. It's a constant respawn, gun advance for every kill, with the win coming only after you've knifed someone.

Gotta love Gungame mod! Though, the whole 'stealing levels by knifing people' gets really old after awhile, especially on certain maps where the people who first level up into the assault rifles can make it almost impossible for the rest of the players to get past, say, the Scout. (It is also possible that I'm just terrible at the game and should stop complaining. :-P)