I lack the skill to make my own FPS, but I wanted to throw some ideas out there for people that might be able to. It seems to me like the FPS genre is saturated with modern/futuristic games, with not too many based on traditional "fantasy"... you know, with knights and swords, and such. As I see it, as far as combat goes, there would be three different types: melee, missile, and magic. Melee combat would deal the most damage, but would have the age old problem of having to get into range first. A few hits with a sword would kill a target, but they would have to close range first. In melee combat against another melee user, I see it would be similar to Jedi Knight (I think that's what it's called) Using the mouse, a melee user would be able to angle their blade in order to block, or attack different areas of their opponent. Missile users would use things like bows and crossbows (no guns) You would hold down a button to pull back the bow, and depending on how far you pulled the bow back, it would increase the range. You could also fire rapidly, but would lose accuracy. Perhaps somewhere in the middle would give a good mix between range and accuracy. Magic users would use a gesture based system, ala Black and White, to cast spells. Perhaps spells wouldn't even be preset, but could instead be mixed by chaining together different gestures. The gesture system is done so that a mage can't be running around the battlefield nuking things. It takes concentration to be able to cast the spells and in general, you must be standing still. It also takes a little time, so it would be quite difficult to cast a spell if you are being attacked by a melee user. Once a spell is charged with a gesture, it could be released with a click. Dependinng on the spell, it might act like a missle when released (fire ball), an self-center AoE spell (like a group heal, perhaps), melee (a touch based spell) or a "global spell" (meteors fall from the sky over the map). There would be different classes as well, because people seem to like classes. In general, I see this aspect of the game very similar to a mix between Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Counterstrike. There are preset classes which grant you base characteristics like HP and Mana, as well as certain unique abilities. However, you would be free to customize your loadout in terms of armor, weapons, etc... (though there would be race restrictions, depending on class) Players would gain experience by performing job related tasks, much like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. IF you're a mage, you gain more points for a magic kill, then if you, say, hit someone and kill them with your staff. Reaching certain XP thresholds would grant you additional abilities, as well as an increase in health/mana. Again like ET, XP gain would persist over a series of maps (3 seems like a good number, but it could be variable) Gold would be gained by getting kills, completing objectives, etc... this would also persist over the series of maps. Another, kind of "new" idea I think (related to the carrying of XP over to different maps) is that depending on the success or failure of a mission, a different map would be played. So for example, if you played the map called "Castle Siege" and were unable to successfully siege the castle, a new map would load, reflecting your inability to destroy the castle. Maps would be mostly objective based, but could be played with with other modes (deathmatch, CTF, stop watch, etc..) Many games use this team-play objective based idea, and I really like it. I find deathmatch too mindless, and it's nice to have a certain goal that you have to accomplish. As far as vehicles go... there aren't too many vehicles you can have in a fantasy type game, but there are some. One idea I thought of are horses, that could perhaps spawn at intervals in your base. Other ideas include a pegasus type flying horse (might be unbalanced due to melee), perhaps some sort of horse-drawn "War Wagon", siege weapons (Ballistas, Catapults), and chariots. EDIT: I forgot to talk about items. In addition to weapons/armor and whatnot, you would be able to buy different items as well. There would be a pretty good solution, as there are a lost of possibilities. Purchased items would take up slots on the 0-9 keys, or perhaps you could press a button to bring up a "ring-style" listing of all your items, and select from there. Items could include shields for melee users (right click to raise, but decreases endurance/speed), a whole multitude of potions (life, mana, invisbility, speed, etc..), arm bracers for archers (increased missile accuracy), amulets for magic users (increased spell potency or decreased spell charge-up time, or something), etc... Any thoughts on this? Any glaring design issues I left out? I would DIE for a game like this [edited by - Peon on October 10, 2003 3:26:24 PM] [edited by - Peon on October 10, 2003 3:28:25 PM] [edited by - Peon on October 10, 2003 3:29:00 PM]