janev wrote:Don't get me wrong I'm sure it would be fun for a few games but since you are playing against bots there is no competition element. I suspect many people would go back to the multiplayer mode after a few rounds.
This. There's tons of real-world examples of where this style of gameplay just doesn't last: Valve put all that effort into Mann vs. Machine and yet there's virtually nobody on MVM servers compared to vanilla TF2. They also made Alien Swarm (also linear) which also is all but deserted.
monstercameron wrote:I just don't think yet another arena shooter -with flair- will be sufficient in attracting a large -young- userbase
In our defense, we are not "yet another arena shooter", but you have a fair point; I'd agree that players' expectations from a game in terms of variety have increased.
janev wrote:I voted no since this would require a lot of effort for a marginally useful gameplay mode.
I think the solution is simple: as cool as it might seem to create an intricate linear survival map, don't. The more linear the level is, the less replayability because that leads to less game-to-game variation. It's a case of marginal benefits to marginal costs (I am not an economist, so forgive me if that's the wrong phrase): it'd take a substantial amount of effort to make a linear survival map only to reduce the fun factor in subsequent playthroughs while only marginally increasing the fun (from novelty) in the first few playthroughs. A survival map that was very open would, by contrast, be less effort (no one-off map elements to author) and would lend itself to many possible player experiences. Thus, replayability increases.
EDIT: I voted yes, but as you can see from my post, I would not want to invest time in developing a linear survival mode.
