Vote for the New Genre Forum Section

[crux]

Rhythm and Puzzle games should be in an "other" section because they just seem not to be big enough to warrant their own topic.

But if we divide FPS's and SHMUPS, we'd have tons of sections with only a few posts in each. FPS and SHMUPS go together because they are both shooting games. SHMUPS and Run n' Guns are pretty similar, and FPS's are (for the most part) just 3D Run n' Guns.

I don't know about this site in particular, but rhythm games have at least one very dedicated website with an active forum that's been around longer than racketboy has. They were devoted to rhythm games long before Guitar Hero emerged.

And not to beat a dead horse, but first of all, shooters already have a board, and it has more than a few posts. Secondly, lumping together games with bullets is like lumping together games where the characters jump. As someone who is a serious devotee to shooters (real shooters, not the FPS games that stole the term), I'm quite insistent that they have absolutely nothing in common. Shooters predate FPS games by over a decade and strategically play absolutely nothing alike. I even find it a little tough to merge run 'n' guns with shooters, but at least they share shooters' arcade roots, and god knows there's not enough of them to devote a board to. There are HUNDREDS of shooters out there, spanning three decades. Does that really need to be merged, quite arbitrarily I might add, with another genre?

[pepharytheworm]

Rhythm and Puzzle games should be in an "other" section because they just seem not to be big enough to warrant their own topic.

But if we divide FPS's and SHMUPS, we'd have tons of sections with only a few posts in each. FPS and SHMUPS go together because they are both shooting games. SHMUPS and Run n' Guns are pretty similar, and FPS's are (for the most part) just 3D Run n' Guns.

And not to beat a dead horse, but first of all, shooters already have a board, and it has more than a few posts. Secondly, lumping together games with bullets is like lumping together games where the characters jump. As someone who is a serious devotee to shooters (real shooters, not the FPS games that stole the term), I'm quite insistent that they have absolutely nothing in common. Shooters predate FPS games by over a decade and strategically play absolutely nothing alike. I even find it a little tough to merge run 'n' guns with shooters, but at least they share shooters' arcade roots, and god knows there's not enough of them to devote a board to. There are HUNDREDS of shooters out there, spanning three decades. Does that really need to be merged, quite arbitrarily I might add, with another genre?

I quite agree with this statement. I like the very specific genre section because they seem meant for the true retro and devoted players. We don't need sections for all genres just the most devoted ones.

Its true platformers don't have as many rabid fans but thats only because its not or rather wasn't a niche genre, it was too popular to be one. But now or days playing platformers, especially modern ones, is a niche genre, which fits real nice with Shmups, RPGs, and Fighters.

[Ack]

Rhythm and Puzzle games should be in an "other" section because they just seem not to be big enough to warrant their own topic.

But if we divide FPS's and SHMUPS, we'd have tons of sections with only a few posts in each. FPS and SHMUPS go together because they are both shooting games. SHMUPS and Run n' Guns are pretty similar, and FPS's are (for the most part) just 3D Run n' Guns.

I don't know about this site in particular, but rhythm games have at least one very dedicated website with an active forum that's been around longer than racketboy has. They were devoted to rhythm games long before Guitar Hero emerged.

And not to beat a dead horse, but first of all, shooters already have a board, and it has more than a few posts. Secondly, lumping together games with bullets is like lumping together games where the characters jump. As someone who is a serious devotee to shooters (real shooters, not the FPS games that stole the term), I'm quite insistent that they have absolutely nothing in common. Shooters predate FPS games by over a decade and strategically play absolutely nothing alike. I even find it a little tough to merge run 'n' guns with shooters, but at least they share shooters' arcade roots, and god knows there's not enough of them to devote a board to. There are HUNDREDS of shooters out there, spanning three decades. Does that really need to be merged, quite arbitrarily I might add, with another genre?

Dare I ask crux what you consider the first shooter and the first FPS?

But you bring up a good point. There are hundreds of shmups. There are also hundreds of FPS titles(if not a few thousand). They are two massive genres, and they're both quite old(I figure FPS is older than crux thinks based on his wording). And while both use the term shooter, the only thing they really have in common anymore is bullets. Aren't they also both technically subsets of the Action genre? I don't even know, the subgenres of subgenres thing in gaming throws me off.

[crux]

Wolfenstein 3D is largely credited as the first FPS. I know there was stuff like Spasim in the 70's and MIDI Maze (Faceball) ten years later, but it certainly wasn't until Wolfenstein in 1992 where the genre defined itself.

Space Invaders is what I think of as the first shooter, but if we want to look at it like I did Spasim, we could go all the way back to Spacewar! in 1961.

[crux]

Also, for the reference, the true reason platformers don't have rabid fans is that they're simply not as deep by design. Fighting games, rhythm games, and shooters are games that can be played exhaustively. The high scores and difficulty of 1CCing a shooter, the scaling difficulty of rhythm games, and the competitiveness and strategy of fighting games. There are even forums for specific puzzle games out there, like Tetris Grand Master, because of how incredibly difficult and complex the Grand Master series is.

Platformers, while some are brilliant, are often fairly shallow. They're incredibly fun, of course, but generally what you see is what you get. It doesn't lend itself as much to discussion for that reason. But I'm not here to change anyone's mind, a platformer forum certainly wouldn't offend me.

P.S. I went into Google to see if I could find a platforming forum and this topic was the third link.

[ZeroAX]

so platformers it is?

[Ack]

Wolfenstein 3D is largely credited as the first FPS. I know there was stuff like Spasim in the 70's and MIDI Maze (Faceball) ten years later, but it certainly wasn't until Wolfenstein in 1992 where the genre defined itself.

Space Invaders is what I think of as the first shooter, but if we want to look at it like I did Spasim, we could go all the way back to Spacewar! in 1961.

That's about what I was expecting you to say. I feel the FPS genre defined itself with Maze War in 1973, offering us two-player deathmatch and the first person perspective from the get-go. It would eventually evolve into MIDI Maze, Faceball, and the numerous other things it's been called. Wolfenstein 3D I consider an evolutionary step, but not the first.

I also consider Spacewar! to be the first shmup, even if it never received the mass popularity of Space Invaders, which again I consider a major evolutionary step. And Spacewar!'s arcade equivalent Computer Space predates just about everything else on the market.

Either way, while we may disagree on our perspectives about genres and their history, I'd say we definitely agree that the two should be kept separate. They both have roots in the beginnings of gaming, but they're very different roots with no real connection to each other. So I concur that combining the two would be a bad idea. They just happen to have one word in common: shooter. And besides, I like having the acronyms FPS and SHMUP. I think it would be a disservice to both to call them the same thing.

[pepharytheworm]

^^^
Either way he was right about a decade time difference.

@crux
I find platformers just as shallow as shmups. Both require skill and patience to get through. You can 1cc them also, several platformers don't even have continues. They both have crappy stories just to set up the reason for the game. And both are generally very repititive. Maybe you forgot but aren't there high scores in platformers also. I think you are only thinking of 3D platformers which have more in common with adventure/action games. Platformers generally also having scaling difficulty, is the first level just as easy as the last? While not as common there are quite a few platfomers with competive play. Play the original Super Mario Bros. and 3 again with a friend.

[noiseredux]

I like Faceball.

[Ack]

^^^
Either way he was right about a decade time difference.

True, it was his "three decades" comment I didn't agree with. If you start from Spacewar!, it's five decades.