Shootmania: Storm, actually a fun FPS esport to watch

[pakoito]

I don't have time for a long thread so I will edit this one when I arrive home. Given that I am not drunk.

So we have Shootmania Storm from the Trackmania guys. It is basically refined Quake3/UT. Like other "mania" games you get all the blocks to create your own scenarios and mods over gameplay. But the gameplay and the focus of the game is stablishing a competitive scene and a watchable FPS (finally).

The main comp mode right now is rounds of 1v3 where the single guy gets a railgun and the others rocket launchers. 3 lifes vs oneshot. Each round lasts less than a minute, where the last 15 seconds a capture point is available and takes one second to capture (more than it looks), but it is not activated for those 45 previous seconds.

Rounds are short and fastpaced, though map layout allows for a lot of strategies for each one. Attackers can go try sniping one of the enemies, outmanouver them out of the goalpost, vmake them lose all ammunition...And the same applies to defenders: you can choose to sit in the cap point, run for the attacker or set up a defensive zoning to corner him.

Here are some (very onesided) matches from the pre-E3 tournament between comps of various games like CS, Halo or CoD:

[pakoito]

MOAR VIDS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSgC5UuX-fQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZNlOpxOtL0

I have to edit for the finals and brackets maybe.

[caljohnston]

To me it's kind of dull to watch because there doesn't seem to be a theme to the levels or weapons. Q3 was gothic, UT was techno, Tremulous was Aliens, Neotokyo was cyberpunk, etc, but this is just... what exactly? Some ugly levels with invisible railguns? No thanks.

[pakoito]

This is Cybervideogames in Cyberspace, Tron or 80s movie style. I guess there will be different block sets, but the castle ones are good enough.

[Lukasz]

To me it's kind of dull to watch because there doesn't seem to be a theme to the levels or weapons. Q3 was gothic, UT was techno, Tremulous was Aliens, Neotokyo was cyberpunk, etc, but this is just... what exactly? Some ugly levels with invisible railguns? No thanks.

yeah. they concentrated to make it competitive but forgot about viewers.

that is fixable "easily" enough tough.

[The First Door]

I was just playing the beta last night, and I have to say it feels much closer to Quake 3 and the original Unreal Tournament than I was expecting. The movement is very fast and fluid and it becomes second nature to jump off of walls and bounce pads really quickly.

I had lots of fun and it felt really tense and exciting, so I can only imagine watching good people play will be excellent as the game seems set up for air shots, second guessing other people and quick movement.

[fusuheur]

I guess there will be different block sets, but the castle ones are good enough.

[djbriandamage]

To me it's kind of dull to watch because there doesn't seem to be a theme to the levels or weapons. Q3 was gothic, UT was techno, Tremulous was Aliens, Neotokyo was cyberpunk, etc, but this is just... what exactly? Some ugly levels with invisible railguns? No thanks.

I bet creative community levels will more than compensate for this. I expect some cool Running Man\Hunger Games gauntlets.

Ever try Trackmania Nations? The level-building community is unbelievably talented. It's completely irrelevant that all tracks are made with the same building blocks - you could play 500 tracks and experience new gimmicks every time.

[The First Door]

Ever try Trackmania Nations? The level-building community is unbelievably talented. It's completely irrelevant that all tracks are made with the same building blocks - you could play 500 tracks and experience new gimmicks every time.

That does seem to be the case already, even with the smaller amounts of people playing. I played five or six different maps last night and they all felt surprisingly different to play. Plus, if you want to see something different it doesn't take that long to just make it yourself.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

I'd rather watch competitive Tetris than Shootmania. I'm sure the level building is cool and all but watching matches is just plain boring, especially compared to Quake or UT. And even with those games, why watch somebody else at all instead of playing yourself?

[Finicky]

Only 2 weapons (one in most gamemodes) kinda kills it, got into the beta but it wasn't my thing.
The movement is something different to the movement in quake or ut but I'm sure is fun once you get used to it, but the shooting itself didn't feel good and the maps suck: you get stuck or slow down on rubble and small rock outcrops when going up hills....

I love trackmania, so I was extra dissapointed that I didn't like this one.

Nowhere near as fun to watch as the formerly mentioned games either, trying to stand on the flag when it counts down is semi exciting when playing but looks so stupid and halfassed when watching.

[ehsiangw]

they concentrated to make it competitive but forgot about viewers.

[The First Door]

Only 2 weapons (one in most gamemodes) kinda kills it

To be fair is it three, not that it really makes a huge difference. Mostly it suffers from the same problem as Trackmania did, though. If you let anyone make a map, some of them will be rubbish. Still, if you find a good server with a nice voting set up, the fun to play maps normally rise to the top pretty quickly.