I was terribly disappointed though, there’s many, many things which are very different; perhaps deliberately, but I don’t enjoy the source version anywhere near as much as the original. In fact, I uninstalled it the same day I tried it out!

In firearms, well, firearms were important. You had lots of options, and every weapon you chose was really different; a bit like ‘The Specialists’ which also had a broad range of weaponry and equipment, but even more options than that. In source, I see the attempt to do a similar thing; yes, there are lots of weapons, but they all feel the same, they act the same. The sniper rifle doesn’t kill, and that’s when you can actually hit someone running at the speed of light. In firearms, you ran particularly slow, and you had your run button to sprint, using up stamina. Yes the run button is there, yes the stamina is there, but there is absolutely no reason to use it, cause you’ll feel like your aim is collecting golden rings at the speed you’re running.

Another thing I remember from firearms is the ‘rather although not completely’ lineair maps. The ‘rather’ linearity of the maps provided a way of forming fronts, and having to be indeed very sneaky to be able to get anywhere further than your side of that front. I’m missing this in the source version too.

Overall, I’m very disappointed with the general feel of the game. Something as simple as the running speed couldn’t have possibly been overlooked by someone who played the original, I find it very weird that anyone would make something called firearms: source and not notice such a thing.

I will definitely check out the game again in a year or so though, or possibly reinstall the original if things don’t get better ;-)

FA was a lot more realistic than this, though. If you were dumb and jumped out of cover while they were watching, you’d be chopped down. Now, you can eat bullets for breakfast. There’s a massive difference.

As for the counterstrike comparison, I recall FA actually being the more realistic of the two. Y’know people could take about 20 shots from a glock pistol in the chest without dying in CS? >.> At least FA: Source only takes abou ten =P

The old Firearms was never a one hit kill realistic game.

It was the only multiplayer game I could play with my dad because of that. He basically gave up on multiplayer games after Counter-Strike made everything instagib.

Please don’t make the game too realistic. I do think it is taking too many hits to kill people at the moment, but that doesn’t mean I want one hit kills.

Also, there are a lot of invisible walls in the maps at the moment. For example, you often find your bullets hitting an invisible wall when they are behind prop.

What’s the reasoning behind lowering the damage levels compared to the original game? What seems strange about it is the excellent ‘faith’ of the remake suddenly jarring my expectations when people are massively tougher than they were in the original mod. I’m glad the sniper rifles are still a one-hit kill depending upon the area struck, though.

Pistols, while once very useful, now appear quite useless, though – submachineguns take most of a magazine to take down the average player, machineguns are hideously powerful in comparison to any other gun (resulting in a low of sprinting lunatics with SAWs).. Well, I’m not giving you a balance report and I’m sure you don’t want one here.

Basically, you’ve got the faith right but it certainly needs work, both to reacquire the old gameplay and ensure it remains fun in the modern day.

I hope to play more and watch how Firearms re-evolves. Good luck!

Loving your idea of having something instead of blood for the first few hits on an armoured opponent though – that’s exactly the sort of thing that’ll make the game a bit easier to understand. I’ll raise it with the other guys on the team.

Ironsights are probably not going to happen. It’s a design decision because we want to keep things quite oldschool in that regard. For version 1.1 you’ll be able stick a reddot on plenty of guns and while in no way a solution for those who want ironsights it offers them something.

But I must speak to the contrary on it being merely a hitbox issue – I put it to the test when I had a decent chance – snuck up behind a sniper, drew a Glock 20 and shot him in the back of the head at point blank.

Blood everywhere, grunt of pain – he kept sniping, being a bit dim and having not noticed he’d been shot from behind.

So I put another point blank pistol round into his head.

Blood, grunting. He kept sniping.

Frowning in disgust, I finished him off with the third shot – really, three pistol headshots, at point blank?

That’s not how helmets, or indeed any current military body-armour works. You might get the occasional deflect, or at extreme range manage to stop a round – but at close range, even a pistol shot will smash through your average helmet.

As an aesthetic, I might also recommend removing/toning down the blood effect when damage is mitigated by armour – give players visual feedback explaining what is happening “Why isn’t he dying when he’s just lost enough of the red stuff to keep the cast of Twilight happy for a month?! D:” is an uncomfortable, immersion-breaking and confusing experience in a shooter with any kind of pseudorealistic intentions.

Given that the server seemed very aware the victim was taking the damage, I think we can discount the notion that the hitboxes were borked in that specific case.

I miss the days when a single three round burst from a rifle could take down a light or medium if aimed at the upper chest, or when a few pistol rounds could do the job up close =)

Only other thought.. I know this is staying very faithful to the old Firearms, but in some ways the world really has moved on; while a massive investment of rebalancing and viewmodel animation, playing a game like this without any ironsights aiming is -killing- me D:

It feels imbalanced – particularly for veterans of the original mod.

All these weapons, all these options; virtually meaningless, because in Firearms: Source, the winner is the guy who simply sprays the most bullets in the right direction, finally disintegrating his victim.

The original.. Well, it was simply a lot easier to kill/die, and that led to a tense and enjoyable shooter experience.

Why they’ve changed it, I cannot imagine. Feels a bit like shooting Combine in HL2 singleplayer.

Thanks for the helpful review – I think the one thing that we could have done slightly better is to mange people expectations of what the game is actually all about. The realistic look tends to make people think that it’s a MW2/CSS clone whereas the focus is (as you quite rightly say) on a more fast-paced arcadey shooter sort of a feel with a veneer of reality about it. The other thing we really need to do (and the next patch should go some way to addressing this) is help out the player a bit more and do a better job of explaining some of more unique stuff like the medic and artillery systems.