Seems there's a resurgence in high speed and arena FPS games now

Anyone else noticing it? There's a new Unreal Tournament in development, there's a Tribes-styled FPS in the works called Project Free Fall, Revenge of the Cats got succeeded by Terminal Overload, and now there's a UT2k4 meets the non-bullshit elements of Halo in the works called Toxikk. Interestingly even with those materializing, Xonotic and it's predecessor still stand out with next to no similarities with the previously mentioned projects. One would have to wonder with the resurgence in these types of games if Xonotic would end up piggy backing off of the sub genre's sudden increase of popularity.

Reflex, Toxikk, Nex, UT4... Sadly nothing new, people think tiny balance changes and hotter gfx will revolutionize the genre.

Quake Live just got released on steanm, lots of fun, but its the same old crap with unintuitive movement and broken weapon balance.
UT series had already tried pretty much everything to innovate the genre and it lead nowhere.
I think that every of these games will get their own little community and then die away.

Innovation of the genre leads nowhere as proven by Xonotic, Red Eclipse, Alien Arena and countless of others. As weird as it sounds.. Reflex is the only project in the 'upcoming list' trying something new. Which is doing a remake with easier access and user friendly features without any mind boggling innovation. This niche doesn't really want anything innovative and fresh, it just wants something that's done right and easy to grab. Reflex and UT4 are on the right tracks.

But Xonotic, Red Eclipse and Aliean Arena (and Warsow) simply does tiny balance changes in the same kind of arena game. What I mean by innovate is adding more depth not just features, I mean redefining the core (while also remain the decision-making, prediction and aim oriented gameplay).

EDIT: To give an example, look at the evolution of MOBA games, they undergone some major changes before the conventional MOBA-type game was defined, Arena shooters by contrast have not really added any crucial elements besides minor differences since its origin.

Not quite true, the refinement just happend in the 1990/early 2000. Quake World to Quake3/UT2004 is a long evolution. After that it stalled mostly though.

P.S.: Terminal Overload is quite innovative, but admittedly closer to the Tribes like genre.

Not quite true, the refinement just happend in the 1990/early 2000. Quake World to Quake3/UT2004 is a long evolution. After that it stalled mostly though.

P.S.: Terminal Overload is quite innovative, but admittedly closer to the Tribes like genre.

I'd say the last real radical refinement was with Nexuiz (original) which mixed elements from three major skill oriented series (Unreal Tournament, Quake, and StarSiege: Tribes) and cranked the lunacy up to 11 with deliberate bugs brought in as features (weapon cooldown longer than weapon switch to encourage weapon combos which is something that is unique to the game, splash damage through geometry, etc.), a freakishly high gamespeed, tons of aerial combat, and map design unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. Xonotic being a continuation of what Nexuiz was, is in my honest opinion one of the only newer highspeed or arena first person shooters that truly stand out when compared to everything else. Everything else, save Terminal Overload, is doing something that has already been done to death. Toxikk for example (as good as looks, not gonna lie I preordered it) seems to be UT2k4 at it's core with some non-bullshit elements added from Halo and maybe Tribes. If Xonotic got refined on the vehicle CTF side of things (just copy/paste most of Tribes and it'll be good), ditched it's tacked on singleplayer for an actual training mode, and got the weapon changes that have been talked about on the forum put into the game, then it'd easily be the best of the bunch.

I admit I don't have much knowledge about other FPS around, but isn't Warsow also quite super-fast with some unique elements with regards to the parcour-like movement? I actually like their approach to movement though I have yet to understand how they pull it off (I'm still sluggish there).

Not quite true, the refinement just happend in the 1990/early 2000. Quake World to Quake3/UT2004 is a long evolution. After that it stalled mostly though.

P.S.: Terminal Overload is quite innovative, but admittedly closer to the Tribes like genre.

I set up a TO server today. Runs on the same box as SMB/Mofo servers. Its an odd game but what the hell, I couldn't find any car racing games that allow dedicated server so will do a TO one.

I admit I don't have much knowledge about other FPS around, but isn't Warsow also quite super-fast with some unique elements with regards to the parcour-like movement? I actually like their approach to movement though I have yet to understand how they pull it off (I'm still sluggish there).

Yes, Warsow and Red-Eclipse both have some cool parcour stuff. Funny how the only ones innovating are open-source games that are often accused of only making clones
However all of these have a really small player-base which kind of proves that innovation isn't really wanted by most. Just look at the massive number of Call of Duty 12345678 zombies...

@end user: great, thanks a lot for setting up the server. sadly there are even less TOL players than Xonotic ones So don't expect much people joining.

I admit I don't have much knowledge about other FPS around, but isn't Warsow also quite super-fast with some unique elements with regards to the parcour-like movement? I actually like their approach to movement though I have yet to understand how they pull it off (I'm still sluggish there).

Yes, Warsow and Red-Eclipse both have some cool parcour stuff. Funny how the only ones innovating are open-source games that are often accused of only making clones
However all of these have a really small player-base which kind of proves that innovation isn't really wanted by most. Just look at the massive number of Call of Duty 12345678 zombies...

@end user: great, thanks a lot for setting up the server. sadly there are even less TOL players than Xonotic ones So don't expect much people joining.

Yah its super new so I figure it'll have a tiny base.

Well judging from which servers are the most played on Xon, simple gamplay seems to win aka Hook and Minsta and Overkilll.

Semi-related: http://acko.net/blog/the-cargo-cult-of-game-mechanics/

But Xonotic, Red Eclipse and Aliean Arena (and Warsow) simply does tiny balance changes in the same kind of arena game. What I mean by innovate is adding more depth not just features, I mean redefining the core (while also remain the decision-making, prediction and aim oriented gameplay).

Leaving out the fact that the weapons in Alien arena are weird and bizarre.. Some of those games (namely Red Eclipse) forces you to make odd decision-makings, such as dropping a gun so that you could pick another, it lacks armor system completely iirc and there's several minor easily fixable design bloopers. One thing I remember clearly was the unspecific announcer notes for team mods. Instead of Blue flag taken or Blue team scores, you got "Flag taken" and "Capture" for both teams. There's no team distinction in the announcer at all which made CTF mod very confusing and uncomfortable for me. This is not going to be fixed/improved, because they support custom names and colours for teams. It's a low value feature in contrast to what it sacrifices in return, the developers/community seemed to disagree with me so maybe I'm missing something.

I ended up nagging about Red eclipse only, that's because I have nothing constructive to say about others. However, my point being:

If Red Eclipse were a super popular game, it would be a new branch of arena shooters perhaps, but it doesn't mean the reincarnation of the flesh and soul of arena shooters the niche screams for. If you must know, my personal qualifications for a proper arena shooter are in order of importance; freedom of visual/input preferences, support for duel, controllable item pickups, purposeful weapon arsenal/balance and progressive movement. Neglect one of these and you stray off the arena shooter world imo.

@end user: great, thanks a lot for setting up the server. sadly there are even less TOL players than Xonotic ones So don't expect much people joining.

I'd be happy to join few games next weekend

(Warsow) I actually like their approach to movement though I have yet to understand how they pull it off (I'm still sluggish there).

Clan arena is the place to learn. The momentum in Warsow can be re-directed to any direction that you dash/walljump to, it's just a matter of getting used to how dashing or walljumping acts from different angles and memorizing the possibilities in map layouts. Spectating others helps.