Well, I guess most people here that play shooters thought "BRINK" when reading the topic's title.

However, the subject of this topic is as follows:
I'm thinking about playing around with parcour movement (in-game of course :P), and am thinking about ways to achieve that, code-wise, and during that some questions of design sprang into my mind.

First of all I'd like to hear some general opinions about parcour movements in combat-focused shooter games, precisely multiplayer games.

Furthermore, some more detailed questions.
For instance, I'm thinking about the sense and non-sense of flips. The devs of Brink have a very good point against such moves in a shooter, they just want the player to be able to aim and shoot at all times. What do you think weights more in a parcour-shooter game? Ability to shoot at every frame, or a few secs of non-shooting but rather performing a very stylish move? Same goes for rolls and similar stuff.

Also, the design of controls is a very tough question for me. In Brink, they have a single button, combined with a system that recognizes the desired move based on the view direction of the player. That would however not work in a third person view; Also, I was thinking about giving the player the possibility to choose between various moves for the same purpose, for instance between a monkey and a fast vault when trying to get over a rail.

So, basicly, it's a question of style over efficency. What do you think?

Oh, and as I know there are some freerunners at this forums, I'd be happy to hear their opinions on that.

This sounds like a great idea for a game.
I think it doesn't make sense, though, to discuss this in general, because it mainly depends on the way how you build your levels.
Your levels have to be build in a way that the player can take benefit of different ways of shooting and running, and their combination.
That means, your level design is the point where a given feature makes sense and is fun to be used or whether it is obsolete or even annoying.

what do flips have to do with parcour at all? yamakasi maybe, but flips are not even related to parcour.

Guys, please stop calling it parcour cause it's parkour, nothing horrible, but it just kills me... About flips, they really have nothing to do with parkour (yamakasi is just a name of first parkour team, it isn't an other kind of sport), if you thinking about adding flips (which are useless in shooter game in my opinion, same as shooting cause to move through obstacles and shoot someone isn't realistic, I just don't like that idea, but I think it'll be ok if you game will be arcade) that will be freerun, but not parkour (yes, they are different). About BRINK, I really hate it, cause I don't like movement at all, I don't like idea at all either... The best parkour game I've ever played is Mirrors Edge. Great balance between moving and shooting in my opinion. If you have some questions about parkour (or freerun as well) send me PM, I'll be happy to help.

I usually call it parkour as well but for some reason it seems there is a group of people who call it parcour.. not sure why. but i figured i'd use his lingo.


Edit:

and i thought yamakasi was a spinoff of parkour for people who wanted to be more showy with flips and things of that nature. hmmm i could always be wrong.

The spinoff of parkour for people which want to be more showy (with some really useless shit such as flips) called freerun The foundator of parkour David Belle, started his training with some group of guys, later they called they team yamakasi. You can see these guys in movies called Yamakasi as well (without David Belle).

ah, see thats where i was confused, i thought freerunning, was more like parkour only not focused on efficiency but more for the exhilaration and thrill.

I'm very interested in how you'll realise the player movement. I love it when players interact with their environment in a realistic way (stepping correctly on staircases, "snapping" to covers instead of just crouching)...
Any plans on how you'll do that? Bone animations?

Well, I knew this was going to happen when I read through my post again later after writing it...

So, talking bout parkour (thanks @3run for clearing that little spelling thingy ) I basicly meant parkour - the art of getting from A to B as fast as possible, bla bla etc - AND freerunning, meaning that show-off moves. Am well aware of the difference.

However, the base idea for that flips thingy was that they should be used for dodging maneuvers and that kind of stuff.
What mainly drives me it that I think a very fast-paced, freaky shooter would just work very good with parkour/freerunning movements... the idea was mainly born from that vid here: http://brinkthegame.com/media/videos/ just have a look at the "Cinematic Trailer".
3run, I can understand what you dont like about the movement in BRINK - I myself think it's pretty cool, but after playing Mirror's Edge the Brink movement really looks a bit lame. Keep in mind though that it was designed with the idea that the player should be able to aim and shoot at all times.

@Germanunkol: Yeah, the practical aspect (coding-wise) is indeed very tricky... I thought about a system of combinations of traces to detect the close environment and analyse which moves are possible at the moement; The really tricky thing is adapting the animations (another problem) to the environment, guess I had to use IK for that. Oh, and bones are needed of course.

However, I do not like the idea of an active cover system ("snapping" into cover) - just is too consolish for me. I like a passive cover system - player reacts to the cover, but does not snap to it.


However, the point of this thread should be how the balancing between "parkour/freerunning" and "shooter" should be like in a "Parkour-/Freerunning-Shooter".
So, for instance, I'm thinking about practical things like "where does the freerunner store his weapons, what weapons can a freerunner carry at all...", stuff like that.

Thats a good idea... But in some situations not good.
Lets make an example:
The player jumps out of a window with an Front Flip.
After a half rotation he see an enemy and want to shoot on him, so he descides to "aim" (so the screen is rotatet to 180°).
So whats about the landing? in my opinion the player must be break his neck after colliding on the ground?!
But hey, its a game ^^ just decrease the HP value a bit

I really like this Idea, this sounds really funny to me to Jump / climb through the Level.

cYa Sebastian