Why I stopped playing online FPSs

I can’t wait for Team Fortress 2. Not just because Team Fortress Classic was the first (and only) game I played online in a clan (team FuS ftw!) and not just because it was superbly balanced (when various exploits were fixed). But mostly because it was simple to play.
Now I also played Battlefield 1942 online and at work. That and the Desert Combat mod. Superb, simple, shooting fun (yet with nuances of combat and control) that encouraged you to work as teams to capture objectives.
Then I tried the demo of Battlefield 2 and I didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. The HUD was filled with so many boxes, bits of text, arrows, indecipherable symbols on the map and indecipherable symbols floating in front of my eyes it looked like an explosion in a sprite factory. Not to mention the constant barrage of audio clips warning me about various things, as well as those activated by teammates. Also the ramp-up in graphical detail had made it a factor of 10 harder to spot where enemies were. They now nicely blended into the backgrounds.
Needless to say I didn’t buy the full game.
Same issue with Quake/Wolfenstein and the new Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The originals were good fun with simple objectives and clean visuals. Playing the ET demo I was constantly bombarded with new ‘missions’ and new ‘objectives’ while I had to sit and study the HUD to work out which of the half dozen or so bars was my health! Add into that the ramp-up in visual detail making it … you get the idea.
Increased depth in games shouldn’t mean increased complexity for the player. Adding specific objectives for classes, multiple objectives for all players and so on is great. But it has to be done so that the player isn’t overwhelmed by information. Naturally, new maps will take time to learn, but I remember when when you could download a new multiplayer map and you’d instantly know where and what your objectives were, even though you didn’t know the layout itself. The key idea here is to only ever show what’s relevant to the player at that moment in time. For example if they are standing right next to Objective 1, they are not going to need that massive arrow + text string ‘Objective 1’ hovering in their field of view are they? If they are a medic and a friend is needing healing, do you really need a huge, detail obscuring icon on the mini-map PLUS a huge icon hovering in the game world too? Especially at the same time as a main objective is being attacked by the enemy (cue mini-map icon, game world icon+text, audio cue) and a sub-objective or team created weapon installation is being attacked too (cue mini-map icon, game world icon_text, audio cue).
As for visual detail hindering enemy identification, well this is something utterly crucial and basic to gameplay, yet is always forgotten in the rush to create gorgeous surroundings and beautifully detailed characters. My love for the Unreal Tournament series has been fast dwindling specifically because of this. You’re playing a game where one of the main goals is spotting and killing enemies. In a fast-paced shooter, the player needs to be able to do this quickly and easily.
Now I played Operation: Flashpoint online for years, and that is as hardcore as they come. You would often be killed by someone over 1km away. Hiding in a forest. Superb multiplayer game, and the reason I didn’t mind being killed by an enemy I couldn’t see was because the game was intended to play like that. The gameplay was slower paced, more realistic and involved having to scan the horizon for enemies before making your move.
But in something like ET:QW, that’s not how it should be. It’s a run-and-gun FPS with tanks and a big stompey robot. I don’t want to be killed by an enemy who is only standing 20m away yet is invisible to me because the colour/pattern/detail of their armour makes it impossible for me to distinguish them from the colour/pattern/detail of the ground/wall/foliage/vehicle.
Also, the fact that better technology has allowed for larger game maps and longer line-of-sight doesn’t appear to have been taken into consideration with these types of games. Fast, shootey FPS + big outdoors levels + masses of visual detail = not fun.
In a developer article about Team Fortress 2 I read that the characters were designed deliberately such that each class type was immediately distinguishable from it’s silhouette alone. That combined with the clean graphical style, smaller levels and simple objectives should = fun.
Can’t wait. I’ll be the soldier in defence handing you your arse.