Classic weapons vs. high-tech weapons?

[Reactor]

Doom was most likely the very first FPS game, which offered both standard and high-tech weaponry. Since then, most FPS games applied the same weapons logic, including non-ID games. Half-life, for example, offers conventional firearms (pistol, shotgun, bazooka) together with high-tech or alien weaponz (Gluon gun, Displacer, Shocker bug). Only the minority of these games decide to side with only one group (the Battlefield-series offer either classic or high-tech weaponry,depending on the game). This is why I created two companies in the first place. The FireScape is a British firearms manufacturing company, which creates mostly classic firearms, the Zicca on the other hand, is a Norwegian company, and focuses mostly on high-tech armaments. And, as you can expect, they're engaged in a heavy rivalry.
When I joined the ZDoom Skype group, this was quite a topic to discuss, so I already know their opinion. And what about yours? If you have to choose between them, will you side with conventional or energy firearms?

Conventional weapons include the technology of the present, or the not-so-distant past. Fists, kick or knife for melee, all bullet weapons, shotguns, bazooka, chainguns, missile launcher, grenade launcher, grenades, cluster bombs, tripmines, flamethrower, airstrike, high explosives and the atom bomb.

Energy weapons are considered stronger IMHO, at least, in most games. They're also a wide variety, you can find even melee weapons among them. Vibro Blade, Thermal Tazer, disintegrators, laser and plasma weapons (yes, pew-pew lazerz!!!), Railgun, teleport weapons, Paralyzer, Enemy manipulator (like the Deviator in the Dune series), ionspray, sonic oscillator, particle disturbance-based weaponry, such as neutron or protron cannons, Dark Matter Gun, BFG, anti-matter beam and so on. Interestingly, energy weapons offer much less throwable explosives, the only one I can think about right now is the EMP grenades.

[Matt]

Huh, thought you meant something like a wood-body bolt-action rifle versus a "next-gen" assault weapon of the sort you'd see on the Discovery Channel or something.

Answer remains the same. Guns = Bows = Swords >>>> magic wands

[Arthropleura]

Bayonets and Bolt action rifles will always be my first choice, so Conventional weapons for me.

[Big C]

Accept no substitutes.

[YukiHerz]

I like to group them as:

Bullet (Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns)
Laser (Railguns, Star Wars Weaponry)
Plasma (Plasma Rifle)
Magic (Imagine an Assault Rifle with a wand instead of barrel)
User Powered Projectile (Bows and similar)
Explosive - Projectile (Rocket/Grenade Launcher)
Explosive (Grenade, Trip Mine)

and some others.

My fav would be Bullet, Laser and Magic.

[Arthropleura]

Accept no substitutes.

I won't.

---

[Reactor]

Pulse weapons are interesting...in Aliens, they operate with bullets. In other games (Tyrian for instance), they're energy weapons. I can't really decide, so pulse weaponry is "joker".

[Matt]

Without a proper grounding "pulse" like anything else just becomes a bullshit word salad(EDIT: "technobabble" was the word I was looking for) term.

The only context I've seen it mean anything with respect to a weapon is in contrast to a continuous wave laser.

[edit: HD's Thunder Buster doesn't count since the only real reason for it is Doom engine limitations and I deliberately meant the name to be a bit bullshitty-sounding anyway]

[Reactor]

When I meant "laser", I distinguish the constant laser and the "pew-pew lazerz". Constant laser works like the Quake 2 energy barriers, or the Plasma beam in Ground Zero.

[Arthropleura]

When I meant "laser", I distinguish the constant laser and the "pew-pew lazerz". Constant laser works like the Quake 2 energy barriers, or the Plasma beam in Ground Zero.

Pulse lasers you mean?

[Reactor]

Yes, just like the Star Wars-type of lasers, which are individual blasts as opposed to one constant beam. Many other energy weapons retain the same concept even though if they are not laser weapons, but as for genuine laser, the "pew-pew lazerz" nickname makes it very easy to recognize

[Arthropleura]

The Blasters from star wars are plasma weapons.

[DoomRater]

I wouldn't mind seeing a book weilding mage vs dudes with guns. But only if the book is used to select the magic used, not if it's actually being casted FROM the book directly.

[Raziel236]

A pulse just means a pattern of activity interspersed with non-activity, usually regular, therefore, the fact that the weapon fires in 3 bursts makes the word fitting.

[Reactor]

Laser/plasma differences are indeed odd, they tend to differ in movie to movie, game to game. I always thought Star Wars utilizes lasers. At least, in games, starfighters utilize laser cannons and the turrets are also "turbolaser" turrets.
In Terminator 2 however, there are plasma weapons, but basically they're more or less the same with the laser weapons.

Firearms vs. magic is something Tristania 2 will utilize too. Magic is stronger because it has no scientific boundaries, and technically, only the imagination defines what magic can or can not do. I think the Warhammer 40K utilizies magicks and high-tech weapons at the same time.