Multiplayer:Killing us slowly or best thing ever?

[Bakura]

The same could even be said when multiplayer games try to have a single player campaign thrown in. Games such as UT and BF have always struggled with in the single player departments. and it's probably why games such as Halo and Call of Duty deliver such ho-hum single player experiences, as well. I think the lesson should be don't include something else in when it isn't the focus. It dilutes the entire product.

This.I was going to bring this up:why have a campian?No one plays Unreal Tornament for the story.They play for the multiplayer.Why waste time and resorces on something no one is going to bother with?Focus on one thing or the other,not both,and I bet you will have a better product.

 

[Token-not-found]

Multiplayer is so popular because it's easy to implement, it has a small development time and it sells very well.

It's like being a RPG dev and given the choice between making a system that randomly generates 100 quests or individually crafting every one of them.

Not only the random system is much faster and easier it also brings back much more revenue per resources spent.

Multiplayer affects someone like me only indirectly , since the single player rpg's will remain that way for some time (i hope), though it lowers the general standard and acts as an enabler for shittier games.

I hate multiplayer- with extremely few exception like 2 person co op in some rpg's.

 

[Ophiuchus]

You could argue role playing games existed too, but there is to date no way to emulate the real-time storytelling of the game master. It may come one day, but that's still something to invent. Until then multiplayer role playing games don't really exist to me.

Ultima Online came pretty close to this since you could interact with nearly every item in the world. I used to create roleplaying sagas for my guild and pulled off some pretty creative events.

Didn't NWN1 have some kind of dynamic DM system, or am I thinking of something else?

 

[UncannyGarlic]

@PainlessDocM: As much as I love Q3 Arena, my biggest problem with it was exactly what was shown there, it devolves into a railgun fight.

Multiplayer is so popular because it's easy to implement, it has a small development time and it sells very well.

Multiplayer really isn't as easy as you suggest to implement, least of all when you are a studio with no experience with it and/or when you have to create custom maps/games for multiplayer, which is the case in every game that isn't just the singleplayer campaign made coop (which is rarely done anymore).

It's like being a RPG dev and given the choice between making a system that randomly generates 100 quests or individually crafting every one of them.

Not only the random system is much faster and easier it also brings back much more revenue per resources spent.

If you're talking about how MMOs do quests then that's wrong, they don't randomly generate quests, they are all handmade. I'd say that they tend to be simpler too but that's not really true, they just tend to be fetch quests and killing boars more often.

Didn't NWN1 have some kind of dynamic DM system, or am I thinking of something else?

So did NWN2 and it was their biggest selling point if you ask me. Granted, NWN2 actually had some good expansion campaigns so it's singleplayer was better.

I'd point out that the old Infinity engine games all had coop multiplayer (Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Icewind Dale 1&2). Whether or not you liked it would depend on who you're playing it with.

 

[agiel7]

So did NWN2 and it was their biggest selling point if you ask me. Granted, NWN2 actually had some good expansion campaigns so it's singleplayer was better.

I'd point out that the old Infinity engine games all had coop multiplayer (Baldur's Gate 1&2 and Icewind Dale 1&2). Whether or not you liked it would depend on who you're playing it with.

I agree with you on that. NWN1 I think was more of a toy than an actual game with the editor, whereas NWN2 had a good enough single-player with the OC and MotB campaigns (to the point that about the time Dragon Age 2 came out, I played more NWN2 than DA2 because I was so disgusted by the wave system in DA2 and seemingly malicious disregard for the PC players)

 

[Token-not-found]

If you're talking about how MMOs do quests then that's wrong, they don't randomly generate quests, they are all handmade. I'd say that they tend to be simpler too but that's not really true, they just tend to be fetch quests and killing boars more often.

I was probing an analogy of single player campaigns vs multiplayer gameplay.

The multiplayer gameplay is "randomly generated" in the sense that they don't have to come up with a story or good AI or anything - the other players take care of that.

Just craft some good shooting mechanics , draw a map and you're good to go- no voice acting, no cutscenes, no atmosphere and many others- you don't have to worry about pretty much anything , the multiplayer acts like a random quest generator in that regard.

Hope i rendered clearly what i wanted to say.

 

[Crni Vuk]

stop dissing Unreal! Of course it has deeper MP gameplay then any Cod or MW garbage. Alone the tons of maps you had like 50 or 60 for UT 2 and UT 3. And the game got with every new update even more maps. And UT usually had tons of gameplay modes.

 

[PainlessDocM]

I preferred Quake but I also played Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament to death. I thought the single player in U1 was awesome and not just from a technical perspective. What's not to like about finding yourself in a crashed prisoner spaceship on a strange lush green planet where an oppressive alien race is enslaving the cute Nali inhabitants. Discovering more of what's going on around you by reading journal entries you found along the way. Ofc the fact that the game was drop dead gorgeous and sounded great helped in making it even more enjoyable to play.

The MP in UT was superb because of the advanced engine, fast gameplay, great selection of weapons and a near endless amount of maps.

Hell you can still find UT servers online today, I think that alone speaks volumes about the games quality.

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Edited my first post in this thread because I did "scream" decline a post later. Looks like I can't find anymore excuses to hide my disappointment with the lack of modern skill-based shooters

 

[UncannyGarlic]

My biggest issue with CoD and other such games is that they don't allow user made maps and fucking charge $15 for 5 new maps. The MP just get's stale after awhile.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yes but I have the feeling thats actually the "target" for the game. Imagine if the multi player would have the effect of Counter Strike that people could play it for years without loosing motivation and interest why would anyone buy the "new" Cod games then ? As strange this might sound but its not in the interest of game developing companies that their games get loved for decades if they contain a strong MP game play. It should be entertaining of course and keep the motivation for some time. But once the Sequel is ready "most" if not "all" of the old players schould feel the need to "change".

 

[UncannyGarlic]

I'm not so sure about that, it really depends on your business model. On one hand you can keep releasing the same game every year with a different singleplayer campaign, new maps, and a few tweaks to the weapons and abilities. On the other you have the Valve approach which is to make games which will last and which are very different from each other. One of the models is sustainable long term, the other really isn't.

 

[Hassknecht]

I preferred Quake but I also played Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament to death. I thought the single player in U1 was awesome and not just from a technical perspective. What's not to like about finding yourself in a crashed prisoner spaceship on a strange lush green planet where an oppressive alien race is enslaving the cute Nali inhabitants. Discovering more of what's going on around you by reading journal entries you found along the way. Ofc the fact that the game was drop dead gorgeous and sounded great helped in making it even more enjoyable to play.

The MP in UT was superb because of the advanced engine, fast gameplay, great selection of weapons and a near endless amount of maps.

Hell you can still find UT servers online today, I think that alone speaks volumes about the games quality.

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Edited my first post in this thread because I did "scream" decline a post later. Looks like I can't find anymore excuses to hide my disappointment with the lack of modern skill-based shooters

Hell yes, U1 singleplayer was awesome. Should play it again, and maybe finally finish Return to Napali.
But yeah, while UT was absolutely awesome, I too prefered Quake. Maybe because it was and is the more simple and raw experience.
No silly second or even third weapon modes, complicated game modes and such nonsense, just pure fast mayhem.
Can't agree with saying that Q3A devolved into railfights. The weapons are perfectly balanced, and while a person with sufficient skill can rule the shit out of the railgun, the person is not invincible.
It certainly never happened Quake Live.

 

[KarmaPolice]

If you'd asked me this five years ago, I'd have argued that the market was big enough for both to survive. Now I'm not so sure. The mass of multiplayer only games seems to be sucking more and more talent from the single-player ones.

My nephew recently bought a PS3 game for £40. He liked the box. (No, I can't remember what it was.) Well, he'd completed the solo mode in six hours. When I questioned that, he said it didn't matter because it was meant for online play. Fine, I like shooting people in the head as much as the next bloke, but it does get boring after a bit. He'll think the same after around 20 hours.

He is the ideal consumer. Spends lots of cash on the game when it first launches, gets bored with it after a bit, spends more cash to download all the new maps etc, gets bored of that too, then won't sell the game because the trade-in value is now £2 and says it's 'worth' much more. Then repeat. Now that's what I fear, not multiplayer as a concept. The only games he's actually spent any amount of time playing is Fallout 3 and New Vegas.