Too Much Multiplayer In Today's Games? 362
hornedrat writes "Gamepro discusses the idea that modern games put too much emphasis on multiplayer, and that players aren't as concerned about it as developers think. 'The current environment encourages developers to unnecessarily toss multiplayer into their games without caring about it — or even considering whether anyone will bother playing it. It’s like they're checking an invisible quota box that demands multiplayer's inclusion.' Personally I agree that too much emphasis is placed on competitive multiplayer. I play online, but only with my brother in games that allow co-operative modes, like Rainbow Six: Vegas and ARMA 2. 'My point isn't that developers shouldn't try and conquer Halo or Call of Duty. We'd never have any progress in this industry if developers didn't compete. Game companies, however, should think carefully about what they want their games to be, and more important, gamers should consider what they want. If a developer wants to eclipse Halo, then by all means, pour that effort into a multiplayer mode that's different.' I would be interested to know how many gamers really care about the multiplayer components of the games they buy."
Demon's Souls is very well balanced (Score:4, Informative)
This game rocks BTW. On one level if you attempt to get multi-player coop help you are abducted by the level end boss and become his unwitting proxy. You must fight another person playing the game. This makes that level very hard as equipment, tactics, and skill are all essentially random. This is really just the cream on the top of the almost transparent but pervasive and enticing multi-player world. Demon's Souls is the shit.
Re:More decent gameplay, less multiplayer (Score:4, Informative)
As I've grown older I've found I've become more of a social gamer, I don't really care about playing through games anymore unless someone I know is also playing through it. I probably play games more than most people, but if someone I know isn't playing so we can talk about it, then it's just not as interesting. Unless there is truly something special about the game, I won't play it alone.
Re:Short lifespan (Score:2, Informative)
Just an aside, but I found Duck Hunt on the original SMB cartridge to be unplayable on my HDTV, presumably due to the lag in video processing/display.
Re:Hardly (Score:4, Informative)
D) Badly managed servers. For example, on Team Fortress 2, you will have people who decide to make everyone be engineers, then suddenly allow for one spy, then make everyone be engineers once someone on their team is the spy...
That's not a badly managed server. That's a server with a custom game mode that you don't happen to like. A few multiplayer games have had something of a "cooties" mode, where you either A) avoid getting killed by the cooties monster, B) become the cooties monster and have to kill someone else. As for me, I sometimes find that kind of game an interesting distraction. Sometimes the modder comes up with something *GOOD*, or at least something original.
Here's badly managed servers for you: every singular MW2 PC server. Due to the idiotic idea that is iwNET, you will be paired you will be paired with a given 'server' if they have an open slot and you have a decent ping. That 'server' is some other schmuck playing in your game. A good 50+% of connections are bad, very bad, or horrible, I'm sure due to any number of faults. Further, the server 'admin' either doesn't know how to correct issies, or is apathetic to the fact that some turd is running a wall-hack or aim-bot.
If that wasn't bad enough, the kids have found ways of creating servers with their own rules: and here's the rub: you're still connecting to them regardless of any want or desire on your behalf... And you have no idea that you're connecting to a hacked server before you're in it. Example: A few weeks ago, I joined up on a server that instantly leveled me to level 70, and gave me darn near *every* achievement. Every unlock for every gun, every logo...You know... it sucks royal.
Maybe I'm the only guy who likes playing to accomplish achievements. It forces me to break the mold, try guns and stuff that I might not have liked at first--and learn to dominate people with them. Now, I have every achievement, and can't get rid of them. Can't bring myself to play it anymore.
At least the modded servers in TF2 tend to advertise that fact--giving you the opportunity to decide if you want to join or not.
Mario GP (Score:3, Informative)
Why is there no multi-player quest mode [in Mario Kart Wii] that lets my kid and I unlock new tracks by playing together?
Worse yet, the Super NES and Nintendo 64 versions had a 2-player quest mode.
Re:EverQuest. (Score:3, Informative)
Ancient history...there were two services that allowed quasi-battle.net like games: Kali and Kahn. I believe Kali was the original. IIRC, it was written by Jay Cotton, and you could get a registration number for $15. You would dial into one of their servers and it offered chat services and you could organize games. Kahn was something similar. It was similar to dialing into Prodigy or AOL (or Compuserve, etc...). I believe it was just an IPX-TCP/IP wrapper. Blizzard eventually released a WC2 version called War2 Battlenet Edition which brought it into a more "modern" age and allowed playing over the internet as we know it.
Re:Hardly (Score:2, Informative)
Simple, you play though to max level, takes about 250 hours depending on how efficient you are. That is a lot more than most RPGs offer, yes it is a lot slower going, but for 15$ per month its a lot of bang for your buck. At the end of that stretch, you might feel like trying some of the competitive or co-op the game has to offer, or you do the game over again with a different character. There are 2 sides with about 2/3 in common for single player content, and 10 classes for different ways to play.
Re:Mario GP (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hardly (Score:3, Informative)
That is a problem with current matchmaking tech, not an inherent flaw in coop gameplay.
There should be no problem creating a system where you can rank each player you try out. With time those rankings will create a social group of people who enjoy the same kind of coop play, and the assholes will remain outside. Enough friends in that group like a particular player then it's probably ok to invite him to your team.
Re:Hardly (Score:2, Informative)
One major improvement of SC2 over SC1 is that Noobs (like 90% of the people playing SC2) will get a better introduction to MP. (Challenge Mode)
Furthermore, the game matching is way better than the one in War3.
The Win/Loss ratio that I saw on most players was usually between 40% and 60% which is pretty good.