It hit me yesterday, as I sat on the throne playing Socom for my PSP. Why the hell do I even think multiplayer games are fun?
Now hear me out before you explode. I will be the first to admit that when I hear, “thousands of players online all the time!”, and “head to head wireless action”, I get really excited. Whether on my PC, my consoles, my handhelds…the “idea” of lots of people playing seems really neat, like it seems to do for the rest of the gaming world.
But I am always left a little flat. I find that there are times I would just rather settle in for some decent (or even bad) A.I. and just play without anyone else’s expectations, or requirements, or malfunctions, or anything. I really think that a big part of the reason I have not purchased a 360 yet is I can’t seem to get all jazzed about the multiplayer focus. Oblivion might sway me, as its single player centric, but I also think this might be why the Nintendo appeals to me so much. I KNOW there will be a TON of single player content on there, and I am happy to lap it up.
Perhaps its the inevitable effect of having less time and not being able to coordinate times with friends, etc. Perhaps its because the online gaming world is full of idiots and nard bags. Probably more the second than the first.
I also prefer to play with friends anyway. Random encounters with 13 year old ding-dongs is not my idea of an hour well spent.
I know I can’t be alone here. A well crafted story or adventure in a single player campaign is far more compelling to me than the same old frag fest, with the same old lamers.
Thoughts?
“I also prefer to play with friends anyway. Random encounters with 13 year old ding-dongs is not my idea of an hour well spent.”
This statement is exactly why I do not play games online.
I would rather play a game against one other person in the same room than againsts dozens of people I don’t know and don’t have contact with.
Halo2 is the perfect example of how spoiled 12 year olds should not be able to own a microphone.
“Oblivion might sway me”
Ew @ RPG on consoles, except turn based ones at least.
The PC version is gonna own 360 imo – if for no other reason, just because it comes packing TES Construction kit. Player made mods are gonna be restricted, if available at all on 360, and Elder Scrolls games are all about community (even though its offline
) and a modding community is something that always has been, and always will be lacking in the console world.
Back to the topic at hand:
Some games, for instance: COD2 are awesome offline games, and the online content is brilliant, but the people are rude, untalkative and downright ignorant in 90% of servers, so it doesnt get played much. However CS:S is a completely mediocre game, with only 2 types of game, small maps, full of bugs, yet its incredibly popular, and more fun to play than a lot of “better” games. This is just down to the people, it seems a more fun game because its a more social game – i have something like 450 hours played, and over 1500 on World of Warcraft – all for the same reason.. community.
Some offline games are amazing, better programmed, better written, more accessible than any online game on the market, yet I can only really get 15-20 hours out of any offline game as you don’t have that one essential feature for real fun: people.
Anyway i’m not really sure where im going with this so im gonna go read or something.
“Random encounters with 13 year old ding-dongs is not my idea of an hour well spent. ”
Way to drive out all the 13-y/o’s from the WoW Guild Scott
hehe. The ever growing contingiant.
SamM Says: Halo2 is the perfect example of how spoiled 12 year olds should not be able to own a microphone.
Oh god you are so right abut that, I remeber playing with some kid from Britan and the guy would get on my nerve just becase he was like 10 and really abnoctouse. Scenario:
Kid:Oh yeah double kill
[I turn around the corner]
[I noscope him]
Me: How do ya like that
I think the only game I like playing with my friends the most ( besides halo, all you go online for are semi-intelligent things to shoot at) is probably Battlefront 2 or one perferebly 2 because, well because. and I dont know if there making a third one which I think would be cool but I have not heard anything on that
well most decent multiplayer games perhaps have a long short term playing expereince buit do u see ur self still goin online with these games 15 years down the road. over all u are more likly to replay old offline games then online
I used to play the frag fest games like Q2/Q3 then I moved to Unreal because the clan I joined had a bit higher of a maturity level. You can’t coordinate an attack if you have 9-15 year olds. it just doesn’t work. The snot bags don’t have the patients for it.
Then I moved to MMORPGs and generally forced the people around me to grow up or they got left behind. But this killed my frag fest so now I don’t play either of them. I bought a car and spend my time working out what to do to it next. I handed in my gamer id badge over the last 6 months and I’m a little iffy about trying to get it back.
The games on the market are amusing at best. I find I prefer the old classics when you have to best yourself rather then pwning some rug rat who just got a new puter from mommy and daddy.
These days games have turned into more work than fun. Craft something for hours on end and then sell them for coins you can’t buy candy with. Just seems wrong somehow.
Dont’ get me wrong. Getting some 13 year old to do repetative tasks is great for getting them used to what real life is like.
WoW the sweat shop for kids. (quick someone give that headline to CNN)
i will admit I am very pumped about playing the new Worms game against friends
i don’t like multiplayer that much, bacause, unless you spend 10 hours a day playing only one game, you can’t really have fun. there’s always a couples of bastards who has no life and kill everybody in sight without letting you the time to take one shot at anybody.
i play sometime, but i mostly play with friends on single player. that’s why i didn’t bought WOW. there’s no single player mode.
I’ve never much enjoyed the random multiplayer experience, with the following caveat: random multiplayer can lead to non-random multiplayer.
That is, when I was new to, say, Natural SelectionI ran around a few dozen servers, which helped me a) learn and b) find a server to my liking. I then became a regular, got to know the chaps I was playing with, and voila, instant game community.
Do you play WoW with 10 gazillion random people, or do you play WoW with guildmates and other friends? The question is, were all your game friends necessarily people who were friends before you started the game?
I also do not play games where you can’t build a sense of community and/or just play with friends – shooters that move too fast to type being the canonical example.
As far as singleplayer, I’m equally picky. You mentioned well-woven storylines as being a major catch – but how many games have well-woven storylines? Even today, many singleplayer games consist of skill tests or button mashing or item hunts or what not. Those are less fun for me than random frag fests, and I’m rather hoping most people agree (otherwise I can suddenly explain why said games still do well).
I can count on one hand the number of singleplayer games I’ve played for anything besides storyline – Total Annihilation, Battle Realms, Unreal Tournament, and Birth of the Federation. Note: the first three I played for practice, and the last I played singleplayer because multiplayer was more unbalanced than half a gyroscope.
What do I think that all means? I think that means, Scott, you want to play games for maximum enjoyment (duh?). That means good singleplayer games (well-crafted storylines, woohoo!) and good multiplayer games (wherein the quality is highly dependent on whom you are playing with).
Oversimplification? Maybe.
As far as Nintendo, maybe I’m confused, but I don’t find Nintendo consoles to have more singleplayer content than other consoles. I thought that the main reason to own a Gamecube was because the games are easy to learn, fun to play, and so crazy silly. Heck, you can play ‘em with your parents and kids and the crazy old hermit down the block. Flipside is that I’ve played only one singleplayer game on the Gamecube, and only one on the 64 (guess what? both Zeldas).
Don’t confuse deathmatch with multiplayer.
Deathmatch is a TYPE of multiplayer play.
Cooperative is another TYPE of multiplayer play.
I much prefer games like NWN or Dungeonsiege… something I can play with my wife. And I enjoy cooperative/team oriented games like IL2 Sturmovik (flight sim).
MMO’s are so over rated, after WOW, DAOC, EQ2 nothing is really worht playing…
the market is overflooded with useless MMO’s that dont work or which need another 3 months work. The worse part is trying to play a game without someone calling you a noob or a fag within the first 10-15 minutes for no apparant reason.
I seriously rather play co-op with someone beside me then over the internet.
To me Nintendo excells at a different type of multiplayer, and I feel the need to make the distinction. What do all the following games have in common?
Mario Party
Super Smash Brothers
Mario Golf
Mario Tennis
Mario Baseball
Zelda: Four Swords Adventures
They are all the most amazing freakin’ fun to play with three mates in your lounge room.
Wow, different people with different opinions. Rock on.
For me, my entire love of games and multiplayer especially stems from my life long rivalry with my best friend. We have been tring to best each other at every game we can get our hands on ever since.
To me, it was those late nights in highschool when we’d play Starcraft over a56K connection were the greatest gaming sessions ever. I wasn’t fighting because I hated the Protoss, i fought becuase if I lost i knew I’d be hearing about it at school.
Even now, that we’ve both gotten married and are attending college in seperate states, we still play a couple games of War Craft 3 a week. I’d still rather eat dirt than lose to him, and it keeps our friendship strong.
To me, that’s what videogames should do, bring friends together.
That being said, I only pay for game I know that I can play for 15 minutes by myself because often, that’s all the time I have.
I agree that multiplayer games should not be a task, but it should be fun instead. I find myself playing less and less games now that I know that I can’t devote at least 8 hours per week to play. Plus, playing with friends is so much more fun because you have stories that are interesting to both.
I actually met my highschool friends because of starcraft and eversince we’ve been playing all types of multiplayer games together.
Plus those 12 year olds are too annoying and I personallly do not believe that they should be playing online games until they reach a certain maturity level.
I agree to a certain extent, but I think it depends on the game.
For example, right now my games are Half-Life, Classic Deathmatch, and EverQuest. Classic DM is, of course, for if you want fast, instinct-based gameplay… as much as I like practicing on bots in UT and the like, ther is nothing like playing against the unpredictable human element.
EverQuest is good if you want to solo for a little bit, but group with people if there is an oppotunity and you need to defeat a major opponent. Good MMORPG’s let you play either way depending on your mood, but of course your dependant on the availability (and co-operation) of other players.
Half-Life, as a single-player game, let’s you set the pace, and explore to your heart’s content. It’s like reading a book… the story unfolds at the speed you set.
They are all good games, it just depends on whether you are in the mood for chocolate or strawberry. Multiplayer can be a blast, but it can also be a bit sour… kind of like life.
I would the say the problem with multiplayer these days is that everything is still compartmentalized, or shoved into singular, unbreaking categories of gameplay.
You either have your in-house, multitap/4-controller competitive game that becomes instantly repetitive or unentertaining if one of the players is better than the others by any significant degree.
You have the MMORPGs that shove you into a world of faceless strangers to intereact with, whether by choice or my necessity, based on single player principles such as levelling up or progressing through a linear plot.
You have the straight deathmatch games like Half-Life, CoD, Unreal, and the like, or games like BF1942/BF2 which reward teamplay but offer nothing but, again, faceless strangers.
You have the odd, infrequent team based 4-player game like Gauntlet or D&D Heros for the Xbox.
Then of course you have the Star Wars Battlefront 2 or Splinter Cell Chaos theory style of game that is cooperative through missions usually identical or very, very similar to the single player game.
But that’s it. You have to pick and choose from that selection. There is no real mixing of those genres of multiplayer game that I can think of. Can anyone name even one game like Final Fantasy or Morrowind that allows two or more players to progress through the story at the same time? Or what about a game that challenges four people to complete a single objective in concert, but is so difficult and requires such precise timing that if even one person screws up, the whole team fails?
I don’t know. My gripe with multiplayer gaming is that it is usually an afterthought, is repetitive, or feels contrived; that it’s just a copy of the single player game. I think that if there were more (or any) games that required Multiplayer gaming, and presented it in a variety of ways, playing with your buddies would be a lot more fun. Even making it a lot easier for friends to play the same game online in the same room/house without having a LAN and a PC/Console + Copy of the Game per person would be cool.
As for why you might feel that a single player game is more compelling… Progress. In a single player experience progress is constant, and satisfying since you are playing through a story. It’s like reading a book. All a multiplayer game would need to be/do is the same as a single player expereince: tell a story to the players involved. But, I think more importantly than that, is to tell a story with multiple characters. Not a single ‘character’ such as a group or squad, like in Chaos Theory or Gauntlet.
How? I don’t know. Just a few thoughts.
It seems like you got your ass handed to you online and decided you prefer easier opponents?
I am of the school that I prefer single player games. I didn’t have anyone to play games when when I was growing up. And when I finally got a stepbrother. It was turns on games. We’ve always prefered RPGs. A very usually single player experience.
MMORPG’s do nothing for be because of the weak to nonexistant storylines. So the whole point of Multiplayer is lost on someone like me…
Well, the first online game I played was Carmageddon, after that, Quake 2.. then my enthusiasm for kill- and fragfests with 12 year olds kinda died… I went back to the good old single player fun of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Mario.. the classics so to speak.
)
Then I encountered the world of MMORPG’s (god I hate that acronym, way too long..
The first one I played was Ultima Online, on a private server (Dragonlance UO). It also turned out to be the last one
Don’t get me wrong, I like MMO’s just as much as the next guy, but I can’t be bothered to spend hundreds, if not thousands of hours in an online game which eventually will get wiped anyway…
The experience was a wonderful one, but I like the thought of being able to fire up my SNES and load a 15 (or something) year old FF4 save game.
With MMO’s you can’t do that.. in 15 years time WoW will be a vague memory…
Nah, just gimme a good single player RPG and I’m hooked for weeks, even months.
Just 2 more weeks ’til Oblivion is released… just 2 more weeks..
I want more cooperative games! I’m very fond of playing co-op with a couple of friends (not so fond of playing with people I don’t know).
Especially since I haven’t found a single player game that’s _really_ enjoyable since 2000. But with co-op I’ll play almost any shitty game that we can get a hold of.
I thought I loved multiplayer games and played stuff from Diablo to Diablo 2 and then graduated to MMOs like SWG, AC2, FFXI and some other crappy Korean ones which I cant remember. But then I realised that its more frustrating to play online with other players then it is to play offline single player games.
But I guess the push for multiplayer games has more to do with developers being lazy to program better AI letting humans control the other characters (bad idea) just so that they can focus more time and effort on better graphics and product placement in games.
I still prefer to play Solo games. I enjoy MMOs for the multiplay aspect, but overall I prefer to play alone. The only time I enjoy multiplay FPS with friends ONLY, as normally most players I encounter online are asshats.
I know what you mean S… I enjoy coop games more than online. Me and my friends constantly play games like Halo and lots of NHL Hockey in a dynasty mode. I played Final Fantasy Online for a few months, but couldn’t dedicated enough time to it, then it became a waste of my money and efforts.
I wish more coop games would come out, but I’ve been hoping for more games to allow me and friends, or a friend at least, to do some coop play together online, because it’s not always easy for some of us to get together more than once every 2 months or so…
It be awesome if we could both be at home, but hop online to play a game or 2 of the dynasty in NHL 06…
Me and some friends just bought Ratchet Deadlock, and noticed the online coop play, so we’ve been anxious to find time to check it out, and see what that’s all about…
If the game has great AI and mechanics, I’m all about the single player. Swat3, Ghost Recon, and the Gran tourismo series come to mind. Nothing, however compares to finding a good group of mature people to play COD:UO, or finding a friend or two to battle it out with in Rise of Nations or C&C Generals. That said, those are rare occurances. To the console multiplayer thing, I’ll say that PGR2 online was one of my favorite racing experiences. Whether it was playing Live-enabled single player and working my way up the ranks of other Live players, or racing directly against others in multiplayer mode, it was tremendous fun.
Then again, I love WoW – but I usually prefer to solo. I guess I like to play “my game”, but be in the company of others.
Scott and Andrew don’t you do a Podcast called The Instance? I thought you guys really liked MMO’s like WOW?
I’ll grant you, in any MMO there are going to be sometimes players that are goofs. That’s why I solo quite a bit or play with a few good players that I know.
I agree with you guys on the multiplayer points, but i love to have the option to hook up and play my friends that have moved, or can’t make it over to the house.
Oldie but goodie:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4917369050945280998
The funny stuff is a few minutes in, where the ‘grunts’ start invading each other.
It’s a “Red vs Blue” episode that parodies the typical behavior of multiplayer gameplay and trash talk. Whether is Halo or some other FPS, we’ve either seen it or heard it happen all the time.
I do love MMOs, but certain kinds and MMOs are really the ONLY multiplay type games that I bother with.
I let my Xbox Live membership run out to Silver after the free month and haven’t missed the Multiplayer too terribly. All the games I have on the 360 suit me great… Of course they are all fodder for Oblivion in the end.
(The console version over the PC verison was a tough choice, but I’m attached to these beasts all day at work, I just can’t go home and game on one anymore… I likes me couch!)
But on the point, I tend to go in cycles single to multi-player, both have their pluses and minuses. (Same as console vs PC… I just can’t cut one completely out.)
Give me Online Super Mario Brothers any day.
Super Hyper Smash Brothers Melee Alpha Turbo MMO!!!
“Perhaps its because the online gaming world is full of idiots and nard bags.”
This is exactly the reason why I stay away from the X-Box. Well, that and the fact that it’s Microsoft. And there’s not enough RPGs for my taste on the system.
RPG FTW!
SP and MP games are both awesome… if they’re done correctly… and few are.
The only online multiplayer game that has really held lasting value for me throughout the years is CS 1.5/1.6. There are a ton of multiplayer console games that I’ve loved (and still love) though, many of them for Nintendo.
I too would rather play with friends than a bunch of random nobodies… that’s one reason I liked CS. If you found a good server and frequented it enough you actually got to know alot of the people on the server and it became more of a game between buddies than between complete strangers.
Right now I’m stuck on Ikaruga (classic shooter) and Shadow of the Colossus. Ikaruga is multiplayer but not online.
I play single player games for the story line. I play MMO’s for people. Course, I don’t play WoW any more because I never met a person I wanted to see again…
That’s why I play EVE, easier to join a group of mature players and get to know people then most other MMO’s. I stopped playing CS and the like long ago, and I’ll never own a console for online multiplayer.
Singleplayer games have to have a very well working A.I., one that is able to surprise me or to use my moves against me, in order to keep my attention. There are rather few games, who are capable of this, Sid Meier’s Civilization (any part) is one of those.
Multiplayer games depend largely on their community. If i find mature, polite players it’s the best of all gaming experiences because you face an opponent who is able to adapt and to improvise.
If you face a horde of kids, it’s wasted time. Nothing to add.
Awesome conversation folks…really good points of view.
yeah no kidding add a comment one day next day 40 comments
and to add on to some of what people said(keeping it short)
I like the fact that someone brought up super smash bros and mario party because there one of the games you can play and beat it and come back in a year and have it be completly new.
I’m also agreeing that if a game has good AI bots single player is great (which is why I said I liked battlefront) I think I would play Halo 2 alot more if it had actual spartan AI bots (that or that xbox live was free Xb)
super smash bros online sounds like an idea I would probably play it. and I would want as has been said a decent large community, and when I say decent I mean not overrun with frat boys and whiney 3-year-olds(a.k.a. Halo 2 on xbox live.)