multiplayer?

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Nevensky
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multiplayer?

Postby Nevensky » Fri Jun 25, 2010 9:29 pm

Hmm, I am absolutely in love with multi player games... will it be possible to play subversion in multi player?
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Postby Uplinkport » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:20 pm

Actually that would be pretty awesome. One person could be in control of each member of the team.
Although some people would probably goof around and not take the game seriously, then you would have a mess.
Last edited by Uplinkport on Fri Jul 02, 2010 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby xander » Thu Jul 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Honestly, I think that multiplayer is a bad idea, unless there is a very strong single player element. Introversion just doesn't have the fan base to support a game that depends on having a large number of available players. While Defcon is still somewhat active (especially right now, due to the Steam sale), there is definitely a feeling of an "old boy's club," in that there are a few very active players, and not a lot of new players. Multiwinia is even worse---sometimes is is impossible to find someone to play a game with. Multiplayer games sound great in principle, but, in practice, require other players who are available at any time of day or night. Much as I enjoy the games that IV has produced, I don't think that they have enough active players or fans to keep multiplayer games alive and thriving.

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Postby elexis » Fri Jul 02, 2010 2:09 am

I think that any multiplayer shouldn't extend beyond the sharing of custom content/entire maps. I find it highly doubtful that there wont be a map editor after all the work on world creation and it would be great to storm other people's fortresses ;)
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Postby mmavipc » Mon Jul 05, 2010 9:55 pm

I think multiplayer would work if AI replaced the missing players
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Postby xander » Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:17 am

mmavipc wrote:I think multiplayer would work if AI replaced the missing players

That doesn't work so well for either Multiwinia nor Defcon, where the AI is trivially easy to beat. If you are playing coop with an AI, you are at a disadvantage because the AI is predictable, and playing against an AI becomes boring because it is not challenging. And you still have the problem of a lack of players. If the game is supposed to be multiplayer, but there are not enough players to get a game started, you revert to always playing against the AI. So, why design a multiplayer game when it is going to be played single player most of the time? I think it would be far better to create a really stellar single player game.

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Postby Uplinkport » Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:18 am

Well then, be that way. :evil:
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Postby mmavipc » Wed Jul 07, 2010 6:47 am

xander wrote:Honestly, I think that multiplayer is a bad idea, unless there is a very strong single player element. Introversion just doesn't have the fan base to support a game that depends on having a large number of available players. While Defcon is still somewhat active (especially right now, due to the Steam sale), there is definitely a feeling of an "old boy's club," in that there are a few very active players, and not a lot of new players. Multiwinia is even worse---sometimes is is impossible to find someone to play a game with. Multiplayer games sound great in principle, but, in practice, require other players who are available at any time of day or night. Much as I enjoy the games that IV has produced, I don't think that they have enough active players or fans to keep multiplayer games alive and thriving.

xander


Or you could take it the way Half-life 2 coop mods did. Use singleplayer gameplay just add another player entity and up the skill level?
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Postby RabidZombie » Fri Jul 09, 2010 11:18 pm

I know people who are only interested in this game if it's coop. It's a shame, but I do see why they think that. Doing a heist sounds much more fun with friends.
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Postby xander » Sat Jul 10, 2010 1:41 am

RabidZombie wrote:Doing a heist sounds much more fun with friends.

I agree entirely. I just worry that there are not going to be enough people online at any time to actually do such a thing.

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Postby RabidZombie » Sat Jul 10, 2010 1:37 pm

xander wrote:
RabidZombie wrote:Doing a heist sounds much more fun with friends.

I agree entirely. I just worry that there are not going to be enough people online at any time to actually do such a thing.

xander


Which is why I think single player should be the priority. Plus, I should always be able to get one of my IRL friends into a game.
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Postby martin » Sat Jul 10, 2010 4:28 pm

Indeed, if it had steam integration to invite friends into the game, then it would be fairly easy (for me) to get people online. For example I have no diea if L4D2 has an active online community, since I only ever play with any 3 of the ten or so steam friends who own the game. I think the best wya to do it would be for people to create a multiplayer game, and start playing as soon as they like with all AI, then friends or random people (depending on server settings) can join and replace an AI later on.
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Postby xander » Tue Jul 27, 2010 6:04 pm

This seems relevant to the discussion:
Multiplayer is now the standard. Some of you may be very happy to admit this; some of you would do so begrudgingly. Whether you like it or not, multiplayer’s not only here to stay, but it’s everywhere. Inherently, this isn’t a problem—until you realize that time is finite, lives are temporary, and gamers have only so many weekends to dedicate to video games.

Thanks to publisher and consumer demand, multiplayer modes have become obligatory to the point that gamers consider any title without an online component as inferior. It was one of the greatest complaints people had with BioShock. Its absence from Red Steel 2 upset a number of players. Do we, however, really want multiplayer in these games, or are we merely whining for these token inclusions without thinking about what we’re asking for?

Only so much space exists atop the multiplayer mountain, and games such as Call of Duty, Gears of War, and Halo fill much of it, with lesser games fighting over the scraps—or fighting over nothing at all. When you think about it, once you have one multiplayer game, you don’t really need (or even have time for) another. If you already play Halo 3, why would you want another game that does everything Halo 3 accomplishes? In how many settings can you capture a flag before it gets old? Multiplayer gamers usually dedicate themselves to one or two titles. Part of the multiplayer experience is getting good at a game, learning the maps, practicing with the weapons, and becoming a killing machine. You can’t rightly do that if you’re playing 15 multiplayer shooters at once.

People are begging for more multiplayer modes without considering that they won’t play them. When Sega released Streets of Rage 2 and Golden Axe for Xbox Live Arcade, the publisher felt the games needed an online component. Log into an online game of Streets of Rage 2 or Golden Axe, however, and how many are playing? Exactly. It was like this a week after they appeared on Xbox Live, too. Nobody actually wants to play Streets of Rage 2 online, but if the option were missing? People would throw a tantrum.

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. How many among you have played Dark Sector’s multiplayer mode? Or Overlord’s? Hell, how many of you even know Overlord has a multiplayer mode?

The video-game industry has gotten to a point where people aren’t even playing games built entirely around multiplayer, let alone single-player games that have shoehorned it in. Section 8 and Shadowrun are notable examples of multiplayer games nobody cared about. They weren’t especially bad, but neither gained much of a community of players, because, again, once you’ve fragged something in Halo, you don’t need to do it in another game. Many of the multiplayer games coming out are failing because we already have too many to begin with.

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. Developer Rebellion managed a rare success with Aliens vs. Predator, mostly because its multiplayer modes, buggy as they are, are distinct.

Similarly, if your company’s main focus is on the single-player mode, try dabbling with the idea of not including multiplayer at all instead of cramming in a token effort that doesn’t work properly. Just look at BioShock 2’s online mode: 2K went to the trouble of contracting Digital Extremes to create a narratively distinct multiplayer component. No one’s playing it. A single-player experience shouldn’t waste budget and development time on a multiplayer mode that nobody’s going to play simply to satisfy the demands of a market that clearly doesn’t know what it wants.

Now, will someone please play Golden Axe?


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Postby Harle » Mon Aug 09, 2010 7:43 pm

Really it depends on how difficult/expensive it would be to implement multiplayer(expensive assuming the game would make use of Steamworks).

I would absolutely love to play this game multiplayer, I have a group of friends that I think would just love to get together in a game like this. Especially if the game comes with a level editor(pretty sure it will), it'd be a ton of fun to build heists and then run through it with friends.

I can understand not having a multiplayer aspect for the full singleplayer game; maybe just build a separate system for one-off heists using randomly generated, tutorial, and user created maps. Just allow people to set some perimeters for randomly generated heists, and go. Maybe allow people to save persistent characters for multiplayer use that they can take from game to game - I dunno if the game will have character progression where stats improve over time - but if it does, persistent characters would be nice.

But again, it depends how much work it would be. If this is going to be Introversion's magnum opus, then it might be good to exploit multiplayer, especially on a platform like steam where multiplayer can be kind of a big deal. Also multiplayer could improve sales and dissuade piracy.
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Postby microchip08 » Mon Aug 09, 2010 8:45 pm

Harle wrote:assuming the game would make use of Steamworks

Why are you assuming that Subversion would use Steamworks?

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Last edited by microchip08 on Tue Aug 10, 2010 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

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