Crossplayer Is the Future
Why choose between single and multiplayer when you can have both?
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Why choose between single and multiplayer when you can have both?
Read Full Article
270: Crossplayer Is the Future
- Thread starter N. Evan Van Zelfden
- Start date
This is a wonderful idea in theory, but it must be handled very carefully.
Let us, imagine for a moment, that you are playing amazing story blended action shooty game. You are loving amazing story blended action shooty game, the story well written and the characters compelling, the hordes of well written foes, let us say, aliens, move as a hivemind, together, flanking, rushing....when one of them starts tea bagging a fallen comrade.
Your immersion was just dealt such a blow that it could never recover. Every errant twitch or odd movement now shouts out to you as some idiot on the other side of the game ruining it for everyone.
This is why I am hesitant about crossplayer. There can always be someone to ruin it for you. But let us look at this on the other hand....
On a devious note, imagine this : you are playing as a wonderful character you have spent some time in, in a hardcore diablo-esque death is permanent kind of deal. Now, unfortunately, after a wonderfully written and staged drama, your character is captured as a slave to be carted of to the arena. Little do you know, your foes are all the same. Fighting for their characters very lives...the stakes would be high. The game tense....each one giving their all....oh, think of it....
It is for this reason I am both excited and hopeful, yet cynical and careful about crossplayer. Given the right guiding hands, this could be amazing....
Let us, imagine for a moment, that you are playing amazing story blended action shooty game. You are loving amazing story blended action shooty game, the story well written and the characters compelling, the hordes of well written foes, let us say, aliens, move as a hivemind, together, flanking, rushing....when one of them starts tea bagging a fallen comrade.
Your immersion was just dealt such a blow that it could never recover. Every errant twitch or odd movement now shouts out to you as some idiot on the other side of the game ruining it for everyone.
This is why I am hesitant about crossplayer. There can always be someone to ruin it for you. But let us look at this on the other hand....
On a devious note, imagine this : you are playing as a wonderful character you have spent some time in, in a hardcore diablo-esque death is permanent kind of deal. Now, unfortunately, after a wonderfully written and staged drama, your character is captured as a slave to be carted of to the arena. Little do you know, your foes are all the same. Fighting for their characters very lives...the stakes would be high. The game tense....each one giving their all....oh, think of it....
It is for this reason I am both excited and hopeful, yet cynical and careful about crossplayer. Given the right guiding hands, this could be amazing....
"Crossplay" is an unfortunate choice of terminology. I was initially horrified to click on this article's link because it sounds like anime or game cosplayers dressing up as characters of the opposite gender. Nothing wrong with that, I just don't want to see any more Sailor Moons with hairy legs and arms.
Perhaps "asymmetric multiplayer" or something.
Perhaps "asymmetric multiplayer" or something.
That's a pretty unwieldy term, but yes, good lord yes it's better than crossplayer.DojiStar said:
I agree, I don't think this can really work if you're going for a really narrative driven game. Would something like Bioshock be improved if the single player had human enemies. Or Zelda for that mattter? I think Left 4 Dead works so well because it was never that serious. Characters spout one liners or banter all the time, and it's almost like chatting with some buddies at a bar. The joshing around is part of what makes it fun, so immersion killing isn't a deal breaker there.Engarde said:
I think it would take a lot to convince me a narrative could be improved, but it certainly adds a lot of scope to make it more fun.
When I say the word "crossplayer", I knew, I KNEW, they were going to talk about The Crossing.
...and that was the same thing I thought of... though it doesnt really bother me that much, but with humans as actual enemies, what would happen if they keep killing you? you get annoyed and stop playing, just like if it was a normal MP game. Im not sure if everybody is aware of this, but people are idiots and jack-offs. Im just not that sure I would want them in my story driven game. Now if there were certain parts, like you desribec in you second example, sure, that would be intense.Engarde said:
Was I the Only one who thought of Demons Souls when reading this article. It even has a boss that is replaced by a random player and you can be randomly invaded by another player while you can summon some allies in a largely single player game.
Instead of Crossplayer, how about taking the M from multi and making it 'Mingleplayer'? Which actually makes sense too.
I love the L4D series for just the reasons mentioned above. I've been playing multiplayer fps since Call of Duty, and singleplayer from way back when and the L4D series is the first game I've ever devoted over 300hrs of time to. I play regularly, rotating teams with the same bunch of 20 or so guys and gals and we're pretty good. But even if we weren't, I'd still love it. Provided people have voice chat, it has all the sufficient conditions to make me excited every time I enter a game. It doesn't need the grind of MMOs, or the instant anger of fast pace fps like CoD, it makes you work, but leaves you to laugh, cry, rejoice, run like hell, scream and sigh. The somehow workable mix of AI, linear map and non-uniform human tactics makes every single versus game an experience. And you really have to play a game like it for 300 odd hours to truly begin to understand the depth of tactical awareness the human mind can lay over a game's infrastructure. Even now I'm still finding teams out there that show me new and different ways of doing things. I love that, really love it. It puts linear single player games like Mafia 2 in a little box and labels them 'disappointingly narrow minded' and hides them under your bed to be brought out only for nostalgic purposes at low points in the gaming calendar a few years down the line.
I love the L4D series for just the reasons mentioned above. I've been playing multiplayer fps since Call of Duty, and singleplayer from way back when and the L4D series is the first game I've ever devoted over 300hrs of time to. I play regularly, rotating teams with the same bunch of 20 or so guys and gals and we're pretty good. But even if we weren't, I'd still love it. Provided people have voice chat, it has all the sufficient conditions to make me excited every time I enter a game. It doesn't need the grind of MMOs, or the instant anger of fast pace fps like CoD, it makes you work, but leaves you to laugh, cry, rejoice, run like hell, scream and sigh. The somehow workable mix of AI, linear map and non-uniform human tactics makes every single versus game an experience. And you really have to play a game like it for 300 odd hours to truly begin to understand the depth of tactical awareness the human mind can lay over a game's infrastructure. Even now I'm still finding teams out there that show me new and different ways of doing things. I love that, really love it. It puts linear single player games like Mafia 2 in a little box and labels them 'disappointingly narrow minded' and hides them under your bed to be brought out only for nostalgic purposes at low points in the gaming calendar a few years down the line.
One thing that bothers me about this article is how it treats "crossplayer" (now there's a term that needs to be changed) as a new idea. It's not, in fact it's one of the oldest ideas in gaming.
Let me give you a little history, back when Spacewar was still blowing minds an in-depth, story-driven, multiplayer, cooperative RPG with human-controlled opponents appeared. It was called Dungeons & Dragons. Not long thereafter an electronic videogame genre quite similar to D&D was invented. They were called Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs, which were done entirely via text. As technology advanced a little title called Everquest popularized the MMORPG genre and I'm sure your aware of the rest.
The article defines "crossplayer" as a story driven game that switches seamlessly between single player/cooperative/competitive mode. Don't buy into the hype, this is not a new idea.
Introducing a pervasive multiplayer element into a single player game has the problematic effect of almost completely destroying a sense of pacing. As the article says, one needs experience to enjoy multiplayer. An inexperienced player fighting human-controlled enemies in multiplayer mode will die very often unless fighting similarly experienced opponents, and even then the usual one-vs.-many paradigm common to single player games will have to be changed.
I am very interested in seeing MMO aspects competently integrated into genres other than RPGs.
Let me give you a little history, back when Spacewar was still blowing minds an in-depth, story-driven, multiplayer, cooperative RPG with human-controlled opponents appeared. It was called Dungeons & Dragons. Not long thereafter an electronic videogame genre quite similar to D&D was invented. They were called Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs, which were done entirely via text. As technology advanced a little title called Everquest popularized the MMORPG genre and I'm sure your aware of the rest.
The article defines "crossplayer" as a story driven game that switches seamlessly between single player/cooperative/competitive mode. Don't buy into the hype, this is not a new idea.
Introducing a pervasive multiplayer element into a single player game has the problematic effect of almost completely destroying a sense of pacing. As the article says, one needs experience to enjoy multiplayer. An inexperienced player fighting human-controlled enemies in multiplayer mode will die very often unless fighting similarly experienced opponents, and even then the usual one-vs.-many paradigm common to single player games will have to be changed.
I am very interested in seeing MMO aspects competently integrated into genres other than RPGs.
