Extra Punctuation: Mixing Single and Multiplayer

[andreas3K]

If a game needs other people to make it entertaining, it's a bad game.

So do you think that Team Fortress 2 is a bad game? I would have difficulty having fun with that one sinle player.

Yeah, I think it sucks, but that's a matter of personal preference, nevermind that.

I've thought about this a bit more and I sort of disagree with what I said earlier. When you're having fun in multiplayer, it's probably the game you're enjoying more than the company, and you might find it hard to enjoy a bad game even if you play with friends. It just seems a bit weird and unpredictable to have part of the experience be controlled by some random person.

(I wrote this comment half-asleep, I hope it makes sense.)

With respect to what you said, for myself it's both. Just this last weekend I was playing Duke Nuke Em' Forever and ended up in a party of old school gamers who were freinds and about four of us that weren't associated. It was a blast. Partly because of the game, partly because of the company.

When KGB and I are playing Borderlands that's definitely a lean towards enjoying the company. Then again KGB and I have been friends since we were 12 years old. So it's a different situation.

With fighting games it's totally different. I'm mostly just enjoying my character and the game since there usually isn't someone on a headset, most folks online would rather not speak while they play for some reason I can't figure out. When they do speak though it's golden sometimes. To quote one of my old friends from Capcom VS. SNK 2 EO "Daaayy-um, it ain't like there's 50k riding on this yo!"

I guess for some of us, we like the weird and undpredictable. For myself I think it's just because I like gaming with others much more than I like gaming alone. Then again I grew up with games that you couldn't play alone so I'm sure that colors my opinion too.

Both are definitely involved.

What I meant was that the game provides the playground and the tools for the players to have a good time, and if it does that well and manages to create a solid platform for an enjoyable experience, it's a good game. Good company is always fun, but that doesn't have much to do with the game itself.

I'd say human unpredictability is one of the things that make life interesting, but can also ruin your fun if you end up playing with an asshole. The game is, or at least it should be, designed to give you the best experience possible, but since other players are not part of the game, they're not there to serve you, they only care about themselves. Your friends may care about you, but if you play with strangers, it's up to game to motivate them and you to play together and to not shit on eachother's fun.

At this point I have to disagree entirely with my original statement and say that multiplayer games can be as good as any others. If a game needs more than one player to be good, that's fine. Single player games need an AI, and all games I know of need at least one player. I just prefer to play by myself.

 

[awdrifter]

Some co-op games can be fun. I really liked L4D2 and RE5 co-op. I probably wouldn't have played the higher difficulty in RE5 if not for the co-op. Sure not every game should be co-op, but for shooters it's not a bad design.

 

[Swifteye]

I don't think the problem is so much mixing single and multiplayer, its doing it in a hamfisted manner where you just sort of shove co-op stuff into your single player game.

Take Demon's Souls, the messaging system, the bloodstains, the white phantoms all add to feel of the game. The threat of having a black phantom invade while you're playing in body form. Teaming up with someone as a blue phantom to get some revenge on a boss that pissed you off. It all works very well, and adds to the atmosphere of the game rather than ruin it.

He played demon soul's and really didn't consider that function useful at all.

 

[Calico93]

I think Brink was proof that mixing multi and single player doesn't work
I mean I loved the game for its movement system and art style alone, its just, I wish there was more from it.
I wish it had a stand alone campaign that could be played from either side ( resistance or police force ) and then a multiplayer that had the usual affair of team deathmatch and whatnot, but also had similiar objective based game types from the single player.
Plus the AI was shockingly bad.

 

[TheMadPunter]

I agree with Yahtzee on this issue. Trying to shoehorn multiplayer in where it doesn't belong is a recipe for disaster. It's perfectly fine to have both single and multiplayer modes, but when multiplayer functionality begins to constrain plot and atmosphere, or when going solo prevents you from seeing story-based content, it's time to rethink things.

Also, good use of "chucklefuck".

 

[Mike Fang]

I think co-op definitely can't work with horror, but for other games, it doesn't have to ruin a plot-driven game. It's all just a matter of you and your partner having an interest in following the story. If one of you is just trying to blitz through the game as fast as possible, teabagging enemy corpses and doing the squat-thrust dance on an NPC's head while they're trying to tell you about your next objective, that's going to break the immersion.

 

[svenjl]

Surely there are some games with decent co-op focus, but still playable single player. I like what Gears of War did with co-op...sometimes separating the players so they could deal with separate issues, or tackle the same fight from different angles. Sure, only one player could go each route so you might "miss out" on one of the experiences, but it was an interesting idea. Now, if only that story had a little more depth...

GoW did a pretty descent job. The whole game isn't much more than a bunch of swaggering brutes spewing bullets and "comedy" but I had a lot of fun in single-player and split-screen. Same with L4D. Don't make these games out to be more than they are and you'll be fine. I NEVER play online anymore - way too many jerks. I got hand cramps making fists of rage all the time. Going to fire up Deus Ex: HR in a couple of hours for the first time. Happy single player gaming :-D