On Multiplayer

[Ashbax]

That's a mighty big audience you have there, Yahtzee.

That said, we all know who Modern Warfare 2 was developed for [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/090811.jpg], and I can't sympathize overmuch with its defenders.

Lol with the comic...

 

[LazerLuger]

I agreed with most points except that multi-player can never be anything more than a tack-on to a single player story mode. By this logic, Team Fortress 2 has to be one of the worst games ever made.

 

[Valiance]

I hate this thread more than life itself.

Half-Life came out before UT and Q3A.
Not everyone online is a total fuckwad; usually you can assemble a team of 4 people who aren't all total idiots; that's how decent CTF games are played in such games as Q3A and UT.
Public games are, sadly, cesspools full of the exact people everyone is trying to avoid.

Sadly, most gamers, including 90% of the people in this thread, never attempt to find a scene where they are allowed to play remotely "competitively" (Not the right word to use, but I mean in an organized fashion with a clear goal other than teamkilling half the people in the game for the lulz).

This makes the gamers hate multiplayer and the very concept of it, when it is, ironically, those people who quit who would make the best team players and greatest community members in most of these online worlds, from a Battlefield 1942 server to an MMO.

I forgot the point I was trying to make here other than "Some games are fine in both single player and multiplayer, some people prefer multiplayer, and some people who hate multiplayer could enjoy it if they were playing with people with the same mindset and goals as they have."

 

[Spongebobdickpants]

i disagree entirelty

1:heard of dedicated servers or playing with other aussies...or friends?

2:i guess thats valid in a way but mp only takes about an hour (max) to get a feel for it

3:surely the true test of a good game is that wnna ply it again i completed re4 3 times because i thought it was that good (note the lack of mp in this game) and mp is like this i love tf2 aswell and ply this repetedly.also mp is unpredicatable the one game never plays out the exact same way.

4:ur comment on ur previous addiction to WOW defeats this point games can be great mp only eg tf2

5eople are shit thats why its fun too CRUSH THEM XD

 

[ToenailCar]

This was thankfully ended by the arrival of a new generation of shooters like Half-Life, which reminded us what multiplayer is supposed to be: a nice bonus attached to an already strong single player experience. If the multiplayer ever becomes the main selling point, then something's gone wrong.

That's ridiculous. Why do you feel entitled to define what a game should focus on?
There are many gamers in this world with vastly different tastes, and some people happen to enjoy a competitive multiplayer aspect. I can fully understand people disliking multiplayer games but I find it extremely arrogant that anyone could suggest that gamers who enjoy them and games that focus on this aspect are in any way 'wrong'. They're just different.
Call of Duty type multiplayer games appeal to people who enjoy the challenge of out-thinking or out-shooting a competent, adapting opponent, something which AI controlled opponents most certainly are not. Single player will simply never satisfy someone looking for that, no matter how amazing other aspects might be.

Putting that aside, the simple fact of the matter is that most people don't give a toss about the Call of Duty single player.

A quick visit to:

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Will show you, Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer sits at a little over ninety-five thousand players while the single player has about sixteen and a half thousand.
If it weren't for the multiplayer portion of MW:2 it's doubtful the game would even be popular enough to show up on your radar of games to review. Five question mark Matt really was correct, not covering the multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2 is just as ridiculous as a reviewer covering The Orange Box and skipping Portal and Episode 2 because they personally don't enjoy single player games.

 

[Lancer873]

While a lot of this was true, there was one part I have to object to:
"Besides, especially in games like Modern Warfare 2, you join your first game and are immediately flattened by fifty people who have been playing for way longer than you and know every level inside out."
On my first online game of MW2, I actually did quite well, and even got second place points-wise. I suppose part of this is due to the fact that I got the FAMAS right away, and the fact that I had already played a few offline games with my brothers, but nevertheless I actually did rather well.

Other than that, yes, a lot of that is very very true.

 

[beema]

Agreed with most of your sentiments, although I do enjoy well-done multiplayer. From everything I've heard on MW2 (from PC users anyhow), this isn't the case, so I haven't bothered with it. Some games also tend to attract more fuckwads then others. Usually the commercial juggernauts, such as MW2. The time it takes to find a good group of online friends and good servers to play on in some games is just not worth the countless hours of sorting through uncooperative immature dickshits.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy L4D though. It more or less forces you to cooperate or die. This weeds out the self-centered players a little more, although obviously not completely.

Anyways, I agree developers really need to continue focusing on single-player experiences and improving them with new ideas and better stories instead of just copping out and tossing in a short campaign, BUT WITH MULTIPLAYER, where both end up suffering.
Sadly, the trend seems to be going towards multiplayer.

Also, seems like the lack of dedicated server options in many console and PC games these days would fuck over people like Yahtzee who are in far away magic lands.

 

[o_O]

#5 was on the fucking money. There's really not much more I can say.

...We really need negative feedback computers for crap like this. >_>

 

[Virtual_Dom]

Even though i agree with his single player should stand out reason, but tthat should only apply to games with both components.

Plus single player is still my top priority tied with well-designed coop, but I can always play the MW2 multiplayer and have fun

 

[LoneFullmetal]

I live in the US and I had the same problem Yatzee had with Fat Princess (even after the update that was supposed to fix the game), including the part where I found out it is a pile of shit.

I don't understand how Fat Princess appeals to anyone, and I don't think I ever will.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Orkimond]

If a game is made for multiplayer then no, the single player doesn't need to stand up especially well, the single player of games like demigod serve as little but training for the main game.

Games in which the multiplayer is great and so is the single player are rare, but some of the best in the industry because the multiplayer gives so much replay value.

Also, you miss out on some interesting and different games by avoiding multiplayer like it touches children badly, Heroes of Newerth springs to mind.

 

[Ataxia]

I believe in that equation except don't forget the reverse Jerk+Audience+Anonmity=Ordinary person Ordinary Person+Audience+Anonmity=Jerk.

 

[LeGrotesque]

This was completely brilliant. I agreed on every point, not because they were made by Yahtzee, but because they made perfect sense. I'm sick of hearing people drone on about multiplayer when most of us are basement-dwellers who play hours of video games completely on our own, or, if you're a survival-horror fan like me, on your own with a small audience of fearful teenaged girls. Or twenty-somethings. Hell, I'm sure the adults are scared shitless, too. BUT CECI N'EST PAS LA POINTE. The point is is that this article is everything that needs to be said about gaming and the multiplayer option. Multiplayer, like Yahtzee said, should be a nice addition: not the whole fucking game. If the whole game is OMG MULTIPLAYER, well...

Just how many friends without schooling, jobs or lives to worry about do you have?!

 

[Nemk4]

I agree with this.

And one thing about online multiplayer bothered me is whats gonna happen if the servers are gone ? After few years later the online community of it would be dead.So then whats gonna happen ?

Then somebody gonna play it and wonder

"WTF is this game ? this game got 9.5 ?!

WTF !?!"

 

[Swifteye]

I don't apperciate me or anyone I know and respect being called a fuckwad under blanket terms. But I do agree with everything he says. It's almost the reason I stopped trying to play online.

 

[UrbanCohort]

While I generally disagree with Yahtzee's sentiment that all people are fuckheads (I don't think of him as any sort of "fuck" anyways, therefore disproving the sentiment), I'm still highly amused by ZP - I laughed my ass off at his SSBB review, despite generally not agreeing over some (most/all) of his points.

Now, I *normally* enjoy playing semi-competitively via the online medium (MMOs included, though only of the free variety), I do agree that any game that claims to be good needs to stand on its own.

Now I know this post is - what, 5-6 months after this thread has died? - but I gotta throw in my $0.02 here. I thoroughly enjoyed MW2's single player campaign. It was utterly baffling at times, but hey, video games require a certain leap of faith in order to get into them in the first place. And I personally found it compelling, though it may be because I'm deficient in the brain.

Moving on, MW2's multiplayer is utter crap. I'll grow a pair and admit that I enjoyed the MW2 online play through the first 70 levels - the gameplay was flawed, but this was before the advent of camping, noobtubing, knifing fucktards joining the game in earnest...orjust as they started joining, latest.

Enter first prestige, and suddenly it's as if the game is deliberately trying to piss me off. For anyone who hasn't played the multiplayer, let me explain - for all that it claims to be a modern "tactical" shooter (even if it's not overt, it's implicit in the goddamn title), modern tactics have zero bearing on the outcome of a firefight in MW2 online. MW2 tactics involve: sitting in a corner waiting for victims, sprinting around just using your knife, noobtubing (using the grenade launcher), and/or "sniping" (it deserves quotes because it's generally just a douche hip-firing a semi-auto .50cal as fast as he can, which would break your hip btw).

With gameplay so broken, it's not even worth getting into how the gameplay itself is broken...but I'll mention that and M16 does more damage than the FAL bullet for bullet, despite the FAL shooting a larger round.

Sorry for the rant, many regards from Boston, MA.

 

[Spencer Brower]

Yahtzee said this "I really don't get people who can play end-game content and games like Counter-Strike over and over and over again. Nothing ever changes and nothing is ever achieved" I prefer to play Modern Warfare at a friends house with 4-Player Split-Screen on team death match. We do this all the time, and lots of things are achieved and the experience is always different. No matter what happens, I can play a game with 3 friends 100 times on the same map in MW2 and the game always changes. the Natural "Hill" where players swarm changes, so does their weapon choice, as well as all the other things that I couldn't explain, but the point is you'll never play the same game twice. On to the second point, Achievement. Okay you have a point there Yahtzee, because Achievement varies from game to game, either you get a cool kill, or a kill streak, or end up on top with a 3.0 KDR.

 

[spltorky]

i'm awfully late (just read this article) but i just wanted to say that the first half life was released before quake 3