Titanfall Team Decides Against Single-Player Campaign

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
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Yuuki said:
It's funny because MMO's and MOBA's are essentially multiplayer-only RPG's, but when you talk about an FPS being multiplayer-only then people...don't like it...? What kinda standards are those lol? Ever heard of Tribes Ascend or Planetside 2?
Those games are free-to-play. In fact, DOTA 2 (once it leaves Beta), League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Super Monday Night Combat, SMITE (from what I can find), and many, many MMO's outside of World of Warcraft and EVE Online are also free-to-play now.

Titanfall, by all assumptions so far since we don't really have hard information, will not be.

That's a pretty crucial difference.
 

Saviordd1

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Jan 2, 2011
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Well since your cutting 40% of the content I expect the game to be 40% cheaper, if not I'm not buying it.
 

Yuuki

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shrekfan246 said:
Yuuki said:
It's funny because MMO's and MOBA's are essentially multiplayer-only RPG's, but when you talk about an FPS being multiplayer-only then people...don't like it...? What kinda standards are those lol? Ever heard of Tribes Ascend or Planetside 2?
Those games are free-to-play. In fact, DOTA 2 (once it leaves Beta), League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Super Monday Night Combat, SMITE (from what I can find), and many, many MMO's outside of World of Warcraft and EVE Online are also free-to-play now.

Titanfall, by all assumptions so far since we don't really have hard information, will not be.

That's a pretty crucial difference.
Hmm, so does this mean that any developer thinking of making a multiplayer-based game should go the F2P way? That only games with singleplayer campaigns (some which are as short as ~6-7 hours) have the "royal right" to charge $60, but multiplayer games with vastly more content and replay value should be either free or at least 40-50% cheaper from what I've been reading in this thread?

I don't know whether to call that crazy or what. Both models cost a ton of money and effort to develop. Multiplayer especially has very high maintenance costs with constant balancing/patching and content updates.

Also where would you fit games like Guild Wars 1 & 2 by the way, MMO's which have a one-time cost of $60 but only work online in a multiplayer environment? Or should that have been free too?
Are we also going to hand down judgment on Battlefield 3 for it's miserable campaign, despite the fact that it has offered countless people hundreds of hours of entertainment, built entire communities and possibly has the most content/variation I have seen for any first person shooter (ever) for <$100? It's like 3 games squished into one.
 

Fdzzaigl

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Well, I respect people who admit their own weaknesses. So if they don't have the experience or money to put in a decent singleplayer, I would understand.

But if they start bitching about how it's useless because only suckas care about SP and no one plays it anyhow, they can go screw themselves imo.
 

Legion

Were it so easy
Oct 2, 2008
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Based upon their reasons behind it, I support their decision, it's much better to focus on one area and make it the best you can. Most games that have both tend to be noticeably worse in one of them unless they are entwined (like Left 4 Dead).

It's a shame it's on the Xbox though, although perhaps by Spring next year my PC will be upgraded.

Saviordd1 said:
Well since your cutting 40% of the content I expect the game to be 40% cheaper, if not I'm not buying it.
I think for me that'd depend on how large it is. If it's the standard 8 maps and a handful of basic game-modes with some paid DLC down the line then I agree. If they want to charge full retail then the game better be huge.
 

Baldr

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Jan 6, 2010
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Dark Knifer said:
That makes sense. If you don't want to make a single player mode don't, make your multiplayer mode better.

Shortens your games life expectancy though but it works for TF2 so it could work with other games, provided it gets plenty of support.
TF2 is based off TFC which is a mod of HL, so in theory TF2's single player is HL2.
 

shrekfan246

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May 26, 2011
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Yuuki said:
shrekfan246 said:
Yuuki said:
It's funny because MMO's and MOBA's are essentially multiplayer-only RPG's, but when you talk about an FPS being multiplayer-only then people...don't like it...? What kinda standards are those lol? Ever heard of Tribes Ascend or Planetside 2?
Those games are free-to-play. In fact, DOTA 2 (once it leaves Beta), League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Super Monday Night Combat, SMITE (from what I can find), and many, many MMO's outside of World of Warcraft and EVE Online are also free-to-play now.

Titanfall, by all assumptions so far since we don't really have hard information, will not be.

That's a pretty crucial difference.
Hmm, so does this mean that any developer thinking of making a multiplayer-based game should go the F2P way? That only games with singleplayer campaigns (only ~8-12 hours) have the "royal right" to charge $60 but multiplayer games with vastly more content and replay value should be either free (or at least 40-50% cheaper from what I've been reading in this thread)?
"Vastly more content and replay value" is a purely subjective measurement.

For you, multi-player may have more value. Therefore for you, a game like Titanfall may be a better investment.

For me? Multi-player has practically no value. I see no "more content" from playing on the same, generally small, maps over and over and over again against the same [insert number] of enemies every time--Especially in games where certain maps have become 'standardized' and are the only ones you ever get actual games on.

"Oho", you say. "But single-player maps work the same way!"

Sure, when you get right down to the technical level, the single-player campaigns are often about going through maps, often small in many modern games, and overcoming the same enemies over and over. But it changes over the course of the game. How does it change over the course of playing multi-player? How does Team Deathmatch ever become more than "team of guys with guns kills other team of guys with guns"?

Shooting rarely carries a game for me. The reason I had so much fun with Crysis 3's campaign when everyone else was calling the game mediocre was because I loved moving about the massive environments, stealthing my way along and exploiting the AI in silly ways. You can't do that with human opponents, especially in a first-person shooter where you can get easily snuck up on and everyone is generally charging around at top speed through the maps because standing still generally equals death. Granted, it might have actually been different in Crysis 3, I don't know; as it should be glaringly obvious by now, I'm not really a person who cares about the multi-player component of a game.

Also where would you fit games like Guild Wars 1 & 2 by the way, MMO's which have a one-time cost of $60 but only work online in a multiplayer environment?
That's probably the strongest argument for Titanfall also costing a premium, at which point I would ask if it's going to have a continuous, large, seamless world or if it's going to feature the same small cramped claustrophobic maps that are staples of the Call of Duty franchise. No, really, legitimate question, because I don't actually know if Titanfall is supposed to be a multi-player shooter or a shooter MMO. Given the fact that they're supposedly implementing narrative features into the game anyway, it would make far more sense for it to be an MMO.

I've got nothing against the game costing $60, even if it's not an MMO. But I'm not going to buy it, and since it's most likely going to have a fee associated with playing it, I'm probably not going to play it at all (whereas with the likes of Planetside 2 or Tribes: Ascend, if at some point I feel like pressing into competitive multi-player I'm liable to try one of them, because they're free).
 

DugMachine

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CriticKitten said:
I see a lot of people praising them for this decision and saying they respect it.

I would respect them far more if they also made sure to lower their price tag accordingly.

But no. They'll expect us to spend 60 dollars for a purely multiplayer game. Which means they don't get a lick of respect for this decision, at least not from me. They'll be overcharging for a game that can't possibly deliver 60 dollars of value in just its multiplayer mode alone.

Guess that's one less game to care about.
Why would they reduce the price? They're putting all their resources and man hours into the multiplayer. Just because there is no single player doesn't mean it's half of a game.

"Can't possibly deliver"? Have you even played the game? How do you know if it won't be worth every penny? Some people I swear.
 

TheScientificIssole

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Jun 9, 2011
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Anathrax said:
Wohoo! We cut out the crappy, "cinematic", cutscene laden explosions everyone I'm so macho MURICA single player in what is supposed to be a multiplayer focus title. Now if only Batolfeel and Collar Duty would do the same.

Edit: Because let's face it, "Wouldn't justify the costs"? It would be a Micheal Bay film*Infinity
Call of Duty is MURICA? The game where the same two British dudes and their international based team save the day? Or the one where you play as an American soldier and another soldier from another country, and the international campaign is always better? I think one of us might be blindly criticizing a game because we think we are above something. I also feel as if you call it MURICA because you like to line up your opinions in a way that make your stance on patriotism apparent.
OT: I'm a little disappointed, but I'm not surprised. I end up playing online for crazy amounts of time anyway. Struggling now to think that this game will be a full price game, and if so, whether it will be worth buying. I'm guessing it will be.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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Broken Blade said:
I respect them for making that call. Unfortunately, it also kills most of my interest in this game. :\
This.

I might grab it on sale if it has a You Vs. Bots mode, but otherwise... why would you force me to interact with other people where they aren't in punching distance? Ick.
 

Hero of Lime

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Jun 3, 2013
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Then I guess I will be unfortunately deciding against buying it then. I don't hate online multiplayer, but I don't see myself playing it enough to warrant a purchase.
 

PortalThinker113

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Absolutely, totally okay with this.

It's an honest admission of what Respawn's focus is with this game. Hell, the Game Informer cover that revealed this game a few days before E3 described it as "multiplayer-focused" to begin with. This is what I was expecting from the get-go. Now, the devs don't have to spend time and resources on making a single-player campaign that most people who are looking forward to Titanfall will likely never touch.

It's refreshing to me to see games be honest about what audience they are trying to appeal to, rather than try to capture all audiences at once and spread themselves super thin. Despite having never played a Battlefield game, this E3 actually managed to make me interested in Battlefield 4. However, I am ONLY interested in the multiplayer. The single-player looks like the same old rehashed crap that I saw from afar in Battlefield 3, and I would confidently say that my interest in only the multiplayer is shared by quite a few people. If, tomorrow, EA announced that they were cutting the single-player campaign from Battlefield 4 (thus going back to the standard of many of the older PC Battlefield games), I would not feel sad or care in any way.

Believe me, I love my single-player games. I gladly paid $60 for stuff like Bioshock Infinite and Batman: Arkham City. However, that doesn't mean I think multiplayer games aren't also worth full price (especially considering the number of hours that I could potentially get out of them). I think Titanfall looks quite interesting from a multiplayer standpoint, and my interest has not changed in the slightest at this announcement. If all you want is single-player, that's absolutely fine as well. Titanfall just clearly is not the game for you, and there's nothing saying you have to buy it. But, Titanfall seems to know what audience it wants to cater to, rather than go for EVERYONE, and I respect that.
 

Yuuki

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lacktheknack said:
Broken Blade said:
I respect them for making that call. Unfortunately, it also kills most of my interest in this game. :\
This.

I might grab it on sale if it has a You Vs. Bots mode, but otherwise... why would you force me to interact with other people where they aren't in punching distance? Ick.
Is it that hard to pretend that enemy players are bots? Hell that's what happens in most online shooters anyway, almost nobody communicates or interacts and everyone might as well be rather intelligent (and unpredictable) bots.
As a matter of fact, I could most likely put you against an enemy player in an arena-shooter like Quake or AssaultCube (they have bots) and then ask you afterwards whether you played against a bot or an average human player, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference! I had tried such a thing a few years ago.

Some people don't like multiplayer because they can't tweak the "difficulty" (i.e. they can't switch to easy mode and steamroll everything in sight), are you one of them? Just curious, not meaning any offense :p

On the other side of the coin, some people are turned off by singleplayer - they don't see any satisfaction in stomping AI-controlled enemies because in 99% of games the AI is extremely thick, extremely predictable (in shooters especially) and it is vastly more gratifying to know that you're beating something controlled by a real living person who will learn from their mistakes and devise new cunning ways to exact their revenge upon you!
(^ Boy that was one long sentence.)

The main gripe people have with MP is the lack of story focus and the skill-through-repetition aspect. From what I've read anyway >.<
 

-Dragmire-

King over my mind
Mar 29, 2011
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Anatoli Ossai said:
-Dragmire- said:
Hmmm... I understand the reasoning, but I personally prefer to have some context for why I'm doing what I'm doing in shooters. This game doesn't interest me nearly as much without a story mode.
If you need a Shakespearean anecdote or deep character development before you can jump into a Mech warrior or strap on a jet pack with guns blazing then

a. you never wanted to play in the first place

or

b. you expect way too much from the world
I had quite a bit of fun with the story and characters in Front Mission 3. Mechs and story can coexist.

Also, I'm not big on competitive multiplayer, it's just not my thing.
 

DarkhoIlow

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If this title isn't maximum 30$ (20-25 I would prefer) at launch then I am not interested. I'm not going to pay full price for a multiplayer mode with mechs, I'd rather go play my usual CoD or Battlefield then. That's what they are there for.

Ignoring single player part is a rather stupid decision if you ask me.
 

ryo02

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aww it looked like a good game too guess I wont be getting it now oh well probably would only be 5 hours long anyway.
 

kasperbbs

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Good news for MP fans and my wallet, because i wont be getting this. It sure sucks to be one of the 5 percent..