What make a multiplayer game stand out?

[Razentsu]

Fighting games typically do not offer great online experiences, which is why the fighting games that do provide a great online experience stand out. Today's fighting games suffer from laggy netplay and lack of content.

I like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 because it subverts this trend. It is a fighting game that not only plays well online, but also goes beyond the typical barebones online fighting game experience. TTT2 features teams/clans, pair play, statistics tracking, player match lobbies, and more. These things may not be new to other competitive genres, but they certainly are to fighting games.

I hope other developers try to follow Tekken Tag Tournament 2's example. It's about time the fighting game online experience be modernized.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I like to see multiplayer utilize new or underused concepts.

Assassin's Creed has probably my favorite multiplayer of this generation because it's so simple, yet really tense at the same time. Go stab this dude but be careful 'cause there's a dude trying to stab you. And it works really well.

Agreed. Like, instead of Dead Space 2's competitive multiplayer, why not have a DayZ style Dead Space game with a space station and/or ship and/or planet with players fighting each other and their corpses becoming necromorphs. Add in servers having admins who can spawn more necromorphs and scripted events like boss battles as raids or drastic environmental shifts (maybe vent the air from a ship unless they can hack a node, or have several tanks charge through an area, or poison gas necromorphs have grown and are poisoning the air while you weren't looking, etc.). Then we'd see some really divergent play and naturally occurring horror moments with the already fantastic gameplay.

Natural Selection 2 has some of the elements you are wanting. The Aliens can destroy power nodes plunging sections of the map into darkness, there is an organic 'creep' that can grow everywhere and one player can become a 'commander' and drop items such as health and armoury stations for other players to use as well as give orders.

 

[Tom_green_day]

I think the multiplayer needs to function properly. I loved Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, but at the end of the day it was still broken with clipping, connection issues and other breakings. A good example is CoD. Despite complaints, the engine is still solid and everything works fine. You can feel the impact and the actions work. Compare that to Battlefield, where half the time I don't know if the person I'm shooting at is friendly or not, I clip through walls and can't jump through the same windows others can't. It's quite fun but it's a mess.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

For me, Multiplayer game should have some sort of "Friends value" e.g. it's fun to play with friends! For example, Call of Duty have no Friends value for me since there's no need to cooperate and everyone might as well play on his own. Battlefield 3 have a little more, it's always fun to get together on tank or helicopter and get rolling. But Dota 2 have the highest friends value hands down. When all 5 of you cooperate on Skype and then make one successful team-fight and win after 75 minutes of being underdogs... that feeling is just something else.

 

[rasputin0009]

Hats.

Hats seriously make a multiplayer game, they add so much depth and enjoyability that you wouldnt imagine.

Something easy to learn and hard to master makes it stand out to me, I like being able to be creative and play my own way and make some kind of successout of it. An example is Bad Company 2, where there's a tool for every job and campers are removed by letting you blow everything to pieces, you can do whatever you want and if you want to dick about you can.

It needs to be well designed, finely balanced, easy to pick up and play, but with a certain level of mastery available to those who persevere.

Call of Duty really struggles with this nowadays in part because of the killstreak system and perks but they're never going to go away.

I also don't really like levelling systems. I really don't like get X kills with gun to get Red Dot sights, then have to do that for every gun in a class, just give me the red dot for the friggin class.

I don't mind Battlefield's leveling system for guns because there's a lot of guns to choose from and each one works different from the rest. And because they work differently, different scopes have a different feel on each gun so they force you through the scope line-up again. Ya, it's really frustrating starting out with a gun that has terrible iron sights, but it's only 10 kills till you get a scope of some sort. I'm mostly all about the RDS, but I use an ACOG with the M16A3 because I can hip fire pretty damn accurate with that gun up to the distance I'd need some actual zoom. I probably wouldn't have tried that scope with that gun had they not forced me to use it.

And I really hate CoD's killstreak bonuses. I'm already dominating, I don't need anymore help! Just feels like a cheap win.

OT: Heavy emphasis on teamwork makes a great multiplayer.

Or a game that has the intricacies of chess.

 

[The White Hunter]

Hats.

Hats seriously make a multiplayer game, they add so much depth and enjoyability that you wouldnt imagine.

Something easy to learn and hard to master makes it stand out to me, I like being able to be creative and play my own way and make some kind of successout of it. An example is Bad Company 2, where there's a tool for every job and campers are removed by letting you blow everything to pieces, you can do whatever you want and if you want to dick about you can.

It needs to be well designed, finely balanced, easy to pick up and play, but with a certain level of mastery available to those who persevere.

Call of Duty really struggles with this nowadays in part because of the killstreak system and perks but they're never going to go away.

I also don't really like levelling systems. I really don't like get X kills with gun to get Red Dot sights, then have to do that for every gun in a class, just give me the red dot for the friggin class.

I don't mind Battlefield's leveling system for guns because there's a lot of guns to choose from and each one works different from the rest. And because they work differently, different scopes have a different feel on each gun so they force you through the scope line-up again. Ya, it's really frustrating starting out with a gun that has terrible iron sights, but it's only 10 kills till you get a scope of some sort. I'm mostly all about the RDS, but I use an ACOG with the M16A3 because I can hip fire pretty damn accurate with that gun up to the distance I'd need some actual zoom. I probably wouldn't have tried that scope with that gun had they not forced me to use it.

And I really hate CoD's killstreak bonuses. I'm already dominating, I don't need anymore help! Just feels like a cheap win.

OT: Heavy emphasis on teamwork makes a great multiplayer.

Or a game that has the intricacies of chess.

Of course different stuff works in different ways and one assault rifle doesnt work like all the others, scope or not. I wouldn't use a scope with the F2000 for example because the recoil is horrendous, but that was in BC2 as well, and there an unlocked attachment was universal to a class, and I really liked that because it rewarded experimenting with new guns more than me having all the attachments for the M416, FAMAS and L85 and then not really needing to bother trying anything else ever on that class.

It also irks me that it's based on kills, in Battlefield it shouldn't be based on kills, Battlefield isn't about kills it's about teamwork and moving the rewards to be based entirely around kills takes away from that. I'd honestly just quite like to be given all the toys the way BC2 did it but maybe give me them a bit faster. I just felt it encouraged more experimentation, I was more willing to find a use for a gun if I already had a red dot that worked and such, and I found good ways o use most weapons in BC2 as a result.

And grr killstreaks. I did like the scorestreaks in MW3, that were mostly non-lethal things like UAV, EMP, care packages, etc, but Treyarch went and made those reset when youd ie anyway and took away the more risky and tactical gamestyles they encouraged.

 

[Luca72]

I'd say what it really comes down to is network effects. They are popular because they are popular. A bigger playerbase means it's easier to find games online, there are more guides to help you play better, there are more forum discussions about it so you're more likely to hear about it and try it. If it's still selling many copies it will probably be supported by official patches too. And of course, you're more likely to have a friend or two that play it.

Games achieve that status in one of three ways:

1) They are early examples of their game type, ideally the first. Street Fighter 2 was the first brawler where you had a big selection of characters. Counterstrike was the first of its type. Dota was the second MOBA. Being free helps, but only if the playfield is empty.

2) Marketing. As a general rule, if you hype the hell out of a game you'll probably get a large number of players quickly as long as it's not terrible. That's why EA has a huge marketing department. It is impossible to be unaware of when the next COD or Battlefield is being released, there are ads on the sides of buses and everything.

3) Luck. Starcraft was one of many RTS games of its' time, but some TV company in South Korea decided to televise it and it became huge there. They could have televised Age of Empires or Total Annihilation and made those huge but they picked Starcraft.

Of course, being good games also helps, but I don't think it's as important as it should be. COD always seems to be popular despite hoorible mechanics like killstreaks.

Good post! You're absolutely right about the popularity snowball effect. The RTS industry goes a certain way, produces Starcraft, continues to evolve while Starcraft becomes a phenomenon, then a large portion of RTS's turn around and start to mimic Starcraft.

The only one point I'd disagree on is marketing. I think there's an inflationary effect to a highly marketed game. It draws in a ton of players very quickly, but just as quickly loses those players to the next thing. Games like Starcraft, DOTA, Counterstrike, all developed their following before marketing became a large factor. The next big EA or Infinity Ward or whatever multiplayer game will be something on everyones radar and it will draw in a huge player base. But I don't see people enthusiastically playing those games for years. Instead, people will hopscotch from one game to the next.

The type of game I'm talking about is the multiplayer game that catches on like a sport. Basketball and football wouldn't work as well if the rules were dramatically changed every two years. COD players seem all too eager to jump from one franchise entry to the next, while you still have people playing CS 1.6 and Brood War. It's also the reason Starcraft 2 is such a conservative update to the franchise, and why LoL is still about minions, lanes, and bases.

I suppose the right place and the right time (and the right price and the right game engine ) are probably the biggest factors in popularity.

What do you guys think of esports venues like Twitch.tv? I'm loving the hell out of their NS2 and Starcraft offerings (getting to hear TotalBiscuit host entires tournies is a beautiful thing), and I always thought if Tribes: Ascend had a bigger presence on it it would have gone a lot further.

 

[Parakeettheprawn]

I like to see multiplayer utilize new or underused concepts.

Assassin's Creed has probably my favorite multiplayer of this generation because it's so simple, yet really tense at the same time. Go stab this dude but be careful 'cause there's a dude trying to stab you. And it works really well.

Agreed. Like, instead of Dead Space 2's competitive multiplayer, why not have a DayZ style Dead Space game with a space station and/or ship and/or planet with players fighting each other and their corpses becoming necromorphs. Add in servers having admins who can spawn more necromorphs and scripted events like boss battles as raids or drastic environmental shifts (maybe vent the air from a ship unless they can hack a node, or have several tanks charge through an area, or poison gas necromorphs have grown and are poisoning the air while you weren't looking, etc.). Then we'd see some really divergent play and naturally occurring horror moments with the already fantastic gameplay.

Natural Selection 2 has some of the elements you are wanting. The Aliens can destroy power nodes plunging sections of the map into darkness, there is an organic 'creep' that can grow everywhere and one player can become a 'commander' and drop items such as health and armoury stations for other players to use as well as give orders.

Agreed -- I got to try NS2 during the Steam Weekend (and I plan on getting it in the future), but that's more of a direct, TDM style PvP scenario. What I'm suggesting here is far more DayZ, with players only able to communicate via RIG comms or direct verbal communication. A loss of communication could mean the communications array(s) are down, or that someone just got taken out, or that they're being silent for a reason. Stealth, scavenging skills, and finesse would be just as important as resource management and upgrading your gear as in regular Dead Space -- there could even be character progression like Dust 514, where you invest experience points in certain skills, taking you weak in everything to having certain specializations thanks to your RIG. The server admin is just a cherry on top, able to screw with you and make everything turn on its head just when you think things are going your way.

I know I'm just spit-balling here, but it's something I've been hoping for for a while now.