Multiplayer: what is the big deal?

[Matthew Wilson]

I'm going to come out and say it, I flat out hate online multiplayer. It's not because I'm shit it's because it's full of douchebags that say 'dude, I just got an awesome kill-streak.' That isn't to say it's not all useless, LittleBigPlanet had something going for it and I can understand why it was needed for World At War Zombie mode, you basically need more than one person in a zombie outbreak. The main problem I have with multiplayer is that too many games are reliant on it to sell, take Modern Warfare 2, the single player on that was thrown together on a weekend but - apparently - the multiplayer was execelent so it sold like hotcakes. I even know of people that didn't even bother with the single player not matter how bad it was, the whole thing reeks of laziness, why bother with one part of the game that you play on your own when they can spend millions on another part. Because I, and many other gamers, buy the game for what should be the most important part, the single-player story. God of War, Heavy Rain, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Shadow of the Colossus and until recently Grand Theft Auto, all these games were fantastic and they were all single player, the story's didn't need a overhyped multiplayer to sell well they just did. Personally I think there are two ways to solve this problem, 1: Focus on the story in singleplayer and have the multiplayer as a bonus - much like GTA IV did but unfortunately no-one plays it anymore as I know from experience. Or 2: Do what World At War did with Zombie Nazis to begin with and have people play the single player first to unlock the multiplayer. That's my opinion on multiplayer, tell me yours and if you have any, your own ideas to solve this problem.

 

[PurpleSky]

Play World of Tanks


NO


Seriously


And the come back.

It is pure multiplayer master race.

No fucking killstreaks, no kids, just teamwork.

 

[CrashBang]

I agree with you on devs focussing on the multiplayer over the single player, it's a sad state of affairs. A game which offers both should supply both to an equal standard
I myself play a mix of both types of game. I play more single player than multiplayer but still love BFBC2 and Halo 3 online from time to time

 

[L4hlborg]

First of all, MW2 singleplayer was actually kind of fun, if you forget the whole story. Or the lack of it. The multiplayer on the other hand is infested with a collection of annoying weapons, perks and killstreakds to make all possible tactics seem very annoying.

Second, multiplayer is there for the fun. I want the singleplayer to give me the art/whatever the fuck you wanna call it experience and the multiplayer to hang out with friends and competing against people, since NPCs often don't provide too much challenge. I like how games can combine competition, hanging out and good storytelling (at its best).

 

[shootthebandit]

multiplayer is fun, i love how you are pitted against real people and its just much more exciting than a single player

 

[Jonathan Frost]

If you're (speaking generally) not the afore-mentioned douchebag multiplayer for me is fun because you have to outwit other people I guess, the 'intellectual challenge' is a small part of it.

 

[oplinger]

I only play multiplayer with my friends. No use playing against strangers. I don't really see the draw of playing with strangers.

 

[FinalDream]

If you're (speaking generally) not the afore-mentioned douchebag multiplayer for me is fun because you have to outwit other people I guess, the 'intellectual challenge' is a small part of it.

I see, how is hiding in a corner with a sniper rifle and glitching/hacking your way to victory intellectual

 

[teisjm]

I think it's a bit naive to automaticly assume (unless i'm misunderstanding your OP) that the single player part is always the most important part.
You could just as easily say, that single-player is like a story-based training ground before joining the online fray.

Personally, i really like multiplayer, most singleplayer games i've played for many many years, no matetr how good, haven't seen more than 1 or 2 playthroughs, and even with long games, that doesn't add up to the hundreds of hours of gameplay a single game with solid multiplayer can provide.

It also sound liek your oppinion is very affected by having mainly played by yourself in games stocked full of random people, and fi this is so, i can understand how you look so negatively at it.

But playing online multiplayer with friends, either smacking each others faces around in a death-match-ish mode, or plowing through the n00b-field that is teh otehr team when you can play on teh same side is awesome.

Ever played battlefield multiplayer, any game from the series will do?
Usually a team of random people just run around uncoordinated, so if you're like 3-4 people, who acts together as a squad, you can often be the heavily determining factor that turns the game around. SOmetimes, you're lucky to join a squad that plays coordinated, and it's so much more awesome than the random shit, where your squad is spread out over teh map not really doing shit. But if you play with friends, this is how it is in every game.
Now ofc battlefield is a multiplayer franchise every game in the series apart from the two bad companies have been multiplayer only, with bots avalible as teh only single player option as far as i remember, and it is well suited for teamplay, both clan-play where it's a full team, and squad play, where you're a few peopel on teh same team as a bunch of random people, but due to teh whole squad-based gameplay, this still makes it really rewarding for your team to have single squads that are internally coordianted.
Same goes for HoN, DotA, Demigod and otehr games made for multiplayer team vs team.

L4D,WaW:NZ, Alien swarm and otehr co-op games kidna speaks for themselves, these are so fucking awesome when playing iwth a team of friends or a clan or something, but it gets pretty random and meh-ish when playing with a team of random people who plays uncoordianted and doesn't really give a shit about the team. OFc you'll run into people quite often in these kind of games who wants to play teamplay even though it's it's a PUG.

 

[Legendairy314]

Maybe you're just playing the wrong multiplayer games? Mainstream shooters are always terrible community wise. That's usually why whenever I play them it's without a microphone or with friends in a party. Online anyone can say whatever they want and don't expect someone you don't know to do otherwise.

 

[Flamezdudes]

Multiplayer is love or hate for me.... mostly hate.

I always prefer the Single Player experience in games to Multiplayer, i can enjoy MP for awhile but i eventually get bored of it. I prefer characters and an interesting story.

To make matters worse most people at my school think everything needs MP and don't care much for Single Player.

EDIT: Yay! 2000'th post!

 

[Terminate421]

You come across douche bags but thats what the mute button is for.

 

[bojac6]

The big deal is that it's fun. End of discussion.
So some games have whiners and 12 year olds and what have you, other games have your friends and the chance to one up them. Monkeys fighting Robots, all kinds of fun.
A single player game lasts until you beat it, a multiplayer game always has something to do. It's why I still play BC2 regularly, but don't really put AC 2 in any more, despite AC2 being, in my mind, a better game. I'm done with it, it's over, and I'm bored with it. BC2, on the other hand, I've barely touched single player and I have dozens of hours logged. Because it's still fun and I only get better.

Because I, and many other gamers, buy the game for what should be the most important part, the single-player story. God of War, Heavy Rain, Bioshock, Fallout 3, Shadow of the Colossus and until recently Grand Theft Auto, all these games were fantastic and they were all single player, the story's didn't need a overhyped multiplayer to sell well they just did.

Please give me your reasoning for why single player should be the most important part? I think a single player story can be entertaining and fun, but so can a good multiplayer. Why is one better than the other? You list good single player games, but TF2, BC2, L4D, Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, Red Orchestra, and others are fantastic multiplayer games that are a lot of fun. I don't understand what the difference is, they're all games and they all sold well.

Personally I think there are two ways to solve this problem, 1: Focus on the story in singleplayer and have the multiplayer as a bonus - much like GTA IV did but unfortunately no-one plays it anymore as I know from experience. Or 2: Do what World At War did with Zombie Nazis to begin with and have people play the single player first to unlock the multiplayer. That's my opinion on multiplayer, tell me yours and if you have any, your own ideas to solve this problem.

I don't think there is a problem, and your solutions just make more problems. 1. Nobody plays GTA IV multiplayer anymore because it wasn't good. All the mechanics and shooting controls were developed around aiming at AI and having a lot of bullets. Multiplayer requires more skill to be fun, with head shots and tight controls. Multiplayer like GTA IV just involved pointing and pulling the trigger a lot, you couldn't really get much better than that. It had some cool ideas, but they didn't spend enough time developing it.
2. Why should a game force me to play it a particular way so I can enjoy it the way I want? If I don't want to play the singleplayer, just the multiplayer, what's the advantage of forcing me to play it? How about a game that forces you to play the multiplayer for 20 hours before you can start the single player campaign? I think that is just as bad of an idea.

In the end, it's not too tough to tell what games are multiplayer focused and what games are single player focused. If you don't want to play multiplayer, don't buy those games. I've been in discussions with people about how they wish BC2 had a better single player so they could join in the fun that everyone talks about. But they still wouldn't be joining in the fun, because everyone talks about the multiplayer. If the single player didn't suck, it would be a different fun. In short, no one is missing out, because if you don't like multiplayer games, games designed around it will never be fun for you, so don't buy it.

 

[nuba km]

snip

I like multiplayer I will get a game if it has good multiplayer just for the multiplayer. I like the social aspect of it (I normally meet nice friendly people on xbox live games that I play) but I will play games that need co-op with friends (real ones and ones only on xbox live) because they will work together. I will though agree with you games NEED a good single player because a lot of people don't have xbox live I would be fine (if a little hurt and sad) if they stopped making multiplayer for all games (ones that are already out keep xbox live) but I would stop buying games if they stopped making single player for games.

 

[DarthCheney]

The only "problem" with multiplayer is a problem of perspective. For instance, a vast majority of people who complain about whiny kids online, or loudmouthed douchebags admittedly hate or rarely play online multiplayer anyway. In reality, most games (at least in MW2) not a single word is uttered the entire round. I encounter plenty of douchebags as well, but they're not nearly as prevalent as all the opponents of multiplayer like to make out. Furthermore I have never played a game where the developer lacked the foresight to include options to mute people, which most of the haters apparently fail to notice.

Just because you don't like, or don't "get" multiplayer, doesn't mean that it needs to be diminished at other people's expense. That said, most games outside of fps are still primarily focused on the singleplayer anyway. So indeed, what is the big deal? If you feel that a game's too short to justify spending 60 bucks on it then just rent it, or borrow it from a friend. There's still plenty of singleplayer action to be found.

 

[Shycte]

There are plenty of games that stand on a solid, single-playing ground. BioWare's RPGs for example.

However, with the internet growing bigger and bigger every day it is not strange that developors focus their games on multiplayer. It is not obligatoric to have a single player, no matter what Yathzee says.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Recently for me ive been getting fed up with some online multiplayers like Red dead for example because everytime i try to play freeroam and go about doing gang hideouts and helping people with gang hideouts there's always players in the game that go around killing you constantly tracking you for no reason at all and this is free roam i mean if he wants to stalk and kill people like me then why doesn't he have the brains to choose a playlist such as "free for all" or "gang shootouts".

On C&C Red Alert 3 i only play single player or co op skirmishes and missions because i played so many times on online matches and i swear on all 3 formats of red alert 3 online players always think " hey i can't be arsed to think of an actual strat so i'll use the spam one or two unit option.

And i hate playing RTS online matches where this so called "rush tactic" is used over and over where i tink to myself that i wasted £40 on an RTS game where i play a match online for 5 mins because the other player(s) decided not to have a good lengthy battle, and i love my long RTS battles because it always has me thinking of new ways to deal with a new threat in the ongoing battle for victory.

 

[Treeinthewoods]

While the OP loves a good single player game with a good story he can enjoy, there is another type of gamer. This gamer skips every cut scene because all they want to do is play. This gamer is ranked as a 50 in Halo 3 but doesn't even have the skull and sword insignia thing that indicates passing the campaign on normal mode. This gamer doesn't give a crap about a story, this gamer wants to play games.

I have friends like this, I have a hard time gaming with them because they yell at me for slowing down the action when I don't skip scenes. Still, this type of gamer is exactly who a game like MW2 is designed for. My friends have money, they love multiplayer and don't care about story, why shouldn't there be games that are designed for them? Hell, look at MAG, last I saw there is no campaign.

 

[godofallu]

If you don't like multiplayer ever it's probably because you hate being around other people.

I mean if you don't like competition then work together in a coop game. If you don't like team based games, try a game with a built in community and just talk to people while playing solo.

Anyways multiplayer is generally the most played portion of games these days. Compare people's time playing single player to multiplayer in games like COD MW2 or the Halo series. It's crazy how much multiplayer can expand the life of a game, to the point where solo games are alomst not worth buying anymore simply because there isn't enough gameplay to warrant purchase (aside from some epic 50+ hours RPG's).