Mazty said:
Okay as clearly your going to be slightly pretentious/pedantic in your response I'll take the time to clarify what I was saying.
You said:
"Why precisely does a game need to have a single player component at all?"
As I have shown in my last comment, a game should almost always have a strong SP as it can be a large selling point and enjoyable element of the game. No offence, but unless the game is 100% dedicated to multiplayer (MMO's/CS-esque games) which MW2 clearly is not, it was a pretty inane comment as successful games can be based on SP. Yes some of the games on the list offered MP, but they were hardly the selling point of the game, but granted probably stopped some of the games earning constant critical acclaim as the game wasn't 'balanced' in that aspect. So the question that then has to be asked is, with the acclaim MW2 has been given, is it also balanced?
Let me just slow you down right here. One can only have an argument if one has a theorm - in this case, your theorm is:
"a game should almost always have a strong SP as it can". You follow this theorm with your proof "as it can be a large selling point and an enjoyable element of the game".
We run into a problem instantly. By using the qualifier almost along with the word always, you state, without ambiguity that some quantity of games do not need a stong SP experience. Your follow on proof does little to demonstrate why a game needs to have SP. You have recognized that there is a quantity of the games produced that do not have a significant single player element (which I will agree with), and you recognize in your proof that there is a segment of the market for whom the lack of a single player element will not be a deal breaker. By dealing in the finite language as you have, you create a contradiction of argument that does not support itself.
But, more importantly, you fail to answer my question. You have not demonstrated why there is intrinsic value to be found in multiplayer, nor have you demonstrated that no game has ever been successful without meaningful single player content. As such, my theorm can be extrapolated to be "Not all games need to have a single player component" - and this is virtually identical to what your theorm is hinting at.
Mazty said:
"In a game without a significant multiplayer component, we would tend to expect to find a great deal of value in the single player experience."
You state that MW2 does nothing new for MP, as it hasn't changed since CoD4 with the same problem of no map selection, lag, unbalanced gameplay etc. So this would seem to suggest that a main element of MW2 shouldn't be the mutliplayer as it offers such a poor, unintuitive MP system.
I did indeed state that it does nothing new. I have not, however once stated that the multiplayer was lacking in value. Indeed, you will find that I said the opposite of that. You'll also find a statement that you have presumably read twice at this point:
Eclectic Drec said:
There is value in doing something incredibly well just as there is value in doing something nobody has ever tried before.
You'll find a clear flaw in your argument - you either believe that your subjective stance on the content as presented either has more intrinsic value than any contrary opinion, or you believe that your opinion is shared by enough of the population to make it inductively true. Neither provides a good basis for an argument. The problems you cite either do not affect me, or do not degrade from my ability to extract value from the experience. Thus, if you want to argue this particular point, you are going to face the challenge of convincing me that I have not, in fact, had fun playing the game. I will not go so far as to say it is impossible to construct such an argument; instead, I will simply state that this will likely be the most difficult argument you will ever face.
Mazty said:
Therefore MW2 should offer a great deal in the SP experience, which it blatantly doesn't. In short, you can't claim that a game with a completely rehashed (bugs included) multiplayer can be excused for having a short SP. Plus where did the Dev time go? Where did the $200 million cost of production go? My bets are on cocaine for the executives as that would also explain the ridiculous choices made in development.
Because you find a lack of value in multiplayer, where it would seem most of the potential value is found, you are indeed justified in saying that you do not care for the game. However, the purpose of my statement that lead to your conclusion was not a statement of reality, but rather a statement of logical distribution of effort. If the product, as a whole, is found to have a value that meets or exceeds the price requrestd and none of that value is found in single player, then, logically, it exists in the other component. However, if you hold the opinion that the product as a whole is lacking in value, then the statement I presented holds no meaningful content. If I find no value in the overall package and no value in multiplayer, then what value is there to find in single player?
The rest of your argument here consists of a series of straw men and red-herrings. Bugs exist in any complex piece of software and the statement as such does not support your argument or diminish mine. As a statement of truth, it is as valuable as pointing out that it came in a box. Questioning the use of resources is an example of a red herring as no part of my argument is based on the cost of production; instead, it is based entirely on the perceived interaction of the cost to me (as a consumer) and the relative value I receive in return from the product. Since production (high or low) is rarely passed on to the consumer in a case like this (and, since I paid 60 USD for the game, the same as most of my 360 game library I can state that there was no impact on price from my perspective), your red-herring does not actually deserve consideration. Finally, you present a straw man argument in the end by postulating that the development costs were wasted because you found nothing of value.
I completely belive that you found no content of value in the game - but at no point was my argument based around what YOU found. My argument has been simply that your opinion holds no more value than my own and I question why you (and others) believe a certain quantity of value must be contained in one aspect of the game over another. I cannot argue against the validity of your opinion on the value of the game any more successfully than you can argue the same against my opinion.
Mazty said:
Plus MAG has been in large scale beta testing...I think that allows comment on the game.
Now saying the MP isn't fun is subjective, but I can logically show how it is not what a lot of gamers would say is needed for successful multiplayer e.g. no map select, very limited field of view, utterly unbalanced. These points can't be denied and it can't be argued that this shows the multiplayer isn't of a high quality.
Stating the mutliplayer in MAG is fun is, in fact, a subjective stance. Like the others I have pointed out it has no intrinsic value and only has a degree of meaning if there is consensus. However, I have had no chance to experience the multiplayer in MAG, nor has the largest cross-section of gamers so there can be no consensus and thus there is nothing to gain from your statement.
The problem here is that you are trying to take a collection of subjective opinions and then assert that, by consensus, we have something that is true. This is a common rhetorical fallacy - the appeal to authority. Appeals to authority work perfectly fine in some cases. In math for instance, I can demonstrate if an infinite series converges or diverges and the proof will inevitably rely on an appeal to authority. The reason I can do this without falling subject to the same trap you have placed yourself is because the authority I appeal to is true to any standard of mathematical theory thus far developed. Because the authority you appeal to is a collection of subjective (and thus valuless in the search for truth, which for this purpose can be defined as a statement that does not rely on belief or perception)statements, your argument falls apart.
To put this another way, you state that MAG is the better game because there are parts that are different. You cite player FOV, weapon balancing, map selection and whatnot as examples of differences. The problem however lies in the fact that you assume that I can agree that these differences equate to a positive shift. I personally have no problem with the field of vision and have, in fact, tend to prefer a FOV closer to 90 degrees than I do a FOV greater than say, 110 degrees. I also find that I appreciate the system that exists in MW2 where I press a button and am dumped into a game in a few seconds. This helps maximize the part of the experience where I find the most fun (shooting the people who have the audacity to walk into my view) and minimizes the time I spend in the part of the game were I extract little value (navigating menus). As far as the balance goes, it is my opnion that no shooter has ever nor will it ever be balanced.
An explanation is likely in order for such a statement. In a perfectly balanced game, potential player advantage would be so eroded that there is no factor other than chance that affects outcome. In a perfectly imbalanced game, chance has absolutely no factor on the outcome. Games like Mario Kart demonstrate clear instances of balance, most notably in the form of a blue shell. The blue shell, simply put, is a device that punishes success and rewards failure. The amount of balance provided by this item is governed only by the frequency with which it appears in game. If a blue shell is always available to all drivers but the lead, then the only factor governing the ultimate outcome of the race lies beyond the ability of a player to control and as such you have perfect balance. No matter what kart you choose, no matter what route you drive, no matter what your skill as a player you have the same chance to win the race as anybody else with any other combination of selections and skills. You see examples of imbalance regularly in games. If I am only armed with a shotgun in the famous DM-17 map in Quake 3, I am placed at such a severe disadvantage if facing a skilled player with a railgun on the other side of the map that there is virtually zero chance of victory in the battle.
The imbalances that exist in FPS games generally serve to reward successful play. If I am armed with all of the weapons available on a map, I have demonstrated my ability to control key items and as such am rewarded with an arsenel that allows me to effeciently engage any other opponent in any situation the map can present. Since players spawn with their weapons, and since they have health that is only limited with respect to time (if there is an absolute amount of damage delivered over a specific period of time then the player dies. However, if this ratio is never achieved then the player has unlimited health - you can test this yourself. Simply find a friend and start a private game. Shoot your friend in the foot, one bullet at a time from a handgun. Wait 15 seconds between each shot. You or your system will die before the avatar you are tormenting will), there must be some form of resource that can be managed. In your average game of team Deathmatch and many others, that resource is lives. Simply put, each life in the game is equal to some quantity of points and each point in the game is equivalent to a certain fraction of a life. The game is therefore designed around the premise of managing the one resource your team really has (lives) in the form of the score of the opposing team. Without any excception I can think of, success and failure in a team deathmatch game lies in ratio of kills and deaths. Simply put, if you have a rato of 1:1 your team loses.
The game does a great deal to provide a balance. Weapons tend to fire quickly for example and players take very little damage to kill from moment to moment. This is a balancing force as it allows an unskilled, poorly armed player to achieve the occasional kill on a skilled, well armed player. There are other examples of balancing forces such as the death streak items, kill cameras and a handful of others. Since the game is designed to be competative, the game can never stray too close for balance, otherwise there can be no competition. The imbalancing forces in the game tend to reward and reinforce success. Killing a certain number of foes in the space of a single life offers you greater situation awareness. Felling a few more villians earns you the fist of god himself with which you may smite foes with impugnity. A few more kills and you find even greater allies in your quest to destroy the enemy. In each of these cases, you have reinforced success. The imbalacing forces that exist in the game serve to ensure an unskilled player will generally have less access to these unbalancing forces than will a skilled player (both with respect to the average skill level in the game itself) in the same game. At the ultimate end of imbance, we find the tactical nuclear weapon. By achieving a 25 kill streak a player has the ability to call down the wrath of god himself (or at least the wrath of a thousand suns). I would conjecture that such a device, though imbalanced, is no more imbalanced than the simple presence of a player who has managed to fell 25 people who stood against him without dying in return.
From my perspective, balance is the enemy of competition and imbalance is competition's friend. In many instances, a percieved imbalance (that is, any event that alters the dynamics of the game in a fashion that seems counter to the goals of said event), is actually a force of balance. An auto-aiming script for example represents not an attempt to imbalance the game, but rather an attempt to balance unfairly. To put this another way, consider the game Dawn of War 2. In this game, there are a number of units that fill the role of melee attackers. If I were to efficiently employ a greater value of these units against a lesser value of similar unit from the other side and found that I still lost the skirmish, you have an example of balnce at work. My skill at employment of troops and my foresight to have greater power on the battlefield would have been shown to have little effect on the ultimate outcome.
Of course, this entire bit has been an issue of symantics. In my view however, the features that seek to disrupt the balance achieve their objectives more often than they do not. This view is obviously not universal.
Mazty said:
In conclusion the SP is short, and the multiplayer is weak. So from an objective viewpoint, this game shouldn't be getting the scores it is receiving. As to whether you find it fun or not, I will stand by my idea that some people enjoy Shakespeare, others, fuzzy felts. Clearly a game which is more or less a carbon copy of its predecessors should be raising concern for gamers, not "OMG its soooo good. Yeah its the same/worse than CoD4, but I'm happy to pay £35 two years later for the same game, but alas, my memory is weaker than my influence by adverts and hype".
That the SP is short is a statement that holds true (since I will assume you are going to compare it to a long list of other games, or even take the average length of successful first person shooters). That the multiplayer is weak is a subjective viewpoint that I do not agree with. Thus, according to your own evaluation system, the game is undeserving of it's score. I find no fault in your conclusion. Instead I simply point out that your evaluation holds no more value than my own (or that of a professional for that matter) and as such your statement is only true when you admit that we are discussing your opinion.
In conclusion, I have absolutely no qualms with your opinion and the only part of my opening post that could reasonably lead you to believe that I might is when I ask why value must be located in the SP experience. If you would simply steer clear of the traps I have pointed out, your argument would be far more compelling, and as a result, more effective. You should know that your opinon seems to place you in the relative minority, and as such to keep from having your perfectly valid points brushed aside, it's best if you don't give people excuses to ignore you
