On Multiplayer

[300lb. Samoan]

I'm sure someone has burst this bubble already, but...
Half-Life: released 1998
QIIA: released 1999
Unreal Tournament: 1999
Counter-Strike Beta 1: 1999

Half-Life 2's sales were surely bolstered by anticipation of CS:Source (certainly true in my case) same way the Orange Box sales were enhanced by Team Fortress 2. I don't think Half-Life demonstrated anything about internet multiplayer that wasn't already donning on the rest of the industry.

In my opinion, Yahtzee's desire for conclusions to his gaming experiences shows a propensity for a linear, literary quality compared to the more open, architectural experiences appreciated in good multiplayer gameplay.

 

[mandrilltiger]

I like online multplayer because AI technology sucks compared to actual people.

 

[knight56]

Oh there's a disclaimer on MW2 that loads in when you pop it in saying that Activision can pull the plug on the multiplayer forever and without warning.

I guess the Single Player HAS to stand up on its own now.

 

[Lord Krunk]

What about Team Fortress 2? Surely it isn't bad, you said so yourself.

But then again, the game is constantly changing. So in any case, you are right.

 

[vinceoutlaw]

Also like to add the extreme lack of multiplayer respect with aimbots and wallhacks, Steam and such may have a big banhammer, but they always miss a few.

That said, I love a good storyline to a game, hence I'll play L4D2 with friends, if you do this and follow the campaign, it all fits oddly together, and some of the quotes are just priceless.

Cod4 was fun in singleplayer, same with MW2, but I wonder what can they do next? Future Warfare, eat space marine plasma!

 

[ItsAPaul]

I don't like multiplayer because I really don't care if people are better than me at a video game. Plus most of them piss me off when the physics of the game are more like suggestions than hard rules (ie every fps ever and most fighters). Shotguns are notorious for working at long range one minute and being loaded with peas when right beside someone the next, and I can't tell you how many times I stopped playing Halo when I die to someone who had the same gun as me and started shooting second.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

But they weren't AI. That's the point. They were thinking humans acting stupidly and you took advantage. That kind of gameplay would be slow and unstimulating if they really were bad AI. But those are humans who are having human reactions to getting punk'd over and over. Sure they're being idiots but who doesn't enjoy picking on idiots?

Now, would those strategies have worked on AI? Probably not, because there would be no reason to use them. If it were in the campaign, that would happen every single time you played the missing without variation. Humans may be predictable but they do learn.

Your trying to tell me that I'm going to have a new experience everytime I play multiplayer. But I'm not because the people are stupid and tend to do the same stupid things over and over and over again. I honestly haven't gotten variation in this. Even the people that are good tend to react in the same way. They tend to stick to the same strategies that worked for them in the past.

for example... I came across a crew that picked a place to camp. One would take out targets at range while two would take out targets at close range. I have come across that same gameplay battling across many different crews and strangers playing with each other. My method to kill this is by the use of grenades with suppressive fire.. I never changed my method since it always works.

If I was playing with the same group of people every match then yes I can see your argument. But I don't have that type of time. So I end up playing with strangers who does the same stupid crap who isn't able to learn. I don't see the difference between this and bad bots.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Personally I always preffered singleplayer even in games like Unreal Tournament. I happen to have UT, UT 2004, and UT3. I actually played UT2004 online once then realized people weren't as much fun as the bots.

I also have TF2 which came with the Orange Box because I was determined to make it through Half-Life 2 (I still haven't because the game just wasn't fun enough for me to keep playing unlike Portal). TF2 would've been so much better if it would've had bots. I tried playing online then 15 minutes in I realized I wasn't having fun and promptly shut it off.

Point being if you're going to have multiplayer make sure to include bots for those of us with an intense dislike of our fellow human beings.

 

[Stryc9]

Point 4 of this article speaks particularly loudly to me. Granted I did purchase Quake III and a couple of the Unreal Tournament games, I didn't get as much out of them as I would have something with an actual story to play through.

I also notice there hasn't been an Unreal game period in what three years now? Quake went back to having an actual story with Quake 4, which I personally enjoyed. I'm glad to see these the multiplayer only games disappear. Having one or two on the market is fine as long as they are well constructed games but the huge flood of them in the late 90's almost turned me off gaming period.

 

[Tonimata]

So basically, even though I have more or less the same restrictions as Yahtzee, I still play online games. Apparently, "I'M A REETAARD"

 

[slowpoke999]

I play MP but only TF2 and L4D2,why?Because i know they will still see FREE updates in at least months from when im playing them.TF2 was released late 2007 and is STILL getting major updates,I just don't understand,it's only $20 bucks and the updates are free.

Oh and there is a small fallacy with who you play with, if you choose to play with randoms they can generally be shit and you lose even if you're playing exceptionally well,if you play with a clan then people will find cookie cutter tactics and it will get boring.The best online games are where EVERY tactic shines.

And i disagree entirely with your opinion that all games need single player,why?One word,Team F-3 words Team Fortress 2.It is amazing multiplayer,but it would be the shittest game on earth if it had single player,really how would single player for a game like that work?

 

[L4Y Duke]

I'm gonna disagree with you there Yahtzee. I don't mind games that focus on multiplayer.

I dislike games that focus on multiplayer whilst ignoring the single player. UT2004, although primarily an online shooter, still has plenty of offline character.

 

[pignoli]

@ 300lb Samoan:

thank god someone said it. If anything Half-life marked a tailing off of the proper single player shooter - a point nicely illustrated by all those lovely MP only games that came after it and that were spawned from it(don't forget TFC as well!). Incidentally, this also totally destroys the point Croshaw was trying to make by mentioning Half-life in the first place. Poor research. If he's that muddled, he obviously doesn't have an appreciation for the succession of the games one would get from actually having played them at the time. You can't try and comment on something you didn't experience first hand by not doing research and trying to bullshit your way through. You will slip up, and you will get called out.

I'd say that other developers were still catching up with the lessons from the first Half-Life by the time its sequel came out, in fact.

As to the rest of the article, it successfully points out (once again) that playing MP on consoles with pubbies is shit. Whoop-de-doo, that's hardly a revelation. Seriously, how many times has this point already been made? The rest is just opinion.

 

[LazyAza]

I think yahtzee needs to be a little more open minded, not all multiplayer games/gaming is as bad as he makes it sound, even here in Aus things can be pretty good. I'm living in the state below his and I seem to be able to find good servers with little lag most of the time, I also have several friends who I regularly do my online gaming with.

That's the key to making the experience enjoyable, is having actual friends who you can do it with because yes trying to play multiplayer with random assholes online is NEVER going to be fun. Yahtzee not being able to do that for review purposes is perfectly reasonable though so people shouldn't give him a hard time about it. I cant imagine Yug and Matt would go out of their way to buy every game he reviews with multiplayer just so they can play together and make his job easier.

Only big multi-person teams of reviewers can really do that so the MW2 fanboy he quoted is pretty much a straight up moron.

 

[TitsMcGee1804]

you say; 'i get shot by fifty people and never get a kill, because everyone knows the levels'

While this is SO true, I think you should have put it into your review, then maybe IW would do summat about it, wouldnt that have been more constructive?

Also; no dedicated servers...change that fifty, to five

p.s. even though MW has a better multiplayer, WaW has a much more mature, non-douche and jockless fanbase, its a shame the gameplay is not as strong

 

[seious]

i wish people would put more work into single player and just put multiplayer in there for a quick game. more solo less multi

 

[neurohazzard]

(I'm not reading through 200 replies to see if any of this has been said yet, so I apologize in advance if it has)

I have to say, I completely disagree. Sure, if you prefer single player, then of course the game must focus on a strong single player game with multiplayer as "a nice bonus". However if you enjoy multiplayer games, then whats wrong with wanting a game that has been specifically tailored to multiplayer? A lot of the best multiplayer games don't have single player at all, and they don't need it, they're for people who enjoy multiplayer.

As for this idea that all people are shit, it's simply not true. I've been a multiplayer gamer for a long time, and honestly I meet more decent people then I do douchebags. It's simply the age old problem of the douchiest people also being the loudest, and thus getting severely over represented in peoples perception. Anyone can seem like the majority if they're loud and obnoxious enough while the decent folks are relatively quiet and well mannered. (of course this also depends on which game your playing, as different gamers attract different sorts of gamers)

In conclusion, if you're all about the single player, thats fine. Game are played for enjoyment sake, so if you enjoy it, play it. Just don't go telling those of us who love multiplayer that we shouldn't have games custom tailored to our enjoyment just because they aren't your thing.

 

[Dobrev]

So you sucks at games? Fine by me. One less nub on the Internet.

 

[Tom262]

Not gonna go over the points others have handed out (to which some I agree and others I do not), but I do see where Yahtzee is coming from.

I also play most games Single Player only because I'm much more invested in the story itself rather than the actual "shooting", which is exactly the reason why I didn't care much for MW2.
However, as much as I do appreciate the Story-telling, deep details and rich worlds built to explore, I still find myself from time to time looking for an experience made only on adrenaline rush which I can only get while I play multiplayer games. Of course it means that the game has to be good enough for me to care for our teams advancement and sadly for me the only game where I actually enjoy the multiplayer is Team-Fortress 2 (probably because of the rich diversity in classes, abilities and game types, which I haven't really found to be great in Modern Warfare 2).

So, I understand people that want pure single-player experiences to explore a new world which was created for them to escape the monotonic world (Just like reading books, listening to music or watching movies) and I understand the other kind of people who prefer the multi-player part of the rush that it brings when you get invested in your winning. (to the point of multi-player games being repetitive I can only say that I never had to expriences which were the same playing in the same map with the same group of people (just one round after the other) and that the rush itself from playing gets as boring just as the feeling you get from being drunk, after a couple of times whats the point? it's "the same", right?)