On Multiplayer

[flamezlord]

In point three, Yahtzee gives a reason why people would spend hours on end game content (to challenge themselves/prove skill), yet says he can't understand why they would do it. Forgive me if I overlooked some small argument, but that seems a bit... stupid.

Regardless, even though I am one of the "skill" gamers, I agree with most of Yahtzee's points. I don't really get any personal gratification out of beating a twelve-year-old (most of whom still laugh every time they hear the f-word) at a game where health bars are so low luck plays as much of a role in success as skill, getting killed by the same "teammate" 17 times in a row is just plain frustrating, and, as Yahtzee said, most of the time you lose because the other person has more time on his hands than you and plays the game religiously. Some games are even starting to give out rewards for doing so. As if they didn't already have an advantage. And if you want to challenge yourself, replay the game on hard mode. If that's enough, do something silly, like avoid using grenades. Or buy a harder game in the first place.

That being said, I do have fun playing multiplayer when there is a friend in the room. However, in addition to Yahtzee's complaints, I don't see why I should pay to have fun with my friends when I can easily do that for a much lower price, if I have to pay anything at all. The fact that so many games use multiplayer as their main attraction sickens me.

 

[carpathic]

Too true. I have only ever really enjoyed multiplayer when I was playing in the same room as my 'friends'.

 

[Caradinist]

I hope Yahtzee knows it's possible to mute players in the multiplayer portion, it's common practice with the large amounts of children feeling the need to...say anything. I would say the biggest portion of shit talking began in Half-life (with it's eventual implementation of Voice communication.) and the extremely popular modifications that came out of it, so at this point, anybody with a microphone talking stupid shit over the internet is commonplace now.

But ah, let's not forget, he has to play and review new game by the end of the week, because he's a professional game critic. Tackle one point that he talked about, and we forget about the other four.

 

[lobo_ace777]

I have to say that I have had that mindset since I was a little kid. While multiplayer can be enjoyable, your ultimately paying 50 or 60 dollars for a game that YOU will mostly be playing so developers should put forth a wee bit more effort into their single-player campaign (coughhalocough).

 

[AcacianLeaves]

I'm not going to subject myself to reading these comments, as I feel like the internet fuckwad theory may be on full display with such a 'hot topic' as Yahtzee's opinions on multiplayer, so I apologize if I'm repeating something.

The only thing I don't agree with here is his assessment of the Unreal Tournament/Quake 3 Arena days as 'dark days' of shooter gaming. In both cases, their original iterations weren't really 'multiplayer' games, they were 'deathmatch' games.

Allow me to explain the difference. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer game. You can't play co-op, you can't play in the same room as your friends, you can't play single player, there are no bots and no local games. Your only choice is to play online against people that are not in the same room as you (unless you set up something ridiculous like a LAN party or a system link).

Unreal Tournament is a Deathmatch game. The core of the game is played against bots. I bought this when I was still on an incredibly slow dial up connection, and the only time I ever played online was at the last day of high school when I hid the game on the school network and had everyone in my BCIS class killing each other. No, I played UT in single player. The age of UT/Q3A wasn't one of multiplayer, it was one of deathmatch. These were games that me and almost every gamer I knew played single player. These are games where you have dozens of bots that you can set to any preference you want. These are games that have entire single player campaigns designed around an arena/tournament structure where your goal is to get the most kills rather than kill all the enemies. They were stand-alone games even if you never hooked up to a network. I enjoyed the hell out of both of them, and it wasn't until I started playing them on a network with people over an internet connection that I gave up on them.

So during what I like to refer to as 'the deathmatch' era in FPS gaming, even the games that were designed to be exclusively multiplayer were not exclusively multiplayer. No game designer had the massive balls to claim that they had spent any time on a game whose primary gameplay mode was almost entirely user-created.

I'd call the current era of FPS gaming the dark ages. Gone are the days where a friend of yours buys a game and you go over with a bunch of buddies to play it. Nowadays most FPS games on the console only allow 2 players max on one game, if that. Games that tout multiplayer have a small hint of single player (usually only about 5-6 hours), and then just add in various maps for various forms of multiplayer. I can't remember the last game that featured single-player deathmatch as an option.

Obviously this is because producers realized that allowing 4 people to play on one box wasn't charging people enough money. Requiring an 'online community' to form meant that each player had to push the game on his friends and depend on the success of the game, rather than just enjoying it on their own. This also created obsessive fanboys who want to continue playing their favorite online maps, but they NEED other people to continue playing as well (see Halo fanboys, COD fanboys, etc).

 

[Booze Zombie]

Cowardly? Ha!

I like to say "polite"!

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

The point you're wrong in is that EVERY game MUST necessarily have a single player or whatnot. You're wrong, as evidenced (for instances) by a game you claimed to be quite the good experience, Left4Dead.

L4D does have a standalone offline single player campaign. (Which I think is better than having to deal with all the online asshats, but that's beside the point.) Who's wrong now, hmmm?

"You didn't try the online multiplayer portion of modern warfare 2????? Seriously????? THAT'S LIKE TRYING ORANGE BOX AND SKIPPING OVER THE SILLY PORTAL GAME."
-Matt, via email

Give me this mans address.

I don't care how many times I have to do something unspeakable to Yahtzee to get it, I just want to choke the stupid out of this guy.

I'll help. Mainly because he called Portal silly, and then compounded this grievous error by comparing it with MW2.

 

[mrcoffee90]

Xbox Live is a perfect example.

 

[Xelanath]

The point you're wrong in is that EVERY game MUST necessarily have a single player or whatnot. You're wrong, as evidenced (for instances) by a game you claimed to be quite the good experience, Left4Dead.

L4D does have a standalone offline single player campaign. (Which I think is better than having to deal with all the online asshats, but that's beside the point.) Who's wrong now, hmmm?

While it's solo, it's exactly the same as playing with others. You can't tell me that you don't see the difference between a game with a story-driven single-player, or co-op, campaign and a competitive multiplayer mode, and a game like L4D, that allows you to play the same missions solo, co-operatively, or competitively.

"You didn't try the online multiplayer portion of modern warfare 2????? Seriously????? THAT'S LIKE TRYING ORANGE BOX AND SKIPPING OVER THE SILLY PORTAL GAME."
-Matt, via email

Give me this mans address.

I don't care how many times I have to do something unspeakable to Yahtzee to get it, I just want to choke the stupid out of this guy.

I'll help. Mainly because he called Portal silly, and then compounded this grievous error by comparing it with MW2.

I have a feeling that he was emphasising his point by calling it silly, rather than voicing his own opinion.

 

[Ryuk2]

If it is an online game, then the multiplayer is the main thing. When i'm playing Zombie Panic, i don't think to myself, 'Yeah, this is great...,but if it had a single player campaign, it would be a lot better.''

 

[comadorcrack]

And yet. I come back to Team Fortress 2. The greatest multiplayer game ever created. Because no matter what your skill level. You'll never be left out of the fun. ""

Team Fortress is shit

Its good to see poignant arguments being put forward with valid reasoning behind them.

Why? your own argument is completely baseless. The notion new players are having just as much fun as hardcore veterans.

In fact I've never understood the appeal of any Valve MP Game. The only thing worse than TF is Counterstrike, bunch of identical guys using the same silenced assault rifle.

I'm not really one for multiplayer at all but the Valve-created stuff is particular unappealing and why it's got such a mob of rampant fanboys is beyond me.

Acctually I'm pretty sure that was the base of my point. That every skill level is included in the fun, not just the hardcore.

 

[MortisLegio]

Yeah I'll agree with this.

 

[searanox]

Your cynical Hobbesian worldview both worries me and makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl. However, if someone hasn't pointed it out already (unlikely), in many cases, gamers are skipping the single-player modes. According to Xbox LIVE statistics, between 5 and 40% of gamers ever finish their games, with the percentage increasing the shorter the single-player mode is. Many simply don't play single-player if they know there is a robust multiplayer component on offer. As a PC gamer strongly devoted to the FPS and RPG genres, this confuses me a little bit, since a game for me is never "done" unless I've beaten it at least twice over and explored everything it has to offer, but those are the stats, and while they only account for those with Xbox LIVE subscriptions, they certainly do provide some insight.

 

[ssgt splatter]

Wow. That's pretty deep...and he's 100% right.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

We need more single player for sure. I remember when multiplayer was just something you did to entertain your friends for a few hours when they came to your house. Even then, we tended to favour alternating single player.

 

[Caliostro]

L4D does have a standalone offline single player campaign. (Which I think is better than having to deal with all the online asshats, but that's beside the point.) Who's wrong now, hmmm?

You.

If you had followed the game's development you'd know the game was built from the ground up for multiplayer. In fact, the game was born when what became the L4D team was dicking around with a CSS mod that pitted "zombies" with knives and huge health vs. normal characters with guns (no mention if it was the famous zombie panic mod or some "house-made" variant). The singleplayer is just multiplayer with bots. Exchanging human players for bots is something you've been able to do in just about any online game since, oh, say, Unreal...?

 

[fluffybean4]

no i didnt think you were attacking me i was just surprised to get such a long answer

 

[stealthsid]

In response to Tequila Shot:

Yeah, he had fun. Perhaps it's because he realizes that it's a game and that dying in it isn't a big deal, and that the fun come from occasionally making others die.

Your rhetoric isn't apt. While it's true that experienced players will generally own the inexperienced ones, the game is set up so that it's NOT an impossible task to actually kill a level 70. Me and my friend would have 0.000001% chance of even scoring against an NBA player in basketball, so that assertion is a hyperbole, and doesn't logically prove anything.

Next, did you ever play Wipeout? Or any racing game for that matter. You had to learn the track, it's part of the game. Mastering a game is part of the game and when done well can make the game enjoyable.

Yes, it is hard initially and then you get better at it, but of course it is, that's axiomatic. Do you get completely slaughtered moments after spawing over and over again? No (at least not on 360). At first you run around for a bit, die, watch the kill cam and go "Oh, that's how that works, guess I won't step out into the open like that again"... lesson learned. Then you think, "maybe I should trail behind this level 55 on my team and watch him and help him out"... another lesson learned. All without a tutorial mode to lead you by the nose as to how to do well in a multiplayer match.

The big question is, is it worth the "burn in" phase. And for MW2 I think the answer is yes. It's enjoyable even while being owned, and then when you can get to the point where your owning left and right with knife kills, you feel like a badass.

It's not like I'm a fan of "Hardcore" games (a la "Fester's Quest", where when you die and start all over), but having a mildly interactive (crappy) movie isn't much fun either. Gaming should be challenging and fun at that same time. That's why people talk about the difficulty curve for games. For Yahtzee to not even sample that curve is a dereliction (sp?) of duty. He really should have at least TRIED (what many consider) the best part of the game.

Finally, since when is dying in a multiplayer game akin to being a fool? A fool is someone who places too much value on whether they die in video games.

 

[Daruth_Winterwood]

You may very well have summed up Jean-Paul Sartre's idea of the "other", in that last sentence, sort of.

I seem to recall an interview with a developer of Blizzard, who mentioned the way to design a good game was to try and create a good, well balanced multiplayer game first and build the single player game out of what you create. While I don't agree with them, it is a good way for a game company to retain a cult following and effectively gain a steady source of income.