Poll: Coop in Skyrim, good?

[gizunt]

Imagine if you will, a mod will come out that simply allows for 2-4 players play Skyrim together. There will still be ONE DOVAHKIN (probably the host), and the others will be followers. Assuming you can do all of your quests together(I haven't finished the main quest yet), will this be a good idea or not?
I know it will be ages before a real one will be made, but I would LOVE it. Exploring this huge world without company can get lonely sometimes and having some company can enhance this experience by a lot in my opinion. (I'm not saying I don't like the way it is now, it's one of my favorite games ever.) So tell us if you like this idea, if you have a way of enhancing the experience etc.

EDIT1: First of all, a MOD!! one that people not part of Bethesda, have made. Second, let's assume there will be a minimum of technical difficulties, as much as one would expect from a properly made mod, and last it doesn't matter whether it's offline or online, both would be great.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I don't get it when people cry about this. If all it adds is the option to add another player how can we possibly say no? It's not going to change a damn thing to do with the single-player.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Me and my wife have been playing Skyrim between the two of us ever since her laptop died, and as we waited for it's replacement.

Oddly I'm playing a conversion of Celes Chere of FF6 fame while she's been playing Thor Odinson of Marvel Comics fame.

However a co-op mode in the vein of Fable 3 style would be awesome. It would allow us to play together and still improve our individual characters.

Honestly I don't get the hate for offline co-op lately. We have been doing it since the N64 at least, as widescreen TVs have become the norm you would think that offline co-op would become more common; rather than less common.

 

[Kae]

I said it before, I'm pretty sure a mod for multiplayer is going to come eventually so just wait for that OK, I don't think Bethesda are going to waste they're time making multiplayer as I believe they have enough problems as it is with Dragons flying backwards (or moonflying as I like to call it) and whatnot.

 

[Miles000]

I don't get it when people cry about this. If all it adds is the option to add another player how can we possibly say no? It's not going to change a damn thing to do with the single-player.

So much this.

It'd be like people complaining about getting offered free sauce with their pie.
Simply asking isn't going to ruin your pie, and you can always say no.
Stop crying about something that you could ignore anyway, and let the rest of us enjoy our Skyrim with mates!

I'm not sure about 4 players, that could get a bit messy, but 2 or 3 would work just fine.
Use something like a Borderlands system for travelling between areas/into dungeons.
The fact the game won't pause for inventory just means you have to pick your tactics ahead of battle, adding more depth to the game!

[sub]... Yes... I'm hungry...[/sub]

 

[DeimosMasque]

If the Oblivion mods are any indication then yeah, co-op multiplayer is coming in mod form.

But I want to go back to my point, why is offline co-op suddenly hated? Why is the idea of playing in the same room suddenly rare?

Granted, I get that online multiplayer is more profitable, but allowing offline co-op doesn't take much extra coding if you have online multiplayer. Heck we had several generations now that did both co-op and competitive multiplayer in the same game, with less disc space.

 

[Jedoro]

As long as there isn't some matchmaking feature that allows a 12-year-old little shit to enter my game and start murdering random people, thus making the world hate me when he leaves a few minutes later.

 

[ultrachicken]

No. First, there's the issue of how to deal with looting. As things stand, looting pauses the game, so when Dovahkiin loots a corpse everyone has to twiddle their thumbs. Then there's the question of how to split the loot among players fairly. Or if everyone gets the same loot, what about quest rewards?

Then there's a whole host of other issues, such as how friendly fire is handled (if it's possible, how does illusion magic fit in?), what happens if your pal kills everyone in the game world, how loading saves works with multiple people, whether or not to increase the challenge with level scaling...

You also can't do aimless wandering like the Elder Scrolls is known for if you've got two people, because if you want to go into a dungeon you'll probably need to clear the idea with your partner. Or, if you both just go your separate ways and explore where you want, why the fuck would you even play the co-op?

Frankly, it seems like any multiplayer component would be broken as fuck. I would rather Bethesda's time and resources not be dumped into a doomed feature. Of course, if it happened via modding, I wouldn't have a problem with it existing, but I wouldn't want to use that mod.

 

[Smooth Operator]

As a community mod it's cool, if Bethesda waste time on this when they have sooo many other basic issues to fix it's not cool at all.

 

[SarcasmoPope]

Part of the allure of Bethesda's RPGs (at least for me) is the feeling of loneliness, which is one of the reasons why I played Minecraft singleplayer for so long. A prolonged period of privacy I rarely get in real life. I also usually tell any companions to fuck off as soon as I meet them so I can travel by myself.
So no. I would not like co-op. It might work, though I assume loot would be a bit of a ***** to deal with. I guess if you took WoW's "Need Before Greed" system and used that to decide loot.

 

[Nathan Dewar]

no no no no, and again no its not the series. I would like to keep my multi player games and single player games separate, to me that's suggesting that tomb raider should have been multi player. I can guarantee that if Bethesda turned this into a multiplayer game they would completely fuck it up. Its just not their strength, I know I'm going slightly off topic of the thread but it just wouldn't work.

However I'm not gonna lie, my flatmate and I thought the exact same thing when we first started playing the game but its not really what the games about. Confused? Yes well so am I.

 

[Laser Priest]

The game was built from the ground up with one player in mind. I really don't see a single way co-op would be good for their games.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

I'm just going to quote myself from the last post there was on this a few days ago.

No. Fucking. Way.

The Elder Scrolls series always has been and always should stay single player. It doesn't need multiplayer and it never will need multiplayer.

Considering the story of The Elder Scrolls series always revolves around a certain person. In Morrowind it was the Nerevarine, in Oblivion it was The Hero of Kvatch and in Skyrim it's Dovahkiin. It would be kind of silly, for example, say in Skyrim.

"I am Dovahkiin, Dragonborn!... and this is my friend Eugene, who is also a Dovahkiin like me!."

It would take away the feel of being the hero that everyone is relying on to save the day.

 

[Kyrian007]

To me, multiplayer only improves terrible games. If a game is as good as Skyrim, why bother adding a feature that makes it worse? Cool if it is just a mod, I won't download it/problem solved. Now a bad game adds multiplayer... that can equal fun. Like Borderlands. Even more plus for its local multiplayer. Some of us have real friends, not just facebook friends. Terrible game, but winds up being a fun experience.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I really can't get alongside the idea of MP RPGs. Partly because in the worst case scenario it's the first step down the road to a MMORPG, but mostly because even in the best case scenario you're gonna end up with one dickhead running around stealing all the good shit while you are a) killing the bad guys (or good guys) or b) trying to advance the plot. This was proved time and time again, over and over, with Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Neverwinter Nights etc...

Multiplayer RPGs are a bad idea - if you want a multiplayer RPG play tabletop, where at least that bugger who keeps nicking all the good stuff is within arms' reach.

 

[DarkShadow144]

Not all games need multiplayer. I'm having a blast going around Skyrim by myself. That said, it would be interesting if you could invite your friends to your world, so you can quest together, maybe help each other get items. There are already Companions that you can take with you, it's not that hard to imagine that NPC becoming another PC

 

[Jamash]

You can't have a yes or no answer to a one or the other question.

Is it 'yes it's a good idea' or 'yes it's a bad idea', or 'no it's a good idea' or 'no it's a bad idea'?

OT: I think it's a bad idea. Given the state of the game, it's engine, and the inevitable 'Rimlag' problem, co-op will only break things faster.

What would happen if the host's character used a much older save than the guest's character, so the host experienced stuttering and local, non-internet related 'Rimlag' while the guest didn't?

The guest would actually be experiencing time at a faster rate than the host, meaning the co-op gameplay wouldn't be synchronised and rendered pretty much useless.

The same could problem could occur if one of the co-op player's PCs had less RAM or a smaller page file than the other... there are so many factors that could cause slowdown or 'Rimlag' for one player that co-op gameplay is practically impossible.

If Bethesda games can't feature working ladders because it's too complicated for the engine and too much work for the entire studio to fix, I doubt even the most talented modder would be able to make working net-code and a multiplayer co-op mod (there are local couch co-op mods for Oblivion, but that's a much simpler endeavour).

 

[Dogstile]

The same could problem could occur if one of the co-op player's PCs had less RAM or a smaller page file than the other... there are so many factors that could cause slowdown or 'Rimlag' for one player that co-op gameplay is practically impossible.

Not responding to the rest because it's valid points, but I suppose consoles fix these problems.

The main issue is with how unstable the game is. If they could make it more stable there would be absolutely no issue with the game being multiplayer. Lag issues? Every game i've been in has those. Game pausing when you enter a menu? Stop it pausing. One person stealing all the loot? Happens in other games, play with friends instead. Some little shit keeps joining your precious single player game? Play offline.

I think people are making excuses. It would literally detract nothing if it was added by mods. Considering mod's don't take away from the development of the game, there is literally nothing that people could complain about there.

But then again, people complain because modders took the invincibility tag off of children using arguments just as backwards (why don't they fix other more real problems, for example. Without of course, realizing that modders ARE doing that), so I suppose people will complain about anything.

Holy tangent batman, that was impressive

 

[Scabadus]

Not sure why everyone in this thread seems to be assuming this is an offline co-op questions, I can't see anything about it in the OP. Not that there's anything WRONG with offline co-op, but given that I currently live in in a different country to the friends I grew up with, a nice connect to IP option is always a good feature.

As for the actual co-op itself, as long as Bethesda don't try to shoe-horn in anymore story to it than Fable's had (for those not in the know, there's a sort of multi-universe thing going on, and Heroes can see them, and some other stuff, basically you can hope into somebody else's game and it works by SHUT UP). As a mod it would be fine, as an official feature that's no more little button on the main menu with no impact on singleplayer it would be fine, as an always on feature that allows a ten year old troll to spawn in your world and kill all the quest-giving NPCs it would never happen because Bethesda arn't that stupid.

But as fast as the novelty may wear off, it would still (briefly) be fun to have a second vastly-overpowered friend appear next to you and for the pair of you to kill a rampaging dragon in half a second. Besides, they'd have to be better to play with than that follower AI.