Like what? Diablo, MMORPGs and the like? As I said, the quests in these games are handed out by the single click on the "Accept quest" button and in 99% of cases have no branching and can be summarized in a single line. And yeah, these games break in co-op, too. Not as much but they do. Ever tried wandering off while your partner kills quest mobs or completes an objective? In a best case scenario the objective is given to you even if you sit idly in the city (which is a bad design decision in itself), in another case the quest is on a respawn timer and in the worst case you've screwed your save until game reload/forever. For example, killing Diablo, I think, in D2 with a coop partner who've never visited act4 would prevent him from getting multiple quests in that act. That was a real bummer. And that was in a much simpler game designed with multiplayer in mind from the beginning. Imagine how much of these checks would have to be added in Skyrim. You can't ever think all the exceptions possible for your script. You will definitely miss a few. A few that might break the game and botch your save.Satsuki666 said:
With a single player you need to check, say, two possible variations of player visiting an area. 1-player is on a quest tied to this area, 2-player is in the area with no quests for it active. With two players the list of checks grows: 1-1st player is on a quest and 2nd is on a quest; 2-1st on a quest, 2nd not on a quest; 3-1st not on a quest, 2nd not on a quest; 4-1st on a quest, 2nd not in the area; 5-1st not on a quest, 2nd is not in the area. Every variation should have a valid and not gamebreaking scenario/outcome. Every quest that is made without the second player in the zone/on the quest should be respawnable and resettable. And if you somehow overlook and forget to reset one variable then too bad, 2nd player is fucked. And what if 2nd player zones in to 1st one in the middle of the quest? Bad things happen.
It's really easy to do all these things in MMORPGs and the like because all the quests there are of the one or the two types and have pre-written sets of rules and frames that deal with these situations. To transfer this system to a single-player rpg would mean to rewrite all the scripting. And you would lose a lot in the proccess. For example, would you really want to wait until your buddy shows up before the NPC starts his quest animation/speech? And if it'd start instantly the moment you arrive your partner will feel cheated off a piece of lore and dialogue.
I've done some scripting for a few games and participated in developing of some applications so I know exactly what are you talking about and it would just not work. It would not work on a AAA level the developers strive to achieve. And if it harms single-player experience in the process (the difference between multiplayer and singleplayer quests is glaringly obvious) then it is just not something worth even thinking about. And if you think of having two different quest and event versions for singleplayer/multiplayer it's just wrong. First, it's double the work, second it's really clumsy to fix and develop and third, transitions between the two versions in case of people joining midquest would bring horrible consequences.
What I'm trying to say is: "Would Bethesda game developed with a multiplayer experience in mind be a good one?" "-Yes."
"Would Skyrim as a product it is now be a good multiplayer experience with a few mods tackled on?" "-Hell no."
