Single P. v. Multi P. What do you believe should define a game's quality ?

[Deregon]

This thread was inspired by the "Why do People hate Kane and Lynch 2" thread by Jew Zombie, discussing Yahtzee's negative review over the KL2 campaign.
Linkz:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.255426-Why-does-everyone-hate-on-Kane-and-Lynch-2-some-of-it-has-potential-especially-the-multiplayer

My personal thoughts on Kane and Lynch 2 here. skip this paragraph for the meat of this thread.

Single player was all kinds of not fun. Sure the multi player had potential. But then again a roller coaster can have all the potential energy in the universe and if you don't push it over and create kinetic energy who really gives a....hoot.. I agree that multi player is, as time goes on even more and more, an integral part of the FULL game experience there is logic behind NOT reviewing anything but the single player, single player more so than multi player makes the gameplay mechanics SHINE. When I say shine I don't mean that it represents everything that can be done with them but think about it.

The point of this thread

If Modern Warfare (1-2 w,e) didn't have multi player online would you ever have quick-scoped during the campaign? If the same was for all previous FPS's..'s'sesesesesesesesseses UGH
anyways if the same was true for all other first person shooters it would mean that certain 'trick' (not an exploit mind you simply a trick) may still be unexplored.

That's just an example please don't read too much into it or try to de-fragment it for flaws because it really doesn't matter, the point I'm trying to make is, the game-play is best experienced (as it was meant to be experienced) through single player. Also, multiplayer on ANY GAME can be fun with friends. Me and my best friends could play any game, and we have played some pretty terrible ones, just for fun and even though its absolutely horrid we have fun just because! That doesn't make the game 'good'. It makes it fun, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.
Take for example minecraft. I understand a lot of people play it alone to live out some architect fantasy but think about it. A pixel-y game where you mine stuff and then build some other stuff after hours and hours of labors and you may or may not succeed, and may or may not be satisfied. Or play survival and you MIGHT die along with the other two previous statements. This to me and maybe some other people out there seems highly unappealing, but I love minecraft. Why? Because my friends and I have so much fricking fun together building something from the ground up, when playing by myself it is almost insufferably boring (personally).

So I believe that begs the question, what should define the quality of a game, or better said what defines a game as being GOOD. Single player or Multi player. Obviously games independent of multi or single player do not count, but what should be the end-all-be-all half that determines greatness or crap?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

My position on this is explained, at length, in <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.254585-If-a-game-cant-stand-on-single-player-alone-its-a-bad-game-Really?page=1> this thread, which is on almost exactly the same topic as yours, and still new enough to be considered active. As far as I'm concerned, a game should be judged on the merits of whichever section is the main draw of the game -- so Bioshock 2 would be judged on the singleplayer, while Black Ops would be judged on the multiplayer.

 

[shreedder]

A game is good by gameplay, if both single player and multiplayer game play sucks the game is shit, if one sucks and the other is average it isn't worth my money, if one sucks and the other fantastic it is worth my money, if both are average I'll rent it maybe, if both are great or better I'll buy it.

At least one option must stand alone as great or better for it to be worth buying.

 

[Deregon]

My position on this is explained, at length, in <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.254585-If-a-game-cant-stand-on-single-player-alone-its-a-bad-game-Really?page=1> this thread, which is on almost exactly the same topic as yours, and still new enough to be considered active. As far as I'm concerned, a game should be judged on the merits of whichever section is the main draw of the game -- so Bioshock 2 would be judged on the singleplayer, while Black Ops would be judged on the multiplayer.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't really see it on the boards i went straight from kane N lynch and thread to here, I apologize

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

My position on this is explained, at length, in <link=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.254585-If-a-game-cant-stand-on-single-player-alone-its-a-bad-game-Really?page=1> this thread, which is on almost exactly the same topic as yours, and still new enough to be considered active. As far as I'm concerned, a game should be judged on the merits of whichever section is the main draw of the game -- so Bioshock 2 would be judged on the singleplayer, while Black Ops would be judged on the multiplayer.

Oh I'm sorry I didn't really see it on the boards i went straight from kane N lynch and thread to here, I apologize

It's cool. I would say to use the search function first next time, but sometimes people do that and the thread they're looking for still doesn't turn up, so it's not a big deal

 

[stutheninja]

im going to have to go with Owyn on this one, if your game is mainly a multiplayer, it should be more heavily skewed towards what the quality of the multiplayer

 

[Kortney]

As far as I'm concerned, a game should be judged on the merits of whichever section is the main draw of the game -- so Bioshock 2 would be judged on the singleplayer, while Black Ops would be judged on the multiplayer.

This is how I view it.

 

[Dragon_of_red]

Both.
A game shouldn't half arse either of the sections, I would rather have no single player or multiplayer than a really bad and bland one. If it does half arse one, its ratings should suffer.

 

[SturmDolch]

I wish games would do what they used to do.

Multiplayer games were multiplayer. Singleplayer games were singleplayer. Half-Life, Bioshock, a billion old games... All singleplayer only. Now take the Battlefield series, Team Fortress, Counterstrike... All multiplayer only.

Of course, there were exceptions that did both spectacularly well, like Perfect Dark 64, and Halo.

But now, you get games like Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, which were obviously designed to be multiplayer games, with crappy tacked on campaigns. Then people say that the games suck because their singleplayer sucks. I think they're both great games, they just have really bad singleplayers. In fact, they shouldn't have any at all.

 

[DustyDrB]

It varies from person to person. It's all about the single-player to me.

 

[Nouw]

I wish games would do what they used to do.

Multiplayer games were multiplayer. Singleplayer games were singleplayer. Half-Life, Bioshock, a billion old games... All singleplayer only. Now take the Battlefield series, Team Fortress, Counterstrike... All multiplayer only.

Of course, there were exceptions that did both spectacularly well, like Perfect Dark 64, and Halo.

But now, you get games like Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, which were obviously designed to be multiplayer games, with crappy tacked on campaigns. Then people say that the games suck because their singleplayer sucks. I think they're both great games, they just have really bad singleplayers. In fact, they shouldn't have any at all.

Very true, although Bad Company 1 did have some very hilarious parts in it. Guess it's best purpose is to be a trainer >.>

Now in Single Player vs Multiplayer, it depends which one the game is made for/suited towards. Starcraft II would be ripped apart if it was judged on it's Single Player but on the Multiplayer it would do decently. I love Bad Company 1 and would never go on the Campaign (again >.>) but I love online. See what we mean?

Overall the gameplay is what counts.

 

[Indifferent]

I buy a game to keep it and play it again further down the road. I'm not gonna shell out $60 for something that's most likely not gonna be working in 3 months, much less 3 years later. Single player all the way.

 

[DirgeNovak]

I barely play multiplayer. I played a couple of Uncharted 2 matches (that was cool) and tried a Resident Evil 5 random matchup (the guy stole most of my ammo and left the game. I unplugged my Ethernet cable shortly afterwards.) I have had CoD4 for months, but didn't even try multiplayer yet.

So yeah, single player for me.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I wish games would do what they used to do.

Multiplayer games were multiplayer. Singleplayer games were singleplayer. Half-Life, Bioshock, a billion old games... All singleplayer only. Now take the Battlefield series, Team Fortress, Counterstrike... All multiplayer only.

Of course, there were exceptions that did both spectacularly well, like Perfect Dark 64, and Halo.

But now, you get games like Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, which were obviously designed to be multiplayer games, with crappy tacked on campaigns. Then people say that the games suck because their singleplayer sucks. I think they're both great games, they just have really bad singleplayers. In fact, they shouldn't have any at all.

Very true, although Bad Company 1 did have some very hilarious parts in it. Guess it's best purpose is to be a trainer >.>

Now in Single Player vs Multiplayer, it depends which one the game is made for/suited towards. Starcraft II would be ripped apart if it was judged on it's Single Player but on the Multiplayer it would do decently. I love Bad Company 1 and would never go on the Campaign (again >.>) but I love online. See what we mean?

Overall the gameplay is what counts.

In addition to this, both Half Life and Half Life 2 had multiplayer modes, which were tacked on, but not bad by any understanding of the word. Valve sold it seperately for the second one, but it was a built in part of the original game. I checked this evening, just to see if there were any servers still active, and even the original Half Life has plenty of active servers. If anything, we aren't seeing a switch from the good old days where some games were single player only, while others were multiplayer only, as we are a partial reversal of the bad old days when singleplayer was king, and multiplayer was always a tacked on bonus, if the game had it at all. It's only partial because we now have four classes of game:

Singleplayer only
Singleplayer focused (tacked on multiplayer)
Multiplayer only
Multiplayer focused (tacked on singleplayer)

Where before, we only had the first two -- the first three if you consider that multiplayer only games started around 1999, a couple of years before we started seeing games with a tacked on single player campaign, and a fleshed out multiplayer.

Edit: There is a mythical fifth class, in which both the single player and the multiplayer recieved equal attention in development. I have yet to find one of these that is any good, although I have seen examples where the tacked on multiplayer (or singleplayer) was quite good, even if it wasn't the main draw.

 

[Nouw]

I wish games would do what they used to do.

Multiplayer games were multiplayer. Singleplayer games were singleplayer. Half-Life, Bioshock, a billion old games... All singleplayer only. Now take the Battlefield series, Team Fortress, Counterstrike... All multiplayer only.

Of course, there were exceptions that did both spectacularly well, like Perfect Dark 64, and Halo.

But now, you get games like Bad Company 2 and Black Ops, which were obviously designed to be multiplayer games, with crappy tacked on campaigns. Then people say that the games suck because their singleplayer sucks. I think they're both great games, they just have really bad singleplayers. In fact, they shouldn't have any at all.

Very true, although Bad Company 1 did have some very hilarious parts in it. Guess it's best purpose is to be a trainer >.>

Now in Single Player vs Multiplayer, it depends which one the game is made for/suited towards. Starcraft II would be ripped apart if it was judged on it's Single Player but on the Multiplayer it would do decently. I love Bad Company 1 and would never go on the Campaign (again >.>) but I love online. See what we mean?

Overall the gameplay is what counts.

In addition to this, both Half Life and Half Life 2 had multiplayer modes, which were tacked on, but not bad by any understanding of the word. Valve sold it seperately for the second one, but it was a built in part of the original game. I checked this evening, just to see if there were any servers still active, and even the original Half Life has plenty of active servers. If anything, we aren't seeing a switch from the good old days where some games were single player only, while others were multiplayer only, as we are a partial reversal of the bad old days when singleplayer was king, and multiplayer was always a tacked on bonus, if the game had it at all. It's only partial because we now have four classes of game:

Singleplayer only
Singleplayer focused (tacked on multiplayer)
Multiplayer only
Multiplayer focused (tacked on singleplayer)

Where before, we only had the first two -- the first three if you consider that multiplayer only games started around 1999, a couple of years before we started seeing games with a tacked on single player campaign, and a fleshed out multiplayer.

Edit: There is a mythical fifth class, in which both the single player and the multiplayer recieved equal attention in development. I have yet to find one of these that is any good, although I have seen examples where the tacked on multiplayer (or singleplayer) was quite good, even if it wasn't the main draw.

3 good posts, fuck yeah! >.> And to add a bit more about the campaign being a trainer, I like to believe that's what Blizzard does except if focused more on gameplay in II. Although to be fair, I learnt more from outside of the campaign than the singleplayer itself. My usual slow startups were suicide in the grim darkness of Battlenet.

 

[NorthernTrooper]

I say a game should have a certain focus. My best example would be half life where the development team was completely focused on single player, and then the community made a multiplayer mode that was also quite competent. Personally I prefer games of the single player persuasion.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I say a game should have a certain focus. My best example would be half life where the development team was completely focused on single player, and then the community made a multiplayer mode that was also quite competent. Personally I prefer games of the single player persuasion.

?

As far as I know, Half Life shipped with multiplayer. Where did you get the idea that it was made by the community? Because I can't find anything that even hints at that having been the case.

 

[NorthernTrooper]

*Looks it up.

Well damn, your right. Totally thought the community did it. Ah well.

 

[Vault101]

Like I said before I don't think single player advocates would be as annoyed about the rise of multiplayer if games distinctly stuck to ether one or the other or even if there was some kind of rating systm that indicated weather the game was single or mult focused

 

[migo]

It makes sense to include multiplayer on a single player FPS - let people test out who's better at the game by killing each other. On the other hand, for multiplayer games, doing it like Unreal Tournament makes the most sense - just have bots. UT2K4 is also good in its handling, giving you points for winning to pull together a team. It's an interesting exercise but it doesn't have something stupid tacked on like UT3.