alanschu

I would suspect if they made the world bigger, they'd just give you more DVDs/CDs.

Agreed. As with your comment Gorth, I am sort of under the impression that co-op isn't included because there isn't as big of a market for it. I think (hopefully) that that is changing now. I think the social aspect of co-op gaming is what makes it so much more fun. I posted it here to hopefully let some of the Powers to Be at Obsidian know that there is at least some interest. The biggest problem that I see with coop gaming is in rich single player experiences. It probably becomes quite difficult to implement a co-op play, as you have to worry about who is talking to who, how to deal with triggers and scripts and cutscenes. Although I would think that a creative team of designers could figure this out (I'm just uncreative ). Thanks for the feedback!

University of Iowa right?

Hmmm, I expected more responses. Basing reality on my own experiences has proved me wrong again!

I wouldn't be surprised to see Carth helping out on Telos.

Some more lying Volourn? "76% of statistics are just made up"

"You'll know what happened to them." I think you are reading too much between the lines to assume that they're dead. You'll just know what happened to them after KOTOR. What did they do? Where did they go?

You also come from a whacked out program that apparently rates a 90 as a B. Probably had more to do with marking on the curve than anything else.

I think stuff like that can still be settled with appropriate demos however. No need to make someone download a gig+ of data to find out they didn't like a game at all.

I'm just posting a message here that I would like to let Obsidian (and other developers) that I would like to see more considerations for cooperative gameplay modes. Cooperative gameplay is that intangible experience that can elevate how one perceives the game they are playing. I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that you are sharing the experience with someone else, and situations can be dealt with creatively that limiting AI are unable to do. I find that it can take a subpar game (at its core), and make it quite enjoyable. Consider the following games for example Diablo 1/2 Serious Sam Any MMORPG Looking at just their elements, how many of them are really "good" games. Diablo is a game with an ok story and an RPG-lite atmosphere of hack-and-slash. But let 3 of your friends join in with you, and the whole experience becomes that much more personal. A big accomplishment is celebrated by screams of joy. Teammates watch with angst/humour/fear/exhilaration as that one last teammate tries to escape a no-win situation. The exhilaration of finding some new mystical artifact. Even when pairing up with total strangers over the net, a shared sense of accomplishment for completing an act (if you're with the right group of players) is a satisfying experience. You and your teammates contributed in your own way, relying on each other to overcome each other's shortcomings Serious Sam is a very run of the mill shooter, with the occasional creative enemy (and often really, BIG enemy). But add a few friends to the mix, and it isn't just mindless shooting, but a collaborative effort to overcome the foes, where seeing a teammate grab his minigun and get down-and-dirty with the hordes provides an exciting atmosphere, as you listen to him trash talk the bad guys and are more willing to get into the situation. Someone is much more likely to talk trash with their friends at the big uber-boss than by themselves (well...at least not as loud ). The entire reason I played this game was for the co-op. MMORPGs are a good indicator as well. The entire success of their game pretty much depends on creating a good social environment to play in. Everquest as a single player game would not be as good. Overlooking the fact that the world would seem very unpopulated, at its core the quests tend to fairly plain and generic, and it's basically just a game of levelling up since there is no story. But the success of the game is the experience shared by the members. Getting that next, really time consuming skill is more satisfying when a group of your friends congratulate you on your accomplishment. A simple dungeon crawl becomes a roleplaying adventure. The co-op mode for Halo (XBOX) was very successful, and very popular. It was grounds for public outcry when it was not included in the PC version, and is the exact reason why my roommate did not buy the game (he said after playing co-op on the XBOX, there's no way he could play it any other way). No One Lives Forever 2 had one of the most innovative ideas for their co-op. Basically the co-op had the players take part as operatives for the Agency. Your job was basically as a cleanup crew for Cate Archer. It was neat because all the stuff that Cate did in the single player, was still apparent. Stuff she destroyed was destroyed and whatnot. This creative idea also adds to the cooperative experience since it is not simply replaying the single player game (although in many cases that would be sufficient). Imagine playing Farcry, where your friend has a high vantage point and covers you with a sniper rifle, spotting enemy troop formations and allowing you an edge in sneaking past the patrols. Given that a fight breaks out, you have that "angel on you wings" that can help you get out of that tight situation. I loved playing Delta Force (another mediocre game) with two of my friends, since one of us played sniper/spotter, one was heavy gunner, and one was a rifleman (with M4/M203). Took boring, mediocre gameplay and made it more fun with the social element. My roommate and I both intend to buy Full Spectrum Warrior, since after playing the Demo, we realized there is support for coop. He had never even really heard of the game, it was immediately intrigued simply because coop existed. As a counterpoint, I do understand that implementing cooperative games does mean more work...particularly if the game is not multiplayer to begin with (say with Knights of the Old Republic). I'm not saying that all games should be co-op, but there are many games out there where simply allowing another entity would make the game so much more enjoyable. There are also storyline considerations that have to be taken into effect, as well as scripting. What happens if player X activates a trigger and whatnot. All I am asking for is additional consideration for co-op as being perhaps a little more mainstream than people are realizing. With games such as Counterstrike and other Team Based Deathmatch games, clearly there is some sort of market for playing with someone rather than just against them. But is there still a market for those that wish to share a single player experience with a friend? I would argue yes. With the increased use of the internet, and increased availability of affordable highspeed Internet, people will be much more willing to share an experience with their friends over the internet. Accessible voice transmission software (such as Teamspeak or any other one) helps bring the experience closer together. That's my stance on that. I would like to hear any comments from anyone, but in particular I would like to hear from Obsidian members about what their stance is. Some alternative viewpoints as to the limitations of cooperative mode from a technical and administrative standpoint would help us all to understand the state of co-op gameplay. Respectfully, Allan Schumacher

System Shock 2 "sorta" did this. You enlisted in one of three factions, and then got to choose how you progressed through the faction, with all factions' 4th tour of duty ending up on the ship, starting the main plot. It only really gave you additional training and skills...but it did give your character some background.

Gothic 2's island really isn't too big though. And it's easier to implement something like that as it is an island (as is the case with Morrowind). If you exclude running over the same ground multiple times, Knights of the Old Republic covers much more ground. Futhermore, Knights of the Old Republic also travels to a variety of areas. It's easier to have freeform travel when you are limited to a single area. But KOTOR isn't.

Why come up with something original when there is something that is already similar to what you want to do with it. Welcome to real life Hades. Why start from scratch when you can borrow ideas from someone else? It's not practical, especially considering the already huge development costs that go into making a videogame. No sense wasting huge amounts of money paying people to come up with something entirely brand new. You are living in a fantasy world, bub.

WTF are you talking about.

I'm pretty sure the graphics in the link are still just conceptual. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they are conceptual from the magazine, not even the publishers. It's not uncommon for magazines to have their own drawings of game situations in their magazines, that are in no way related to the game in any way.

But it's not d20. I can see many differences

It's similar. But clearly as you have shown many times, it is not the d20 system. There are differences. Being "based" on something does not mean that it "is" something. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ironically, if it had used the D20 system things like Force Powers would be balanced, blasters wouldn't be perfectly useless and the game would be better balanced overall. And yet you want them to deviate MORE from the core D20 rules making it even MORE ridiculously imbalanced than it currently is? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I haven't said anything about what I do or do not want in the game.

My first year I learned Java, and I was in the same boat wondering "What's the point?? C/C++ is the dominant way." But learning the language is the easy thing. The data structures and programming methodology I learned in my Java classes still apply to my C/C++ classes I'm in now. With hindsight, I have also realized that Java seems to more strict than C development, which is not necessarily a bad thing for the new people coming in with sloppy structure. For example, Java explicitly only allows a boolean type in an iterative IF statement. However, C allows for a integer value, where any non-zero is considered true. As a result, putting if (i = 2) will work in C but not in Java. As a result, I was able to get it into my head immediately that a single equal is assignment, and a double equal is a measure of equivalence. Also learning about queues, stacks, SLLs, DLLs, and hash tables in my second CompSci course has virtually nothing to do with Java....we only used it as a medium to program with.

It would get the most deterimined ones

I couldn't say, since I don't know anything about Atris, and little about Mira. Without knowing anything, I couldn't pick anyone. And since someone seems to be begging for it: Bastila is not a deep character

WTF is Gluupor?

I would guess some sort of Eastern European accent.

It's similar. But clearly as you have shown many times, it is not the d20 system. There are differences. Being "based" on something does not mean that it "is" something.

Blasters follow the exact same mechanic as melee weapons. Somehow the conception is that they miss way more, but what people do not realize is that Bioware added many shots to a single attack so it wouldn't look too silly. Of all the shots that happen during an attack, only ONE is the real shot. The rest is just decorations. I think that this is a better alternative to the characters firing once every six seconds. And to reiterate to Hades....the game does not use the d20 ruleset (as you like to point out so much). Just a system that is very similar. Hence they don't have to adhere to anything that the d20 says you have to (which from what I understand, is nothing anyways).

I think what you fail to see (when you claim to see laziness) is the limitations that go into developing a computer game. Every alternative situation exponentially increases development time.