Dearest Obsidian,

 

I have a great idea to make your game twice as much fun; co-op play, either online or splitscreen.

 

Sincerely,

Your CEO

This is a new an interesting topic that is relevant to my interests. Only one part of this statement is true.

 

DO IT!

haha, they'd have to be idiots not to.

 

They're...not idiots, right?

They aren't idiots. Because then they wouldn't implement co-op play and that would make them idiots, which they are not.

The last time I played a fun RPG (or action RPG) co-op game was never ago. If they wanted to make a compelling co-op game, they'd have to excise the RPG entirely out of it and make it a Diablo clone, unless you like sitting through somebody else choosing dialogue options.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Pop

unless you like sitting through somebody else choosing dialogue options.

When it's a friend and not a total stranger, I see no problem with that in the least. You can even discuss dialog options.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Tale

It would have to be a pretty combat-heavy game (that is, combat occurs more than exploration, dialogue or plot advancement) to make it fun for two people to play. And I thought the point of having 2 players would be to have 2 characters. I could just as easily have a friend watch me play solo and advise me on conversation choices.

 

But also we have to take into account death. Would anyone really be satisfied with a NWN2-style "dying is really just getting knocked out until everyone's knocked out" mechanic that would lend itself to co-op in Aliens? Implementing such a system would make the aliens a lot less lethal than they're supposed to be. The best way to retain the Aliens feel, I believe, would be to use a Fallout-esque permanent death system, with a single PC and CNPCs that can be permanently lost at any time (provided Obsidian doesn't use some deus ex machina resurrection mechanic that would be totally out of place in an Alien game). And the only way for co-op to work in such a system would be for the game to force reloading when any player died, unless players didn't mind being permanently forced out of the game on death.

Edited November 15, 200718 yr by Pop

I think you're overspeculating about how systems can work with aliens. Further, permadeath companion NPCs are often shallow as characters and only viable in a game where a player can solo through it themselves. That in itself makes the aliens a lot less dangerous than it should be.

 

As for experiences with RPGs and people wanting to co-op or solo. Well, these threads are contrary examples to your experience. And my main forum community seems to only really had their NWN2 outbreak with the release of Mask and the first thing people started asking "who wants to get together and do this co-op?"

I think I

Edited November 16, 200718 yr by Sh0dan

I'd like to see a good Co-op game. I've recently been playing IWD1 and SS2 co-op with friends.

Dearest Obsidian,

 

I have a great idea to make your game twice as much fun; co-op play, either online or splitscreen.

 

Sincerely,

Your CEO

 

Since when does Co-op work in RPG's? Seriously, I don't remember playing an RPG that could work with 2 players...

Dearest Obsidian,

 

I have a great idea to make your game twice as much fun; co-op play, either online or splitscreen.

 

Sincerely,

Your CEO

 

Since when does Co-op work in RPG's? Seriously, I don't remember playing an RPG that could work with 2 players...

Then you never played Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, or (and this one was made explicitly for multiplayer) Neverwinter Nights. There's others, such as Dungeon Siege (which had a different multiplayer campaign from the singleplayer) but those are the more popular ones.

Edited December 1, 200718 yr by Tale

Co-Op is a complete waste of time. They better make sure to make an excellent single-player experience - that's why people buy RPGs in the first place.

Co-Op is good if the campaign is separately designed (like Dragon Age --> But Bio takes it's time) or some exclusive MP game a'la TF2.

Ah, but we can dream.

rofl @ people with no friends arguing against coop.

Co-Op is a complete waste of time. They better make sure to make an excellent single-player experience - that's why people buy RPGs in the first place.

Co-Op is good if the campaign is separately designed (like Dragon Age --> But Bio takes it's time) or some exclusive MP game a'la TF2.

 

Is BIO still going along with the separate multiplayer campaign? I haven't heard much about it as of late. Bio's staying mum on the subject, which makes me think that it's a design casualty.

/agree. In fact, I'd be happy to see like 96+ player multiplayer support! I imagine armies of troops vs armies of aliens in mp mayhem

 

Oh, and as for people playing rpg's for single player, I'm sure the millions of WoW subscribers would beg to differ. Multiplayer rpg's are very popular these days

Edited January 30, 200818 yr by sly

/agree. In fact, I'd be happy to see like 96+ player multiplayer support! I imagine armies of troops vs armies of aliens in mp mayhem

 

Oh, and as for people playing rpg's for single player, I'm sure the millions of WoW subscribers would beg to differ. Multiplayer rpg's are very popular these days

 

Um. OK, those perhaps weren't the directions I was going for.

Honestly, I get the point about multiplayer RPGs, but did you HAVE to use World of Solo-grindfest as an example?

Honestly, I get the point about multiplayer RPGs, but did you HAVE to use World of Solo-grindfest as an example?

Fair enough, but my point is, people seem to like to play these rpg thingy bops in multiplayer mode. So yeah, like, it would be rad if this Aliens rpg had mp in it, and stuff! The more the merrier! Let people host huge 128 person servers!

 

Viva la resistance!!

I really enjoyed Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale coop multiplayer fests, as well as Neverwinter Nights (was disappointed that Hordes of the Underdark didn't really support multiplayer).

 

If they could make it work, I would :wub: a coop multiplayer experience with the game. I would guarantee three sales LOL (because that's the straw that will break the camel's back hahaha).

Let people host huge 128 person servers!

 

The issue here is more one of the gameplay actually supporting this number of players. Which it won't.

Let people host huge 128 person servers!

 

The issue here is more one of the gameplay actually supporting this number of players. Which it won't.

Perhaps not, but I just look at this holistically:

 

For the game to be "squad based" it must have some semblance of balance.

 

In other words, if you make 1 space marine (or whatever the protagonist is going to be) such a bad ass he can single handedly kill like 50 aliens at once, you don't need a squad unless they are facing 50 aliens at once per squad mate.

 

More realistically, the game will be squad based because the 2 sides will be relatively even: Just pulling #'s out of thin air here but say 1 protagonist is able to kill 1-2 aliens at a time but more than that he will be overwhelmed. If the squad has 8 members they can take down 8-16 aliens at once, any more will overwhelm them.

 

In fact, a lot of squad based fps's have pretty close to 1 to 1 player to enemy balance (games with "realistic" or close to realistic damage models come to mind).

 

The game must be balanced in a fashion similar to that, otherwise it starts to become a chore for the game developers to balance: if you need 500 enemies in order to present a worthwhile fight you start having to make an entire game engine built around being able to display that many foes at a time!

 

So if the balance ratio is 1 to 1, 128+ multiplayer becomes a possibility, at least from a gameplay perspective. At the very least, you could remove the aliens and have pvp or whatever

In other words, if you make 1 space marine (or whatever the protagonist is going to be) such a bad ass he can single handedly kill like 50 aliens at once, you don't need a squad unless they are facing 50 aliens at once per squad mate.

Assuming the only activity of interest is killing aliens. Forbid that there's technical characters.

So if the balance ratio is 1 to 1, 128+ multiplayer becomes a possibility, at least from a gameplay perspective. At the very least, you could remove the aliens and have pvp or whatever

 

Erm, fun multiplayer is kind of built on technical balance, such that it's player skill that makes the difference, 128 might as well be any number.

 

Ace Combat 6 could 'technically' support 128 players on your logic because the ratio is still 1v1, but that doesn't mean that it would actually be worthwhile or in any way fun (the best games of such tend to be the smaller 2v2 and 3v3 games anyway, since it means you can actually use teamwork and not just spam missles into oblivion).

 

Likewise the Aliens game might as well support 1000+ players, since it would still have a ratio of 1v1.

 

The point isn't balance, the point is it actually adding somthing worthwhile to the game. People are always impressed by big numbers until you realise that it can just make for lag and frustration unless the game is very specifically taylored to those numbers (and the only games that support that number of players tend to be those that are secifically multiplayer centric with large scale player battles in mind).