[Merged] Co-Op Multiplayer as some potential future stretchgoal?

[Foxfirerage]

so even if you do not plan to use a co-op it would lead to a better game in the long run by drawing in more players and more money in the long run. I know alot of people who will not buy single player games any more.

[Chunkyman]

so even if you do not plan to use a co-op it would lead to a better game in the long run by drawing in more players and more money in the long run. I know alot of people who will not buy single player games any more.

 

If they're not interested in single player I really doubt old school RPGs are the thing for them.

[Gatt9]

so even if you do not plan to use a co-op it would lead to a better game in the long run by drawing in more players and more money in the long run. I know alot of people who will not buy single player games any more.

 

I question the benefit of multiplayer. Except in multiplayer specific titles, the number of people who participate in multiplayer generally tends to be very low. Further, I'd hazard that there's more people who won't buy a game with multiplayer in it, as these past 2-3 years have been multiplayer focused, and have also seen major drops in revenue. Anecdotal? Yes, but it's a data point worth investigating because it's quite possible it's a contributing factor.

 

Personally, myself and all of my friends won't buy a multiplayer game. None of us want the headache.

[Vatdim]

We don't want a "multiplayer game", for God's sake. We want a game that allows multiplayer as a mode of playing.

 

Do you consider Baldur's Gate 2 a multiplayer game, just because you could play it together with a few friends, if you so desire? To me that's a really misguided assumption.

[True_Spike]

I just rather Obsidian concentrated on the single player aspect only, given the limited funding. And by limitied I mean anything below 10 million. Co-op is just a tad better than a full-fledged multiplayer - it still doesn't fit, it still breaks your immersion. Any form of multiplayer (and co-op is exactly that) limits the gaming experience to the game's core mechanics. That's fine in a racing game or a shooter, because mechanics is all the game really is. For me, personally, an RPG game is not really about mindlessly killing monsters and gathering loot. The mechanics of the game are a vessel for the story, for the setting, for the actual RPG experience.

 

I played BG 2 a whole lot in multiplayer (as buggy as it was) and yes, it was fun. Just nowhere near as much fun (or rather the same kind of fun) as it was to play in single player. Why would anyone want Obsidian to sacrifice resources for co-op mode in a RPG game that's all about the story and the setting is beyond my understanding, but I know many people will disagree, because they approach every game genre the exact same way.

Edited September 22, 2012 by True_Spike

[Shevek]

Multiplayer in BG2 does not undermine anything. I will say multiplayer in BG2 was bad. The only thing good about multiplayer in BG2 was being able to craft the entire party and that could be done without multiplayer (see ToEE).

 

Guys, MP is a pointless and expensive feature for this kind of game.

[Ashram]

Multiplayer in BG2 does not undermine anything. I will say multiplayer in BG2 was bad. The only thing good about multiplayer in BG2 was being able to craft the entire party and that could be done without multiplayer (see ToEE).

 

Guys, MP is a pointless and expensive feature for this kind of game.

 

Pointless and expensive? Lets throw down some figures to see how expensive and do a study on how much resources it takes away from the core game. As I said in another post, a stretch goal's entire purpose is to expand the game from the core. The argument that MP takes away from experience is a misguided one. It would be like me saying, shame on you Obsidian for offering to make Another faction, race, and class because if you spend too much time doing so...you are taking away from the core of what you were doing. That's just silly talk.

 

The game is multiplayer at its core...its just that we control all of the PCs. Adding in the ability to play with 1-4 player characters and have the rest NPCs shouldn't ruin anything and would add an element that many people enjoy.

 

Multiplayer =/= Less of a Single Player experience.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Ashram

[True_Spike]

Multiplayer in BG2 does not undermine anything. I will say multiplayer in BG2 was bad. The only thing good about multiplayer in BG2 was being able to craft the entire party and that could be done without multiplayer (see ToEE).

 

Guys, MP is a pointless and expensive feature for this kind of game.

 

Pointless and expensive? Lets throw down some figures to see how expensive and do a study on how much resources it takes away from the core game. As I said in another post, a stretch goal's entire purpose is to expand the game from the core. The argument that MP takes away from experience is a misguided one. It would be like me saying, shame on you Obsidian for offering to make Another faction, race, and class because if you spend too much time doing so...you are taking away from the core of what you were doing. That's just silly talk.

 

The game is multiplayer at its core...its just that we control all of the PCs. Adding in the ability to play with 1-4 player characters and have the rest NPCs shouldn't ruin anything and would add an element that many people enjoy.

 

Multiplayer =/= Less of a Single Player experience.

 

Of course it does take away, because the same resources could be spent on core, single player content - further enhancing the experience. The more you spend on a co-op mode, the less you spend on single player. There's no ceilling on SP spending, you can always do more with it. And an RPG, at heart, IN MY OPINION, is a single player experience first and foremost. And just because you controll many characters does not make the game "multiplayer at its core". It's multiplayer the same way Starcraft would be multiplayer if every unit single on the map would be controlled by a different person.

 

Just imagine Planescape: Torment in co-op mode. It just does not make sense. Only because a certain mode of play works in different genres doesn't mean it will work well in an old-school RPG.

Edited September 22, 2012 by True_Spike

[sparklecat]

PS:T doesn't make as much sense as BG/BGII in co-op mode, IMO, because tactical combat wasn't as much a focus there. In PE it is, and for the most part, storyline and characterisation is developed during non-combat time.

 

As for resources spent, I don't think most of us are qualified to comment on how much could be added if BG-style multiplayer was left out, and that's sort of crucial information. As it is, I'm for co-op mode, but not if it's at the expense of a significant amount of singleplayer content - and I trust the developers' opinion of what counts as significant.

[Darji]

STOP! Take a deep breath. Now, go get one or more friends, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and play through both games in coop. Then come back and post the following:

 

"Coop will undermine the singleplayer experience."

 

That's exactly it.

But now this game has a much smaller budget and Multiplayer will cost money which could be invested in the SP,.

[Vatdim]

A lot of people say the funds that could go into adding co-op multiplayer should instead go towards making the single player game "even more awesome". While a lot of people will agree with this statement, we need to keep in mind the law of diminishing returns: adding more and more resources towards only one feature will at first increase its quality and attractiveness by a large amount, but after a while these increases in quality will tend to become smaller and smaller. Basically, you keep adding the same amount of resources you used to when you started making the whole thing, but the benefit of these spent resources is less and less visible to the players.

 

On the other hand, if you choose to invest the same amount of resources to develop another previously non-existent or poorly developed feature, such as, for example, modding tools, multiplayer or the support of multiple languages, the spent resources will result in a much bigger increase of quality of the final product.

 

I think it's vital not to make one feature "overfunded" while the rest are simply non-existent. A given amount of resources spent in only one direction of the game's production does not lead to a proportionally larger increase in the quality of the given feature, not to mention the quality of the whole game.

[Jaesun]

Voting No. I have no interest in Multi-player. Spend every single penny and time associated on content content content.

[BSoda]

A lot of people say the funds that could go into adding co-op multiplayer should instead go towards making the single player game "even more awesome". While a lot of people will agree with this statement, we need to keep in mind the law of diminishing returns: adding more and more resources towards only one feature will at first increase its quality and attractiveness by a large amount, but after a while these increases in quality will tend to become smaller and smaller. Basically, you keep adding the same amount of resources you used to when you started making the whole thing, but the benefit of these spent resources is less and less visible to the players.

 

On the other hand, if you choose to invest the same amount of resources to develop another previously non-existent or poorly developed feature, such as, for example, modding tools, multiplayer or the support of multiple languages, the spent resources will result in a much bigger increase of quality of the final product.

 

I think it's vital not to make one feature "overfunded" while the rest are simply non-existent. A given amount of resources spent in only one direction of the game's production does not lead to a proportionally larger increase in the quality of the given feature, not to mention the quality of the whole game.

I disagree. I want the sp campaign to be as "overfunded" as possible...even if in the end this means a possible mp/coop mode got shafted solely for the inclusion of top hats.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I'd rather co-op be developed independently after release in a separate campaign that can be bought and launched separately. There's going to have to be changes for it to work in the best possible way, so it should be designed around co-op. If there's no market for this then there's probably no reason to add it to the game anyway.

[Santiago]

Have you played p&p RPG?. And if played... Did you like it?. In p&p RPG you can read a lot of text and interact with the other players, and there's not any problem with that. RPG was invented for playing with your friends. I don't understand what is the problem with cooperative. If the players want to read all the text, they can do it in MP, why not?. Coop multiplayer is an option, if people want to play SP, they can do it, what's the problem?. We are not voting for single player or multiplayer, we are voting for SP or SP + COOP.

 

If Obsidian gets enough money for cooperative, go for it, single player campaign will be good anyway.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Santiago

[licketysplit]

Wasn't the whole point of this project to make a strong single player game, and avoid tacking on sh*t publishers would demand...like co-op? This really blows me away. I mean there are dozens upon dozens of games with co-op already.

Edited September 22, 2012 by licketysplit

[Vatdim]

Wasn't the whole point of this project to make a strong single player game, and avoid tacking on sh*t publishers would demand...like co-op? This really blows me away. I mean there are dozens upon dozens of games with co-op already.

 

Wasn't the whole point of this project to bring back what was lost from true RPG classics such as Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale? It really blows me away. I mean, there are dozens of other games with nice story too, so why add this now?

 

Really, co-op is a feature, not something that will be forced on you when you want to spend some quality time with yourself. Co-op is a feature that belonged to the genre defining classics that PE is trying to embody. And co-op doesn't exist because of publishers, it's actually the one thing that connects a CRPG to its roots in the PnP RPG session which is usually played together with other people.

[SqueakyCat]

Wasn't the whole point of this project to make a strong single player game, and avoid tacking on sh*t publishers would demand...like co-op? This really blows me away. I mean there are dozens upon dozens of games with co-op already.

 

I would say the majority of games now are released with some form of MP. I can only think of a couple of upcoming games without it and that's Dishonored and Hitman Absolution.

 

I'll leave it to Obsidian, but I would prefer a more expansive SP experience. I would never use MP if it was added, but that's just my personal preference.

[Santiago]

Wasn't the whole point of this project to make a strong single player game, and avoid tacking on sh*t publishers would demand...like co-op? This really blows me away. I mean there are dozens upon dozens of games with co-op already.

 

Could you tell me some RPG's with cooperative since Neverwinter Nights 2?. And I'm talking about RPG, not action RPG. Seriously, I'm really interested.

[Lady Evenstar]

I voted no, since it's a feature I wouldn't use, but wouldn't really object to something comparable to BG or IWD multiplayer. What I don't want is for the single-player campaign to be short-changed. Coop mode is fine, but I don't want them to spend a lot of time on MMO-style class balance to keep groups from sitting the bard on certain bosses. No class should feel useless, but I'd rather different classes offer different strengths rather than every character needing to be equally effective in every situation.

[Santiago]

I voted no, since it's a feature I wouldn't use, but wouldn't really object to something comparable to BG or IWD multiplayer. What I don't want is for the single-player campaign to be short-changed. Coop mode is fine, but I don't want them to spend a lot of time on MMO-style class balance to keep groups from sitting the bard on certain bosses. No class should feel useless, but I'd rather different classes offer different strengths rather than every character needing to be equally effective in every situation.

 

I think people here are talking about a single player campaign played in cooperative, in the same way than BG or ICWD. MMO system and such of things are out of the question.

[monsen]

I think people here are talking about a single player campaign played in cooperative, in the same way than BG or ICWD. MMO system and such of things are out of the question.

 

Exactly. I don't want the campaign changed in any way, nor do anything need to be rebalanced. Nor do I want some silly tached-on seperate multiplayer part just so they can claim multiplayer support (like Mass Effect 3 did). Just the single player experience, but granting a friend the option to create his own character and play it as one of the party members of the main hero.

 

Many people claim there are too many games with multiplayer support these days, but there have been forever since I saw a proper RPG game with proper Co-op support. This isn't about tacking on multiplayer to everything, but to bring back that good old fun co-op multiplayer for a game type that really fits with that kind of play. If you are going to control an entire party, why not let friends play some of the characters. Even if not everyone can play "a main hero", the game is still fun.

 

As for character interactions, these can still take place. Either by limiting the number of players so there will always be some independen't NPC's, or by still let the interactions happen even if another player controls the character. This is the way BG/BG2 did it. When you picked up a new character you met in the game world, you could delegate control of that character to any of the players, but any scripted interactions that character had with the main hero (or other characters in the party) still happened, independently of who actually controlled the character. In my book, this is perfectly fine. It ensures that nothiong is taken away ffrom the single-player experience, while simultaneously allows multiple people to play the came co-operatively.

[cealicu_ca]

well, i actually voted no, since no matter if it's only co-op or competitive (god forbid that) it will require a lot more tweaking than just letting people play together (since you will be joined by companion, arguably less strong than you, in co-op)

 

having two players with better chars (than just one player with companions) trying to complete some fight... erm, also, balancing NPCs to be able to down them in any combination... this seems a lot to me. really, stick with SP. make if a huge campaign (dreaming about it), make it open ended or whatever... there's just so many things you can throw for a real good SP experience.

 

of course this is just my 2 cents, as i am sick and tired of "ground-breaking" mmos, or "incredible exciting" co-op RPGs. really. but hey, if you decide otherwise i will still back you up since i know that even if SP will suffer you will probably do at least a decent job with CMP. so... we'll have to wait and see.

[Starglider]

A lot of people say the funds that could go into adding co-op multiplayer should instead go towards making the single player game "even more awesome". While a lot of people will agree with this statement, we need to keep in mind the law of diminishing returns: adding more and more resources towards only one feature will at first increase its quality and attractiveness by a large amount,

 

The budget for Baldur's Gate 2 was something like $5 million in 1999 money. So even assuming Obsidian are match-funding the Kickstarter budget 50-50, doubt this will be an issue unless the Kickstarter exceeds $5M

[kochujang]

I first learned about this project today, and seeing that Obsidian is behind it I became a backer immediately. One of the first things I was looking for is a multiplayer co-op mode. I have played Ice Wind Dale I & II, and Neverwinter Nights 2 Storm of Zehir (which had sooo much replayability!) together with my wife in a LAN, and it was much more fun than a simple single player game. I really, really hope you will implement a multiplayer, so that I can enjoy the journey in this CRPG together with my wife

Edited September 24, 2012 by kochujang