"Single-player gaming is our focus."

[Lephys]

@Karkarov:

 

That's not at all a bad design for that sort of approach to things.

 

Personally, though, I much prefer the just full co-op approach. Everything in a particular playthrough/session is localized to that session, and you either share in the control of it or don't.

 

In this particular type of game (at least for the main, official campaign), that's the only approach that appeals to me or really seems worth at least a bit of effort (and it probably requires the least amount of work, too).

 

Now... like I said, with player-made content and such, you could easily run into something that would make much better use of your approach. My only qualm with it in the official campaign is that, it's sort of all about the playthrough. So, allowing players to accumulate things like loot and money separately (tying it to the player, and not the playthrough/instance) doesn't seem like it could ever NOT cause problems. Unless the players just always resumed that same session. Taking anything of persistence (character, loot, money, reputation, etc.) from one playthrough into another would be sort of contrary to the purpose/intent of a playthrough of such a game.

 

That's the only reason I'd prefer to just keep the multiplayer to simply "a second player gets to ride shotgun." Or, more than two, Maybe up to 6, total? Then, that's one player for each member of the party. And they could all either make their own characters (Adventurer's Hall), or just control companions in combat. And you could just let "player 1" decide everything (people can confer on such things without the need for in-game functionality that allows them all to directly choose), BUT, you could also do something like have a little vote for what should be said/chosen, etc. I think Dungeon Siege 3 did that with their co-op?

 

Annnnywho...

[Bryy]

 

 

That should do it! 

 

You forgot "achievements". It's all meaningless without "achievements". 

 

 

Without achievements you're just sitting in front of your computer pushing buttons.  Where's the fun in that?

 

My god, why is this thing still a point of discussion. It's 2014, and the new people who whine for adding MP or consoles or whateverthe**** didn't even read and back the KS. 

 

It's called trolling.

 

Yes, because nobody in their right mind would ever want console versions or MP in the future.

 

I think MP is gonna be the first thing modded in.

[sibakruom]

I think MP is gonna be the first thing modded in.

 

It may be the first thing people want to mod in, but it certainly won't be the first thing actually modded in. As far as my limited knowledge go, in the few cases where modders added multiplayer to a game that officially did not support it, it took months, if not years, to do it.

 

Which is the reason I am glad Obsidian isn't doing it themselves. This is a significant drain on ressources that are better spent on other parts of the game. There was an interview with one of PoE developer (I don't find a link right now), where he stated that for each of the few single-player only games he worked on (including PoE), not having a multiplayer component to care about cut a lot of problems right of the bat.

[chatterly]

I don't hate multiplayer, but I'm losing faith that it can be done without diluting the single player experience.

[Quinalla]

Yup, nothing wrong with focusing on single player games, there is still so much room for them in the market!

 

-Quinalla

[oulzac]

I am glad they have taken this stance personally. There are other games that are better suited for co-op or any form of MP. In my opinion this type fo RPG is not suited for it. And should not have it. I also feel that some companies bend to producers wills and force things like MP and co-op into games. That is what is so great about this game being funded mostly/partly by backers. The developers have full control over their project. They don't have another company making demands of the game. Forcing them to do things that doens't fit with their ideals and goals for the game. Which leads to a much better finished project. It is nice to see a company taking this stance knowing exactly what they want to make, and actually making it that way without outside influance based on sales/marketing decisions.

[BLnoT]

I agree Chatt, Quin. Its a hard thing to have a multiplayer game that retains a single player feel. I very much enjoy single player games but i do also miss the human ( ironic? ) interation multiplayer games offer. Its a hard thing to balance  =x

[MIEZ101]

I do not like Multiplayer and I have tried on multiple occasions.I guess it just not my cup of tea.I prefer to be immersed in the Story by myself.

[Ferrante]

 

This roleplay experience... doesn't fit into an MMO. But with a couple of friends around a table and some dice? Sure. That's the charm of it.

 

So why spoil that by injecting a computer where it isn't needed?

 

 

Why did you play BG when you could just go to search for a pen and paper group and play with them?

Well, probably people cant travel long distance, want to be in home early, love his house, dont like human touch or anything. All of those are valid to coop PoE too. Personally, my old D&D partners are outside now and my city is so populated that I waste 2 or 3 hours reaching downtown. 

I prefer stay in home, but I liked the P&P role experience , that's why I would be happy with a BGII-like MP. It seems not too complicate to make it (I remark "seems"), and it was great back then. 

 

In the end, nobody wants multiplayer if that means any single detriment in the Single Player mode and overall quality of the game... In the same way, I would cut Mods to have more testing or content. 

[Marceror]

Single player is our focus? I'll take that... with a nice piece of cake, any day of the week!

[Stormbold]

I prefer single player RPG's, the RP waters get muddied when your in multi or MMO. Solo RP can be so much fun sometimes.

[sibakruom]

There was an interview with one of PoE developer (I don't find a link right now), where he stated that for each of the few single-player only games he worked on (including PoE), not having a multiplayer component to care about cut a lot of problems right of the bat.

 

Finally found it. It wasn't an interview but Sawyer posting on Something Awful:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3506352&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=403#post414859830

 

Sawyer: "There are only two games I've worked on in my career that did not have some sort of multiplayer planned: Fallout: New Vegas and Project Eternity. I am so, so glad to work on a single-player only game again. It immediately eliminates dozens, if not hundreds of problems in a game of this sort."

[eisberg]

I am so glad they are making this game single player only.  Vary rarely does single player not suffer because of multiplier.  Plus the money spent on making MP that could have gone into making the single player even better.  Thank you Obsidian.  

[Darkpriest]

The only MP i liked in RPG game was implemented in NWN. Ez world building, modding tools, area creation tools, etc. got some really nice persistent world out of this and had a lot of fun there. PoEternity is in the same visual tech as IWD and BG, and really it's not required to have MP. If Obsidian could make a game with ez world building that would support thousands of areas like original NWN, then by all means, I'd love to see such a game.

[IndiraLightfoot]

The only MP i liked in RPG game was implemented in NWN. Ez world building, modding tools, area creation tools, etc. got some really nice persistent world out of this and had a lot of fun there. PoEternity is in the same visual tech as IWD and BG, and really it's not required to have MP. If Obsidian could make a game with ez world building that would support thousands of areas like original NWN, then by all means, I'd love to see such a game.

^This times a thousand! And if this game happened to be set in the same universe as PE, it would simply be a blast!

[Sheikh]

I agree. Theres already plenty of multiplayer games out there where you can compete with others, speak to your teammates through voice communication and do teamwork, accumulate e-**** points all at the same time. Theyre all there - World of tanks is my favorite. Single player games are needed also, sometimes you just want to chill out from all of that stuff that comes with multiplayer games.

 

Gaming started out single player, then the crazy went with multiplayer and now its maybe coming slowly back as well.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Sheikh

[Jeeshman]

I agree. Theres already plenty of multiplayer games out there where you can compete with others, speak to your teammates through voice communication and do teamwork, accumulate e-**** points all at the same time. Theyre all there - World of tanks is my favorite. Single player games are needed also, sometimes you just want to chill out from all of that stuff that comes with multiplayer games.

 

Gaming started out single player, then the crazy went with multiplayer and now its maybe coming slowly back as well.

I'm sorry for the necro-post, but this seems like the most recently active discussion about multiplayer and I didn't want to start yet another thread on the topic.  I respectfully dispute the assertion there are 'plenty of other multiplayer games out there.'  The other multiplayer games are MMO's, which do not in any way operate like the multiplayer in BG, BG2 and ID did.  What I'm looking for in a game is a top-down isometric RPG that lets me use TCP/IP to include 1-5 of my friends in my group and play through the SP content.  I'm ok with only allowing one player to select dialog options because that's how we did it in the BG days.

 

There have been many RPG's created since the original BG, and many purported "spiritual successors" to those games.  None of them have allowed a simple multiplayer component like the one I described.  Dragon Age and DA2 is the best example where, just like here, the devs said "maybe later" and argued they wanted to make "the best SP experience they can."  I also don't know a single person who has ever said Baldur's Gate or BG2's single player experience suffered due to its multiplayer component.

 

I realize my complaints are useless here, since it's clear there will be no multiplayer component to this game.  But the result of that decision is I'm not going to buy it.  And I once again wait for someone to make a game that's an isometric, top-down RPG in the BG and BG2 style that has simple TCP/IP multiplayer capability that lets my friends from various parts of the world share the SP story.  I've been waiting 12 years (since Icewind Dale 2) and I'll probably be waiting forever.

[mcord]

 

 

I agree. Theres already plenty of multiplayer games out there where you can compete with others, speak to your teammates through voice communication and do teamwork, accumulate e-**** points all at the same time. Theyre all there - World of tanks is my favorite. Single player games are needed also, sometimes you just want to chill out from all of that stuff that comes with multiplayer games.

 

Gaming started out single player, then the crazy went with multiplayer and now its maybe coming slowly back as well.

I'm sorry for the necro-post, but this seems like the most recently active discussion about multiplayer and I didn't want to start yet another thread on the topic. I respectfully dispute the assertion there are 'plenty of other multiplayer games out there.' The other multiplayer games are MMO's, which do not in any way operate like the multiplayer in BG, BG2 and ID did. What I'm looking for in a game is a top-down isometric RPG that lets me use TCP/IP to include 1-5 of my friends in my group and play through the SP content. I'm ok with only allowing one player to select dialog options because that's how we did it in the BG days.

 

There have been many RPG's created since the original BG, and many purported "spiritual successors" to those games. None of them have allowed a simple multiplayer component like the one I described. Dragon Age and DA2 is the best example where, just like here, the devs said "maybe later" and argued they wanted to make "the best SP experience they can." I also don't know a single person who has ever said Baldur's Gate or BG2's single player experience suffered due to its multiplayer component.

 

I realize my complaints are useless here, since it's clear there will be no multiplayer component to this game. But the result of that decision is I'm not going to buy it. And I once again wait for someone to make a game that's an isometric, top-down RPG in the BG and BG2 style that has simple TCP/IP multiplayer capability that lets my friends from various parts of the world share the SP story. I've been waiting 12 years (since Icewind Dale 2) and I'll probably be waiting forever.

 

How about divinity :original sin? Got coop iirc.

[Sad Panda]

There have been many RPG's created since the original BG, and many purported "spiritual successors" to those games.  None of them have allowed a simple multiplayer component like the one I described.  Dragon Age and DA2 is the best example where, just like here, the devs said "maybe later" and argued they wanted to make "the best SP experience they can."  I also don't know a single person who has ever said Baldur's Gate or BG2's single player experience suffered due to its multiplayer component.

I think your problem here might be that the kind of multiplayer you describe is commonly referred to as "single-player co-op", rather than "multiplayer". This thread has quite an expansive list of single-player RPGs with co-op, though the isometric ones are admittedly mostly hack-n-slash.

[Karkarov]

I think your problem here might be that the kind of multiplayer you describe is commonly referred to as "single-player co-op", rather than "multiplayer". This thread has quite an expansive list of single-player RPGs with co-op, though the isometric ones are admittedly mostly hack-n-slash.

Yeah because that's the thing.  You can't do real time with pause with two players.  There is a reason multiplayer games don't let you pause.

[Absurdated]

Something like multiplayer Temple of Elemental Evil could do the trick, I suppose.

 

And maybe, just maybe, Obsidian may consider making D&D 3.5 game with more than five books used sometimes in future...

[Sad Panda]

Yeah because that's the thing.  You can't do real time with pause with two players.  There is a reason multiplayer games don't let you pause.

In the kind of game PoE is set to be, I don't know why you couldn't, though. Pausing is problematic in games that rely on button-smashing (in which most RPGs of recent years fall), since it only works to throw other players off their pace, but less so where the player's role is to just make the tactical choices. Paradox games like Europa Universalis have pausing for all players, and I see it as something that could work even in a "real" IE-style multiplayer.

[Bryy]

The end of the new interview with Tim Cain put a smile on my face. After reading about so many game companies not even considering single-player focus in games anymore, I've been worried about what that might mean for those of us who love those types of games. I am very happy to see that there are publishers out there who understand and respond to the need to keep such games alive.

I actually look forward to the day that single player RPGs become a thing of the past. There's literally no reason past budgetary concerns this gen to not have some sort of connectivity feature. The world is connected, and not only that, it is digital. Look at Original Sin. Your entire party can be made up of other players if you want. 

 

Phew...so no mp/coop for PE ? That's a real relief. I was worried when I read the "SP is our focus" quote. Bioware said similar things with ME3.

Are you honestly going to tell me that the multiplayer mode hurt the single player campaign at all?

[Lephys]

Yeah because that's the thing.  You can't do real time with pause with two players.  There is a reason multiplayer games don't let you pause.

Sure you can. You can even give pause control to both players.

 

I understand with resource constraints, etc., why they don't want to bother with multiplayer in this game, but it's a bit silly to pretend there's some inherent reason why multiplayer can't occur in a game like this.

 

Also:

 

I think your problem here might be that the kind of multiplayer you describe is commonly referred to as "single-player co-op", rather than "multiplayer". This thread has quite an expansive list of single-player RPGs with co-op, though the isometric ones are admittedly mostly hack-n-slash.

While that might be true, it doesn't change the fact that "multiplayer" is literally a shortening of the phrase "multiple player," and simply means "able to accept control input by more than one player." Just because a bunch of people go around deciding it somehow only means some specific form of multiple-player scenario does not mean that it does. And, while I understand why it's called "singleplayer co-op," it's sort of an oxymoron. Unless you've got multiple personalities... I suppose. No judging.

[Greydragon]

I play a lot of games; the really restricting part is I'm a single player gamer only. MMO's, team and co-ops are all just gimmicks that I never put into use. For the older games they were optional and minor expansions at best but lately they have been all-consuming. I am glad that POE and other games like it have gone the single player route. For atmosphere and story nothing beats a game that is focused entirely upon you.