Co-op

[MReed]

It is like someone in her do not understand what I wanted in the first place. I am not talking damn MMO... I was talking classic single player rpg with the co-op option like in Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Not Guild wars not WOW not what ever. I was not talking about changing the gameplay I love form the old Black Isle times..... just wanted to get the options to replace one maybe to companions with friends in later walkthroughs.

 

The gameplay did not change in Baldurs Gate or Neverwinter Nights, just a bit less companions.

 

I only speak for myself, but as a multiplayer "hater" myself:

 

1) The primary reason that I don't want multiplayer in the game is that I don't want the type of player who like multiplayer to be a part of the community / audience for this game. Multiplayer gamers outnumber single player games by a significant margin, and if they join the community they will be a very loud voice when it comes to pushing for features -- features that will inevitably impact my single-player game experience. Maybe not today, but eventually. For example, there was an active thread over in the Overhaul Game's forum asking for PvP, party based, arena battles to be added in BG1/2:EE. I understand that's not what you want, but once the feature is in (no matter how limited), it will attract people who are currently ignoring this game because of lack of multiplayer to come and participate, and those people are the ones that I'm worried about.

2) A secondary reason is, as explained in my earlier post, netcode is not a trivial thing to write and it most definitely not a trivial thing to test. Even if it was a stretch goal, it is very likely that there would be some impact (no matter how minor it may seem) to the single player experience if multi-player was added. Since I won't use it, I (very selfishly, I'll admit) don't want to pay that cost.

[Hypevosa]

Ieo and others are just afraid that the game would suffer for the addition of multiplayer. I'm certain there are capable members of the community that would work along side obsidian pro bono so they could put it on their resume at least, and if not because they thought it was a worthy addition. A mod, or an official add on, it doesn't matter really.

 

I still have to question how hard it is to simply have blank AI's for NPCs on each player's computer and essentially have them wait for commands from the other players over the internet. The only inconsistency I could think of would be the random number generation between each client and in that case set one computer host as responsible for the random numbers generated. Why wouldn't a simple system like this work? (I have no background in networking)

Edited October 5, 2012 by Hypevosa

[MReed]

I still have to question how hard it is to simply have blank AI's for NPCs on each player's computer and essentially have them wait for commands from the other players over the internet. The only inconsistency I could think of would be the random number generation between each client and in that case set one computer host as responsible for the random numbers generated. Why wouldn't a simple system like this work? (I have no background in networking)

 

Yeah, not that easy. To elaborate on the brief list that I provided earlier:

 

1) One of the computers has to maintain the rest of the game world (e.g. the position of monsters, state of quests, and so forth). A process has to be designed where this server transmits the data to the client(s). This leads to a number of issues up front:

a) What happens if the designated server goes down? Is a new server selected from the existing clients and the game continues? Does the game display an error message?

b) What happens if the clients and the server (due to lag) disagree with the state of the world -- for example, what happens if client A sees a monster as alive (and the player on that computer attacks it) while the server (the "system of record") says that the monster is dead? What does the server do with the invalid attack command?

2) Game saving / restoring

a) Can only the server save the game? This is the obvious solution, but sucks if the server is not available but everyone else wants to play.

b) When restoring the game, how do clients get matched up with characters -- especially since someone might move from one computer to another between sessions. Have to design a UI to allow the server to perform these matches, most likely (especially if you don't have a matchmaker server / user accounts)

c) When restoring a game, what happens if the same number of clients that was available in the first place isn't available now? Who gets control of these characters (if anyone)?

3) Player / NPC interaction

a) If the party includes companions, and the companions respond to "Talk" requests from players (e.g. "Banter packs" in BG1 & BG2), what happens if someone other than the "hero" starts a dialog with the companion? Obviously, the banter isn't going to make any sense if the hero isn't participating, so do we have to design separate dialog for this case? Perhaps we can just prevent non-hero players from talking to companions altogether.

b) Can non-hero characters talk to non-party NPCs? Again, the dialog probably doesn't make any sense if the hero character isn't present.

4) Mechanics

a) What happens if one player pauses the game, then dies of a heart attack? Is the game permanently paused? If any player can toggle pause, what happens when two players try to pause the game at very near the same time? The obvious behavior is that the game pauses, then immediately unpauses, which isn't what either person wanted.

b) Certain mechanics may require the game to be paused to work properly (conversations, store dialog) -- what happens if one player starts one of these interactions, then dies of a heart attack?

 

These are just of the top of my head -- I suspect the actual list includes 100s of items. None of these are unsolvable (as many other games prove, including BG), but they all take time to implement, and (much more importantly) they all take time to test. At the absolute minimum, adding multiplayer doubles the number of test cases that need to be tested & retested -- every test case needs to be executed once in single-player mode, and once in multi-player mode. Then, on top of that, you need to add multi-player specific test cases (as described above) to the multi-player testing.

 

Trust me, it is a non-trival amount of work, even if your engine helps with some or all of the plumbing.

Edited October 5, 2012 by MReed

[jbmborg77]

Well a lot of heart attacks is going on in your world I guess. Even if there was some ishues with Co-up in older good singelplayer RPG's I still enjoied playing co-up. We had fun at Lan. If its been done before I guess it can be done again.

Edited October 5, 2012 by jbmborg77

[Ashram]

I think the good first step the devs have taken is to offer up the create your own party options for one of the monetary benchmarks. I know that they have stated plainly that it takes a lot of resources for multiplayer experience, but I do hope if things are a success that it is a possibility in the future. Even if its a downloadable addon or something. Playing Co-op with some friends can be a lot of fun. Great idea to add to the replayability of what looks to be a stupendous single player rpg.

[Ieo]

I think the sentiment here is "Since this is a conclusively closed issue, you should stop posting / complaining about the lack of co-op play. You now know for certain that it won't be included, so... If you can't accept that, you should revoke your pledge while you still have a chance to do so." This is a reasonable sentiment -- there are certain features that, if excluded from the game, would make me revoke my pledge, and I'd prefer that Obsidian close out some of the long running debates on this forum (romance in particular) prior to the end of the funding people so that people can make an informed decision before their pledges are final.

 

Exactly this.

 

It's amazing how actual information and decisions from the devs themselves are parroted and yet some people refuse to accept that reality and actually question Obsidian's developer competence and business sense on the matter, which far surpass anyone here. It's not a matter of other players being "just afraid" on the level of paranoia when the devs themselves talk about limitations and such. These requests are basically on the level of continually asking for console ports despite Obsidian's publicised opinions and decision about that. It comes off as very whiny and childish: If you're desperate for only that feature, then remove your backing and go. I certainly would do so if Obsidian went in a different direction from my own priorities.

 

To make a good multi-player RPG, design concessions must be made on the single player side of the game. This is especially true for titles with a lot of interactive dialogue and/or narrative delivered via text. George Ziets and I have had this conversation many times over the last few years, and it always boils down to one simple truth. Reading is not a team sport.

 

If you don't make those concessions, you end up with sub-par multiplayer. As much as I love the Baldur's Gate series, the multi-player aspect took a lot of patience (putting it mildly), as the design focus of those titles was the single player experience.

 

I do believe you can create an awesome multi-player experience with dialogue and choice and consequence, in my mind it would require a very large budget. I'll let you guys decide what that may or may not mean.

 

RPGamer with Tim Cain:

 

 

MAC: Obsidian has been hit hard in the past by having games released before they seemed as polished as they needed to be technically. How does having crowd-funding over publisher-funding change the way you'll plan to tackle QA down the line?

 

TC: The biggest change is that we will decide on each and every feature in the game, and we can avoid the ones that add little to the game's content but a lot to its complexity. For example, we are not supporting consoles or multiplayer, both of which make the game far more complex and hard to debug. Instead, we are focusing on making the best single-player PC RPG we can make, and that focus is simplifying a lot of our choices.

 

Oct 5 Kickstarter Q&A with Feargus:

 

Question: Any chance of adding a BG-style Co-op option to the game? I'd really love to play this with my GF!

Feargus: Sorry, we are focusing on Single Player for this one, so that we can put all the $'s to the right into that.

 

The issue is really closed.

[jbmborg77]

I do not see why we cant diskus the consept of Co-up even if the issue is closed ?

[Hypevosa]

1) One of the computers has to maintain the rest of the game world (e.g. the position of monsters, state of quests, and so forth). A process has to be designed where this server transmits the data to the client(s). This leads to a number of issues up front:

a) What happens if the designated server goes down? Is a new server selected from the existing clients and the game continues? Does the game display an error message?

b) What happens if the clients and the server (due to lag) disagree with the state of the world -- for example, what happens if client A sees a monster as alive (and the player on that computer attacks it) while the server (the "system of record") says that the monster is dead? What does the server do with the invalid attack command?

2) Game saving / restoring

a) Can only the server save the game? This is the obvious solution, but sucks if the server is not available but everyone else wants to play.

b) When restoring the game, how do clients get matched up with characters -- especially since someone might move from one computer to another between sessions. Have to design a UI to allow the server to perform these matches, most likely (especially if you don't have a matchmaker server / user accounts)

c) When restoring a game, what happens if the same number of clients that was available in the first place isn't available now? Who gets control of these characters (if anyone)?

3) Player / NPC interaction

a) If the party includes companions, and the companions respond to "Talk" requests from players (e.g. "Banter packs" in BG1 & BG2), what happens if someone other than the "hero" starts a dialog with the companion? Obviously, the banter isn't going to make any sense if the hero isn't participating, so do we have to design separate dialog for this case? Perhaps we can just prevent non-hero players from talking to companions altogether.

b) Can non-hero characters talk to non-party NPCs? Again, the dialog probably doesn't make any sense if the hero character isn't present.

4) Mechanics

a) What happens if one player pauses the game, then dies of a heart attack? Is the game permanently paused? If any player can toggle pause, what happens when two players try to pause the game at very near the same time? The obvious behavior is that the game pauses, then immediately unpauses, which isn't what either person wanted.

b) Certain mechanics may require the game to be paused to work properly (conversations, store dialog) -- what happens if one player starts one of these interactions, then dies of a heart attack?

 

These are just of the top of my head -- I suspect the actual list includes 100s of items. None of these are unsolvable (as many other games prove, including BG), but they all take time to implement, and (much more importantly) they all take time to test. At the absolute minimum, adding multiplayer doubles the number of test cases that need to be tested & retested -- every test case needs to be executed once in single-player mode, and once in multi-player mode. Then, on top of that, you need to add multi-player specific test cases (as described above) to the multi-player testing.

 

Trust me, it is a non-trival amount of work, even if your engine helps with some or all of the plumbing.

 

I think this mostly would be determined by the question: Is this a single player's adventure with a party (like in BG), or is this a whole party's adventure (IWD?)? This would tell you if characters exist in another player's multiplayer game or if they appear and disappear, who can save, etc. In the case of pausing, I'd say there should be a 5 second cooldown on unpausing, but not pausing, this way you don't have anyone immediately unpausing things but those who need it can pause whenever. This is still a rather short list of questions though, and it doesn't feel like a tremendous undertaking for even a single programmer over the course of the game's creation.

 

Unless there really are hundreds or thousands of issues that we cannot fathom without someone who has attempted to make multiplayer for a game like this before. As I admitted, I've no real experience with networking, it may be alot more complex than simply having the server correct clients when a blip in the engine means an inconsistency. With other games like an FPS there can be hundreds of important variables all changing all at once and any character can, in a hundreth of a second, change what they're doing, which is why it's such a complicated process, but in a game that is almost turn based like this one, and shouldn't have more than 40(?) NPCs/PCs on screen and doing things at once, I'd think the process would me much simpler. It's why I'm curious to know what complications there are.

[Hypevosa]

It's amazing how actual information and decisions from the devs themselves are parroted and yet some people refuse to accept that reality and actually question Obsidian's developer competence and business sense on the matter, which far surpass anyone here. It's not a matter of other players being "just afraid" on the level of paranoia when the devs themselves talk about limitations and such. These requests are basically on the level of continually asking for console ports despite Obsidian's publicised opinions and decision about that. It comes off as very whiny and childish: If you're desperate for only that feature, then remove your backing and go. I certainly would do so if Obsidian went in a different direction from my own priorities.

 

Console ports are an entirely different ball game - you're asking developers to convert entire programming languages, in essence making the same game multiple times and having to learn all the little intricacies of one language to the next to make the game work on both. Programming games for playstation is a notoriously arduous process. You're also asking them to try and go from the most universal input devices (mouse, keyboard) and attempt to rework everything to work with the extremely limited console controller. The undertaking is nowhere near equivalent to asking for a simple multiplayer co-op option.

 

And trying to squash people for wanting to understand why something has been said doesn't help anyone. I'm questioning the complexity of a multiplayer option for this game because of the fact it appears as something one programmer, or two if a $100,000 goal was set, could accomplish over the course of a year, and would result in easily thousands more sales more than paying for itself. Wanting to understand how or why something is shouldn't be considered a bad thing by anyone but those who don't actually have the knowledge to explain.

Edited October 6, 2012 by Hypevosa

[santanzchild]

Used to love playing BG co-op with my wife when we were dating. Been a long time since we found a game to enjoy together such a shame.

[Archmage Silver]

I don't know if Obsidian would add co-op in an expansion, but I'd only support it if they can add it without hurting the rest of the game, i.e. they're financially in a place where they can use resources on adding features like co-op.

[moridin84]

It's probably a nice feature for less then 5% of the player base, I'm sure those players have played games without co-op before so they'll survive.

[nikolokolus]

I do not see why we cant diskus the consept of Co-up even if the issue is closed ?

 

You absolutely should ... in the off-topic forum.

[Hypevosa]

I do not see why we cant diskus the consept of Co-up even if the issue is closed ?

 

You absolutely should ... in the off-topic forum.

 

Nice try but it's either here...

 

"Discuss ideas that make a great cRPG. What makes for good story-telling? What needs to be translated from paper to GUI? Spoilers are permitted in this forum, please warn the reader in your title however."

 

Or for general discussion:

 

"Talk about your gameplay experiences, hopes & dreams for Project Eternity here. Spoilers are not allowed in this forum; please use one of our spoilers allowed forums below."

[Malkaven]

I really don't get why people get so offended when people ask for coop? Seriously? Asking for coop = questiong the dev competience and business matter? Or better yet only 5% of the pledgers want coop. I love that math. When it comes down to it, most, if not all crpgs are Dungeons and Dragons based. How many of you have played dungeons and dragons alone...

 

Coop isn't a deal breaker for me and I'd imagine it isn't a deal breaker for most people in this post. But I feel that it would make a great addition to the game. I understand the dev's said no but i'm letting them know there is a want. It never hurts to ask, beg, plead, again.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Malkaven

[Slaunyeh]

I don't want the type of player who like multiplayer to be a part of the community / audience for this game.

 

Woha. Thanks for the warm welcome.

 

Personally, I'd love to have a co-op option (yes, I'm one of those horrible people who ruined your Planescape: Torment with PvP). That said, I have a lot more respect for Obsidian going "sorry, but that just adds a whole new level of complexity we'd rather not open up" than when games usually make some vague, dismissive comment like "uhm, no, that doesn't fit the story".

 

So, if that's the decision the guys at Obsidian made, I just have to say: Thanks for being up front about it.

[MReed]

To be clear: I don't think people who enjoy multiplayer (CoOp or PvP) are bad people, nor do I think that games that support multiplayer are necessarily bad games, or worse single-player games than they would have been had multi-player not been present.

 

However...

 

The community of multiplayer player's is very large in comparison to the single player only community. A game that supports both types of play will inevitably end up with a community that is dominated by multiplayer gamers (based on experience, I'd expect the split to be 75-25, but that's just a guess). As a consequence developers inevitably tend to allocate resources towards meeting the needs and requirements of the multiplayer community, and that is what I don't want to have happen. The only way I know of to prevent this from occurring is to simply not include multiplayer in the game at all -- in that case, the "die hard" multiplayers will stay away, and the mix in the community will be ~50-50 (due to some players who like both multiplayer and single player). I oppose the "Create your own party" Adventurer's Guild on the same basis.

 

tl;dr: I welcome people who like both multiplayer and single player games with open arms -- it is the multiplayer only group that I don't want to be part of this community.

[Ieo]

To be clear: I don't think people who enjoy multiplayer (CoOp or PvP) are bad people, nor do I think that games that support multiplayer are necessarily bad games, or worse single-player games than they would have been had multi-player not been present.

 

However...

 

The community of multiplayer player's is very large in comparison to the single player only community. A game that supports both types of play will inevitably end up with a community that is dominated by multiplayer gamers (based on experience, I'd expect the split to be 75-25, but that's just a guess). As a consequence developers inevitably tend to allocate resources towards meeting the needs and requirements of the multiplayer community, and that is what I don't want to have happen. The only way I know of to prevent this from occurring is to simply not include multiplayer in the game at all -- in that case, the "die hard" multiplayers will stay away, and the mix in the community will be ~50-50 (due to some players who like both multiplayer and single player). I oppose the "Create your own party" Adventurer's Guild on the same basis.

 

tl;dr: I welcome people who like both multiplayer and single player games with open arms -- it is the multiplayer only group that I don't want to be part of this community.

 

I am not convinced there are more MP players than SP. I think whatever numbers you're pulling out of a hat are based on infinitely smaller forum numbers that by no means represent a decent sample--SP players who play by themselves and enjoy the game may write a purchase review or lightly visit forums, but by and large the vast majority of consumers who are satisfied with their purchase do not say so on the internet (nor to a lot of those dissatsified, but that's different).

 

It's more accurate to say MP/co-op supporters may be more vocal, and hence you'd see more of their activity. That means little in full market terms, though. It's very much like the self-selecting sample polls on this forum. You'd have to understand how population statistics work, though.

[MReed]

Well, first of all, it is the number of people participating in the forum (e.g. providing feedback to developers) that drives future game development, so yes, I am looking at the right number. I agree that 90+ % of the people that purchase a game will never even visit the developer's forums, and only a tiny fraction of those will actually post comments, but that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. And yes, I know a bit about population statistics...

 

In regards to the overall popularity of multiplayer vs. single player, I direct you attention to World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs vs. single player game and rest my case. Now, it is perfectly correct to say that players who enjoy WoW may also enjoy dedicated single person games -- and, if they do, I welcome them with open arms. But there are some people (a fairly large hunk of those players, I think), that play MMORPGs exclusively, and wouldn't consider playing a game that lacked multiplayer options, and that's the group that I don't want to attract to this community.

 

You may believe that the risk is small (PE, after all, even with co-op multiplayer, is a pretty different gaming experience than WoW, so these dedicated multiplayers might still not be interested), but that's a risk that I'd rather not take.

 

Also, note that my concern isn't really in the context of PE itself (the game we are discussing today), but in the context of a future "PE:2" game. If PE is a big success (and we all hope for that, I think), then it will be because it successfully attracted users that haven't played / did not like Infinity Engine games. I don't want part of that group to include the "exclusive multiplayer" group, as this may change the focus of "PE:2".

 

My two cents -- I'm not on a holy (or unholy) crusade against the inclusion of multiplayer, just someone answering the question of "Why do you oppose including co-op multiplayer as an optional component in a game that is separately funded and can be completely ignored."

[Ieo]

Well, first of all, it is the number of people participating in the forum (e.g. providing feedback to developers) that drives future game development, so yes, I am looking at the right number. I agree that 90+ % of the people that purchase a game will never even visit the developer's forums, and only a tiny fraction of those will actually post comments, but that's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. And yes, I know a bit about population statistics...

 

No. Sales drive future game development. Forum participation does not, though it may (hopefully or not) help shape it.

 

In regards to the overall popularity of multiplayer vs. single player, I direct you attention to World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs vs. single player game and rest my case. Now, it is perfectly correct to say that players who enjoy WoW may also enjoy dedicated single person games -- and, if they do, I welcome them with open arms. But there are some people (a fairly large hunk of those players, I think), that play MMORPGs exclusively, and wouldn't consider playing a game that lacked multiplayer options, and that's the group that I don't want to attract to this community.

 

This is where the meaning crossed, then--I was not considering MMORPGs, though it's all under a giant umbrella, because the co-op people here for PE are insisting they do not want to play an MMO because it's different; I'm addressing that scale of multiplayer. If taking into account MMOs, then yes, those combined numbers could very well surpass all SP gamers.

 

You may believe that the risk is small (PE, after all, even with co-op multiplayer, is a pretty different gaming experience than WoW, so these dedicated multiplayers might still not be interested), but that's a risk that I'd rather not take.

 

Rest is irrelevant since I don't want MP/co-op in PE either, nor any of its sequels.

Edited October 8, 2012 by Ieo

[MReed]

In regards to the overall popularity of multiplayer vs. single player, I direct you attention to World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs vs. single player game and rest my case. Now, it is perfectly correct to say that players who enjoy WoW may also enjoy dedicated single person games -- and, if they do, I welcome them with open arms. But there are some people (a fairly large hunk of those players, I think), that play MMORPGs exclusively, and wouldn't consider playing a game that lacked multiplayer options, and that's the group that I don't want to attract to this community.

 

This is where the meaning crossed, then--I was not considering MMORPGs, though it's all under a giant umbrella, because the co-op people here for PE are insisting they do not want to play an MMO because it's different; I'm addressing that scale of multiplayer. If taking into account MMOs, then yes, those combined numbers could very well surpass all SP gamers.

 

Understood, and that matches my experience as well. Further, I believe the people here are honest when they indicate why and under what conditions they want multiplayer in the game and, in particular, that the Co-Op proponents have no more desire than you or I to have multiplayer "take over" the game. The ones that I'm worried about are the ones that might be attracted (in the future) to this game because it does have limited multiplayer capability.

[Hypevosa]

I would trust that the developers would resist even a deluge of commentary if it was directly opposed to the game they wanted to create - like if all the multiplayer people you fear insisted this become an MMO somehow. Especially with no publisher to force their hands, they do whatever they god damned please - they already have their salaries paid for the game's duration, it's not like they need to do anything more than just make a good game if they want to make more money.

[trulez]

I want to play co-op with my friends.

[Fawlcon]

Realize I am late to this discussion, but I do want to point out there is often a vast difference between co-op and multiplayer. In my circle of friends, we love co-op modes where teamwork can be used; and where experiences can be shared be gained. I was a Dungeon Master in High School in 1982 and in 1992 I was a Dungeon Master for a large group of men deployed in South Korea. We were all Married and instead of wasting our money on women and beer (ok beer once in a while), we would played DnD for 2-3 days straight on out time off. So I know a thing or two about RPGs. I also played all the BGs and expansions multiple times.

 

Point is, Multi-player PvP stuff is best for Call of Duty and Battlefield, to me, PvP in Neverwinter, Wow, Diablo 3 etc. is lame, little to no skill required, who has played the longest, highest level with most powerful crap wins 99%. So any true RPG set in the warrior, paladin, mage, cleric DnD world adds no value by having it be a Ultima, WOW type MMO with PvP.

 

BUT; the Co-op option in Baldur's Gate was incredible for its time and still part of the standard which ALL games like it will be measured. I still might get PE, but it is a case of wait and see. Had I read that it was also going to include BG co-op style play; I would have already drop the coin, and had about 4-5 of my family in friends in line to drop coin after me.  (We would all need a copy to play together)

 

I truly wish this game luck, and "after" it is up and running, I am likely to get it because it still looks like a wonderful game. I just wanted to give my two, very old and wise, cents to the powers that be.

[Robbie Ost]

I also played all the possible RPGs in co-op with my friends..too bad it's not going to be implemented...well maybe next time