A bit soon for preordering the expansion pack?

[averagedog]

hmmmm so what do you think would be in a quality old school expansion pack now a days? a new race with a new storyline/locations/+5  levels/new class options?

[Grand_Commander13]

It would affect singleplayer in that resources would have to be drawn away for multiplayer

Yeah, in the same exact way any resource is drawn away from any other portion of development. 

 

Yeah, I thought it was obvious too, but he asked.

[Marceror]

 

Didn't I just get done saying that I didn't think multiplayer "wasn't" inherently bad?? Now suddenly I'm "hostile" toward it!?! I fully expect to be labeled a multiplayer serial killer at this rate, after I make this post.

 

Did I quote you ANYWHERE in my post? No. So calm down.

 

Firstly, I'm totally calm (perhaps you missed my smileys)

 

Secondly, I was mostly just being humorous (again, perhaps you missed my smileys)

 

Thirdly, and finally, is "quoting" now the exclusive method to respond to what someone says? I was talking against multiplayer in PoE, and you come in with a "not sure why people are hostile" to multiplayer. If you weren't commenting on my post, than it would seem that you were just being completely arbitrary. I went ahead and gave you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't doing that, so my bad for giving you that level of credit! (again, I'm calm. I'm just messing with you here)

[Bryy]

 

It would affect singleplayer in that resources would have to be drawn away for multiplayer

Yeah, in the same exact way any resource is drawn away from any other portion of development. 

 

Yeah, I thought it was obvious too, but he asked.

 

No.

 

I'm saying that it would be no different, not that it was inherently be bad.

 

Nothing takes away from anything if it is in the original design document.

Edited August 15, 2014 by Bryy

[Tuckey]

Well I popped down $20 for the expansion, seems worthwhile to me )

[Grand_Commander13]

I'm not following you, Byss. What about, say, full voiceover? I think we can all agree that that would have resulted in a negative impact to the singleplayer experience even if it was in the original design document. Multiplayer may not be as expensive, but the budget to include it has to come from somewhere, and it's to give a very small amount of fans a small increase to their enjoyment.

[Bryy]

I think we can all agree that that would have resulted in a negative impact to the singleplayer experience even if it was in the original design document. 

What? Why?

 

If MP was in from the start, that means that they have allocated enough resources to make the SP campaign/game that they wanted to.

 

If I set out to make a cake with butterscotch in it, I make sure all the other ingredients compliment it so it doesn't turn out horrible.

 

You can't take away resources if those resources were never there to begin with. 

[TMZuk]

hmmmm so what do you think would be in a quality old school expansion pack now a days? a new race with a new storyline/locations/+5  levels/new class options?

That's easy. Something like the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion to Baldur's Gate.

[Lephys]

I'm not saying that multiplayer is inherently bad. Just that the gaming world is inherently drowning in it already. The world needs more focused single player RPGs, IMHO, and I'm thrilled that PoE is poised to help fill a portion of that gap.

Yeah, but a lack of focused, single-player RPGs and an abundance of unnecessary/forced multiplayer are two separate problems. In a game like this, 2-player co-op functionality is all that would be needed. No extra game mode, no huge match-hosting servers, etc. So, it's extra resources, yeah. But it's not an "omg, singleplayer focus will ONLY be ruined if we put multiplayer in!" amount of them.

[Grand_Commander13]

So what you're saying, Bryy, is that if they had the budget to do what they wanted to anyway, and nothing else to add to it to make it better, then multiplayer wouldn't have detracted from the singleplayer experience? I mean, that's highly conditional. Is there any reason to suspect this is relevant? That Obsidian ran out of things to spend money on?

[Bryy]

and nothing else to add to it to make it better

No. What I'm saying is that you have a design document. You and your team all agree what the game is going to look like. You all agree you want a multiplayer component. You budget it out. You say single-player will take, say, 1000 hours and $5k, and multiplayer will take 500 hours and $2k. 

 

Are you honestly going to tell me that, even though your game was budgeted out to include multiplayer, that multiplayer is a drain on resources?

[salo]

 

Well of course the end result wouldn't be any good if they tack on something bad at the end. Multiplayer is not inherently bad though, it all depends on how it is implemented. For example, I was really surprised at hearing Mass Effect 3 would include a multiplayer mode, and wondered how it could possibly work, but in the end I ended up having lots of fun with it. I bet multiplayer could be a lot of fun in a Pillars game (but wouldn't guess they'd implement it as soon as the expansion), with a friend on skype and the slowdown instead of pause mechanic.

 

I'm not sure ME3's multiplayer is the best example to use as evidence that including multiplayer functionality won't affect single player.

 

Well... I didn't say that, did I? I made the point that multiplayer as a concept is not inherently bad.

[Bryy]

A product's objective design is not subjective.

[SqueakyCat]

According to Roby Atadero in this post today:

 

Proper multiplayer requires quite a bit more money mainly because we would need to bring on network programmers and have a dedicated online QA staff. Also, the total programming dev time would probably increase by around 33% which is quite a bit.

 

 

He's addressing Multiplayer, of course, and not Coop. 

[Grand_Commander13]

Yes Bryy, multiplayer costs money even if it's in the original design document. Are you trying to tell me that the hypothetical game could not have possibly benefited from an additional five hundred man-hours in singleplayer? That everything the designers thought would be cool was already in there, and they're like "well, we can release it singleplayer-only in July, or multiplayer-enabled in August, but we can't think of any more ways make singleplayer any better, so there's no point in releasing it in August without multiplayer"?

 

No. That's not how projects work. There's always something more you want. If you hire the netcode guy, you don't have the money for more player portraits, or you have to trim voice overs, or you cut a wilderness area entirely since you can't hire an additional mapper so have to tighten up.

[MReed]

<sigh>

 

From a developer's point of view there no difference between "PvP multiplayer" and "CoOp multiplayer".  They both require the same network interfaces be built, the same synchronization problems to be dealt with and so forth.  Multiplayer is multiplayer.  The 30% increase in program man hours, plus bringing in a new QA team, plus bringing on new headcount all applies regardless of what "type" of multiplayer your are looking for.

 

I will not watch everyone on this thread decide that this developer clearly doesn't know what he is talking about, and adding multiplayer can be done in two weekends during a developer's spare time -- you may begin now.

[salo]

According to Roby Atadero in this post today:

 

Proper multiplayer requires quite a bit more money mainly because we would need to bring on network programmers and have a dedicated online QA staff. Also, the total programming dev time would probably increase by around 33% which is quite a bit.

 

 

He's addressing Multiplayer, of course, and not Coop. 

Well Co-op is multiplayer, isn't it? And pretty much the only reasonable mode of multiplayer that I can think of for this type of game.

[Bryy]

Are you trying to tell me that the hypothetical game could not have possibly benefited from an additional five hundred man-hours in singleplayer? 

Why would it benefit?

 

Because in your opinion (as a player, not as the developer), single player is better than multiplayer?

Edited August 15, 2014 by Bryy

[SqueakyCat]

Hey, I was just trying to let everyone here know what Roby said in the ongoing Multiplayer Thread today, which is where this discussion should be taking place.  If there's no difference, fine.   I don't have a horse in this race, so carry-on. 

[MReed]

 

Are you trying to tell me that the hypothetical game could not have possibly benefited from an additional five hundred man-hours in singleplayer? 

Why would it benefit?

 

Because in your opinion (as a player, not as the developer), single player is better than multiplayer?

 

 

I'm not Grand_Commander13, but yeah, I agree that "single player is better than multiplayer".  It seems like Obsidian agrees with me, at least in the context of this type of game as well.

[Grand_Commander13]

Because, Bryy, in your argument, multiplayer doesn't detract from singleplayer if the singleplayer is unchanged. I'm arguing that the idea that the singleplayer will be unchanged by time and effort being devoted to multiplayer is absurd.

 

Seriously, the levels of sophistry you're willing to stoop to are amazing. Why are you trying to argue that the addition of multiplayer doesn't impact the singleplayer experience when it obviously does?

Edited August 15, 2014 by Grand_Commander13

[Bryy]

I'm arguing that the idea that the singleplayer will be unchanged by time and effort being devoted to multiplayer is absurd.

I've yet to actually hear from you why, though.

 

You just keep parroting a form of "because single-player is better". 

 

Single-player won't automatically become better if they cut their other feature which they already budgeted for. The game will arguably become worse because they cut features to work on superficial stuff. It's the exact opposite of adding MP into a game that didn't have it before.

 

I'm not arguing that MP hasn't impacted games in the past. I'm saying that just because a game has MP does not mean the SP is going to suffer.

[Hassat Hunter]

I was about to scrutinise MReed, then I re-read it and noticed he didn't mention that MP is two weekends worth of time... good thing I catched that on time before going on an all out "x is so easy to add, it should take an intern 1 hour!" > Actual time; 1 full month of manhours.

 

I'm also somewhat surprised even though we're at 3 pages, no-one has yet mentioned that this ISN'T a pre-order(!). Not for the main game, not for the expansion.

If you're thinking of it as a pre-order, you're thinking wrong!

Sadly, it doesn't quite seem most people realise this about Kickstarter, with all the following consequences :/

[Bryy]

Well, it is actually a pre-order at this point. It's just that the fundraiser ends on the 22nd.

[Lephys]

@Grand_Commander13,

 

Following your line of reasoning, since a game could never not benefit from an infinite amount of potential improvement in non-multiplayer areas, there's never a valid scenario in which it's okay to actually spend resources on multiplayer.

 

I think that's what Bryy's getting at. At some point, you've got plenty of game in your game, and it's acceptable to add something that isn't strictly necessary, without that choice being penalized for somehow detracting from what you could've done with the game.