I would buy this game if it had multiplayer

[Ink Blot]

I don't want MP in this game.

 

That being said, the notion that people seem to have that somehow MP steals resources from SP is just... not how it works. Maybe for a game like PoE, but big AAA games don't. If a game has MP, it gets a special budget for MP, separate from SP budget, and in most cases an entirely separate team that makes the MP portion of the game.

 

And since MP is a gigantic cash cow (microtransactions), if it does anything at all, it is allowing more money to be spent on SP because of the expected higher revenue from adding MP.

See Night Stalker's post. It doessteal resources from SP. We're not talking AAA games, as the OP specifically referenced this one.

[Jimmious]

If they could manage to create a proper co-op experience a la D:OS then yes, I would love to have that too.
D:OS really made a breakthrough in this aspect and whoever played the game co-op I'm certain he/she agrees.
However this needs the game to be designed with co-op as a priority, which is not what PoE is about.

[abaris]

And since MP is a gigantic cash cow (microtransactions), if it does anything at all, it is allowing more money to be spent on SP because of the expected higher revenue from adding MP.

 

That's how it looks in a perfect world. The truth looks quite a bit different. So called AAA titles are tagging on multiplayer just to rake in some additional cash and seeing that the microtransactions happen after the release of the actual game, they do nothing for SP. Also the two different teams and budgets argument isn't how reality works. Yes, on the surface, it looks that way. But the manpower as well as the money are coming from somewhere and don't materialize out of thin air.

[Nellyniel]

I do not understand.

 

When people speak of mutiplayer and Pillars of Eternity I automatically think of baldur's gate and icewind dale. I think multiplayer in those games. It literally didin't affect the single player game in any way. You just connect to a lobby and you share the control of some of your party members with someone else.

 

Why are people so furiously opposed to this? I would love nothing more than to play this game with my brother in that fashion. Even something ancient like direct connect through a known ip would be welcomed by me.

[MReed]

I do not understand.

When people speak of mutiplayer and Pillars of Eternity I automatically think of baldur's gate and icewind dale. I think multiplayer in those games. It literally didin't affect the single player game in any way. You just connect to a lobby and you share the control of some of your party members with someone else.

Why are people so furiously opposed to this? I would love nothing more than to play this game with my brother in that fashion. Even something ancient like direct connect through a known ip would be welcomed by me.

Because:

 

1) A game with such limited multiplayer support would inevitably attract an audience that would expect far, far, more, due to the fact that the meaning of "supports multiplayer" has evolved over that past 15 years. Worse yet, Obsidian is well aware of this fact and would almost certainly design the game to match the current market expectations (to avoid the negative reviews that would occur if they did not).

2) Speaking for myself only, I believe that the Infinity Engine games would have been /much better/ had multiplayer been omitted from the design.

[Zwiebelchen]

Multiplayer in the IE games was just terrible. It didn't work.... or at least: it didn't play out well.

 

However, D:OS had a pretty decent co-op due to the rock, paper, scissoirs mechanic. I could imagine something similar in PoE ... but I highly doubt they will delegate production resources towards scripting such a system.

 

 

Multiplayer could possibly work with a persistent world design similar to NWN, with only 1 character to control at the same time. In that case, auto-pause wouldn't matter that much. But good luck finding 5 more sane people to play with you that won't constantly mess up your game...

Edited May 5, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[SeekDWay]

Please, no multiplayer and no "social" boards.

Edited May 5, 2015 by SeekDWay

[Luckmann]

I would buy this game if it had multiplayer.

That's funny, because if it did, I would not.

[Doug]

Great idea...multiplayer in a game meant to be paused. I can see that working really well.

 

 

Oh wait.........../facepalm

[zered]

Waste of time and rescources.

[NathanH]

I enjoyed playing Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale multiplayer, so it would be a nice thing. This type of game works nicely when played with friends. It's probably too much work, though.

[transfett]

Other games were designed to be extended into multiplayer... multiplayer at barely 40% of the game's soul.

Now considering how PoE has shaped and the unsuspiciously benevolent wording of the OP, I consider this a rival's try pouring poison into our single player experience.

[VaultDuke]

Solo play is epic right but many from the Baldurs gate games as I am I literrally played every single BG game and over and over again.

 

But these days we players want to bring our awesome builtcharacters to multiplayer.

 

We players like to enjoy these campaigns even with our friends.

 

 

I know its justs released but you should really get this ball rolling.

 

I want to say I love the way your game looks and really would like to buy it if it had a multiplayer option. So I could battle  against friends and with them as allies.

 

You guys made a rgeat game here still. This is just comng from a loving rpg player who knows where these games have went and where they should be going.

And romance options, don't forget to demand romance options if you are out to troll this forum.

 

as it stands, i give you a B+, but only since many seem to have fallen for your ruse.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Gruftlord

[Crucis]

I do not understand.

 

When people speak of mutiplayer and Pillars of Eternity I automatically think of baldur's gate and icewind dale. I think multiplayer in those games. It literally didin't affect the single player game in any way. You just connect to a lobby and you share the control of some of your party members with someone else.

 

Why are people so furiously opposed to this? I would love nothing more than to play this game with my brother in that fashion. Even something ancient like direct connect through a known ip would be welcomed by me.

 

Because it's a waste of time and resources that could be better spent on other almost any other more important game things.  More items.  More plot.  More quests.  More dialog.  More and/or better pretty much anything.

[qualiyah]

First, great Firefly avatar!  :Cant's missing Firefly icon:

Why thank you! It's actually meant to be a BG avatar; that's my Photoshopped Imoen. :-D

 

I do not understand.

 

When people speak of mutiplayer and Pillars of Eternity I automatically think of baldur's gate and icewind dale. I think multiplayer in those games. It literally didin't affect the single player game in any way. You just connect to a lobby and you share the control of some of your party members with someone else.

 

Why are people so furiously opposed to this? I would love nothing more than to play this game with my brother in that fashion. Even something ancient like direct connect through a known ip would be welcomed by me.

This is also what I was thinking of. I agree that turning PoE into a modern-style multiplayer game would be a huge resource-suck and a mistake. But Baldur's-Gate-style multiplayer is a completely different thing and seems like a relatively minor project. (We need different names for these two things.) I've never used the multiplayer in BG, but it seems like it might be worth the effort to implement given how much some people would get out of that.

[rjshae]

I've never played an rpg on multiplayer, so out of curiosity, why are so many people so strongly opposed to it? It doesn't sound like it would require that many resources to implement multiplayer functionality, or that it would affect anything for players other than those who actually chose to use that option. What am I missing?

 

There's a perception, probably a correct one, that properly implementing MP would both reduce the resources applied to the single-player experience, and compromise certain elements of the game. Hence, if you're a solitary player of a game, adding MP doesn't provide any benefit and it may do some harm. Those who provided funding with the understanding that it would be single player, would not be happy to see their funds spent on a mode they will never use.

 

Personally I wouldn't mind if they retrofitted an MP capability after the game is polished up. But that may be difficult because it could take a lot of code changes and retesting.

[Crucis]

 

First, great Firefly avatar!  :Cant's missing Firefly icon:

Why thank you! It's actually meant to be a BG avatar; that's my Photoshopped Imoen. :-D

 

I do not understand.

 

When people speak of mutiplayer and Pillars of Eternity I automatically think of baldur's gate and icewind dale. I think multiplayer in those games. It literally didin't affect the single player game in any way. You just connect to a lobby and you share the control of some of your party members with someone else.

 

Why are people so furiously opposed to this? I would love nothing more than to play this game with my brother in that fashion. Even something ancient like direct connect through a known ip would be welcomed by me.

This is also what I was thinking of. I agree that turning PoE into a modern-style multiplayer game would be a huge resource-suck and a mistake. But Baldur's-Gate-style multiplayer is a completely different thing and seems like a relatively minor project. (We need different names for these two things.) I've never used the multiplayer in BG, but it seems like it might be worth the effort to implement given how much some people would get out of that.

 

 

I could be wrong on this, but I seem to recall reading where the devs said that adding multiplayer support is more difficult than people appear to assume.

 

But regardless, as RJshae points out, people who gave money to the kickstarter effort for this game because it was stated that it would be a single player game might be rather unhappy to see their money diverted to including multiplayer support rather than further enhancing the single player experience.

 

 

[abaris]

 

Personally I wouldn't mind if they retrofitted an MP capability after the game is polished up. But that may be difficult because it could take a lot of code changes and retesting.

 

 

I'd rather they spend that money and manpower on expansions.

[Fessels]

Multiplayer. The cancer that is killing games.

 

Could not agree more. 

[majestic]

Considering Starcaft 2 lacks lan support I'm not so sure they were all that focused on eSports. More like they were focus on online multi-player.

 

 

The Game Design of Starcraft 2: Designing an E-Sport by Dustin Browder, lead designer/game director of Starcraft 2. Blizz was very clearly focused on making SC2 e-sports viable, which doesn't necessarily include LAN support - else Leage of Legends wouldn't be one of the highest paying games on record (which btw both Starcrafts also are, concurrently).

Edited May 5, 2015 by majestic

[wanderon]

This is all I have to say:

Me too! Without the please - just no! 

[Cybersquirt]

...

 

We players like to enjoy these campaigns even with our friends.

...

You guys made a rgeat game here still. This is just comng from a loving rpg player who knows where these games have went and where they should be going.

 

Speak for yourself please.

 

There are plenty of games that do that.. all MMO's, I'm sure, and many other games that gave themselves nightmares because of it. 

 

 I think ~77,000 people have said single-player is just fine.

[Namutree]

 

Considering Starcaft 2 lacks lan support I'm not so sure they were all that focused on eSports. More like they were focus on online multi-player.

 

 

The Game Design of Starcraft 2: Designing an E-Sport by Dustin Browder, lead designer/game director of Starcraft 2. Blizz was very clearly focused on making SC2 e-sports viable, which doesn't necessarily include LAN support - else Leage of Legends wouldn't be one of the highest paying games on record (which btw both Starcrafts also are, concurrently).

 

Then they suck at designing an eSport. It should have had lan support. 

[Obsidian sucks]

IE games had multiplayer support and that didnt take away from anything.

If it was something that could have been done cheaply and without changing the singleplayer game I am all for more options.

[Varana]

Except that it most probably isn't.

 

Currently, the game doesn't need any networking capabilities. They would have to be added from scratch.

Player input can only come from one source. Having two or more competing user input sources, complicates the issue substantially.

Especially if it hasn't been taken into account from the beginning. Grafting it on later is even more prone to errors.