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Single-player or Multi-player?


deanb
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What kind of gamer are you in regards to SP n MP? Do you prefer one or the other, a mix of both?

You even into a bit of MMO or is local-MP more your think?

Actually what are your thoughts on the decline of local-MP, and also the increase in 'bolted on MP' to sequels of SP games?

Any games you'd love to play either MP that's only SP atm, or vice versa?

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Aside from fighting games, I have mostly given up on playing random people because... well, I can rarely actually FINISH a match. MMOs are nice even if you don't team with others that often because the world feels alive.

 

As for what I would like to see is an Elder Scrolls game with MP, akin to Borderlands. Just you and one or two more people. I would also like to see something similar in Minecraft. An ability to open a map and make it be P2P rather than server hosted.

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Related thread, bears mentioning (not a duplicate though): Single Player Gamer

 

I mostly prefer singleplayer, with a few notable exceptions (games like Starcraft and Monday Night Combat). I love me some coop though, and Firefight/Horde/Whatever-you-want-to-call-them modes. So really I think it's more that I prefer to play with people than against people.

 

I don't have a good track record with MMOs. I play them a ton for a month or two, then quit. The longest I think I've ever played was WoW, and I managed to stick with that for about 6-8 months.

 

I don't so much care about the lack of local-MP, but that's mostly because the people I want to play with now are spread all around the country anyway, so it doesn't really matter. If Starcraft II had come out when I was still in undergrad though, with roommates to play with, I would have been quite irritated with its lack of LAN.

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I'm a coop gamer too. It's why I like BC2 for its squad play. Also a big fan of some of the PSN titles like Pixel Junk Shooter and Shank for the same reason. Local coop is awesome I really appreciate when a game has split screen / local mp these days, it's troublingly rare, especially on titles like Hot Pursuit where you could easily have two racers against the AI cops or vice versa.

 

I find it odd that when I had a 14" CRT games had 4x split screen play and now that I have a 37" TV (enough that each quadrant would be an 18" screen) no games allow split screen.

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TNext- enjoy some Killzone 3 split screen, yo ^_^

 

I love both types equally, but seperately and for different reasons.

 

I love singleplayer for the start-to-finish experience, the ways you can get to know it or the story, and the adventures you can have.

 

I love multiplayer for it's no-completion-required fun. I can have a game or two weekly and not feel guilty that I haven't finished it, as I get with a singleplayer game I never finished.

 

However singleplayer experiences are often more flawed than multiplayer ones, and multiplayer experiences can be much more frustrating than singleplayer ones, due to your enemies skill level being so variable.

 

With singleplayer games I either play them to completion rapidly, or play them about half way then peter out. With multiplayer games I generally play them for intense periods, sporadically spread out over a period of time, say a year.

 

I adore co-op but don't get to play it enough these days.

 

Also, on the decline of local mp: I wouldn't say it's a decline, so much as a sudden drop in the number of local mp games, though there are still a lot around. I never noticed a gradual decline, just that in the last 3 years or so there have been suddenly very few games with these options- most notably after CoD: MW I'd say. I still find plenty of local co-op and some local competitive games to play. Just ordered Blur- which is great and has up to 4 player split screen matches.

Edited by kenshi_ryden
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Doing everything with friends is just always better.

that product is still always the same.

playing rock band with friends is awesome and i love rock band for it, but that joy goes away easily and with no lingering feeling.

on the other hand, playing in my room by myself something like metal gear solid or final fantasy 6 will leave an impact on me for years to come. No multplayer game will do that for me. That kind of joy is just fleeting.

at least thats how i feel about it.

 

I guess its similar to going out drinking with friends and having a good time or staying home and reading a good book. Drinking is a lot more fun, but thats all it is. Reading a great book by myself will stay with me forever.

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Single player. The greatest games are always single player for a reason. Single player games just allow creators so much freedom. They never have to cater to the wants of more than one person or online or any of that shit that compromises games for a multiplayer experience.

 

That's a really good point. It's not like a general, liquid experience that everyone is supposed to enjoy. It's much more specific and tweaked in terms of adventure or story. Though Left4Dead was an attempt at bridging this gap and it was pretty hugely successful?

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L4D was only successful as a multiplayer experience though. Try playing it alone, it's not great.

 

True; though I just meant the experimental effect Valve went for was a multiplayer game with the same aesthetic qualities as a singleplayer one. I.e. characters, story, gameplay, and locations that you can get to know and love in an engaging way, not simply as a set of platforms for combat like most multiplayer games.

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Both, depends on the game really, though games with a heavy emphasis on multi-player aren't that fun to me most of the time, probably because I can't stay on one game enough to actually keep up with it's online component (DLC, community features, new game modes, etc), though there are some that have been able to keep me playing for a while :P TF2 and Battlefield Bad Company are examples.

 

Most of the games I have really enjoyed are single-player though :P

 

A game like Oblivion is something I would like to see have something like coop and stuff, also, Demon's Souls online component is something I really liked :P

 

On local MP, I like games that have it, since when someone comes we can play those games, instead of going to "the old way" of playing a single-player game in turns :P But many of the games with local MP I've played recently don't have the option to split the screen horizontally, instead of vertically, which is annoying IMO.

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The problem with multiplayer is that they game never goes the way the developers planned to, this was especially true with the older team-based shooters like Tribes 1/2 and BF2 where big warscapes turned into civil-war like teamkilling practices for vehicles and sniping spots.

 

This has been partially mended in games like BC2 but still profound (granade/CG-spammers, large volumes of snipers etcetera.).

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Your terminology confuses me. Do you mean you like the 2 sub-screens of local MP to be on top of each other or beside each other?

 

Here, maybe my really pathetic attempt at a visual explanation might help :P :

 

 

splitscreen.JPG

 

And yes, this is a problem with console games, PCs don't care about this kind of stuff :P

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You say that's a good thing? I'd love to be able to play split screen on PC (someone with a controller, someone with m + k) in games like Left4Dead 2.

 

PCs simply lack the option. It's hard to find games that are only local co-op besides XBLA/PSN games. What I'm pointing out there, that the vs/co-op games these days, are mostly online on consoles to begin with, just like on PC.

 

 

 

 

To get on topic: Most single player. Video games aren't that social to me though that's not to say they can't be at times. I had a lot of fun with Mod Nation Racers when it first came out. I've also enjoyed plenty of local Halo and online Halo over the years. I'm not one to search out for people to play with online (though there are a few who have always been reliable for me) as I don't care to get involved enough to learn who's fun to play with.

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Your terminology confuses me. Do you mean you like the 2 sub-screens of local MP to be on top of each other or beside each other?

 

Here, maybe my really pathetic attempt at a visual explanation might help :P :

 

 

splitscreen.JPG

 

And yes, this is a problem with console games, PCs don't care about this kind of stuff :P

You mean they default to it being side-by-side, and won't let you stack them instead? That's weird and would irritate me too, but I don't play much couch multi except Halo, and Halo's stacked.

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You mean they default to it being side-by-side, and won't let you stack them instead? That's weird and would irritate me too, but I don't play much couch multi except Halo, and Halo's stacked.

 

Yep, Borderlands, Army of Two: TFD and other games I can't remember right now did it, and they didn't have the option to change it (or maybe I'm blind and didn't see it :P).

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