When does multiplayer stop being multiplayer?

[Paul Debrion]

This is a bit of a pet peeve I have with multiplayer online games.

Let's be honest, the majority of players in most multiplayer game aren't actually playing with other players, they're just playing in the presence of other players if that makes any sense.

Because of this, so called "multiplayer" games often become the equivalent single player games with the difficulty cranked up really high and with spectators added.

It's as if the only gratification most players get from playing a multiplayer game that they wouldn't get from a single player game is the delusion that maybe other players are seeing them do well in-game.

You're probably familiar the kind of player I'm talking about. The ones who just plays silently and ignore everyone else except when they have to attack them and are seemingly oblivious to the actions of others. They even do the exact same things over and over again with a great persistence as if they're robots with no personality. Sadly, for most intents and purposes, it seems that most players in a typical online game could be interchangable with really difficult bots. Maybe they're really drunk or perhaps they're just shy, but seriously what's the point of playing a multiplayer game if you're just going to behave like a mindless drone and not interact with anyone?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned (I hope not), but sometimes I feel that the point of multiplayer kind of gets lost in a lot of today's online games. It used to be that it wasn't so simple to get into a multiplayer game online, but I can't help but feel that the games themselves were better for it because those who could get online were willing to play along better.


I guess this could be yet another selfish form of "it was better when everyone couldn't get in so easily", and I suppose it wouldn't be unfair to say that it is.

[Spidere]

I agree.

[Benny1]

Mmm, this is a fun issue, actually.  I played WoW some back in the day (I enjoyed it then, I do enjoy it now, I don't have the time for it now, I don't play.  You will not stop me from enjoying it by telling me it is bad).  Most of the time, I was running around by myself.  The few times I DID group out of an instance, it felt like i leveled slower, I got less gear, and so on.  It was actually a lot less fun, sometimes.  Instances were different, they were actually pretty fun, never mind how retarded some people were.  But since I spent most of my time alone, was it really multiplayer?

I think it was.  What really was nice about it was the social aspect.  I COULD have just played and not talked to anybody, but while I was playing, I was constantly talking to others online as well.  It's sort of weird.  I wasn't really "playing the game" with them in the sense I was killing enemies with them, but at the same time, it was more social than a single player game, and I'd say that's enough to make it multiplayer.  I think that's pretty weak reasoning too, and it's certainly a debatable thing, but I felt it was multiplayer enough, and i certainly can see how this would get on somebody's nerves, because there was no need for interaction, it was just something I did because I enjoyed it.

[Spidere]

Dammit, now I'm torn on who I agree with.

[Cadmas]

I tend to let my skill and avatar do the talking in competitive fpses.
The more you talk the more you leave yourself open to abuse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iNgBG7802Q

[Desert]

Multiplayer stops being multiplayer when you lose the ability to smack the sore loser who quits right before a match ends. It also stops being multiplayer when a game has online, but no splitscreen. Who thought that was a good idea? I want to sit next to friends and throw my controller at them whenever they pause and hit the main menu button. Yeah, that guy's a jerk.

Though when it comes to any multiplayer game, online or off, I tend to be mostly quiet mainly for the reasons Cadmas posted.

[Ghaleon]

I generally prefer single player games. Also when I play an MMO such as WoW or Valkarie sky, I generally prefer to do things alone. I find I tend to do better than your average online gamer (most suck IMO, I wouldn't really say they are skilled bots, they are like..tutorial bots lol). But I do enjoy playing multiplayer when a friend logs in or something, and I try to help or whatever when needed.

In reality, I prefer playing multiplayer games with people I know, or friends, generally I don't like doing it with complete strangers because most people on the internet are total assholes who are full of themselves. It's really quite annoying IMO. Unfortunately, most of my friends aren't hardcore gamers like I am, so they often do not want to play multiplayer games with me unless it's us vs bots. If the game in question doesn't allow bots to be added to a multiplayer game versus humans, getting them to play it is like pulling teeth. Seems like I'm the only person I know IRL who can have fun playing a game that I'll probably lose at.

Another problem with playing with strangers online, is they always have to play some sort of stupid blaming game if they aren't winning. If you aren't specced exactly what's needed for a specific situation, you're a noob. Even if your spec is better for overall performance, or even if you're pulling your own weight and more for the game. As soon as a critical moment approaches that you cannot help with because you don't have this spell, that weapon, or whatever, your teammates will call you out and criticize you.

It might sound racist, but so far I have noticed that this bad-attitude from people online seems to be mostly from North Americans. I mean as soon as I play a game with foreign people they seem more laid back, and understand that it's just a game, yet they don't seem to play any worse, it's funny how it works. That's probably just coincidence though.

[Firestorm29]

Mmm, this is a fun issue, actually.  I played WoW some back in the day (I enjoyed it then, I do enjoy it now, I don't have the time for it now, I don't play.  You will not stop me from enjoying it by telling me it is bad).  Most of the time, I was running around by myself.  The few times I DID group out of an instance, it felt like i leveled slower, I got less gear, and so on.  It was actually a lot less fun, sometimes.

This and lag help kill my interest for Ragnarok Online, and most MMOs for that matter. Then again in that game, usually it is better to just solo for the most part, which bugged the heck out of me.

One thing I really don't like about what seems to becoming the standard is the whole matchmaking server they got going on in some games. It really feels like they took a part away when you couldn't go to a person's room you know that is known for being a good host, it's all just random meat to shoot, now.

Yea, I also enjoyed how someone threw a bitchfit because I wasn't running around one match with Lightweight and Marathon.

[Furienify]

PvP is the only true multiplayer to be found in games, and in some cases even this is undercut (See: Hero AI in Hero's Ascent of Guild Wars, boy was it fun climbing ranks there.) but ultimately it remains the only true 'multiplayer'.

The more competitive the skill-based the game is, the more multiplayer it comes off, even if you don't necessarily work with your teammates all the time. TF2 is a great example of multiplayer to me. I regularly go in with a group of friends and we all work in synch with one another. This is hard to accomplish with total strangers, but if you frequent specific servers like we do, you learn to pick names from the crowd, especially the ones that intuitively work with you.

If it's PvE, it's mostly sandbox play. Fighting a computer can only be fun for so long regardless of the difficulties. The computer will become predictable because it has a human behind it that has dictated what it must do. It can't be spontaneous without going borderline random, at which point it's no longer fun.

Raids? Possible exception, but that's really just a group of people fighting a challenging computer, and it'll never be much more than that.

[orinrin]

Even if it stops being multi-player, it will not be considered single-player.  Most online games have some sort of interaction with other people, whether it be a glorified chat box or killing NPCs back-to-back.  Even when I play WoW alone I still have some sort of interaction with my guild/friends.  Granted, its not the same as actually playing with them, but it sure beats talking to myself.

[Mima]

Multiplayer as opposed to Single Player, therefore it's technically Multiple Players.

If there's more than one person playing the same game it's multiplayer. Even if there's no interaction, that's just something that is assumed.

Early multiplayer games didn't have that interaction per se either, such as player 2 takes over when player 1 dies and whatnot.

[Azure Lazuline]

Multiplayer stopped being fun when there started to be 50 people per match. Nobody even has an identity at that point, and the only difference between that and bots is that there's lag. Multiplayer is always about INTERACTION - being able to talk to the person sitting next to you, comment about how the game's going, make strategies on the fly for co-op, throw the controller at them when you're losing, and high-five them when you just beat the final boss.

"New" multiplayer has none of that. Especially when you can only play online with no splitscreen, possibly the worst multiplayer-related trend in recent games. I refuse to buy any games with that "feature."

[Spidere]

"New" multiplayer has none of that. Especially when you can only play online with no splitscreen, possibly the worst multiplayer-related trend in recent games. I refuse to buy any games with that "feature."

Like MW2? Or Killzone? Or MAG?
The list goes on forever.  :V

[Azure Lazuline]

Nope, I've never played any of those, and I don't intend to. It's just fighting bots that happen to have weird screennames.

[Spidere]

Thats why I stopped playing.

[Paul Debrion]

Multiplayer stopped being fun when there started to be 50 people per match. Nobody even has an identity at that point, and the only difference between that and bots is that there's lag. Multiplayer is always about INTERACTION - being able to talk to the person sitting next to you, comment about how the game's going, make strategies on the fly for co-op, throw the controller at them when you're losing, and high-five them when you just beat the final boss.

"New" multiplayer has none of that. Especially when you can only play online with no splitscreen, possibly the worst multiplayer-related trend in recent games. I refuse to buy any games with that "feature."

I wouldn't say that the kind of interaction that exists in splitscreen games doesn't exist in online games, but it definitely is hard to come by.

Nowadays such gameplay tends to be limited to niche games or games with a steep learning curve that filter out a lot of people because of the way they are.

It's sad, but seems to me that most effective way to have a good multiplayer online is to have a game that narrows its focus to a specific niche and keeps everyone else out. 

[Doomsday]

I kinda see what you're getting at. To me, the definition of multiplayer is a game that contains characters controlled by other human players along with yourself, and single player being without other Human-controlled characters. Its not multiplayer in the sense of that the other players are sitting right next to you, but to me, its multiplayer if the game contains other human-controlled characters

Just my two cents

[orinrin]

As long as there is some interaction with other humans, no matter how slight, it can be considered "multi-player".

[WHMZakeri]

"Multiplayer" For me has become the definition of "If you have no friends, never play this game."

All Multiplayer games have worked towards, and put effort in getting people to talk to each other, often to the point of making it much more difficult if you don't have at least one person to co-operate with. The moment you stop playing the game with other people is the moment any type of enjoyment you can get out of the game is dissolved into a menagerie of boredom, grinding, and losing.

My experience on Byond only reinforces this. One of the most fun games I've played is Mideteki(sp?) High, a game that's basically a multiplayer murder mystery where everyone is lock up, one person is trying to kill everyone else, and you have to escape (Or kill them, whatever.) The game is mostly played as an RP, with Stats only being a formality (they're the same for everyone, nothing changes). On there, I played as a girl, and wound up being protected and protecting the same guy three times in a row, dispite not knowing who each other are. We eventually both switched to a FFV game, and playing together, we met other people and Reached all the way to level 99 in a matter of weeks.

Now, later, whenever I play the FFV game, as a new character I still haven't gotten past level 10. It was only because of the Social aspect (along with the certain that there would be help always) that I was able to grind so much - without even realizing it at the time as well.

In short, I sort of agree that a Multiplayer game is a game with multiple players, but a Multiplayer game is automatically bad unless you actually take advantage of the fact that other people are playing the game.

[AlexX Unlimited]

"New" multiplayer has none of that. Especially when you can only play online with no splitscreen, possibly the worst multiplayer-related trend in recent games. I refuse to buy any games with that "feature."

Me and my girlfriend disagree.

EDIT: Note that that dungeon is one of the hardest at that point in the game (and remains the hardest for quite some time after), with us playing as classes that are late bloomers BEFORE they've bloomed.

[orinrin]

MMOs need split-screen.   :V
Edit:  Imagine playing WoW and dividing your screen into small squares to accommodate a full raid.

[WHMZakeri]

If Split Screen is so damn important, then try to fit it into Valkyrie Sky.

[AlexX Unlimited]

If Split Screen is so damn important, then try to fit it into Valkyrie Sky.

Or Dungeon Fighter Online, for that matter (HINT: not even offline beatemups with multiplayer use split screens).

[HakureiSM]

Multiplayer stopped being fun when there started to be 50 people per match. Nobody even has an identity at that point,

Wait wait wait. I was just here thinking 'ooo, maybe I'll just lurk around in this thread and see what I can learn and- no.'
After reading this I feel like I have to say something. Of course interaction is the point, but you don't go online because you need an 'identity', you already got that when you were born.
Everyone did.
Now I won't say anything about RPGs, because I don't really play them much, or at all(despite having played quite some Ragnarok a long time ago), but I like shooters a lot, and happilly welcome recent war games like BF:BC, with huge battle maps and a shitton of people.
War battle games like that(hell, that one even has "battle" in it's name) feel much better when there's a lot of people running and shooting and screaming techniques and ideas and plans to their microphones. That's a whole lot of interaction.
Of course there's gonna be people who don't talk, but they're free to and aware of it, and of course there'll be the douchebags who start screaming stupid offenses to everyone, but hey, that's why 'kick' exists.

[Azure Lazuline]

You misinterpreted it. What I'm saying is that if you're on a team with 20 other people, nothing you do will ever make you stand out, unless they're all bad at the game and you're not. You're just another gamertag with a different emblem and voice, and maybe you have good aim to go along with it. But that's about it. Maybe I'm just too used to "old" multiplayer, where you'd get three of your friends in the room to all play Mario Kart and end up screaming at each other because of the blue shell...

[HakureiSM]

So your point is that playing online is about showing off and standing out?

[Azure Lazuline]

You're misinterpreting everything I say. Multiplayer is about being close to the people you're playing with.

...being able to talk to the person sitting next to you, comment about how the game's going, make strategies on the fly for co-op, throw the controller at them when you're losing, and high-five them when you just beat the final boss.

Let's stop this little argument though, it's taking over the topic.

[HakureiSM]

  I call it a discussion.

So your point is you feel better when people are phisically present?

[Azure Lazuline]

Basically, yeah. Just playing with text or a voice doesn't have nearly the same effect for me as playing with a person I can see and physically interact with, even if that interaction is just things like seeing their expressions and movement.

[HakureiSM]

Well, that narrows possibilities and creates issues.
Most types of multiplayer games would be impossible if physical presence was a requirement.
Unless of course a way of putting 2 hundred thousand people in one room is discovered :V