Co-op: it's the New Wave of multiplayer. For most of the '90s, online co-op was something gaming fanatics clamoured after, but developers shied away because "no one ever plays it". That's all changed.
With burgeoning broadband and the increase in online matchmaking efficiency, games are queuing up to offer you the opportunity to play through an epic with a friend.
Adding co-op to a singleplayer game is one thing. But now co-op has risen to the status of Anointed Messiah in the game designer's religion and they're desperate to see how far the concept can go. They've stopped just adding co-op to a game, and are reconceptualising games as co-operative first and foremost.
In increasing order of bring-a-mate-a-bility, we're looking forward to titles like Kane & Lynch, Army of Two and Left 4 Dead. It's a new frontier being explored, and the rewards could make us all rich in the precious currency of gaming goodness. Except, while this gold rush is going on, back in the heartlands, the cities are falling into blight.
This was brought into focus when I was reviewing Halo 3 recently. The problem with co-op struck me at several points while playing, but was epitomised by a section near the game's close. Echoing the end of the first game, you're escaping in a Warthog Jeep.
In the back, the computer-controlled Arbiter lays down machinegun fire as you skid along. Enemies come in from all sides and he fights them off in a whirlwind of lead and... man, the AI looks like he's having a lot of fun. I wish I was the computer controlled player instead of the boring old driver.
This goes from irritant to annoyance when you realise that behind the Warthog - in view of whoever's in the turret, but completely unnoticed to the driver - the entire level is exploding in one of the most spectacular moments of the game. Which, if you play solo, you'll never see.
The point being that co-operative play was originally viewed as an addition to a game. Now it's a subversion of a game. The solo player in Halo 3 is getting, in places, a qualitatively worse game than people who bring peers along - not just because of the basic joy of playing with someone else, but because the experience is being designed with co-op excellence in mind. A game can't have two masters. Something's got to give.
It's always been there. Look at the genres which have always been, fundamentally, co-op. The persistent-world online RPG, for example. Many developers have been talking about trying to integrate a story into them. All fail. This is because no one engages in a story when there's someone waiting.
Play through Guild Wars, and the party will be voting en masse to skip the cutscene portions in favour of running and grabbing the phat loot. It's difficult to relax into a world when everyone else is shouting "Hurry up!" If more games become fundamentally co-op, all these magical parts of games - your Stalkers, your Half-Lifes, your Planescape: Torments - are turned into dinosaurs.
There's nothing wrong with co-op, per se. The problem is when it spreads cancerously in a great singleplayer game, twisting it, perverting it, sickening it, preparing it for death. That's one thing I won't co-operate with.
There's nothing wrong with co-op, per se. The problem is when it spreads cancerously in a great singleplayer game, twisting it, perverting it, sickening it, preparing it for death. That's one thing I won't co-operate with.
Couldn't have said it better. The industry is forgetting that single player gaming is still number one. It's there because while multiplayer gamers will play a single player game, many single player gamers do not play multiplayer, or at least, seldom do. This allows multiplayer games to do well, but single player games to do as well as the latter are bought by both camps.
If we lose quality single player gaming in the PC marketplace, we will lose the PC marketplace. I have had hope this year from games like STALKER, MTW2 Kingdoms and Supreme Commander for giving single player content first and foremost. I hope this continues in 2008, for if it does, so will PC gaming as a viable format.
thats from a pc players point of view wheres being a console player myself we welcome more co-op theres nothing better then taking on a game with you friend and not having to take turns dont get me wrong single player is good but co-op is the way forward
I agree that perhaps the worse problem with coop is when the experience isn't so balanced. One person waits for the other to finish off exclusive areas or when (as in the example given) one player gets a better deal doing one thing compared to the other.
I agree that if each player has the same to do it's a much better experience. Having one player sit around would suck.
However, I have to disagree with the Halo 3 example there: Player 2 might get to see the destruction behind them as the place falls down, but Player 1 gets to see that happening in front of them as well as having to navigate through it before it falls away. One drives, one shoots. And while player 2 gets to shoot stuff, player 1's job is made all the harder because you can't even just run down all the enemies to get by.
dangermou5e - this is an article on a webpage called PC Gamer. It relates to a PC gaming magazine of the same name. So as a PC game player, my comment is more to the point and your comment should be in the millions of console webpages out there, not in the few thousand PC game pages left.
Well the author does mention Halo 3 as the main example of the problem.
I can sort of see where the article is coming from but must add that I am happy co-op is being implemented more, although I would like to see more split screen catered for.
Well me and my mates are still looking for a good co-op game to play (though we will prolly settle for the HL2 mod: Synergy). I for one am dog-tired of the same old same old when it comes to multiplayer. CTF (and all its variants) is repetitive boredom which borders on OCD, while death-match just attracts the usual egos, trash-talkers and smacktards.
Yay for co-op i say.
But as I've said elsewhere, vive la difference. Variety is what we desire yes? If ALL multiplayer games go down the co-op route then it's gonna get old pretty quick, but I still maintain that it has lots of legs. And if they kill the single-player experience? ... well that doesn't even bear thinking about.
Yeah and if one player's co-op experience is better than the other's that can always be seen as an incentive to play again and make sure you take that route/option etc.
Nintendo panders to retarded parents & mini game players now, Xbox & PS3 are pushing online aspects as hard as they can. Noone gives a toss about singleplayer anymore. All my best experiences are from singleplayer epics. Dont let singleplayer games die out
Nintendo panders to retarded parents & mini game players now, Xbox & PS3 are pushing online aspects as hard as they can. Noone gives a toss about singleplayer anymore. All my best experiences are from singleplayer epics. Dont let singleplayer games die out
Nintendo panders to retarded parents & mini game players now, Xbox & PS3 are pushing online aspects as hard as they can. Noone gives a toss about singleplayer anymore. All my best experiences are from singleplayer epics. Dont let singleplayer games die out
I have to agree, but there is room for both.
Oh definately. I dont mind having both but if the best parts (such as this articles Halo 3 example) are getting missed out of the singleplayer then it is the wrong way to go. They should optimise the view etc. so you can still experience this even if you arent a online gamer. Set-pieces like that used to be solely for a singleplayer 'wow' experience not only to be enjoyed if your playing with someone else
thats from a pc players point of view wheres being a console player myself we welcome more co-op theres nothing better then taking on a game with you friend and not having to take turns dont get me wrong single player is good but co-op is the way forward
When you say "being a console player myself, WE welcome more co-op", maybe you should just say that you welcome co-op. Not all console gamers welcome co-op as openly as you do, seeing as I spend an awful lot of time playing games for the story and the single player experience. Every once in a while I'll play a game on Xbox Live, but to be honest I don't like to play against other people, because ever since I started playing video games, multiplayer has always seemingly been a stripped down version of the single player experience. Multiplayer is something that keeps you playing a game AFTER the single player experience - and these days it seems like multiplayer is being pushed forward and SINGLE PLAYER is the afterthought. In the 16 bit era, and even in the days of the PS1, single player games would take a couple of weeks to complete, even if you played the game for most of the time you were awake. These days single player campaigns are over in the space of 10 hours. Games used to boast "35+ hours of gameplay", specifically referring to the single player experience. There's a reason no one uses that as a feature anymore, and it's because developers are relying on multiplayer and co-op to expand a games lifespan.
This feeds into things like achievements on the 360, where developers put so much stock in their online features that half of the achievements are related to online, regardless of whether anyone actually uses the online or not - pick up a fairly old 360 game now and you'll find that not many people are playing it online, essentially making half of the achievements impossible to get.
Developers just need to tone down the online and multiplayer stuff - if the game is good enough to begin with, then people will be willing to put up with a basic online feature because the game mechanics will translate well. A game should be fun, and it can't be fun for everybody is the single player falls down because the multiplayer features have become the main focus.
thats from a pc players point of view wheres being a console player myself we welcome more co-op theres nothing better then taking on a game with you friend and not having to take turns dont get me wrong single player is good but co-op is the way forward
When you say "being a console player myself, WE welcome more co-op", maybe you should just say that you welcome co-op. Not all console gamers welcome co-op as openly as you do, seeing as I spend an awful lot of time playing games for the story and the single player experience. Every once in a while I'll play a game on Xbox Live, but to be honest I don't like to play against other people, because ever since I started playing video games, multiplayer has always seemingly been a stripped down version of the single player experience. Multiplayer is something that keeps you playing a game AFTER the single player experience - and these days it seems like multiplayer is being pushed forward and SINGLE PLAYER is the afterthought. In the 16 bit era, and even in the days of the PS1, single player games would take a couple of weeks to complete, even if you played the game for most of the time you were awake. These days single player campaigns are over in the space of 10 hours. Games used to boast "35+ hours of gameplay", specifically referring to the single player experience. There's a reason no one uses that as a feature anymore, and it's because developers are relying on multiplayer and co-op to expand a games lifespan.
This feeds into things like achievements on the 360, where developers put so much stock in their online features that half of the achievements are related to online, regardless of whether anyone actually uses the online or not - pick up a fairly old 360 game now and you'll find that not many people are playing it online, essentially making half of the achievements impossible to get.
Developers just need to tone down the online and multiplayer stuff - if the game is good enough to begin with, then people will be willing to put up with a basic online feature because the game mechanics will translate well. A game should be fun, and it can't be fun for everybody is the single player falls down because the multiplayer features have become the main focus.
Couldnt have put it better myself. Well done *tips hat*
sorry to say this - but you have absolutely no idea!!!
being a game developer first and gamer second myself i always wanted to share a good gaming experience
the reason why so many games get anounced with co-op but the feature doesn't make it into the final build is, that creating (technically speaking) a multiplayer experience in a singleplayer game is one of the most difficult things in game development.
the hardest part is to keep both players absolutely synchronized while interacting with physics, enemies, vehicles, and so forth.
co-op subtracts absolutely nothing from a gaming experience if done right - which obviously isn't a quality of halo3
There's nothing wrong with co-op, per se. The problem is when it spreads cancerously in a great singleplayer game, twisting it, perverting it, sickening it, preparing it for death. That's one thing I won't co-operate with.
Couldn't have said it better. The industry is forgetting that single player gaming is still number one. It's there because while multiplayer gamers will play a single player game, many single player gamers do not play multiplayer, or at least, seldom do. This allows multiplayer games to do well, but single player games to do as well as the latter are bought by both camps.
If we lose quality single player gaming in the PC marketplace, we will lose the PC marketplace. I have had hope this year from games like STALKER, MTW2 Kingdoms and Supreme Commander for giving single player content first and foremost. I hope this continues in 2008, for if it does, so will PC gaming as a viable format.
thats from a pc players point of view wheres being a console player myself we welcome more co-op theres nothing better then taking on a game with you friend and not having to take turns dont get me wrong single player is good but co-op is the way forward
err, pc forum, what?
anyway...
the trouble is, its just another tick box to the list of how to make bad / better / or great design decisions.
I have played many games over the years that have been crying out for a co-op mode, something that would have taken things to the next level. and like you said, Halo 3 robs the single player.
its more of a case of not all exclusively single player games are bad, but that there needs to be, at the very start, a design decision discussion
the conversation should go "so, we have this concept, 1 player, 2 player, co-op or multiplayer?"
"ok, so we've gone single player, do we want to add a co-op mode?"
"yes why not?!?"
then this is where it needs to change , the wrong thread: "wow, ok, well, we havent got time to properly integrate it, so we'll just bolt the co-op on to the game. the person in player 1's line will still essentially be the subject of cut-scenes and mission goals, the other dude can just help him out."
right: "we'll develop the co-op and single player seamlessly! a single player epic, but we'll make sure that the co-op still has that epic feel, for both players. the enemies will address, and curse, both players. the story will affect them both, as much as it would a single player.
NOW that would justify the huge budgets and actually make somebody THINK about the story.
... and that's generally why, as a solely PC gamer, I don't go poking around in any of the console forums. But to be fair, this issue of co-op play (as a trend) affects us all yeah?
I have been crying out for years ( and I mean years, i'm surprised they haven't banned me from IWNation for harping on about it) for the bods at IW to do a co-op in the CoD series (I mean the SP in CoD4 would be perfect).
The most fun on PC i've ever had was playing System Shock 2 with the co-op mod. Scared us all silly but was so much fun.
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