*sub thread* Expanding Core Features in Games (adding co-op etc)
- Thread starter wco81
- Start date
Hm don't think that's Tomb Raider's ball. It's strength has always been Lara's isolation...bring someone along, not so sure it would work. Didn't work in Darkness...
I'm talking about a lengthy story, with twists and turns, taking the player down an expected path, to then reveal that it's not actually the end, and presenting another few unexpected hours of gameplay. You know about 12hours long...
Nonononono. Some games work with co-op, Tomb Raider is not one of them. Not every game needs an online multiplayer or co-op mode to be worth while. I'm really starting to dislike this line of thinking that everything under the sun must have it.
Adding something is generally going to mean less of something else. I can certainly see the sentiment that some would rather they focus on the core game play than tacking on something else.
But the original complaint was about previous games in the series not being long enough.
So if they can't artificially lengthen the "core" or single-player mode, why not add extra modes, which doesn't necessarily require new assets or plot.
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Indeed. The idea of online co-op was something we considered to try and fill the online requirement, but it just doesn't make sense for TR. TR is really a single-player game, and it would be hard to make it make any sense any other way. Being alone in your journey is part of the game.
AFAIK, we're only filling the online requirements the superficial obvious way (achievements, etc.).
Mod Note: Copied relevant bits to here.
I would also hope God of War isn't limited to single-player either.
Maybe they have to let you play enemy bosses against other humans controlling the main protagonist.
Edit: I will just add that this was suppose to be when "true" online gaming was suppose to come. MS had way higher goals for XBL subscriptions and Sony had also touted that they'd be more serious about online. Even Nintendo claimed they'd have an online strategy with the Wii.
So where are the game developers and publishers? Still stuck with the old paradigm? Are many of these action games singleplayer because of inherent game design or story or at least partly because of past technical limitations?
Are games designers complacent in just trying to use existing paradigms, boost the graphics to the new hardware, but not really trying to rethink of game design in a connected world?
There really hasn't been innovation in online design beyond the traditional online genres -- FPS, sports, racing. Do you accept for instance that platforming games will never go online because Mario has always been singleplayer?
Look at how computing and software has changed in the past 10-15 years. Imagine if they wanted to keep software relegated to shrink-wrap and computers remained standalone.
OTOH, I can see publishers not seeing any returns from having online modes or taking chances to innovate. Games business is sequel-driven and focused on delivering "more of the same" not delivering innovation.
Especially when the expectations of gamers are limited to wanting "more of the same."
Maybe they have to let you play enemy bosses against other humans controlling the main protagonist.
Edit: I will just add that this was suppose to be when "true" online gaming was suppose to come. MS had way higher goals for XBL subscriptions and Sony had also touted that they'd be more serious about online. Even Nintendo claimed they'd have an online strategy with the Wii.
So where are the game developers and publishers? Still stuck with the old paradigm? Are many of these action games singleplayer because of inherent game design or story or at least partly because of past technical limitations?
Are games designers complacent in just trying to use existing paradigms, boost the graphics to the new hardware, but not really trying to rethink of game design in a connected world?
There really hasn't been innovation in online design beyond the traditional online genres -- FPS, sports, racing. Do you accept for instance that platforming games will never go online because Mario has always been singleplayer?
Look at how computing and software has changed in the past 10-15 years. Imagine if they wanted to keep software relegated to shrink-wrap and computers remained standalone.
OTOH, I can see publishers not seeing any returns from having online modes or taking chances to innovate. Games business is sequel-driven and focused on delivering "more of the same" not delivering innovation.
Especially when the expectations of gamers are limited to wanting "more of the same."
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If creating online is detriment to the qulity of the single player/the length. Then no thanks. Not every game needs to be online.
And it is not relevant for Tomb Raider - it would spoil the philosophy/atmosphere of the game.
Gaming and games have evolved much faster than most other arts, and developers are innovating at every turn. Yes every game could have a half baked online portion, but that would be falling into a trap. Online is not an important part of every game. It's not essential.
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Well, I doubt that many companies necessarily have much in the way of technical limitations on that front. There's no reason why we can't technically do a multiplayer deathmatch in Tomb Raider. Does it make any sense?
Take a horror survival series like Silent Hill... If solitude is removed from the equation, how do you evoke the same feel? Co-op play in an RPG in the generic sense seems reasonable, but what do you do when it's a story-driven linear RPG? That's a bit of a wrinkle. Online competition in MarioKart makes perfect sense, but Mario Galaxy? I can vaguely see some way to make SoTC work in a co-op mode (although it would certainly not be without its damage to the story), but ICO? What would it even be?
Personally, I always felt that the whole "everything must be online" idea is a stupid idea to begin with. There is just such a thing as "unsuitable" for online multiplayer, and it's not just sequels. There are game designs and storylines that simply cannot work with multiple players simultaneously without doing some serious damage. It's only in America that I see this sentiment of "no online multiplayer mode = the game doesn't deserve to exist."
I see no reason why the connected world should be applied to everything without question as if this is now a fundamental part of what it means to be a game. The fact that it's going to affect the gamescape for good is without question, but there's no such thing as a non-destructive change. You can have your all-games-online world, but you should expect that such a world will have to ostracize a few dozen game designs and story structures.
That's a big one. For something like Tomb Raider, there's no question that what TR "ought to be" is something that's fairly established, and breaking out of that mold has zero chance of being met with a positive response. In theory, a new franchise (like Uncharted) has a far better shot at moving down a different path.
Mod Note: Copied relevant bits to here.
mister slim
Newcomer
I'll just ignore the fact that the Japanese and European releases of Ico had co-op and hypothesize how to execute Ico co-op well. It would have to be online, since the presentation should be different for each player. Voice chat would have to be processed to convey each player's intonation and cadence but not the actual words being spoken. The player controlling Ico would play as in the regular game. The player controlling Yorda would be dependent on rumble, audio, and a synaesthetic depiction of Yorda's location on the TV screen. The screen would show, almost like a music visualizer, the sounds from her surroundings in a impressionistic blur using color to convey the level of danger. Objects within Yorda's reach would also be visible, but depicted using black and white texturing to evoke the sense of touch. A few other objects would be visible, like dangerous drops, just to make the game more playable. Ico would be a constant presence, a blur moving around the screen, depicted using a calming color that intensifies based on Ico's speed of movement and relative danger. When Ico and Yorda are holding hands his avatar would be layered with texture to add to Yorda's impression of his presence. Obviously the rumble would remain, and a "squeeze hand" button would be added. A good surround sound set up would be a considerable advantage for players. Also, the voice chat processing would have to be deterministic enough that players could slowly learn what the other player was trying to say.
It would be a hell of an experience, though it'll never happen.
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Dominik D
Regular
I guess you're missing the point. Sure you can have coop or deathmatch or anything else in pretty much any game (even ICO as we can see). But still it doesn't mean it's necessary or good for the game. Point and click adventures are pretty cool the way the are (single player) and coop is not going to work for them if the game wasn't planned around it in the first place.
The same for Tomb Raider: you can invent many different multiplayer focused game modes/elements, but that's not something the game (well, the previous TRs) was built around. Adding multi as an option is not going to alienate your target as much as doing multiplayer-only TR, but requires either redesigning game so existing assets (mainly levels and puzzles) work for multiple players or making additional ones for multi. First one is going to impact single player experience while the second one is not going to do any good to the established IP.
It is obvious you can create Tomb Raiders game where Lara is being joined by, I don't know, Witchblade and have a cool cooperative gameplay like Lego Indiana Jones has. But Indiana Jones was built around cooperative gameplay (probably because it's a kids targeted game, and as Viva Pinata proved: mum + kid mode is essential). If TR isn't designed with multiplayer in mind, it's not going to work well in multiplayer. Period. And I for one would like to see developers' efforts spent on meaningful activities like making Lara wet or something.
Adding multiplayer so you have another marketing checkbox on the box is not a meaningful activity.
The same for Tomb Raider: you can invent many different multiplayer focused game modes/elements, but that's not something the game (well, the previous TRs) was built around. Adding multi as an option is not going to alienate your target as much as doing multiplayer-only TR, but requires either redesigning game so existing assets (mainly levels and puzzles) work for multiple players or making additional ones for multi. First one is going to impact single player experience while the second one is not going to do any good to the established IP.
It is obvious you can create Tomb Raiders game where Lara is being joined by, I don't know, Witchblade and have a cool cooperative gameplay like Lego Indiana Jones has. But Indiana Jones was built around cooperative gameplay (probably because it's a kids targeted game, and as Viva Pinata proved: mum + kid mode is essential). If TR isn't designed with multiplayer in mind, it's not going to work well in multiplayer. Period. And I for one would like to see developers' efforts spent on meaningful activities like making Lara wet or something.
Adding multiplayer so you have another marketing checkbox on the box is not a meaningful activity.
And yet co-op has made me look at games I wouldn't have cared about otherwise, and I can't imagine I'm alone at that. I'd have never played through GoW if not for co-op.
I'm not saying that I wouldn't buy TR (if I buy TR) if it has no co-op, or even that I want TR to have co-op. But saying 'This is an SP game, it's always been an SP game, and we can't even imagine MP in it' doesn't really stand up to scrutiny when other games have faced similar design problems (again, see Splinter Cell) and have done a fair job overcoming them.
Dominik D
Regular
Crackdown, GoW were built with coop in mind. I find it hard to think of a TR game with some additional character helping Lara in her quest.
Once again: I'm not saying it's impossible: there are even MP roguelikes. I'm saying it's not necessarily good business decision. I'm also saying that no developer should be forced to modify the franchise "just because". If TR works for Eidos/Crystal Dynamics well the way it is today, if they can deliver great single player game, I'm all for it.
And it's not "design problem to overcome" alone, it's the need for changes. Uncharted is a TR-esque shooter, which makes him an evolved version of puzzle-based TR. Yet this is evolution that I for one don't like that much. When Ubi wanted to experiment with PoP formula, they created new IP (AC). As stated earlier in this thread: it's easier to start from scratch than to patch some existing IP.
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Well, I'd say you're not alone in that because the nature of the gamers in the US. The US is all about simulations, and online gaming means that you don't run into the semblance of "artificiality" that AI tends to create. It puts a new variable into the fold, and more variables feels more real.
In regions of the world where structure and form and "rules" are generally preferred, the importance of online multiplayer is greatly diminished across the market. Granted, for something like a Gears of War, where you're essentially playing a soldier, it makes sense that there would be battalions and teams forming a group onslaught, and online play seems only natural.
I wasn't aware that co-op gameplay was considered inconceivable for Splinter Cell. Well, the real question isn't so much "can you picture it?" so much as "does it hurt anything?" or "can we still keep these things and that?" or "does working this in change anything important?"... and then of course, the most important question of all -- "what good does it do?"
As a contrast to Gears of War, take God of War... You can easily make sense of co-op play from a gameplay standpoint... I can easily picture having to deal with groups of enemies that much more easily with a teammate or having one guy do a QTE to hold an enemy in such a position as to expose vulnerable spots to the other guy who delivers the attack. All perfectly reasonable in gameplay world. But then, what does that imply in the context of "God of War" specifically as opposed to a "God-of-War-like game"? What happens to that "lone warrior" mold in which Kratos was cast and still have co-op gameplay? Okay, perhaps, you can have some sort of "create-a-god" mechanism and take Kratos out of the picture for multiplayer, but then if Kratos is gone, what's left? I can see how you wouldn't damage the continuity by just making a tangent storyline which is not directly connected, but for all that, why wouldn't you just make a different game altogether (one that was similar in gameplay but geared for multiplayer from the get-go)?
Going back to the context of TR... sure, you can build TR-like gameplay in a multiplayer co-op, but not TR itself. A Tomb-Raider-like game that demands co-op play is all well and good, but Tomb Raider itself? The brand has already written in some specific expectations and going it alone is one of them. The basic reality of the gaming public is that change and stagnation are both cardinal sins.
Well, at least in my opinion, it's about as inconceivable as it is for Tomb Raider. The whole point of the gameplay and the series' very premise is that you're in alone.
You have a good point; they could make a new game, with the same mechanics, but for one, they usually don't. So if I wanted to play God of War with a friend, using the exact same combo mechanics, I'm probably out of luck.
Not to mention that even if they did, you're speaking of buying a second game to experience the very same mechanics. I like coop, but I wouldn't buy two extremely similar games to get SP and coop, not at full retail prices. If given the choice, unless the SP was extraordinary somehow, I would probably lean towards coop. And I'm not a big MP gamer! I've had my PS3 since October and the first time I actually used the PSN was in this weekend, and the last time I used my Live account to play online before this weekend was probably in February.
Fair enough. I don't necessarily agree that MP can't fit with TR (as in: it's not an impossible problem) but I do see that it can be difficult to do well, and can't fault the game designers, especially considering your last sentence there, which is absolutely true as well as a terrible shame.
mister slim
Newcomer
I wasn't advocating developers force in a multiplayer mode regardless of genre or narrative requirements. I just thought Ico co-op would be an interesting thought experiment. Now I'll go think about multiplayer point-and-click adventures.
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