Solmanian wrote...
I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not. Yes, EA announced policy is that no game will be greenlit without a MP component. They're not hiding it, they're shouting it in every gaming convention. And they give developers a choice: either do the game the way we want it, or will take your IP and give it to another studio that will do what we want. We can expect that to continue as long as frank is CEO. We just need to weather it. But saying SP is dead?
For all intents and purposes, the optional offline, play-by-yourself single player immersion type games (
like ME 1 and 2)
are either dead or dying. ME4
will have co-op and multiplayer, just like the next
Dead Space does - along with the bullsh!t provisio that your "gamplay experience will not be impacted by the addition" of either while in the same breath they say it will be "richer" if you play co-op. So, how is it "not impacted" by the intrusion of another player yet considered "better" if there's another player? I'm not stupid enough to be able to compartmentalize both of those as "truth".
A single player game is just that.
No co-op.
No MP. No need to go or stay online save for updates or DLC. Even MP games like
Unreal Tournament didn't force you to go online, including excellent bot AI to play against to allow you to learn the damn game first before you decided whether to play online or not. It's a sad state when the SP component is technically only there so you can
practice - and I am looking at you ME3 SP. I'm having a hard time finding a reason why I
shouldn't think of it that way - and I've gone through ME3 ten times already, trying out different classes and romances. The feeling stays with every playthrough.
Apocalyptic prophecies about the death of SP has been made since the invention of MMO's; As does the prophecies of PC gaming dying because of consoles. So far SP is the largest portion of gaming (RPG's not as much) and PC share is not only bigger than any console but actually growing. There'll allways be people like who prefer to do their socializing in a pub or a caffee shop while reminiscing with their friends about the days of yesteryear, and their gaming by themselves. When it comes to MP there is a saying that I think fits best to my perspective: "hell is other people"; and I'm not alone.
The ME MP is the only MP I ever played (not including MMO's), and vey probably ,might be the only one I will. To have so much of my gaming experience dependant on the capricions of other people, often complete strangers? Unacceptable. 
Agreed. I am not however, making any "apocalyptic" prophecies. It's the current trend in gaming to limit or do away with SP gaming, whether people like it or not. It's cheaper to crank out maps and guns and player models than it is to hire writers and actors and craft a coherent story with tons of dialogue and character development. That takes years of time, asstons of money and effort and is a one-time cash grab, given the unsavory practice with DLC and the dearth of actual expansion packs, resale fvckery and the like.
It's a cliche, but money really
does talk and bullsh!t
can take a walk and SP doesn't make companies like EA as much money as people think. It's bottomline and that's all it will ever be. Dev time is
not cheap. It's far easier to crank out a MP game like COD: Battlefield Whatever every year than take three to craft some 30-40-50 hour blockbuster. It's no accident SP storylines are getting shorter and shorter, and no accident that games like
Skyrim hide the lack of story in open-world stuff with quest after quest that advance nothing storywise. Fleshing out lore is not storytelling - it's
detailing.
Skyrim's story is six or seven hours long if you skip all the fetch quests that fill out the bulk of that game - and Dawnguard maybe makes it ten.
Look at the state of ME3 - rushed and dumped and now ploddingly being "added to", as if we won't notice the lame attempts to fill in what six months of extra production time would have made moot.
Okay - maybe it's not "dead", but it
is slowly being raped and strangled.
Retour en haut
