I have to confess that I don't understand the desire to put multiplayer into ME3 or DA3. As far as I can see, it's a conflict of design ideals.
On one hand. you've got an ongoing, complex narrative that is (possibly) providing meaningful choices and consequences presented as a cohesive narrative and cinematic experience. BioWare have been increasingly moving toward a more cinematic presentation to augment their traditional narrative.
On the other hand, we have multiplayer. From the few rumours voiced about multiplayer in DA3, it seemed to follow the same concept as ME3 - a standalone arena, with purely combat based gameplay. This lacks any story, choices, consequences, or any narrative, cinematic or otherwise.
The choices, consequences and cinematics, along with the choice of a single voiced protagonist, have made the inclusion of on-going co-operative play a la Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights undesirable. Players don't want to be Hawke's nameless, mute sidekick as she/he is caught up in Kirkwall's strife. Same goes for playing Shepard's protege.
This means that whenever players cry "we want multiplayer", the only choice is for developers/designers to take the existing ruleset and shovel it into a standalone experience. Typically, BioWare's mechanics haven't been balanced for PvP, which means that's off the table. This means the only choice is a PvE experience, and given that it has to fit into budget contraints and timeframe of the single player game (which is the "main" drawcard), it will be small in scope by necessity. It's a single AAA title, and thus has the budget of one. Putting resources into one takes away resources that would be used for the other. That's simple business.
Yes, you can say "but ME3's MP was done by a different team", but it won't change the facts. A game sells for a set price. The money put into any given game will have a set budget because it needs to sell enough copies to turn a profit. Resources/money put into one aspect (SP or MP)
will be taken out of the budget allocated to the title as a whole.
ME3's main sin with it's multiplayer is effectively requiring players to play multiplayer to achieve the game's "optimal" ending. I'm glad that DA's dev team recognise this, but that doesn't excuse the mistake of ME3.
The core problem is that a story driven cinematic single player experience and a "game-based" pure gameplay multiplayer experience don't fit well together. It's an attempt to get different player sets to buy one game, and is likely to not deliver sufficiently to either group. Yes, there is going to be some overlap in the audiences, but I know more than a few people that would have never touched ME3's multiplayer had they not needed it in order to get the best ending.
If the producers/publishers demand that multiplayer be included (and I only say that because of EA's policy that "every game will have multiplayer"), then sell it as a separate product for a substantially reduced price. Sure, piggyback on the engine and assets of the core game, but don't include as part of the same game. This will serve not to alienate fans of the single player experience, and let's be honest, when we're talking about BioWare, that is the core and dedicated audience.
Spend a little longer on making gameplay with a little more depth, and release an associated multiplayer game. Offer a voucher to people who bought the "core" game to reduce the price. So,
DA3 sells for $50-60.
DA3: Arena sells for $20, but $10 if you bought
DA3. A reward to players, if you will. People spend $20 on map packs for Call of Duty, so $10-20 for a multiplayer game (even one a little more shallow) would be fairly palatable for most people.
If such a multiplayer experience doesn't sell, then this either says:
a) This isn't a viable market, (i.e people buy BioWare games for story/narrative) or;
The product isn't good enough.
Shoehorning a conflicting multiplayer experience into a singleplayer game isn't satisfying for the consumer. Don't attempt to appeal to everyone with a single product by adding in popular gameplay elements from everywhere. If you do that... you end up with Darksiders. Its attempts to cater to everyone
detracted from the game rather than adding to it.
TLDRBioWare's cinematic singleplayer and isolated multiplayer don't fit together.
Sell multiplayer as a separate product for a reduced price ($10-20), preferably with a price reduction for those who bought the single player game.
Modifié par AmstradHero, 10 juin 2012 - 09:17 .
Otherwise why would I play them?
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