258 réponses à ce sujet

[Killian Kalthorne]

I rather have a solidly built single player CRPG than a game that tries to do everything and does everything rather poorly. NWN1 was Bioware's worse game.

[BlarkW]

Killian Kalthorne wrote...

I rather have a solidly built single player CRPG than a game that tries to do everything and does everything rather poorly. NWN1 was Bioware's worse game.

You say it's the worse game but is yet still around today and played by many. I love the MP side of it and even played the OC and all the expansions many times over. Though it's a difference of opinion obviously and a debate that could last a very long time. Though it is the only game that I know that is still going some what strong. It must be selling copies still as some stores are still stocking it as well.

Modifié par BlarkW, 25 novembre 2009 - 09:03 .

[LunaEclipse17173]

AndarianTD wrote...

You write as though the largest and most dynamic segment of the modding community for NWN and NWN2 -- the SP developers -- didn't even exist. I've commented on this before and I still don't get it. Let the community make MP worlds with a separate MP client (not a bad idea), and let Bioware make fun single player adventures? Don't you folks know about the hundreds upon hundreds of quality SP mods developed by the community for NWN and NWN2?

I'm also surprised at what seems to me to be a lack of awareness of Bioware's strategy to promote community modding for Dragon Age. Haven't you all heard about the resources that Bioware has invested in making available to community SP modders the most sophisticated adventure-building toolkit ever seen? If you haven't, you might want to check out the Gamespy articles featuring the toolset and the "Builder's Event" that I and some others attended this summer:

I was not suggesting that there is not talented single player authors in the community, nor was I suggesting restrict single player to Bioware only, I was only suggesting that they make their campaigns single player only.  Sorry for any misunderstanding.  Those people that want to design Single Player campaigns should still be able to, and they should load in the original Single Player client.

[LunaEclipse17173]

Jokemeister wrote...

Just wanted to throw my 2c into the mix.

But before I get started, I really wanted to give a huge shout out to the (imho) excellent posts by Andarian TD.

Anyway, for myself, MP in RPG's like DAO don't add anything.  I know people in this thread talk about how great the MP in NWN is because of the DMed experience and I will admit that I have never experienced this.  However, I also know for a fact that I have no interest in this because of my lifestyle.

The fact is that I don't get as much gaming time as I would like (who does?).  Despite getting this game at launch, my first character has still to hit level 10.  I know for a fact that my work/life balance won't allow me to have an extended game session or to join a game session on a regular basis.  In terms of MP ala NWN, this means that I either:

a) only play in small modules which can be completed in less than 1-2 hours; or
only take part in the story on a sporadic basis (in which case, my character becomes a bit part player who only shows up when I have time while other players continue the campaign).

Neither option appeals to me.  The advantage of a strong SP campaign is that I can play through an epic campaign at my own pace and still feel like an important part of the story which, imo, is one of the reasons cRPGs became so popular in the first place.  If you are looking for a DMed experience, there is always PnP RPGS or, in the modern era, the use of other virtual tabletop software (although admittedly, this prob wouldn't give you the graphical polish of something like NWN or DAO).

Would I buy an RPG if it had both SP and MP?  Sure - but only if the SP campaign was worth the price of entry (this is one of the reasons that NWN remains the only BioWare RPG that I didn't buy*).

* Actually, I don't have the Sonic RPG either but considering that is only available on the DS, I'm not sure that including it is a valid comparison...

Well if Bioware went with my idea of making Multiplayer a completely seperate client, and continued to balance their OC's for single player only, you would continue to have stunning OC's.  The multiplayer client could be released as an Addon via DLC, those people that want to play DAO online on community created worlds would purchase the client, those that only want to play single player would not, that way, only those that are interested in multiplayer would actually be paying for multiplayer.

[Jokemeister]

LunaEclipse17173 wrote...

Well if Bioware went with my idea of making Multiplayer a completely seperate client, and continued to balance their OC's for single player only, you would continue to have stunning OC's.  The multiplayer client could be released as an Addon via DLC, those people that want to play DAO online on community created worlds would purchase the client, those that only want to play single player would not, that way, only those that are interested in multiplayer would actually be paying for multiplayer.

And as long as the single player OC is worth the money (to me), then I will buy the game.  The problem that BioWare faces is:

a) Devoting resources to MP may take resources away from SP leading to a reduction in quality of the single player campaign.
As Andarian pointed out in his posts, design decisions for MP and SP may contradict leading to either poorly designed MP, poorly designed SP or both being poorly designed.

If BioWare can't manage these risks (and for all I know, it may not be possible to reconcile point , then they risk having a poor SP OC which means that I won't buy the game.  Having a separate MP client may not solve the inherent contradiction in point unless the MP and SP client are developed completely separately.  However, in this case, it seems that the MP client is just a completely different game set in the same world.

Ultimately, I have no objection to BioWare putting development time into MP.  Its their business and its up to them to understand their target audience and allocate their resources accordingly.  Its just important for people to realise that myself, and others like me, aren't part of the target audience that will get value from MP.  As other people said, it doesn't matter how little or how much time BioWare put into developing MP as it is likely that none of that time will add value to the game for me.

Edit - It should be obvious that there is also a risk that the MP will be poor on the basis that the design of the game engine is optimised for SP.  Think of all the complaints that BioWare would receive, and rightly so, if they released a half-baked MP client.

Modifié par Jokemeister, 27 novembre 2009 - 05:25 .

[Suron]

at first thought it sounds awesome to have co-op.



after THINKING about it? not so much...one of you would HAVE to be the protagonist...you'd have to stick together...have to wait for each other to finish listening/watching cutscenes...one of you would have NO control over dialogue options.



do any of you actually think about this? MP in DA's campaign would be terrible...



now some kind of dungeon crawl type deal or something..maybe..but..c'mon...do you really wanna just sit and watch someone make all the dialogue choices and only get to control a character in a meaningful way only in fights? c'mon now

[ne12o]

Maufurtado wrote...

There are many games that would gain with Mulitplayer mode. DAO isn't one of them. In my mind, a good multiplayer game invest little in background story in comparison to a game only made for single player. As ever, if a player prefers a multiplalyer game, DAO isn't for him.

Anything else is merely a repetition of tons and tons of the threads that came for this one.

ummm, no
people are going to purchase the game when their utility derived from the game is higher or equal to its cost (and in a world of budjet constraints also to the utility of other goods). People are simply discussing that they would derive even more utility from the game if it had MP.

Jokemeister wrote...
a) Devoting resources to MP may take resources away from SP leading to a reduction in quality of the single player campaign.

And this is irrevelant, since you are going to purchase the game if your utility from doing so is greater than its cost. Even if your utility decreased from it having MP included, as long as it still remains above its cost you will make the purchase. That notion is irrevelant to the buyer... since you aren't losing anything (if you wish to think logically).

Modifié par ne12o, 27 novembre 2009 - 05:45 .

[AndarianTD]

Suron: that's how a lot of story-oriented modules that that were designed in NWN for both SP and MP play were done -- with one party member playing the protagonist and the others kind of "along for the ride." It's not a format that lends itself easily or well to the kind of plot-driven interactive storytelling that Bioware is obviously aiming at with its games. I'm sure that was one of the reasons driving them to an SP design.

[Jokemeister]

ne12o wrote...

Jokemeister wrote...
a) Devoting resources to MP may take resources away from SP leading to a reduction in quality of the single player campaign.

And this is irrevelant, since you are going to purchase the game if your utility from doing so is greater than its cost. Even if your utility decreased from it having MP included, as long as it still remains above its cost you will make the purchase. That notion is irrevelant to the buyer... since you aren't losing anything (if you wish to think logically).

It is relevant. 

What I am trying to point out is that the reduction in quality of the SP campaign, as a result of splitting development time between SP and MP, may result in the quality of the SP campaign being reduced to the point where I no longer want to buy the game.  If you refer to my original post in this thread, you will recall that a poor SP campaign (or at least, that was what I heard - I have never actually played it) was one of the reasons that I didn't buy NWN.

And this is the challenge which BioWare faces - making sure that they put enough development time into the game so that both SP and MP are done well.  The reality is that they have a limited amount of resources that they can pump into the development of this game and they need to decide where to allocate those resources.  It goes without saying that the amount of money they put into developing the game in total is going to be influenced by the amount of revenue they can expect to get. 

And this is without even considering whether it is possible to do both SP and MP well considering they have different design philosophies.

[Domi-kuin]

It's very easy for them to of made dragon age: origins into a MP game aswell as a SP game.
'
The total mechanics for it, is right there in the game, which is why it's such a surprise that the game doesn't offer MP. If you know anything about coding, you'd of known this.

The only thing that would happen would be, that the 2nd player would have to be just a side-quest character. As so far, there's never been a fully co-op made game, where each person has equal input.

Modifié par Domi-kuin, 27 novembre 2009 - 08:28 .

[Jokemeister]

double post - sorry

Modifié par Jokemeister, 27 novembre 2009 - 09:37 .

[Jokemeister]

Domi-kuin wrote...

It's very easy for them to of made dragon age: origins into a MP game aswell as a SP game.
'
The total mechanics for it, is right there in the game, which is why it's such a surprise that the game doesn't offer MP. If you know anything about coding, you'd of known this.

The only thing that would happen would be, that the 2nd player would have to be just a side-quest character. As so far, there's never been a fully co-op made game, where each person has equal input.

No comment on how easy it is to implement as I have no experience with coding.  However, your suggestion re the 2nd player sounds like what they did with the old BG games.  However, iirc (and I'm too lazy to look back and check), several people have already stated that this would not be a good way to implement MP as they wouldn't want to sit around and wait while the 1st player slowly goes through the enormous amount of dialogue which exists in this game (and thats assuming they don't read the Codex until after the MP session is over). 

Although, to be fair, I have to admit that several people have also said that even this kind of MP would satisfy them (or that it is better than no MP at all).

[AndarianTD]

Domi-kuin wrote...

It's very easy for them to of made dragon age: origins into a MP game aswell as a SP game.
'
The total mechanics for it, is right there in the game, which is why it's such a surprise that the game doesn't offer MP. If you know anything about coding, you'd of known this.

Is that so? Well, let's hear your evidence for that claim, then. I do know something about coding, my first Master's degree was in Computer Graphics, and I used to build networked 3D Virtual Reality simulations, so please feel free to be specific.

The only thing that would happen would be, that the 2nd player would have to be just a side-quest character.

What exactly is a "side-quest character?" Do you mean a companion?

Of course it "could be done," otherwise Neverwinter Nights couldn't have done it. But that doesn't mean that (a) they wouldn't have had to sacrifice game performance to do it,  and ( they wouldn't have had to divert substantial resources from the SP development process to supporting MP. Among other things, to support MP, you have to write, code, test, and maintain a whole set of different API functions in the scripting interface. If you want to build a NWN SP module, you often have to use functions that are designed to iterate over multiple players. That baggage and overhead isn't there anymore in DA (for example, "GetHero()" replaces "GetFirstPC()" and the "GetNextPC()" iterator).

Modifié par AndarianTD, 27 novembre 2009 - 01:14 .

[LovelyMover]

As far as I remeber it, the MP options in NWN simply allowed access to players server lists on which they'd created their own worlds, didn't have a great deal to do with programming, people created their own maps & quests etc then people logged on & played. I don't think there was much else to it. Some of those servers are still running with people playing on them. The toolkits available now mean people are already creating mods that others can download & play, it doesn't seem it would be a massive leap to enable the same MP options available in NWN for DA.



The thing about this is that it gave NWN a lifespan that far exceeded the potential of the single player game. Additionally its a great sales tool, when NWN2 came out, it was introduced on servers for the new goodies in it, monsters, weapon sets, spells etc. I don't think I even played the sp game of NWN2, just got it so I could continue on the mp server.

[AndarianTD]

LovelyMover wrote...

As far as I remeber it, the MP options in NWN simply allowed access to players server lists on which they'd created their own worlds, didn't have a great deal to do with programming...

No. There are functions in the scripting API that are designed for (and don't make sense outside the context of) handling multiple players. You have to design and script an adventure differently if there's only one player vs. if there are going to be multiple players in party. And that's leaving aside the programming model required to build an engine that updates game state from network traffic.

The thing about this is that it gave NWN a lifespan that far exceeded the potential of the single player game.

*Sigh*. How many times am I going to have to repeat myself on this thread to correct this misinformation?

I'll agree that MP did contribute to extending the lifespan of NWN, but it was neither the only nor do I think it was the major factor that did so. The lifespan of NWN was extended primarily by SP gamers building, downloading and playing mostly SP modules developed using the toolset. Thousands of them were uploaded to the NWN Vault, giving NWN players a nearly endless supply of SP games using the NWN engine.
 
I've seen too many MP aficianados come to this thread and try to say that "MP gave NWN it's long lifespan," while conveniently failing to mention the huge role played by the SP modding community in doing precisely that. I'm sorry to be blunt, folks, but that's neither fair nor true.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2009 - 12:17 .

[Aidunno]

But that doesn't mean that (a) they wouldn't have had to sacrifice game performance to do it,  and ( they wouldn't have had to divert substantial resources from the SP development process to supporting MP

Also a coder although not in a gamng environment and I know it takes a lot more work for multiplayer. Consider Joe Blogs running on a minimum spec PC with dial up modem (I know extreme but they do exist). Then you have Jane Doe running a top of the range machine with very fast internet connection, both are playing "together". At the very least these two people need to be syncronized. This is not a "turn based" game so this can lead to problems. Then you need to consider what happens when people "disconnect" by accident or intentionally. What about hacking/cheating and all those things which the majority of new players expect to be controlled by the maker, not the creators of mods etc.

To sum up there are lots of considerations to take into account of  and the ones I listed above are simply onces which I came up with in less than a minutes thought.

[xguild]

Snoteye wrote...

I sincerely doubt there will ever be multiplayer in DA:O. I hope there will not by multiplayer in any of its successors.

I can promise you that a multiplayer version of Dragons Age is immenant, it wouldn't suprise me if it was already in development.

It is a very consistant standard that any game, if its successful and has a following becoming itself a franchise recieves a multiplayer component.  I wouldn't be suprised at all if in five years from now we are talking about Dragons Age Online (MMO).

EDIT:  What you won't see is a re-development or added component to this game as already mentioned adding a multiplayer component to a single player engine is so difficult, it would take less time if they started over from scratch and build a new engine then it would to try and implemented into an existing enviroment.

Sometimes it helps to have real world examples.  Adding a multiplayer component to Dragons Age would be like trying to add an extra floor in the middle of a high rise building.

Modifié par xguild, 03 décembre 2009 - 02:42 .

[AndarianTD]

Aidunno wrote...

Also a coder although not in a gamng environment and I know it takes a lot more work for multiplayer...

To sum up there are lots of considerations to take into account of  and the ones I listed above are simply onces which I came up with in less than a minutes thought.

That's right. As I said I used to build networked real-time VR simulations, which were for all practical purposes "serious" 3D games. And sometimes I just have to shake my head in wonder at how simple people who've never done this seem to think that it must be.

To give just one example of the complications that come up in a networked environment where you have to deal with lag, try looking up the term "dead reckoning" as it applies to gaming. What do you do if you're playing MP with someone else, and your client doesn't get a state update from their system for ten seconds? Do you just make their character stop dead and stand there? Do you use their last known state to project an approximation of their movement? How accurate do you try to make that approximation, how complex an algorithm do you try to use, and how much compute power do you allow for it? What do you do when you finally get that state update and find out that your approximation is way off because the character turned a sharp right just after the last update?

All of those algorithms have to be built into a system that handles MP. I don't know the details of how the NWN and DA engines were coded, but I've clearly seen dead reckoning blips in NWN, even playing in SP. That suggests to me that dead reckoning is built into the NWN rendering engine itself, and shows up even when the SP client becomes overloaded. By contrast, I haven't seen a single DR correction so far in playing DA.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2009 - 02:55 .

[AndarianTD]

xguild wrote...

EDIT:  What you won't see is a re-development or added component to this game as already mentioned adding a multiplayer component to a single player engine is so difficult, it would take less time if they started over from scratch and build a new engine then it would to try and implemented into an existing enviroment.

If there's sufficient demand for a separate MP client/engine for DA, then Bioware may decide to build it. That's really up to them, based on their market research. I wouldn't mind seeing it (as long as it was a separate engine), although I'd rarely to never use it myself.

Sometimes it helps to have real world examples.  Adding a multiplayer component to Dragons Age would be like trying to add an extra floor in the middle of a high rise building.

I like that analogy.

[LovelyMover]

AndarianTD wrote...

That's right. As I said I used to build networked real-time VR simulations, which were for all practical purposes "serious" 3D games. And sometimes I just have to shake my head in wonder at how simple people who've never done this seem to think that it must be.

Maybe they just figured if you could do it, how hard could it be  

Dismissing MP as adding to a games logevity, and then saying it was really the SP mods that was the reason is a little like saying "your wrong because I'm right"  there's no basis behind it other than your opnion differing with mine.

[Ghandorian]

I think BioWare made a choice with DAO and SWTOR.



I have a feeling they decided to make games at polar opposites. SP only and mmo only. That way they could concentrate on giving the highest quality they can on both. swtor is a story driven rp game set in the Starwars universe. It also happens to be a mmo. DAO is a story driven rp game set in a totally new ip that happens not to have MP support.



It seems a logical choice to me. Design games focused on MP and SP. the stuff in the middle was not paying well enough from what BioWare had to say about it.

[AndarianTD]

LovelyMover wrote...

Dismissing MP as adding to a games logevity...

Perhaps you should try to read my remarks more carefully. I wrote:

AndarianTD wrote...

I'll agree that MP did contribute to extending the lifespan of NWN, but it was neither the only nor do I think it was the major factor that did so.

That is NOT "dismissing MP as adding to a game's longevity."

...and then saying it was really the SP mods that was the reason is a little like saying "your wrong because I'm right"  there's no basis behind it other than your opnion differing with mine.

For the record there's plenty of basis for saying that. It includes the market research that Challseus cited on the previous page, as well as my own experience as Chairman of the Academy for Modding Excellence. We had to give up trying to do even ONE Multiplayer Module Golden Dragon Award for NWN and NWN2 because of a lack of members from the community willing to participate. By contrast we gave out GDAs in four SP module categories.
 
Then there's Bioware's decision to build DA as an SP game with such an extensive toolset. I participated in Bioware's "Builder Event" this summer, and they explained that part of their reason for putting as many resources as they have into the DA toolset was because of their recognition of how a robust modding community helped extend the life of NWN, and how it could do even more for DA with the right support ("give it a long tail," I think was the jargon).  

I could go on, but I'm not sure I see the point (and especially not if you won't read my remarks accurately before responding to them). I'm not trying to dismiss the MP community; I'm just getting a little tired of seeing some MP boosters trying to dismiss the SP community.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 décembre 2009 - 06:05 .

[Lord Mephisto]

It's all about the King Haakons...

[Aidunno]

Can we please make a distinction.. Multiplayer DragonAge Origins.. or Multiplayer Engine for modders etc in a "Dragon Age" world setting.



I for one am pleased DragonAge Origins is single player. Best purchase I have made in years. Fed up with games adding multiplayer at the expense of single players (4 hr single player campaign for instance). Saying that I have no objection to a multiplayer engine for people. Just don't expect me to buy it unless it's worth it for single players as well without needing modders to provide content.

[sirchet]

Myself, I want the best of both worlds.



I would like to experience a full single player game, with as many expansions as possible and still have the ability to produce fan made on-line worlds.



This exact thing is what I find so endearing about NWN2, I get a full single player that I can play however I want, (mod the crap out of it) AND I get access to multiple Persistent Worlds made by fans, for when I crave fellow player interaction.



I'm not sure if this will ever happen with DA:O, but I sure would like if it did.