hw

Yes, it's a poll. Many apologies to those who hate them, but it is an easy way to measure peoples preferences.What forced me to post this is the recent release of Call of Duty 4. More specifically the insulting amount of single player time dedicated to its devoted fans. The most people could expect is 4-6 hours!!? This amazed and infuriated me. Seems that this is the way things are going for single player games. For $50-60 for this game, you would think that they would really give something back to the fans that supported the series.Now, another thing that infuriates me is the reviewers of games are rating games extremely high even though the single player is incredibly lacking using excuses like "the solid Multiplayer makes up for the lacking single player".. ARGH! So annoying! BUT.. and here's the crunch, games with solid single player but weaker multiplayer suffer in reviews. Why? Is multiplayer so important now? Why is multiplayer the way to go? Is it about the money? the subscription fees some of them are charging?The problem , and Hellgate London seems to be a good example, is that programmers are so busy trying to make games fit into both single and multi categories they usually end up making both worse. Whereas if they had dedicated themselves to a single task, then maybe it would have developed into a much better game. Sometimes I think I would prefer dedicated seperate Single Player and Multiplayer games from dedicated seperate software manufacturers.Anyways, just curious to hear what you have to say and see what your preferences are.Multi for replay value
Single Player experiences are downloadable.
mostly multiplayer games, but there have been some great single-player games that I've enjoyed, like TES4: Oblivion

eh. I chose Single Player and Multiplayer.If its a Blizzard game then for the multiplayer.If its a racing game then mostly for the single player.With me it just all depends on the game.

Doesn't it get boring? I mean, it seems to me that nearly all multiplayers are all about killing the other player.Now, I don't mean MMO's like Everquest or WoW. Those games are more engrossing and long-term friendship based RPG's. When I mean multiplayer, I mean the part of the game that is recently released as a one-off or similar. I think they're more along the lines of "Live" multi's.
With me it just all depends on the game. Of course, but what you said actually made my point heh. See, you've described categories/products that define your choice of play preference, and that is exactly what I am trying to distinguish. My point is that ALL games coming out recently have a multiplayer element.. it seems manditory now whether or not people want it.

Absolutely. Plus games like Half-life and so on, which are fantastic and leave single players wishing for more. But even with all these amazing games coming out, it's been disheartening to see them move away from single player. Games like half-life have a story and involves the player, as if reading a book and getting engrossed.Multiplayer as it is now... is not just killing things, it's about killing things with seemingly immature strangers.. yay..
$50 for 10 hours of playtime versus $50 for hundreds of hours of playtime. tough choice...think about orange box; we all played Ep2 once, maybe twice through at ~5hrs each, plus portal at another 5 hours, while TF2 has gotten over 40 hours of playtime by me since release and im on a limited playtime availability right now. (you can check steam to show playtime for games)

Single Player for mods (See Doom and Elder Scrolls series for good examples)

Single player mostly, multiplayer usually comes after I finish the game so I can continue playing it for fun. Multiplayer keeps a game fun where as no multiplayer component at all drastically reduces the amount of time spent playing the game

When I play Half-Life 2's single-player adventure, I don't hear one of the downed Civil Protection units screaming at me in a 12-year-old's voice how I'm such a hacker and how he's going to get his friends to hack my computer and wipe my "memory drive". I do play multiplayer games sometimes, primarily those MEANT for it (i.e. MMORPGs, MUDs, etc). I used to play a bit of Counter-Strike: Source but found that, even on the excellent server I played on regularly, there was just too much irritation.Single-player games tell a story. Single-player games with Mods available tell a LOT of stories. With multiplayer, I find the primary narrative to be "Is this guy hacking?".


As we design our first game we've been forced to look at the differences between how a single player game is played compared to a multiplayer (PvP) one. The goals of the player are often opposing, the rewards for playing are different, and how the player deals with setbacks is different. Since we are building a single player tactics game now but will later be expanding on it to deliver a multiplayer, PvP version this means we have to walk a difficult tightrope. We want the single player game to work and we want the gameplay to transition later on.
The Single Player Tactical Game
Our short term goal is to build a simple tactical turn-based game where you start with a team of rookies, and fight battles against the computer to progress. You can earn new skills for your units, and money to expand the team or buy better equipment in between battles. We also want to keep it as simple as possible so we can get a fully working game published and 'done'.
The Persistent PvP Tactical Game
Our long term goal is to build an exciting PvP tactics game with persistent units. Again you take control of a gang of recruits, poorly equipped and unskilled to begin with. The only way to advance your units is to take on other human players in tactical turn-based battles. As you win (or lose) games your units will gain skills and you will gain money to recruit more units or buy nicer toys for your existing ones.
Different Design Goals
Why is it so hard to make a game 'system' that will work well for both audiences? In both cases you need to keep individual battles tactical, fun, and challenging; you also want the longer term team-building in between battles to have depth and keep the player interested and wanting to play another battle.
In the single player game each battle is basically a puzzle: a tactical challenge where a clever player can easily outwit the computer AI. The difficulty level is ramped up by giving the computer more and more of an advantage in later battles, be that more units, better units or other ingame factors. The player is generally able to save & load their game, so if things go awfully wrong and they lose several units in one turn they will just load and try things a different way. You really want to avoid this: you want a game that can be played without constantly saving & reloading in case of mistakes, which effectively removes the challenge. Gregory Weir recently published an excellent column on failure, difficulty, and punishment in games that touches on this; worth a read.
This means removing (or minimising) some of the key things that have the opposite effect in a PvP environment. You need to make the game more arcadey and forgiving, and less nailbiting and random. For example, in the PvP game system when you take out a unit in battle there should be a small chance of permanent damage, be it death or some sort of crippling injury. In a PvP environment this is great fun! You have the fun factor of occasionally wrecking your opponent's best units while even if you are winning a battle you could lose a much-loved and skilled up unit at any time. Add in a community around the battles (like a forum) and you can mock & gloat, or vow revenge! This also only works in a PvP game as there is no mid-battle saving and loading; everything that happens is final.
Another thing that works well in a PvP tactics game but would only lead to frustration in the single player version is randomness. If you are playing against a human player and gain the upper hand in a game without any randomness you have effectively won the battle. It may take a while, but as long as neither player makes any tactical mistakes the game is going to go your way in the end. This makes it no fun for the losing player who is nevertheless forced to play out the game.

Weewar: blue has just ensured victory but the game goes on
A perfect example of this is Weewar, a fun web-based multiplayer clone of the Battle Isle series of games, which unfortunately suffers from this problem. Add in randomness (or at least a way to hide your units and surprise your opponent) and it's worthwhile for the losing player to play on; through either good luck or great skill they may be able to turn the battle around!
Our Approach
What we're going to do is go for a slightly more arcadey system for the single player game, and then add things like randomness and permanent unit removal into the mix when we develop the PvP game. One way of helping people transition between the rulesets would be to have an unlockable 'hardcore' mode available once you beat the single player game; this would enable permanent unit death and disable in-battle saving. Naturally it would be much harder (and more frustrating) – but you would only be playing it if you really like the game and it would both give the game replayability and let players get used to some of the ideas we want in the PvP version.