It’s iLL Panel time again! If you’re not sure what the iLL Panel is, quoting from our last feature in the series:
The iLL Panel is a series where the iLL Gaming staff pick their brains over topics related to the game industry. Given the nature of our staff, it can end up being either a mosh pit of fanboy nerdgasms or a bitter fight usually accompanied with death threats and all-out war (ok, maybe we’re not that extreme).
Multiplayer gaming as we know it is not the same as it was, say five years ago. Always Online, DRM, seamless gameplay are just a few elements that bombard the video games of today. Not to mention, with the PS4 and Xbox One and their (optional) always online requirement, games are adapting to this framework. It’s working out for some, but for most it isn’t. In this week’s iLL Panel, we brainstorm about the current state of multiplayer in video games, where it is coming from and where it is heading to. And whether you should care for it or not. You can’t ignore it, almost every game has an online component within, that comes without saying.
So with the entire iLLStaff raring to go, the panel commences. Chirantan breaks the ice with the mention of having a new broadband plan that gives him a 10 min boost speed of 100mbps. Because that’s how soon he will exhaust the 10GB FUP cap. This could end up in a rant about the awful state of internet connectivity in India, but that’s not what this panel’s about.
Done with our initial gibberisms and off the record banter, we sway into the matter of subject, online and multiplayer gaming. Chirantan mentions how multiplayer is creeping into single player games just for the sake of it, be it in the form of co-op missions or just plain old deathmatches. Sahil quickly points out that that is not a bad thing necessarily, some single player games have been enriched by their multiplayer components. They’re still a mere addition though, nothing really game-defining.
Tathagata, who reviewed and is currently hooked to Destiny begins his pitch about how the game is a great example of seamless online integrated into single player. Anikait adds that the single player campaign in Destiny is a cumbersome experience. Chirantan takes a dig at how Call of Duty is hanging on its 10 year old multiplayer formula.
Just as we were about to drift away from the topic, Chirantan pops in the question of what constitutes a “traditional multiplayer” game and what is its current state. Traditional multiplayers are games like Counter Strike, Quake, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Dota, LoL, Halo etc which focus more on the multiplayer with the single player component non existent oor as some padding barrin a few exceptions. They’re the kind of games where you wait in Lobbies to look for opponents. Most games classified as ‘e-sports’ come under Traditional multiplayer games. There ss a player cap to these games that differentiates them from MMOs. Ajay gets metaphysical, “Any game that solely relies on multiplayer is a game with an expiration date. There have been instances where if your game focuses too much on players and does not have the database it may die out.” He cites Gun Monkeys as an example, which had to distribute free keys so that the people who purchased the game could find other players online to play the game with.
Ajay adds his basic perspective of a multiplayer game: “For me mutiplayer will always mean playing two player Contra or splitscreen racing, like in the good ol’ days.” Chirantan gets cute by adding that it gives a reason for the compulsive pirates to buy a game. It’s kind of true, multiplayer gaming does reduce the element of piracy especially if the game. Speaking about Contra, and how in the good old Nintendo days there was a huge presence of sidescrolling co-op games, Sahil mentions how co-op and multiplayer has totally been removed in the sidescrolling games of today (Spelunky, Gun Monkeys etc.)
“Bullying my friends, showing how good I am” is what Tathagata replies to the question of “What is traditional multiplayer?” He says that with a mention of Unreal Tournament 1999 GOTY Edition. Chirantan rues that Multiplayer in FPS games seems to have more or less stagnated thanks to annualisation of popular franchises.
All of us head into a discussion of how FPS shooters were always being re-defined by new games, but such is not the case now. Anikait is weary of the situation, claiming that he doesn’t believe that the saturated FPS segment will ever be impacted by a future game. Chirantan lends some optimism with a simple reply, “Of course it can.”
Sahil, Tathagata and Ajay all agree that Dark Souls is a great example of single player and multiplayer gameplay done right. Sahil points out how in the Dark Souls menu there is no Single Player or Multiplayer option, one just has “Start Game”. Dark Souls does not differentiate multiplayer from single player, and that’s what makes it special in both aspects.
We touch base with splitscreen gaming, which Anikait announces is dead now on the PC. Sahil mentions how he enjoyed playing Need For Speed 2 split screen. Ajay says that splitscreen (couch co-op) translated into Wii, PS Move and Xbox Kinect. Sure, we still have splitscreen shooters, like Halo and Call of Duty, but that’s only for consoles. There is the customary cheeky porn reference with someone wondering what it would be like to bring seamless multiplayer to Eroge games.
The discussion shifts to Co-op games which is a form of multiplayer too, but sans the competitive quotient. Names like Left 4 Dead, Gears of War, Splinter Cell get thrown in before Chirantan adds that Divinity: Original Sin has opened up the idea of co-op in the RPG genre. While competitive multiplayer is always popular among the masses, Co-op has it’s own audience who love the challenge of surviving together or just having fun with friends. Special mention is made of how Portal 2 induced you to play co-op by having a separate campaign for it. However, it can be annoying when you encounter griefers that ruin your game as Chirantan recounted in a horror tale of a Left 4 Dead 2 session gone wrong.
Multiplayer has become an added burden on the developers, thanks to the demands of the publishers. Being “Always Online” is being blatantly abused by publishers as a marketing term to sell their games while cleverly hiding the evil DRM underneath. The Souls franchise, namely Demon Souls and Dark Souls invented seamless multiplayer without even calling it that. Ajay points out how even Facebook games have a seamless component in them by having you spam all your contacts with assistance requests.
We move on to discussing more seamless online gameplay, since that is the sauce all publishers are willing to serve you (read: force down your throats) now. Destiny again crops up in the discussion, with Tathagata saying “the point of seamless offline online is to have as many random interactions as possible that reflect on YOUR story. Destiny does that.”
From here we move on to answer some existential questions. Ajay questions multiplayer games for not being life-long games. Once the servers of the game are dead due to players deserting it for other newer games, the game in question is dead. Sahil points out that in the case of an apocalypse, you won’t have multiplayer games because communication will shut down. You can still play your single player games though provided you prepared with a handy power source.
Chirantan dismisses Always Online, saying it has no longevity and cites a tragic ending, “Eventually the servers will be shut and then you can’t play even the single player game anymore.” Ajay says that when you buy an online game, you’re just renting the services till the game is available. Others agree that seamless multiplayer is an invitation to publishers to impose DRM in the game in the guise of providing a better gameplay experience.
“They want to milk games.”
“Everybody wants to milk everything these days.”
Everybody comes to the conclusion that publishers don’t really need the multi-million dollar budgets they sanction for their games to make a good game. On the other hand, there are multiplayer mods like Just Cause 2 MP and DayZ that breathed new life into their base games that are released for free. Tomb Raider (2013) had tacked on multiplayer just for the sake of it that died quickly enough as is the way with these things. As Tathagata puts it, “That is the worst multiplayer I’ve ever seen in a game. Most depleted and sad online maps ever created.” Chirantan observes that multiplayer components of games (barring popular franchises) tend to die out faster on the consoles than on PC. While it may seem the Gaming Industry is deciding on a particular direction for the future of miultiplayer games, as Kickstarter has shown us, there will always exist niche audiences who crave the traditional experience. And they are willing to get the game they wwant made for them.
Chirantan points out that there are one track gamers out there who love the minor variations and relative unpredictability of multiplayer. Not all are connoisseurs who desire to partake in all the various flavours that gaming offers. Many gamers who play Dota know nothing outside Dota, the same can be said for hard core fans of LoL, Counter Strike, Call of Duty and Halo.
We end the panel with personal preferences as regards multiplayer. MMO isn’t a topic we intended to cover here, so it remains largely ignored. Chirantan and Ajay prefer Single Player and Co-op over competitive multiplayer. Anikait, Tathagata and Shail however like to get a healthy does of multiplayer in their gaming. Dota 2 has Sahil hooked, tathagata will gush over semless mp in games like the Souls series and Destiny, while Anikait is bonkers over Halo. That’s it for this panel. Tell us what sort of MP you prefer, and whether you support the direction the industry is taking in the comments below.
