In July I wrote an article about why co-op gaming would rule 2011. Tastefully restrained title, no? An alternative might have been that story-driven (or at least story-heavy) multiplayer would rule 2011. A remarkable number of remarkably different developers have invested in the idea, with varying degrees of success.
On the face of it, attempting to tell a story via your multiplayer component is a terrible idea. Gamers are different people on and offline. In single player we're prepared to sit through unvarnished exposition, pick over suggestive environmental furniture, press NPCs for context and generally do our utmost to flesh out the breadcrumb trail. In multiplayer, however, we become pushy and irascible.
Evocative terrain dynamics that delight us offline are now a pad-throwing hindrance. Atmospheric tricks of the light become liabilities, cheating us of accuracy, and organically disordered interiors set our teeth on edge, obliging us to watch where we're going instead of watching for enemies.
Accordingly, implementing story in a multiplayer environment takes extra-special care. Crytek UK's Steven Lewis, multiplayer designer on the acclaimed Crysis 2, has seen what happens when things go wrong; speaking to OXM at the Develop Conference in Brighton this summer, he recounted how the saturation of the game's maps with incidental detail upset many players.
"I think the way we did it, we overdid the clutter and storytelling. I think if we'd localised the clutter to smaller areas, tried to keep more areas open, it wouldn't have been as bad as it was. On some of the maps, there's literally clutter everywhere. So it did harm navigation in that way."
There's a thin line between giving a map personality and taking players out of the zone, Lewis explained. "The way some other games do it is they allude to the wider universe, they have the occasional broken wall for example. But not a lot of it spills over into the gameplay, and that's probably a sensible approach to take."
Halo 3's Sandtrap map is overseen by a mysterious UNSC vessel, the Aegis Fate, a murky outline dwarfing the Scorpions and Wraiths below. It's a mark of how powerful such a feature can be that certain Forge users have devoted their evenings to breaking the map's boundaries, exploiting grenades, mines and level customisation tools in order to venture up to the ship and walk across its hallowed surface.
7 comments so far...
Bezza89 on 1 Dec '11 said:
When playing BF3 I sometimes think there's a story in each map. In rush especially, where it's crucial to defend/attack M-Coms otherwise you've lost the war, or the hunting jets above retaliation for eliminating the sneaky bastard squad who drove a spawn truck into your base. I'm not putting plot in, but I definitely pretend there's an ulterior motive. Maybe I just need help.
Much like how in Skyrim odd things are explained away as peculiar behaviour. That dragon obviously doesn't like my companion, he's concentrating on him rather than me, he is kind of annoying. And kind of elfish.
comabob on 1 Dec '11 said:
Call of Jaurez Bound in blood had some awesome MP modes that managed to tell a self contained story with each match you played.
So does Red Dead
CunningSmile on 1 Dec '11 said:
I think the only way to tell a story in MP is the one way you didn't touch on: Remove competition.
If you have a competative MP, and this is where Brink seems to have fallen down, then all anyone cares about (conditioned as they are by CoD) is Kill to Death ratios. It becomes a competition and any plot ends up ignored as plot points are either ignored or talked over by people boasting.
In Co-op MP everything is driven by story, or you have no reason to play. It also helps to limit the number of players. The most successfully done in recent years (at least for me) was Splinter Cell Conviction's excellent two player co-op. It had a really strong story, good characters and left you with no reason to go haring off and lone wolf it. If you didn't both progress neither of you progressed and so you worked together. The fact there were only two of you meant you could tell each other to shout up if a plot point came up and made it much easier to arrange to meet up so that neither of you missed chunks of story because the rest of the team could make it and you couldn't.
Joe90_Remy700 on 1 Dec '11 said:
the best co-op are in operation flashpoint (both) and tom clancy's graw and rainbow 6's. haven't tried red dead co-op yet. most missions in bf3's co-op need really good communication and co-ordination(drop em like liquid above all)
i would like to see alot more co-op games, a few friends and i that go get these older games for the co-op really enjoy it, moreso than most multiplayers
CPT Random 82 on 2 Dec '11 said:
I was so looking forward to Brink and got it day of release. I tried so hard to enjoy it only to be massively frustrated and in some scenarios without an elite squaqd behind you, failure was always the outcome.
It had so much potential but the testing element was obviously floored. In terms of telling a story during multiplayer mode, it was pretty much there. Let's not forget Borderlands though!
Funkcase on 2 Dec '11 said:
I actually think 2011 has been best for singleplayer with games like The Witcher 2, Batman arkham city, Skyrim and Deus Ex: Human revolution all being remarkable games that came out this year.
I think ME3 will be one of my favourite games of all time (if not my favourite) I love the ME series, but I dont think the co-cop will be anything really good or substancial from what I've seen, it seems it's more a gimick to appeal to the multiplayer crowd. Although tbh I hope it isn't anything substancial, I care about the singleplayer and hope they put more towards that and not so much on multiplayer, afterall it's just basic survival mode really.
OXM ETboy on 3 Dec '11 said:
Good point, though I think the problem is less competition per se as competing to kill one another. When you're fighting for survival, it's hard to think about anything else.