This doesn't make a good game
This thought came upon me when I just got done beating Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (which for some reason the last missions is 15x harder than any other mission in the game).
I am sitting on the train, quick saving and reloading constantly after I make wrong move after wrong move and send my squadron of bombers and groups of tanks to their demise. After many restarts and mild tantrums later I finally manage to beat the mission.
So I am sitting on the train in anticipation, waiting through the ending and the credits to see what great mode or object I might have unlocked. My reward for winning? Calder. That’s all there was.
I was confused for a moment. "Didn't the other Advance Wars have a hard mode?" I thought. Shouldn't there also be more CO's in the game? So since I beat the game I looked online and saw that the game had none of these. So I was a bit pissed of course to realize that I pretty much have no reason to play the game now except to beat the training missions to get no rewards except to boast to others saying that I have done so.
I brought these points up to my friend and told him how disappointed I was with Days of Ruin and he responded with "Well it's probably because they added online play".
Which finally brings me to the point of my post: Online play should not be a reason to leave out single player content in a game. The last Advance Wars DS had me playing for years with the ability to earn exp for your favorite CO and assign skills. Also, by giving me the ability to play the campaign on hard it made earning the various medals a whole lot easier. Now if I want to earn medals I have to play free maps and the same campaign over and that seems to be the only reason to pick up Days of Ruin again unless you want to play online.
Hellgate: London to me also seemed to fall under this category. I pre-ordered this game expecting to get a great Diablo-like single player experience. What do I receive in return? Bland story with no voice acting or good cut scenes and somewhat broken game mechanics. Eventually patches would come out but to my surprised the majority of them were geared to the online play. More content and extra gear and special dye kits if you were to play the online experience. And if you pay monthly you get better maps and all other sorts of goods.
Why? Why should those who just wanted to play the game for the grind get rewarded online while the single player community gets shafted? If this was their intention they should have just released it as a MMORPG that has a optional monthly fee.
I've seen many other games over the years that seem to use this same philosophy as well. Companies and developers seem to sacrifice features for the main game just so that the multiplayer experience can exist or for the online to be a better experience.
Although I haven't agreed with Bethesda recently on how they handled Oblivion and how Fallout 3 is looking, I respect how they say no to online/multiplayer play so that they can concentrate fully on the main game. I wish more companies would take a cue for Bethesda or just put forth the effort to make a complete game and not just skimp on some features so that they can tout an online play.
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I've never really seen the appeal in online multiplayer, but that has always been the way I felt. I'm not competitive enough to give the online in a game more than a few go's.
Single player has always been the main draw for me when purchasing a game. I've noticed a serious decline in a games single player offering because of this over the years. My whole philosophy is that developers should focus on one thing until it is near perfect (single player or multiplayer for example) and only move on to other things if time allows.
Take a look at Metroid Prime. The single player experience was EPIC, and there was no multiplayer to found. More developers should follow this example. I believe that most consumers would rather have one thing that screams quality, rather than two things sorta half-assed.
I'm with VWGTI. I enjoy online but I'm not that gaga over it or anything. I think you just need to know what game your buying. Of course in the case of advance wars it should be equally important and when it's not thats when you get problems.
I have now restated your post in comment form...way to go me.
'Online play taking away from the Single Player Experience?'
...
Yup, sure is.
I have no desire to play against some random gamer who lives halfway across the country, just so they can teabag me in-game or disconnect when they are losing.
I'd rather get physically teabagged...wait, did I say that?
Seriously though...it is sad to see so many games focus on the online aspect and skimp on the single-player mode. Metroid Prime Hunters, anyone?
Yes and yes. I've always kinda felt that multiplayer takes away from single player in games. Like developers get to a certain point and say, "alright we can back off the single player and start working on multiplayer." I've never been a huge fan of playing online, or multiplayer period. I used to hide the second controller for me SNES so I wouldn't have to be bothered to play with someone else. I actually feel like thats one of the 2 things Bioshock did right, the first being having a release date with nearly no competition on shelves. Had they split the development team in 2 to make multiplayer at some point I think the game would have suffered considerably.
You sir... WIN! I've been saying this for a loooong time now with my friends. MMORPGs and their other online gaming brethren need to die. Online and games are two things that just don't have to be in order to make a good game.
When it comes to RPGs I blame Blizzard because of one thing... World of Warcraft.
So many companies are willing to take a huge risk at making the next World of Warcraft experience because the possibility of $p$r$o$f$i$t$s is just too great.
Imagine how many great and new RPG IPs we could be enjoying if the fist three letters of MMORPG were cut off and left rotting in the gaming gutter. Just think about it. A world where instead of another run of the mill MMORPG that gets made and swept under the rug of obscurity because WoW will never die, they made a great single player RPG. Just think of how many awesome RPGs there would be then. Makes me weep uncontrollably as a RPG fan to look at JRPGs and how silly they have become and then to turn and see MMORPGs. Bethseda is one of those companies like Bioware that serves as a shining beacon of light for me. They make me believe that there is hope for good RPGs.
"Take a look at Metroid Prime. The single player experience was EPIC, and there was no multiplayer to found."
Yeah, take a look at it. They made 3 brilliant games (ok 2 was kind of annoying) and the vast majority of fan reaction, especially now, is Nintendo "No Online Play!" bashing. I don't know when gaming got taken over by over competitive jocks (and being in my late 20s I feel like I can say things like that in a non-whiney highschool kind of way.) Look, I love some competitive games and I love some online play but ABSOLUTELY focus on the actual work of art (unless we're talking something like Smash Brothers/or really any fighter or a racing game or TF2 which are pretty much multiplayer exclusive titles.)
@ Demtor: Bethesda and Bioware are the 2 companies that really still push the single player experience, and they do a good job. Unfortunately thats about it
I've wrote before about how online play has changed my gaming experiences. Most of the time I find that I don't really even play the single player games attached my to multiplayer favorites. I usually just jump right into the online play and never look back. I've had to make an actual concious effort lately to play through some single player games.
It makes sense that developers notice this and are making games to cater to the multiplayer fans. It's not a good thing, but I think that eventually there will be a serious backlash and we'll get back to getting great single player games on a regular basis.
Yeah I hate how popular gaming has become to where profit determines what kind of game gets made and who its catered for. But I guess that can't be helped.
And King is right although I would add Valve to that list. Be it a multiplayer game or a single player game Valve usually does a good job sticking to one or the other at first and then adding multiplayer or possibly single player to a game.
Yes, Valve does a great job. I've never been the type of person to declare loyalty to a company of any sort but Valve is a company that I can get behind. From how they make great games to their work with Steam helping to keep blood pumping into the PC games market, they earn a spot in my heart.
I think another part of this discussion has to be asking the question "what makes a good single player game?". Now days we're seeing more and more features that were traditionally only in single player games. CoD4 for instance with it's unlockables, experience points, achievements... it does a pretty good job of providing some of the single player high points within a multiplayer game.
Although achievements and experience does help in games likd COD4 it also can ruin them. I remember playing some TF2 on a random server and some kid wouldn't stop being a sniper although he sucked because he wanted the "Gray matter" achievement.
They do add more to the games but sometimes a game can be disrupted just because someone is achievement hungry.
i hate achievements and multiplayer, although it is fun shooting people's faces off. I prefer single player with a good storyline.
Yes, Valve does a great job. I've never been the type of person to declare loyalty to a company of any sort but Valve is a company that I can get behind. From how they make great games to their work with Steam helping to keep blood pumping into the PC games market, they earn a spot in my heart.
I think another part of this discussion has to be asking the question "what makes a good single player game?". Now days we're seeing more and more features that were traditionally only in single player games. CoD4 for instance with it's unlockables, experience points, achievements... it does a pretty good job of providing some of the single player high points within a multiplayer game.