By Kieron Gillen on November 19th, 2009 at 7:12 pm.
Stardock are an unusual company in a whole load of ways. One of them is that despite being a privately hold company, they do a report to the public. No financials, but there’s a mass of transparency here. The full document is worth at least a skim read, but there’s plenty of information worth picking over for industry watchers. The details on Impulse’s success are fascinating, but the fact which most immediately screamed out was that only 23% of the people who actually bought Demigod even tried to play online multiplayer. I stress tried. If you attempted to log onto the server, you’re part of the 23%, not matter whether you succeeded in actually playing a game or not. I’ve quoted the section below in full…
For Stardock, the more significant shock of Demigod has been the discovery of the low number of PC gamers who play strategy games online. Demigod’s single player experience, while decent, did not get anywhere near the care that the Internet multiplayer experience did. Despite this, only 23% of people who have purchased Demigod have ever even attempted to logon to play Internet multiplayer.
Demigod continues to sell thousands of copies weekly – enough to remain at retail during the Christmas season despite it coming out last Spring – but the number of people available to play online is typically less than 2,000 at a given time. This is in stark contrast to MMORPGs and FPS’s which tend to have very large online communities.
Our conclusion is that strategy games that we make and publish in the future will support multiplayer but will not sacrifice the single player experience to do so.
Developer Gas Powered Games has continued to update and provide support to Demigod despite its work on Supreme Commander 2. At the time of writing, two new demigods are nearly completed along with a couple of significant updates.
Let’s repeat the key point again: 23%.
Now, the debate over the importance of the multiplayer community to games in general and strategy games in particular has always gone back and forth. It’s certainly true that the most actual outspoken strategy gamers – both critics and general fans – are devotees of the multiplayer experience, up to the point of totally dismissing any form of single player campaign. They’ll perhaps forgive Skirmish mode, but the vast majority of those who are serious about strategy game looks down on Campaign players.
The debate normally turns up the fact that the majority of players actually only play the single-player stuff at all, but it’s rare there’s actually any hard numbers to back it up. This is about as hard a number as you can get. In a game whose single-player was absolutely vestigial, over three-quarters of players didn’t even log into the server, let alone play a game, let alone partake in what’s apparently the only thing worth talking about in online discourse.
It’s an interesting one. The counter argument is easy – that the biggest RTS games have enormous communities, and it’s those communities that have kept the game successful. But let’s say… well, maybe they’re freaks. South Korea, bless it, isn’t normal. You can’t plan a game making business on assuming you’re going to be one of two games. You have to assume you’re one of the majority. And, of course, it’s worth noting: for the period they were released in, both Starcraft and Warcraft III had splendid campaign modes. And… well, I wonder if Blizzard would ever give out the lifetime stats on Blizznet. As in, what percentage of those sales (outside of Korea) actually have a Blizznet account that’s ever played a game. There’s a number I’d like to hear. But for now, the DemiGod 23% is a statistic which I’ll keep in mind when thinking about RTS games.
Any other interesting numbers? Well, last year 42% of Stardock’s consumers bought digitally. This year, 61%. That’s a hefty rise.
19/11/2009 at 19:18 TotalBiscuit says:
Well this is a nice opportunity to continue the argument from the SupCom2 article. I would think that anyone who played Demigod as an exclusively single-player game would be disappointed with what they got for their money. Those unaware, the game has no actual campaign to speak of, merely a skirmish and tournament mode. Tournament is a set of skirmish battles where you try and earn as many points as possible through rankings in individual matches in order to place first by the end of it. That’s it, nothing special about it at all, there’s no story, no mission briefings, cutscenes or tangible progression of any description. Not to mention the AI is not amazing but hey, it’s an RTS, it almost never is.
The plausible explanation in my opinion, is that with a game like Demigod, which is part of a small but growing subgenre now also incorporating League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, you have something that is inherently competitive. That is it’s nature, kill the opponents, wreck their base. It’s not as aggressive and cut-throat as DoTA is, but it’s still above average in terms of it’s competitive aspect. I would imagine that many players started off with the single player mode as a means of learning the game before going online. After playing the game for several hours, they realised it actually wasn’t particularly good and never bothered taking it online, particularly with all the issues multiplayer had in the first month or so. They gave up on the game, shelved it and never looked at it again.
That’s one way of interpreting the data, one of several.
19/11/2009 at 19:30 Weylund says:
Possibly. I’ve heard this from devs who’ve published quite excellent games though. The number of purchasers who play multiplayer is insignificant compared to the power of the Force. Err, the number of folks who play alone. With the game.
19/11/2009 at 19:19 TheJimTimMan says:
“Our conclusion is that strategy games that we make and publish in the future will support multiplayer but will not sacrifice the single player experience to do so.”
Yes. More of this please, Devs.
19/11/2009 at 19:22 Kieron Gillen says:
TheJimTimMan: Yeah. It strikes me as sensible. A MP game which doesn’t begat a community is worthless to anyone who bought it.
KG
19/11/2009 at 19:29 Vinraith says:
More of that indeed.
I do wish games journalists would weight a bit less heavily towards the MP end of the priority spectrum, I think their own access to and proclivity for MP is part of what drives the broader overvaluing of MP over SP.
19/11/2009 at 19:43 Dave says:
Agreed.
I loved StarCraft. Never played it online even once. Did play it on the LAN a few times at work.
Ditto for Diablo II. I played that thing obsessively for YEARS. Never played it on Battle.net even once.
Borderlands is turning out that way too.
Even L4D. I’ve played it online a bit, but I would often rather have poor teammate AI than people disconnecting partway through, idiots who charge ahead without the rest of the group, people who never leave the safehouse, and griefers.
TF2 is about the only multiplayer experience I thoroughly enjoy.
19/11/2009 at 20:08 xabbott says:
Yea, add me to the list of gamers who would rather have a fleshed out single player experience instead of no single player and strong multiplayer.
19/11/2009 at 20:09 skalpadda says:
Same here, the only RTS game I’ve even spent a little time playing online was Starcraft and that time was negligible compared to the time I spent with the campaigns.
Apart from MMOs, I pretty much never touch the MP side of games unless a couple of friends happen to have bought the same game. TF2 would be the exception for me as well, oh and XvT back in the day :)
19/11/2009 at 20:32 JonFitt says:
I heartily agree.
I personally have played FPS games MP since back when it was 1v1 with a null modem cable (look it up), but have played less MP RTS matches than I’ve had white Christmases.
I’ve played a lot of SP RTS campaigns but have only recently started to dabble with online, and only with friends.
They’re just very unforgiving and do not support a pick up and have a go mode which FPS games do. You commit to a full match with a small number of people. My first UT games resulted in me being way down the leaderboard but it didn’t matter. Even in team deathmacth no-one would shout you down for “Feeding” and try to order everyone about.
19/11/2009 at 20:33 Yargh says:
One more vote for the ‘More of this please’ campaign here, I prefer my stragegy games to have a nice slow, thoughtful pace (usually with lots of pauses) and multiplayer doesn’t really go well with that.
19/11/2009 at 21:22 Theory says:
I only ever took Age of Empires 2 / Mythology online a handful of times in all the years I played them, mainly because I didn’t feel that I could manage an entire map of units, buildings and resources on the level of the people online. This was more or less borne out on the rare occasions when I did venture onto MSN Zone (remember that?).
Instead I played skirmishes at my own pace, building huge armies, turtling, and all that. I think “at my own pace” is the key part of that sentence: I wanted to build cool things, not prove that I was faster at clicking through a UI than some other guy.
As well as skirmish I played a lot of the excellent campaigns made for both games, like Tamerlane and Ulio. I made my own campaigns too. None of that involved going online (I realise Demigod doesn’t have it).
What I’d like to see is the online percentage for Dawn of War II.
19/11/2009 at 23:13 Carra says:
I remember playing AoE2 online. It was a huge difference from the singleplayer.
In singleplayer there was a 75 unit cap. So you built about 20 a 30 villagers to farm and 55 a 45 soldiers to attack.
In the multiplayer however you suddenly had a 200 unit cap. You suddenly had to make 100 villagers to farm. Sure took some time to get used to that. And getting a good beating for the first couple of weeks by which time I’m sure a lot of players had given up.
19/11/2009 at 19:20 blah says:
So does the game suck or what?
19/11/2009 at 20:07 Severian says:
No doubt it had (has) its share of problems: pathfinding issues, many useless items, a couple weak Demigods (QoT), etc… but, personally, I think it’s a brilliant piece of work and I’ve poured an embarrassing number of hours into playing it online – with disconnect hiccups and all. I love the pacing, the strategy and the tactics. I understand why there are a lot of detractors – I’m not blind or naive or an idiot – but for me, it hits real sweet spot in my gaming experience.
19/11/2009 at 21:10 Psychopomp says:
Just the singleplayer
19/11/2009 at 19:22 Larington says:
Thats pretty interesting, it doesn’t exactly surprise me either, the only time I’ve ever bothered playing a strategy game in multiplayer form would be umm, the Master of Orion series (Not the most recent one though, we were both dissapointed by that one) and umm, I suppose the original patrician in hot seat mode before they went all 3D city view on it. That was some time ago, no my brother only tends to play a facebook game and even that hes thoroughly bored of.
19/11/2009 at 19:23 cyrenic says:
Still seeing the game in large department stores like WalMart and Target, I was wondering about this very statistic. I didn’t think the audience for a competitive multiplayer game like Demigod was large enough to warrant continued retail sales. So I suspected the number of people who only played single player was rather large.
I had no idea it was 77% of the people that bought the game, however. It makes me wonder how many people play Left 4 Dead only for the single player.
19/11/2009 at 20:08 PleasingFungus says:
A previous thread about L4D turned up the interesting hypothesis that a lot of the people who are unhappy with it saw it as a single-player game, not a multi-player one. Makes things much more understandable for both sides: I think most people would agree that L4D, however splendid a multiplayer game it may be, isn’t nearly as amazing in single-player…
(On a very very tangentially related note, it might be an amusing project to create a list of RPS Angry Internet Men. There seems to be only one regularly-posting one at a time. Meat Circus was one, back in the day; he’s mellowed out. Metal Circus (?) vanished. Total Biscuit is the current one, capable of being angry about ANY GAME at ANY TIME… and articulate enough not to get his posts deleted, too.)
(But of course there have been many more. Hence, the project!)
19/11/2009 at 20:14 Vinraith says:
That was my hypothesis, and I think it fits pretty well.
With one group, you have people that see the game as a 7 hour long single player FPS with full campaign co-op. Fun, certainly, but woefully short on content even with the enhanced replayability created by the AI director for a full priced game. Oh, and the friendly AI sucks.
On the other, you have people that see it as a multiplayer shooter with 20 maps and 3 game modes, and of course they can’t fathom what that first group could possibly be talking about when they say “short on content.”
I really do think that divide is a significant source of the animosity over the game. It also doesn’t help that Valve advertised it both ways, arguably.
19/11/2009 at 21:30 Dave says:
I suppose that could be why I like L4D more in theory than in practice, myself. Hm.
20/11/2009 at 00:16 DarkNoghri says:
As someone who played L4D almost exclusively for versus after the first few weeks, I’m not so sure of this.
I’ve got a good many hours in versus, and even I think that the game was short on content. Especially when it shipped with two versus campaigns missing. Even now, it’s a bit low. We have four full campaigns and one short campaign. Yes, those campaigns are very replayable, but there’s still not many of them.
But the main reason I’m unhappy about L4D is the lack of bugfixes/balancing. From what I’ve heard, the shotguns are more balanced in the second game (slower firing, more spread), but they can’t take a couple of days to nerf the autoshotgun in L4D? Buff the hunting rifle? Take out all the medkits? Add an in-game mute? Really? It’s just little things like those that they should have been able to fix fairly easily that they haven’t touched, and it just tells me that they don’t care.
But really, even on versus, the game was low on content.
But maybe I’m just an oddball.
20/11/2009 at 00:19 Vinraith says:
Well, certainly no rule is going to categorize everyone. It’s also possible I have the whole thing completely wrong, but I keep hearing comments like “20 maps is a lot for a multiplayer shooter” with regards to the game when, honestly, it never occurred to me to think of it as a multiplayer shooter.
Anyway, I think we can safely conclude that you’re an oddball with a brilliant avatar, regardless of the solidity of my hypothesis. :)
21/11/2009 at 00:08 DarkNoghri says:
Well, I don’t tend to think of it as 20 maps, I think of it as 4 campaigns. The thing about the 20 maps number, though, is that most people are comparing it to a multiplayer deathmatch type map. In a normal multiplayer deathmatch, you run around in circles for 20-30 minutes, and the map seems longer somehow. In L4D, you blaze through each map once in 10 minutes or so. They just don’t last as long.
You’re right in that it’s not a normal multiplayer shooter. I think of it as a set of cooperative (counteroperative, mostly) campaigns. In that respect, each campaign isn’t all that long, compared to say, Serious Sam. Combine the 4 together, and you start getting a similar length. But that’s just it. It’s a campaign, which can only be replayed so often without getting dull.
What makes normal game maps so replayable for the most part, and campaigns not so much? I don’t know.
21/11/2009 at 00:09 DarkNoghri says:
And thanks, I think my avatar is awesome too.
19/11/2009 at 19:24 Vinraith says:
On a related note, can we stop saying “strategy” when we specifically mean “RTS.” And no, this is not an “RTS games aren’t strategy games” thing, it’s an “RTS games are a very specific subset of strategy games” thing. Strategy is an extremely broad genre, and most non-RTS strategy games are not divided into campaign/skirmish/MP in the same way that RTS games are, so they require a somewhat different discussion. I’d also say that the broader strategy genre is less hostile to SP gaming than the more specific RTS subgenre.
19/11/2009 at 20:32 Jon says:
Ironicly, Demigod isn’t even an RTS – it’s a DotA-alike; a new genre which, although it originated as a Warcraft map, is quite different from what most people would call an RTS.
19/11/2009 at 22:00 Gorgeras says:
I consider DG, Company of Heroes and such to be Real-Time Tacticals. You’re often not given enough information, time or space to have a strategy. You’re spending most of the time reacting, turtling, grinding and not following a grand plan at all. I can’t seem to be able to play any ‘RTS’ without winning by attrition.
19/11/2009 at 22:04 Vinraith says:
CoH is very much a real time tactical game, in the tradition of tactical war games going back to the 80′s. I can’t play it without being reminded of Combat Mission and, moreso, the Close Combat series. This results in unfavorable comparisons for CoH. And that’sunfortunate as it’s not really a bad little game, it just doesn’t have the complexity or nuance of its forebears. I think it’s kind of neat how an entire generation of RTS players has been introduced to tactical wargames by way of CoH and Men or War, though, and hope that having discovered the genre they’ll have a look at some of its other entrants.
19/11/2009 at 23:11 Levictus says:
I would argue that a lot of people use strategy and RTS interchangeably. When you mean a different kind of strategy, you usually just call it something else like ‘management strategy’ or whatever. It’s not a big deal! It’s like most people call Diablo a RPG…
19/11/2009 at 19:30 Jeremy says:
I wonder what their numbers for Sins of a Solar Empire were as well? That’s two RTS games created solely for multiplayer, and both without a single player campaign experience. If Demigod has numbers that low for MP, perhaps Sins also had those low numbers? I would actually love to play a solid campaign for the Sins world, because I think it would be a rather interesting story. Not only that, but for me (and maybe I’m in the minority), having a little bit of lore goes a long way, even in MP.
19/11/2009 at 19:32 Vinraith says:
Sins was not advertised as “solely for multiplayer” in the way Demigod was. Indeed, I (regrettably) purchased it on the strength of its supposed support for grand-scale single player games. RT4X my eye.
19/11/2009 at 19:33 Kieron Gillen says:
Vinraith: I dunno, man. I think a game which takes multiple hours to play a single game of like Sins isn’t really MP focused. It’s Skirmish focused if anything.
KG
19/11/2009 at 19:37 Vinraith says:
@Kieron
“Skirmish focused” is certainly a fair way to put it. I didn’t think it was much fun in single player, though, being as slow and shallow as it was. I’ve heard it’s considerably more entertaining in MP, hence the comment.
19/11/2009 at 19:49 BabelFish says:
Playing multiplayer in Sins is a strange beast. It’s possible to “win” in the first 30 minutes of a large game, then spend the next few hours slowly grinding your opponent down. It’s got the longest slippery slope I’ve ever seen.
19/11/2009 at 20:37 JonFitt says:
The light-years long slippery slope is why I’ve never bothered even trying MP Sins. I play it more like Real-Time-Civ-In-Space. Although it doesn’t generate the stories that Civ (or more closely GalCiv) does, as there’s not really the same sense of exploration and evolution, it’s still good fun.
19/11/2009 at 23:36 LintMan says:
@Vinraith: I bought Sins of a Solar Empire based on the “RT4X” hype, also, and felt pretty burned about it. There’s no SP campaign, and the game is too shallow to give the epic “make your own history” fell that a game like Civilization or MOO gives. And even MOO had more story than SoaSE.
Even though you can have hours-long games, SoaSE’s depth is geared much more towards short MP games. That’s what the developers prefer to play, themselves, so SP got short shrift.
Annoyingly as hell: critic Tom Chick interviewed the SoaSE developers, and right as they were starting to discuss their single player plans, Chick interrupts them to change the subject to some trivial little thing, and they never get back to talking about SP.
20/11/2009 at 00:54 Vinraith says:
@Lintman
Those are pretty much my feelings on the matter exactly. Too shallow to play like a “real” strategy game, to slow and ponderous to play like an RTS.
19/11/2009 at 19:30 Spindaden says:
This number strikes me as a good round figure in general for rts. Of all the people I know with sc & wc3, maybe 20% have played online.
Anyone who is not a dedicated member of the hardcore elite is simply scared of playing online where they will get resoundingly trounced.
19/11/2009 at 19:33 Weylund says:
“Anyone who is not a dedicated member of the hardcore elite is simply scared of playing online where they will get resoundingly trounced.”
Or they don’t want to play with folks who think like that. Unless that’s what you were saying. I know I’ve spent dozens of hours playing Dawn of War and L4D… and have never played a pub match.
19/11/2009 at 19:35 Nimdok says:
I don’t think it’s about FEAR so much as not wanting to deal with the social retards who tend to spout things like “Multiplayer is the only reason I play X”…
19/11/2009 at 19:47 Spindaden says:
Yeah that is what I was saying weylund :) I count myself amongst the quite happily sticking to campaign thanks crowd.
Another thought that occured to me in terms of comparing this to other genres:
Kicking over your friend’s sand castle just isn’t as fun as shooting him in the face with your water pistol.
19/11/2009 at 19:31 Tycow says:
Agreed on this whole heartedly. One of the reasons Sins of a Solar Empire didn’t last very long on my HDD was because of the weak single player, and total focus on multiplayer.
Even a weak campaign would have been better than no campaign (as per Sins).
19/11/2009 at 19:32 Tycow says:
Sigh. Above was in reply to TheJimTimMan. :(
19/11/2009 at 20:51 fuggles says:
I bought the orange box for HL2:Ep2, putting up with the free versions of hl2, ep1 and being intrigued by portal. Frankly someone could have my tf2 if that was possible. Still, it was free.
19/11/2009 at 19:32 Schaulustiger says:
Makes me wonder how many people bought TF2 with the expectation of acquiring a solid single player game…
19/11/2009 at 19:33 TotalBiscuit says:
Hopefully the ‘Team’ bit gave it away.
19/11/2009 at 19:35 Vinraith says:
That was nominally the value of putting TF2 in the Orange Box. It was the multiplayer mode, Portal and Ep 2 were the single player mode, so everyone gets something they want.
I know, for myself, I’d never have bought TF2 as a stand-alone product, I regarded it as something I got “free” with purchase of Ep 2 and Portal. That it turned out to be enormously fun despite being solely multiplayer was just a happy accident.
19/11/2009 at 20:09 PleasingFungus says:
Pretty much the same for me, Vinraith. I would never have expected, when the Orange Box came out, that I’d end up playing TF2 much at all, much less over a hundred hours across several years.
19/11/2009 at 20:34 Pani says:
I bought TF2 as part of the orange box fully intending of playing it online. Despite this, I was surprised that it didnt have some sort of single player experience.
A lot of games like it come with bots that allow you to practice your skills on before entering the “real world”. I picked the game up about a year after first release and was slightly daunted with the worry that it was too late for someone of my n00bishness to get into the multiplayer scene so late after release. (As it turned out, I was fine.)
I did the same with Demigod, played it against bots for a good while before going toe-to-toe against “real” people.
19/11/2009 at 20:49 JonFitt says:
As someone who waited 8 years for TF2, I was thoroughly looking forward to it in the Orange Box.
19/11/2009 at 21:28 Psychopomp says:
Can you imagine programming TF2 bots? I think programming a decent Spy would be a nigh impossible, but none of it would be easy.
19/11/2009 at 21:37 Vinraith says:
I was actively pissed that TF2 didn’t have bots when I first got it, actually, as I normally detest competitive multiplayer. I played far more UT2004 co-op against bots than I ever did against humans, for example.
But after getting coerced into playing a bit with friends, I was forced to conclude that Psychopomp just pointed out, there’s simply no way to program bots of sufficient sophistication to play that game halfway well.
19/11/2009 at 19:32 kyrieee says:
I like that they actually gather statistics and accept the conclusions that are to be drawn from them (as well as using it to inform their design decisions) instead of just brushing it aside
19/11/2009 at 19:34 TotalBiscuit says:
Stardock are one of my favourite companies for this reason. Though Demigod was a mess, I still support Stardock because they actually fessed up over it and even took it on the chin for GPG when they really didn’t deserve it.
19/11/2009 at 19:36 Vinraith says:
By and large I like Stardock for similar reasons. I think their in-house developed games beat the tar out of the outside stuff they’ve been publishing lately, though.
20/11/2009 at 02:48 Weylund says:
Ahh, but what I want to see are the statistics they’re NOT showing and / or drawing conclusions from. The ones they decided to ignore. Like that giant robot chickens prefer playing as little girls, or that witches have a thing for brooms that can’t be explained by flying. I’d like to see THOSE Stardock figures.
19/11/2009 at 19:34 Sam Bigos says:
Multiplayer for is why I buy an RTS game, i might start it up and play a few campaign games to learn the controls, but as soon as I step online i rarely go back and finish the singleplayer unless it’s very good. This can be said for both CoH and RA3 which i still haven’t finished, yet racked up hundreds of hours combined online. DoW2 is probably the only RTS I can remember that i’ve finished the campaign, probably because it encorporated some RPG elements which I like.
19/11/2009 at 19:35 Carra says:
I’m not surprised to see that most people do not play multiplayer games. It has something scary for new players. “I’ll suck and they’ll all laugh at me!” And without a good matchmaking service you will probably suck.
But the obvious conclusion to make is of course that you should include a good singleplayer part. It’s the only part that most people will see. Maybe they’ll use it to train a bit to go to the multiplayer part. But if that’s no fun why would they try the multiplayer part?
19/11/2009 at 23:29 JonFitt says:
However, I have never needed matchmaking at all in an FPS. The only thing that’s needed is the option to team balance periodically.
19/11/2009 at 19:39 Garg says:
I wonder what the stats are like for DoW 2; as it seemed like Relic went to a lot of effort to try and combat the percevied unforgiving nature of the online RTS with a more accessible level of micro-management and easy matchmaking of 3v3 games. I get the feeling it probably made little to no difference, although I also imagine that had they released the last stand at retail it would have had a significant impact in getting those singleplayer gamers online.
19/11/2009 at 19:54 BabelFish says:
The major issue with DoW2 is the matchmaking that actually ends up reinforcing the “organized team vs pug” game.
There’s NOTHING that removes player interest in a game faster then getting owned by three people playing as a team while you and two guys you just met are trying to find your bearings.
19/11/2009 at 21:30 Psychopomp says:
And it’s completely fucking annoying. You want a quick game? Good news, it’ll be over fast. Bad news, you have no hope of winning.
It doesn’t help that the ranks which are *supposed* to help match you aaginst people near your rank never works. Every single match I’ve ever been in has been three rank 1-5, VS three rank 40-infinity.
19/11/2009 at 21:32 Psychopomp says:
I feel I should state, though, that those rare games where the teams are matched skill-wise are abso-fucking-lutely magical. Some of the best RTS’ing I’ve ever had.
19/11/2009 at 23:28 JonFitt says:
My limited experience of DoW matchmaking is sitting for 10 minutes staring at the “We’ve found X games for you” going up and down to be eventually “matched” (as you say) three level 1-5s versus three level 40+s.
Then the game starts, one of our team quits, the game lags for a while, someone else quits, and then the remaining players stomp all over us.
19/11/2009 at 19:42 Railick says:
I have to agree with TotalBiscuit, the game wasn’t all that good so I’m not surprised a lot of people baught it and never played it online :P
19/11/2009 at 19:46 BabelFish says:
RTS games seem to really scare people when playing multiplayer.
Part of it seems to be the personal nature of the matches. There’s almost nobody playing outside a 1vs1 structure these days. Heck, even DoW2, which was designed first and foremost around 3vs3 to get around this problem has been slowly morphing into a 1vs1 game. In a FPS or MMO, you’re one of the masses, you’re able to become a cog inside a team and win or lose as a group (with scapegoats handy if you do end up losing.) In a RTS you’re generally it, winning or losing is entirely down to how good YOU are. While some people really enjoy the freedom that comes from only being able to rely on yourself, humans by nature are a communal animal, and “going it alone” is very nerve wracking for most of us.
The other part of the issue seems to be the terribly slippery slope that most “staple” RTS games have. A particularly bad example would be Warcraft 3, where at the World Cyber Games in China just a few days ago, the first finals match was conceded about 2 minutes into the game, when one player managed to “steal” an entire creep camp out from under the other. While this was an extreme case, many games are decided early then lost slowly. A new player trying to learn the ropes of the game gets a few minutes of gameplay in before getting on the back foot and is frustrated for the rest of the game. Nobody enjoys losing for hours (hi sins).
So the net effect is this. RTS games push us out of our natural comfort zone by pulling us out of the group and forcing us to rely on ourselves. Then, just as we’re off balance and vulnerable, hand us crushing defeats by higher skilled players that seem to last forever. It’s a negative reinforcement that leaves people with not only a poor experience for that game, but any game that resembles it.
Starcraft has managed to create a large enough playerbase that they can break the cycle by almost always having a reasonably equally skilled opponent available to play. But new non-established RTSs do not have this option.
I’m generally a pretty competitive guy online, and I’ve been playing there since original quake, but I still get nervous playing an RTS.
David Sirlin has some interesting points on slippery slope mechanics over at http://www.sirlin.net but sadly his site seems to be down as I’m posting this.
19/11/2009 at 19:56 Ginger Yellow says:
“There’s almost nobody playing outside a 1vs1 structure these days.”
Very true, and I find it baffling. I’m a moderate 1v1 Company of Heroes player (hovering around lvl 7-9 depending on how much I’ve been playing recently) and am rarely automatched too far from my skill level, but every single time I’ve tried a 2v2 automatch my teammate (who’s about the same skill as me) and I get trounced. I’ve even been matched against a team with the No 1 ranked player. It’s a real shame.
19/11/2009 at 21:23 Clovis says:
I would rather go it alone than be in a small group. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your other points. I’ll play FPSs online sometimes. I usually pick big servers so that I don’t stick out when I do horribly.
1v1 would certainly be intimidating for me in an RTS though because I feel that I’m terrible at them. However, 3v3 would be simply horrific! Now I’m not only risking losing (not really a big deal), but screwing things up for a couple of other players. I hate the idea of it being really obvious that I’m the moron who screwed everything up.
Now, I do like L4D, but that’s because I feel I’m reasonably skilled at FPSs. When I started playing L4D I had to learn a few things, and probably pissed off a few hotheads. But with a sufficiently compelx RTS I feel like I would be in the “newbie” stage for a really, really long time. With L4D it just felt like it took a few days of playing to get the basics down and not look like an idiot.
Anyway, so the 23% is hardly shocking to me.
19/11/2009 at 19:46 Vinraith says:
Following on from a thought I had up the page: It seems to me that part of the reason for MP being valued disproportionately to its actual player base is that games journalists themselves are disproportionately part of said MP player base. I don’t mean to imply anything malicious or even deliberate, it’s simply that when you have a lot of friends that play games it’s a lot easier to get an enjoyable MP game going than when you have few (or god forbid no) friends that game. Does that seem reasonable?
19/11/2009 at 21:00 Stick says:
Seems about right, yeah.
And to add something: I suspect the dedicated MP people are usually the loudest, most active talkers-about-the-game. With sometimes slightly imbalanced views on the importance of their own perspective.
(Recurring TF2 conversation I can’t seem to avoid:
“Don’t expect your team to actually play sensibly. It’s Just A Pub.”
“The Just-A-Pub is the game. What you’re doing in those underpopulated 5-class private hobnobs is completely irrelevant to majority of us. Who are trying to have fun. Right here.”
“Noob.”
“That’s Doctor Noob to you. Can we please kasplode that sentry nest now? Or are you all going to keep sniping from spawn?”
*cough* Ok, maybe more of a repeated rant on my part than a conversation.)
19/11/2009 at 21:10 Matt W says:
I’d go a step further and more generalist, and suggest that (based on casual observations* and nothing more) the majority of game journalists are of the “I generally play games for the challenge” school, rather than the “I generally play games for the experience” school. If you want a challenge, MP is pretty much always going to add value, and will continue to do so until we get truly human-like AI. If you want an interesting and varied experience though, it’s rare to find an MP mode that will scratch that itch even in principle.
I’d argue that characterizing the majority of people not going online as being interested-in-principle but deterred by difficulty, community or other similar factors is likely misguided. I suspect that the majority of people who don’t play online, don’t play online because they don’t want to play online. I’d also argue (as I sort of do in the first paragraph) that this is because they belong to a particular group of gamers, and that this group of gamers is under-represented among game reviewers. I’d also suggest that, given this 23% figure and its context, it’s fairly likely that this group of gamers is not a small minority in terms of the overall audience, even if it is a small minority in terms of vocal presence on gaming forums and in gaming discourse in general.
* The critical panning of PoP2008 for being “too easy” due to its lack of a failure-state is a prime example of the sort of observation I’m drawing on here
19/11/2009 at 21:29 Clovis says:
BUT, what about who reads these reviews? Although the “I prefer single player RTS campaign” group is strongly represented here, consider the population of players who actually read gaming magazines/blogs. I’m guessing that the percent that play multiplayer RTSs is much higher. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for the reviewers to review this way.
19/11/2009 at 21:30 Vinraith says:
“the majority of game journalists are of the “I generally play games for the challenge” school, rather than the “I generally play games for the experience” school.”
First off, I think that’s a false dichotomy. Personally I primarily play single player, and play for both challenge and for the experience. If a game lacks either, I’m broadly not interested. There’s nothing worse than an otherwise interesting game that’s too easy to keep my attention.
But more to the issue of journalism, several of my favorite games have been panned in the press for being “too hard.” Maybe it’s a genre thing, most of them tend to be strategy games (of the non-RTS variety), but if anything I think the press can be too hard on genuinely challenging games.
19/11/2009 at 21:31 Vinraith says:
@Clovis
What makes you think that?
19/11/2009 at 21:40 Clovis says:
@Vinraith: I’ve gotten the impression that the number of players who visit gaming websites is a very small percentage of the game buying public. I then either assume or get the impression that these must be the “hardcore” gamers. And those types of players like the challenge of MP more, I guess. Obviously, this is just my impressions though (I think). I have no idea if any of this is true, or at least that’s what my sub-conscious is possibly indicating. ::shrug::
19/11/2009 at 21:43 Vinraith says:
Interesting. Without any data on the subject I suppose we’ll never know, but it had certainly never occurred to me to make that set of assumptions about games journalism readers. I particularly find the conflation of “hardcore” and “MP” interesting. I guess this is really more of an FPS/RTS thing, as I tend to think of hardcore gamers of RPG’s as a very SP-oriented crowd, and non-RTS strategy and military sims generally doesn’t support much of an online community at all.
19/11/2009 at 21:44 Psychopomp says:
What Vin said. It’s very possible to belong to both the experience, and challenge crowd. However, I’ve found that the experience can kinda ruin a game if the challenge doesn’t match up.
Look at Twilight Princess, for example. Every last one of the bosses were played up like they were going to be absolutely epic, and hard fought. Then, your life is rarely ever in danger, and you walk all over the easy as piss bosses. Each dungeon ended on a massive letdown for me, and I’m sure for many others as well. Compare to Windwaker, which was no easier than its successor, but I absolutely adore. The bosses are still easy as ever, but the game never builds up your expectation for them, final boss aside (Who is hard as hell, by the way.) You fight the boss, grab your heart, and move on through 6 more hours of concentrated charm.
19/11/2009 at 22:59 Matt W says:
Clovis: You’re probably right that the audience for this stuff tends towards the “challengish” (although see below) end of the spectrum, but is that cause or effect? It wouldn’t be incoherent to suggest that it’s become a self-reinforcing phenomena – which isn’t a bad thing on a case-by-case basis, but it leaves a segment of the potential readership unserved, which is a bad (or at least financially and culturally stupid) thing in aggregate.
That said, I also think you’re probably right, that the readership does naturally bias more towards that end of the spectrum. Certainly I’d agree with the suggestion that the “active community” for most gaming stuff does, and not just because of self-reinforcement – my gut feeling is that the more comparatively-combatant, challenge-oriented gamers are likely on average to be more interested in engaging with other people in these contexts.
Vinrath: Guilty as charged – it’s definitely an oversimplification, and it’s likely not even in the right ballpark, even when viewed as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. If nothing else, I suspect picking those two positions as the only reference points is completely missing out more socially-oriented gamers who don’t fit into either camp.
In the first instance, though, I’d be extremely happy if there was a general understanding and agreement that not everybody is after the same thing from their games. The default stance of way too much game discussion and commentary (from random people arguing on message boards all the way up to high-visibility game reviews) seems to be something along the lines of “everyone shares my tastes and interests, and therefore anyone who substantially disagrees with my statements is wrong”. (Which is, when you strip it down to this sort of level, clearly incoherent, but this gets lost in the heat of the argument with that guy who’s just clearly wrong and needs to be straightened out.) I don’t think it’s a problem just limited to gaming, but it does seem readily apparent in these circles, and I’d like to think that getting to grips with this issue would improve the quality of the discourse hugely.
19/11/2009 at 19:47 Railick says:
Also these stats may have been effected by the insane pirated activity that went on around DemiGod. I would imagine a lot of the people who pirated it would probably have played it online through another service. Also it seems people who would know how to pirate and play a game are online more and maybe would be more of the type to play online RTS’s against each other. Lets me brutally honest here the people that play DoTA are generally mean spirited bad communities, demiwars is no diffrent ;P Yes I’m saying DoTA community members would be more likely to pirate a game and play it online illegally then someone who would just rather play it single player <hides>
20/11/2009 at 19:00 LintMan says:
@Railick: The 23% is the percentage of people who bought the game who played it online. Stardock is using its sales figures and online service figures to compute this, so pirates playing on alternate services wouldn’t be factored into the percentage.
24/11/2009 at 00:11 Railick says:
They would be factored into the percentage for the reason above. What I’m saying here is that a lot of the people who DO play the game online pirated and play via Hamachi or what have you. If you factored them into the percentage it would be higher (Hence by not actaully counting them since they pirated the game, it makes the percentage of people who really play the game online lower than it should be) Rather I’m saying this could be a possible factor make the percentage lower than what some peole might expect it to be. Stardock themselves said that part of the problem with the MP over the first few days was pirates trying to play online. It only makes sense that if they wanted to play MP bad enough to steal the game they’re going to do it some other way rather that buying it.
So if you factored in all these pirates who are playing it on Hamachi or whatever they’re doing (I have no idea I don’t get into that stuff) the percentage may be much higher. Maybe a lot of people pirated the game, played it online with Hamachi and decided not to buy it, I dunno alls I’m saying is the high degree of pirate activity in this case may have caused such a low number as pirates are online more, thus play multiplayer more compared to people who may have just saw this at a store and picked it up to play offline a bit.
19/11/2009 at 19:50 Ginger Yellow says:
Also interesting:
I’m assuming this figure doesn’t include those who returned Demigod to a retailer, but still, it certainly seem sto show that a hassle free return policy works in the long term.
19/11/2009 at 19:52 lagmint says:
I’m honestly not surprised at the number (the 23% not playing multiplayer.)
It’s been true in the past, and was just as true with this game, that no matter how good at RTS’ you are, you’ll be matched up against the guy who hasn’t stopped playing since it was released.
In fact, most people I know hate online multiplayer, and would never try it – and I can see why. After hearing a tonne about how good World in Conflict was multi, I decided to try. Two minutes of playtime and four kicks later, I stopped bothering.
19/11/2009 at 19:55 lagmint says:
I meant online RTS multi, sorry for any confusion.
19/11/2009 at 20:59 JonFitt says:
I think it’s the fact that you have to be matched up against one or two people for one match that causes the problem. In TF2 I may be 1 of 32 people we would play multiple rounds in one session.
It doesn’t matter if some people are great and others suck so long as the teams are shuffled fairly everyone has a good time.
Player A can be happy that they killed one person, Player B can be happy they annihilated the opposing team and capped the cart.
19/11/2009 at 19:54 Railick says:
Its pretty hard to return an opened computer game to a retailer directly most of the time :P I don’t think these stats would be able to include people who baught the game and returned it to a retailer unopened as they’d never have registered on anything for any stats to be register, seems like to me at least.
19/11/2009 at 19:56 Vandelay says:
A little surprising that a game that is so focused on multiplayer would have so few playing online, but not particularly surprising as a indication of the number of people who buy an RTS for the multiplayer. The simple fact is that RTS games have an exceptionally step learning curve when it comes to online play and the majority are just not going to both putting the time into getting good enough to have an enjoyable game. I think this isn’t helped by the AI for these games generally being pretty much hopeless and usually only being an adequate challenge when it cheats. Skirmish/campaign AI rarely gives a good place to practice and train for online play. The only choice for those that are not experienced at competitive RTS play is to lose constantly, watch replays and learn from those more experienced. That is the kind of commitment most are, understandably, not willing to put in.
19/11/2009 at 19:59 Ginger Yellow says:
“Its pretty hard to return an opened computer game to a retailer directly most of the time :”
True, although in Demigod’s case you could probably have argued that the game wasn’t of saleable quality during the first month of release and used your statutory right to return the game.
19/11/2009 at 20:00 Jeremy says:
Vinraith: I’m one of those unfortunates who have almost no friends who play games of any kind. Either that or the ones I do have play WoW, which is a virus I don’t want to intentionally incubate. So, I’m kinda out of luck in that sense and tend to mostly play campaigns and skirmishes when it comes to RTS games.
19/11/2009 at 20:01 jsutcliffe says:
I used to love RTS games, but have been horribly disappointed in the lackluster single-player portions many recent RTS games have offered. I find competitive online games are only fun if you’re good at them, and now I’m an adult with responsibilities I no longer have the time needed to get good enough. Starcraft and Warcraft 3 were obviously successful multiplayer games, but they also had stellar single-player campaigns too. Where are those kind of games now?
19/11/2009 at 20:31 Ginger Yellow says:
Starcraft and Warcraft 3 were obviously successful multiplayer games, but they also had stellar single-player campaigns too. Where are those kind of games now?
Men of War!
19/11/2009 at 22:07 Psychopomp says:
And DoW2
Does Silent Hunter count?
20/11/2009 at 04:11 jsutcliffe says:
DoW 2′s single player wasn’t much more than a follow-the-breadcrumbs training mode for the multiplayer, in my crankypants opinion.
19/11/2009 at 20:08 Tunnel says:
I always thought I was a rarity because I have no interest whatsoever for multiplayer. Perhaps I’m not so alone after all.
In RTS (and FPS) games a campaign will give me an incentive to play, a feeling of purpose and progress while skirmishes (in single or multiplayer) seem a bit pointless.
Multiplayer in any genre also makes me very aware I’m playing a game; It brings the mechanics to the surface and prevents me from getting into it. I don’t experience the immersion that’s the reason I play games.
The only exception seems to be coop in shooters, which I enjoy now and then in LANs with friends. Still, not as exciting as a good singleplayer session.
19/11/2009 at 20:11 Severian says:
I don’t think people should underestimate the “prettiness” factor of games like Demigod. All of the previews were glowing, and the screenshots (esp of the Rook) were fascinating. I suspect that many consumers buy games just because they want something pretty to play on their computer. I’ve done this many times before with RTS’s that I had no intention of playing online – Rise of Legends comes immediately to mind.
19/11/2009 at 20:33 jsutcliffe says:
I too am guilty of getting games just for the shininess sometimes. I still like to sit back and just say “coo, look what my computerbox can do!”
And Demigod sure did look pretty, especially the level with the chap wrestling a snake.
19/11/2009 at 21:13 Psychopomp says:
I was completely non-plussed about Demigod, until someone in a comments thread around here linked to a screenshot of one of the stages. The sheer OOOOHHHH AAAAHHHH of it made me get up and buy it immediately.
Side question:Why the hell does my local Gamestop not only carry PC games, but stuff like Demigod, Men of War, and Penumbra? Sure it’s a smaller display, but they always seem to have *exactly* what I’m looking for, regardless of hype levels.
19/11/2009 at 21:36 Clovis says:
@Psycho: Because you’ve been blessed by the Gamespot Fairy? I routinely end up in several different Gamespots in my area (N. Ky), and they pretty much have Warcraft. The selection is extremely limited, and now only contains the “big” titles.
Why do I keep going then? I own a Wii and DS too…
19/11/2009 at 21:48 Psychopomp says:
I think it might have something to due with the main demographic where I live. For every person in there teens and twenties, there seems to be like fifty people in their fourties, and two hundred people in their 70′s-100′s
19/11/2009 at 20:11 Devin says:
I’m one of that 23%. I bought it on a whim when someone gave me a coupon for it, played the single player for a while to try getting a handle on the game, and decided I just didn’t like it.
19/11/2009 at 20:12 Devin says:
I’m one of that 77%. I bought it on a whim when someone gave me a coupon for it, played the single player for a while to try getting a handle on the gam and decided I just didn’t like it.
19/11/2009 at 20:12 ZIGS says:
I’m a nerd, I spend all my time inside, playing videogames. If I wanted to interact with people, I’d get a life. Single-player games 4LYF!
19/11/2009 at 20:18 Archonsod says:
It’s not really that surprising. Wasn’t the justification for UT3 including a campaign mode the fact that less than 50% of the 2003/2004 audience ever played online?
It’s not fear though. In my case I don’t play RTS’s online because the AI is good enough for what I’m looking for, which is about an hour or so of watching things explode. I’m not going to spend ten minutes arsing around with a server browser or whatever other hoops I need to jump for when I can simply click skirmish game and be playing in five. Although I don’t really get what another player brings to the game; if it’s a friend then it’s more of a social thing than a gaming one, and I don’t see much difference playing against a random internet person or a random AI (sadly, even in terms of playstyle for the most part, which is either a compliment to modern AI routines or a damning indictment of most playerbases I suppose).
Mind you, I generally don’t play through the single player campaigns either, unless they offer something different – Rise of Nations or Dark Crusade for example. I have a horrible feeling the last time I actually played an RTS campaign for more than a couple of levels was Dune 2.
19/11/2009 at 20:24 Vinraith says:
“Rise of Nations or Dark Crusade for example”
*raises lighter*
My two favorite RTS’s of all time, in large part for exactly that reason. Also, RoN has the best RTS AI I’ve ever seen, with the possible exception of the Skirmish AI mod for the Dawn of War games.
19/11/2009 at 20:27 Tei says:
Well.. Is a good thing that numbers can backup this experiment. Since I remenber lots of people asking for a solid singleplayer campaing. Is easy to design a game multiplayer only, since this save the need to build a history, a CPU AI, and other stuff, but seems is a misguided idea.
Anyway I miss a “control group”, I mean… we don’t know about other games, maybe 23% is not normal, maybe theres other “mp mostly game” where the % is very different.
19/11/2009 at 23:07 DavidK says:
Completely agree. As interesting as Stardock’s report is, there’s only so much one number and a few dozen anecdotes can really tell us (anecdotes != data). Everyone would benefit if other publishers would disclose this kind of information — rising tide lifts all boats etc…
19/11/2009 at 20:27 scottossington says:
I tried to play some online before, beta of Supcom, the first dawn of war, but soon soured on the whole idea when people I joined up with called me retard and fag and didn’t make me feel all that welcome. Its true I wasnt all that great at the games, and I wondered how they figured out my sexual orientation, but regardless I went back to playing with myself…..if you know what I mean.
19/11/2009 at 20:30 scottossington says:
Though I might add that playing a good RTS with some pals on a LAN is never a disappointment.
19/11/2009 at 20:29 The Pink Ninja says:
I just tried the first Modern Warfare on-line for about 30 mins and I’m never going back unless they remove the nades.
19/11/2009 at 20:40 JonFitt says:
Ha! I know what you mean, and then they added the cheapest perk ever: Martyrdom. But you get used to listening out for them after a while, and it becomes less stupid.
19/11/2009 at 20:38 Stella says:
I’m one person who tried the single-player just to get a feel for the game, was very underwhelmed, and didn’t bother trying to go online. When I get into a MP game, I tend to get into it full bore. I learn every little thing about the game to try and get an edge over other players, especially in “competitive” MP games like DemiGod. Within the first hour or so of playing I can usually decide whether or not a game is worth that level of devotion. DemiGod was not.
19/11/2009 at 20:40 Radiant says:
I think it’s more to do with genre then anything else.
Strategy games online is a hell of a daunting prospect to a player.
Even someone as grizzled as me with online multiplayer games [I started with quakeworld] I never try any of my strategy games online.
I just just get butchered. It’s like a giant tactical wall where everyone else online has levelled up to unimaginable levels and then there’s you.
Once you play one strat or rts game online and realise the mountain you have to climb you tend not to try any others.
19/11/2009 at 20:45 fuggles says:
I played the demo and that pretty much sated my desire, not in that the game was bad, but in that the demo was huge and pretty comprehensive. I got the most enjoyment trying to get the highest regen dps from my healcat. My teammates can do what they want!
That said I got bored and uninstalled it now. With less free time than when I was younger, I’m never going to be good enough anymore and don’t have an hour or more free at a go often enough. Singleplayer is intriguing, can give some jaw dropping moments and is generally why I will buy a game, l4d aside. Although the only reason I played that was because of vs, it’s too funny to grief and frustrate people.
I tried playing DoW 1v1 and lost about 20 times in a row, it was soul destroying and it really felt like life wasted. I have yet to play DoW2 online, I shall probably quietly uninstall it until the add-on, having now played and enjoyed dow2 singleplayer.
19/11/2009 at 20:47 Axiin says:
I actually rarely play the MP modes in RTS. I play the hell out of skirmish modes. Honestly though… I don’t like to get schooled by people who devote way too much time to playing. I like to take my time, build up my forces and move in nice and slowly.
Take Total Annihilation for example. I played the HELL out of that game. Many many hours of my life were spent playing the skirmish maps.
True RTS players are almost like MMO players, and the casual RTS person like me can’t deal with just getting absolutely schooled.
20/11/2009 at 13:07 ToadSmokingDuckMonkey says:
I have a friend who doesn’t play many games, but endeavors to be the best whenever he does.
He actually didn’t play computer games much before he met me (though he and his father had played many tabletop strategy games, the ones with the little chits and hexes and resolution tables). I introduced him to Quake 3, and then to get Starcraft out of the uni lab we played games in, I introduced everyone to Total Annihilation.
It was sort of fair. If it was a FFA game of either, my experience could trump his arguable greater skill. If it were a team game, each of us would end up on opposite sides and dedicate ourselves to stopping the other, allowing everyone else to have some good fun. We rarely won either game, our energies spent on undoing the other, and it was fun for everyone.
Much time passes. When I reenter this world, its because Supreme Commander just launched. It was even for awhile, then he played ~30 hours a week online. I was still second best, my skills stretched to the limit, but I could sorta hang with him. Eventually though, his skill and experienced overshadowed the rest of the players and the game was no longer fun.
This has been repeated ad nauseum since. The only good suggestion to solve this that I’ve heard is to find him a wife. I feel though that there is just a class of people who never learned to play games for fun.
If I just start outright crushing the other side, I don’t swoop in for the kill, I maybe play with a little elan, experiment with dumb strategies, or if there is good communications maybe turn it into a teaching experience, and tell the other player about all the times I got screwed in their situation and what they should do to stop it. If we’re in meatspace, I offer to trade sides with them mid-match.
Its just good sportsmanship. Thats what online games are missing these days.
19/11/2009 at 21:04 Acidburns says:
I think multiplayer in RTS games often brings even slight balance issues to the fore, and I imagine that can be off putting for players who’ve managed to get past the “what the hell is going on?” stage.
19/11/2009 at 21:07 Chris says:
Harsh. I hate RTS games, but I enjoyed the 20-30 hours or so I put into single player games with Demigod. I liked the pacing, particularly with the ability to speed up and slow down. The slowest mode was effectively a pause so in single player mode I could go answer the phone and such if needed.
I really enjoyed Demigod. I personally think most of the multiplayer games people like actually suck as games because it’s a frickin twitch fest.
19/11/2009 at 21:08 Chris says:
Grr…why when I hit the “Reply” button on a post does it not actually reply to that post?
19/11/2009 at 21:09 Chris says:
Oh sure, but then the reply to my own replies correctly. Buggy comment system…
19/11/2009 at 21:09 guisim says:
I have to say I’m really surprised by the results and the comments.. !
I’m a multiplayer gamer. I play competitive games and enjoy it :)
It’s great to see that singleplayer is very much alive and a lot of gamers play this almost exclusively.¸
As for the 1v1 aspect of RTS, there is also fighting games. They’re quite rare these days, but playing Street Fighter 4 online feels like playing SC / WC3. Very frustrating at times, very satisfying at others.
19/11/2009 at 21:11 An Innocuous Coin says:
I could never get Demigod to work online, personally. Given the Demigod community doesn’t sound too far removed from DoTA’s I never got the impression I was missing much.
19/11/2009 at 21:15 TotalBiscuit says:
You literally cannot avoid that kind of thing in a game like this. It’s the nature of the beast, any game in which you have to rely excessively on your team-mates and where having a bad player on your team can actually actively help your opponents in a very real way (cash, experience etc from farming the bad player), you’re going to foster elitism, protectionism and downright snobbery. The only way to avoid it is not to take part in that community at all and just play with friends or a smaller, more understanding sub-community.
19/11/2009 at 21:14 Funky Badger says:
Hmmm, the only games I’ve bought solely for multiplayer are Battlefield 2142 and Left 4 Dead. Everything else has been single-player first and foremost – even those with excellent online/co-op, e.g. Rainbow 6, Gears of War… actually, thinking about it, much more interested in co-op than multi-player, which is why BF2142 and L4D scored so high, maybe…
19/11/2009 at 21:26 Warth0g says:
I’m one of the 77%. I thought it was a great game, very polished and it got me interested enough to join the beta for LOL (which was meh). For me, the reason I didn’t go online, even though I wanted to, was that we know from legend that the online community for DOTA and therefore other MOBA games is hardcore and unforgiving.
As a relatively casual gamer (in that I play a lot of games, but none of them to any real level of accomplishment) I really don’t want to get shouted at by the pros. I also don’t want to feel that I would be letting the side down. That isn’t fun and games are meant to be fun.
Online games need to have a really well thought out and well policed noob-mode. It’s almost never the case that a noob can go online and learn from his mistakes in a low pressure environment. Give the noobs a gentle online learning curve and watch them blossom – throw them in at the deep end and see what happens.
Lack of smart match-making is also why I don’t play counter-strike as much as I’d like to – it’s murder out there.
19/11/2009 at 22:24 Severian says:
I think this is a very informative reply. I absolutely agree that Demigod, and many other strategy titles, need a well-polished online mode just for noobs. Really, something as simple as “Player Experience” determining which lobbies you have access to. In Demigod, this has sprouted up informally as people title their games “Noob only” or “No Noobs”, etc. but it’s half-ass and doesn’t prevent deceptive people from Noob-stomping.
I also think that developers should get online in these noob games and help new players out with instructions, advice, etc. But I could be dreaming.
20/11/2009 at 11:03 Warth0g says:
@Severian. Absolutely agree.. I honestly don’t think devs realise that they tend to design their multiplayer games for pros and ignore the majority of people who are less accomplished. They should do more to help them and as a result, the online community for the game would swell.
19/11/2009 at 21:27 shiggz says:
I’m one of these, almost never play games online. Sadly single player experiences have gotten almost completely abandoned in a number of genres. I’m reminded of something the developer of some sort of windows gui mod wrote about. What the masses wanted who would pirate it were very different from what the minority who would buy it wanted. That those who would buy it tended to have specific maybe even quirky tastes.
19/11/2009 at 21:27 Heliosicle says:
I bought it, logged in, and failed to join any games, and was completely taken aback by the tiny number of games i could join.
I had it refunded 75% because I couldn’t join ANY games.
19/11/2009 at 21:30 Azradesh says:
I play games for the interactive narrative (single player) and not for the sport (multiplayer). My top ten games of all time all have very strong, and long single player portions.
It really gets to me that Starcraft 2 has been delayed to the point of silliness simply because of the damned constant multiplayer testing and balancing. Right now it just want to play the game, screw balance.
Finish the single player game first and release it, and add multiplayer in a patch, I know I’m not the only one who doesn’t give a monkeys about the online play. :P
19/11/2009 at 23:48 Funky Badger says:
Azradesh, I’ve got South Korea on the phone, I think they want a word…
20/11/2009 at 00:07 Azradesh says:
lol
Ok well think about it this way, either we could get the single player side of the game sooner, and the multiplayer part much later, or we could get the whole game much later. Either way the multiplayer part is only going to be playable much later, and I for one would quite like to play the single player part about now thanks. :P
19/11/2009 at 21:35 shiggz says:
Id love to read an article about the genres of games and the groups within them. Asian-combo/spreadsheet games. Your western you are the hero of everyone and everything all the time games. Your “shoot em” why? cuz they are shooting you genre. I’m the commander of the half the worlds armies but i will tell every soldier exactly where and how to stand. Anyway this sorta thing done with just enough humor and cynicism should make a great read.
19/11/2009 at 21:41 SwiftRanger says:
For those wanting less coverage on RTS multiplayer… are you guys serious? If anything then the coverage needs to increase because currently you can bet money on it that most RTS reviews and articles rarely feature an accurate depiction of the online options or even a separate view on how it’s different to play against real people instead of against the AI. It’s nearly always the same; writers discuss the campaign and game mechanics and end with a “multiplayer could be good, a bit less good, best to see it for yourself” message.
I mean, who the hell wasn’t disappointed with how the DoW II Chaos Rising expansion previews didn’t feature a single word on what to expect for multiplayer when nearly everyone still interested in the main game was looking out for more information about new units/commanders and an improved Last Stand mode? I think it’s pretty ridiculous that any concrete news about it had to come through a recent GameReplays interview.
While strategy game designers do need to work on game modes which combine aspects of singleplayer and multiplayer more (like a conquer-the-world mode or more ingenious coop modes à la DoW II’s Last Stand) there is no need to say the multiplayer RTS “elitists” are crying in the desert. I am all for serving both sp and mp strategy audiences with one game but the fact is that most online RTS services are piss poor. I think it’s more a functionality issue, especially with NAT and specific service quirks (like “TrueSkill” matchmaking which would even haunt a noobie Ork away from online DoW II) ruining the day for folks who don’t want to get too technical.
19/11/2009 at 21:59 Azradesh says:
I’m only interested in kicking some choas ass.
19/11/2009 at 22:03 JKjoker says:
there are many things that work in multiplay but fail completely in single play, i rather they keep both separated
want an example ? i give you Resident evil 5:
real time inventory, almost everyone hates it, why ? a paused inventory and the tetris item sorting minigame would be annoying in multiplay
Sheva, she is useless and annoying and the cause of 90% of game overs everyone hates her, why ? so that other players can get in and out of the game during play without just “appearing”
exploration sequences gone, why ? annoying in multiplay, and so on
19/11/2009 at 22:13 Psychopomp says:
I adored the real-time inventory. Just set stuff you absolutely need to the bind squares, and you’ll rarely have a problem. Some of the best moments I had in that game where trying to pull out that last herb while “zombies” where trying to kill me.
Everything else makes it a less than stellar singleplayer game, though. Co-op, both Mercenaries and campaign, is fucking magical with someone sitting next to you.
19/11/2009 at 21:43 JKjoker says:
i play SP almost exclusively, i only fire up multiplay when im playing lan (very rare), most of the gamers i know do exactly the same, the current trend of half assing the SP component has been a very painful kick in the nuts lately so its nice to see a publisher looking the other way for once
ive enjoyed quite a few awesome LAN sesions but ive never been able to see what ppl like about playing with strangers online, my two bnet experiences were awful, in starcraft i played 2 games, in one i got a ragequit, the second one while i was about to win the game during a coordinated allied attack the ally that was supposed to defend our bases turned on us and stole the game, then in Diablo 2 i played 15 minutes and after having everyone steal every single item that fell on the floor before i could even look at it in the 3 different games i tried i just wanted to play alone
20/11/2009 at 04:09 Arg says:
They do that because multiplayer is more fun
19/11/2009 at 21:48 mbp says:
I will put my hands up as someone who has never played a strategy game in online multiplayer despite having played and enjoyed the single player portion of many many RTS games. I guess at this stage I have even built up a kind of phobia about it: I assume the pace of the game will be too fast for me. I won’t know the tricks that are useful in multiplayer and so on and so on. I think its the whole “strategy” thing that is so intimidating because I have no such qualms about jumping into online shooters despite my noobness.
19/11/2009 at 21:59 Hypocee says:
That’s-a me. No interest. Back in the day I’d LAN from time to time, but mostly it’s campaign or skirmish; even when my friends were in the same room, we were usually playing different things and watching each other do cool stuff. If the AI’s bad, hey, maybe I’ll make my own game on top of it. Desert Combat Operation Battleaxe TK the Thiefbots Then Fight In The Littlebird is one of my favourite high-score arcade games of all time.
19/11/2009 at 22:22 EaterOfCheese says:
From the pdf:
”
Stardock’s alternative is called Impulse Reactor. While it would be tempting to say it is simply a response to Steamworks, the two platforms differ significantly.
Impulse Reactor includes four major features:
1. Player accounts, achievements, rankings, etc. (today)
2. Copy protection in the form of Game Object Obfuscation (GOO) (today)
3. Player to player or group messaging. (Impulse Phase 5)
4. Multiplayer services (anti-cheat, NAT negotiation, persistent servers). (Impulse Phase 5)
”
All those features are present through steam. They’re lying, the lying lying liars.
20/11/2009 at 00:02 Vinraith says:
Impulse doesn’t try to phone home every time you start a game, and certainly doesn’t keep you from playing your game if your internet connection is down and your clientregistry.blob is out of date.
20/11/2009 at 00:22 yutt says:
…he obviously wasn’t claiming Steamworks didn’t have those features. Look at the list, those are what Steam *is*. How could he possibly be claiming Steam doesn’t have the functions that make it exist? Don’t be ridiculous.
19/11/2009 at 22:27 We Fly Spitfires says:
23% is still a pretty reasonable number in my opinion. I think I would’ve been more surprised that it been more.
19/11/2009 at 22:54 shiggz says:
I would like to play against real people instead of AI. But the people who i find myself playing against are usually either hardcore/doofus/cheaters. Of course that’s a pretty realistic life experience but its not fun in a game. I stopped playing online fps/rts years ago when i kept getting steamrolled long before i could figure out was happening. To say nothing of the wandering/standing teammates while guys on the other side worked as a team. I’m sure its fun if you are pretty serious and have a group you play with and you play against like minded and similar skilled people. But for casual players like me multiplayer has nothing to offer. Its too bad, I think it could be fun.
20/11/2009 at 01:09 Zerotime says:
Exactly. You’re either playing against someone who’s ordering units around by biting their keyboard, or a shut-in who isn’t enjoying themselves unless you aren’t, so you can’t learn anything from the experience either way.
19/11/2009 at 22:57 Sagan says:
So what would have happened had Demigod been multiplayer only? Would they have lost 77% of their sales? Or would all those people have gone online instead?
Or lets say there was a single player mode, but the very top option in the menu, even above the single player option, would be a “Quick Play” button which instantly takes you online and into a multiplayer match. I bet you would suddenly have 100% playing online.
Because as far as I am concerned, this only means that if people can play offline, they will play offline. And I wonder if developers should take from this “well looks like we were wrong in making a multiplayer-focused game” or if they should take from this that sometimes you have to force people towards their own happiness.
19/11/2009 at 23:02 Torgen says:
I can only speak for myself here. I was interested in the game before all the bad press came out, but as a result of said coverage did not buy it. However, I would never have considered buying it were it multiplayer only. The only multiplayer-only games I buy are MMOs, and those can be played “single player” the majority of the time.
20/11/2009 at 01:11 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
I think attempting to force multiplayer-only would be missing the point entirely.
Let’s face it, there are a lot of people who would rather play a game that didn’t involve dealing with random jerks on the internet if given the choice. This realization simply proves the age-old hunch.
One really shouldn’t limit one’s potential audience simply because one doesn’t want to give players the freedom to play in peace.
20/11/2009 at 01:12 caesarbear says:
But all the bad press was about the multiplayer connections. The game itself was well received.
19/11/2009 at 23:03 kalgor says:
This be a lesson to them, I would have bought demigod if it had a decent single player campaign. And by decent I mean “with a proper storyline”.
20/11/2009 at 10:42 Subject 706 says:
Couldn’t agree more.
19/11/2009 at 23:08 Pappy13 says:
*steps up on his soapbox and clears his throat*
Those who do and those who don’t
I recently read a lot of reviews and comments made about Torchlight and was absolutely blown away by the number of people that were bashing the game for not having a multi-player component. Not just bashing it, but saying that not including a multi-player piece was downright unforgiveable. It was as if the game had only partially been completed. Like a single player only game could not even be considered a whole game. It was as if the characters were missing arms and legs, the voice overs would suddenly stop mid-sentence and the graphics were all in black and white. Was I asleep when they made this rule?
I grew up playing video games. I played my first pong game when I was about 7. I’ve played on just about every type of game system imagineable from the very first in-home pong systems, to the Odyssey, the Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, X-box, Amiga and finally on the PC and you know what? The vast majority of the games I have played have been single-player only games. Exactly when was it that someone decided that the only good game was a multi-player game?
I’d be willing to bet that 23% that tried the multi-player part of Demi-god is pretty standard across the entire video game industry. Oh sure there are some games that have much higher participation in the multi-player side in fact some games like WoW only have a multi-player side, but by and large those games are in the minority. Most gamers don’t care about a multi-player aspect. They simply go thru the single-player side blissfully unaware that there even is a multi-player component. Don’t believe me? Well the stories like the one above bear that out. Don’t forget that most video game purchases are for kids and teens, not adults. My grandkids go through about 100 games a year whereas I’ll play about 5 and never do they get online unless they are playing on my PC. Now maybe I’m not that typical, but my grandkids are. Most game purchases are for kids under the age of 16 and while certainly there is a good number of those kids that play online, the vast majority of them don’t either because their parents won’t allow it or won’t pay for it.
It’s the game
What I liked about this article I read a few days ago was that the author pointed out pretty clearly I thought that it’s not the genre, the game system or even the addition of a multiplayer component or lack thereof that makes a game good or bad, it’s the gameplay. If the gameplay is addictive and fun, people will play it. All those people who dismiss a game like Torchlight because it lacks a multi-player component are missing one of the best dungeon crawls to be introduced since Diablo II and lest you forget that was 9 years ago. Yes, that’s right it’s been 9 years since Diablo II was released. I saw people claiming on the forums that Diablo II was a better game simply because of the fact that it had a multiplayer component. Oh really? Have any of you even fired up Diablo II lately? I have. The graphics are a joke. Now don’t get me wrong, at the time I absolutely thought the graphics were amazing, but that was 9 years ago. Things have completely changed in the last decade. Computer monitors today have much higher resolutions and they also are widescreen so that you have a much wider playing area to work with. The amount of memory in PC’s has what quadrupled and more? The speed of the video processors has increased by leaps and bounds. I dare you to go back and play Diablo II today, it’s hard to look at much less enjoy compared to today’s games. Now granted that graphics alone don’t make Torchlight a better game, but there are literally dozens of key changes that are included in Torchlight that make it a better game. I’m not gonna get into pointing them all out as that would just make this already too long diatribe even longer, but lets not just dismiss Torchlight as somehow inferior simply because it doesn’t include a multi-player option and Diablo II did.
Now would Torchlight have been better had it included a multi-player component? Yes. I don’t think there’s any doubt it would be, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the single player game is fantastic and by eliminating it, it also cut down on the time needed to develop the game as Runic was able to produce the game in just 11 months. Compare that with games that take 3 or 4 years to develop for a full blown MMO or online game and you start to realize that maybe we should have a few more single-player only games. Perhaps games should be made as single player only games to start with and then if they are any good a multi-player piece added to it? This is in fact exactly what Runic is doing with Torchlight. There are plans for a full blown MMO using the gameplay and art from the single-player game. I dare say that a lot of money could have been saved if a few other companies would have released single-player only versions of their game to see if they were any good. Had Warhammer Online been released as a single player only game first, I doubt they would have ever made it an MMO as there was simply a lot to be desired in the single-player gameplay. In fact all it really had going for it was the multi-player aspects of the game, the single-player gameplay (questing and such) was woefully inadequate.
Don’t knock it till you have tried it.
Finally I’d like to wrap up by saying that a lot of the folks that were bashing Torchlight for not having a multi-player component had not even tried the game. In fact they even said they wouldn’t try it because it wasn’t multi-player. Well that’s a fine way to look at things. A lot of games today take the trouble to produce a demo so that you can in fact try the game before you buy it. I sure wish they would have had this option 20 years ago, it would have saved me countless dollars wasted on games that had great packaging but were absolute crap once you installed it. If a game offers a demo and there’s even a chance that the game is any good, if you call yourself a gamer, you owe it to yourself to try the demo and I’m not just talking about Torchlight here. I can’t tell you how many times in the last 5 years I’ve tried to convince someone to give WoW a chance and just play the demo and they have refused. Why? Because they KNOW they won’t like it? How could they possibly know that without trying it? Even if you are convinced you won’t like it, why not at least try the demo and give it a chance? It takes literally 10 minutes to install the WoW demo and try it if you have a fast interenet connection and yet people won’t or at least they haven’t. That’s crazy. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t played every single demo out there, but if someone is telling me that I absolutely should try it, I will.
*Steps down and kicks the soapbox out of the way….then goes back and retreives it realizing that he may need it again one day….*
I don’t need to “get a life”, I’m a gamer I have lots of lives.
20/11/2009 at 18:44 LintMan says:
@Pappy13: The problem with Torchlight is that it while it’s “single player only”, it’s basically an enhanced clone of Diablo II. But D2 is primarily multiplayer with very shallow single player content, so Torchlight is a clone of Diablo 2′s shallow SP content. And arguably, it’s more like Diablo I in terms of the actual SP content. While Torchlight is pretty and well made, there’s amazingly little single player content on its bones to be very satisfying, at least for me. (And note: I don’t care at all about MP: I’m SP-only).
To be fair, it’s not a full-price game, but to me Torchlight feels more like an game engine beta for their MMO than something actually intended for single players to play.
19/11/2009 at 23:35 lePooch says:
Holy soapbox batman! Not even a tldr version in sight!
I came to say that the report had a lot more than just the multiplayer observations, and is actually worth a read. But.. good god…Pappy just subverted the whole thread. I dont know how he did it, but he turned a post about multiplayer into a post on Torchlight.
And just saying, I managed to download the Torchlight demo in the time it took me to read that.
19/11/2009 at 23:49 LintMan says:
Count me as one of the Demigod purchasers who never touched multiplayer. It’s a real shame, because the core gameplay was pretty fun, but there was really no attempt at all to have SP content. If they had bothered to make a decent SP campaign, this could have been a top game for me.
(Why did I buy it if I didn’t want an MP-only game? Because most coverage said nothing about it being MP-only (because most game journalists – especially RTS/strategy game ones – don’t care about SP), so I preordered it early on based on the premise, plus faith in Stardock and GPG. Later, very near release I found out Demigod was MP-only and decided not to buy it, but it was too late and the game had already shipped out.).
20/11/2009 at 02:42 vagabond says:
Now I feel bad for skewing the statistics.
I’ve played one on-line game of Demigod, decided that random yahoos were at best exactly the same amount of fun to play with/against as the AI and so never played anything but single player again.
I wonder what the percentage is once you remove people that a) tried to connect but never managed all that port forwarding business, or b) like me, decided it wasn’t for them and went back to playing single player?
20/11/2009 at 00:02 manveruppd says:
Either a lot of people were discouraged from trying by the server problems and then just forgot and never came back to it, or there was an appalling failure of marketing there. I’m kinda disturbed by Kieron’s idea that _successful_ online RTSs are aberrant and no other game can hope to replicate their success. I hope he’s wrong.
I did play DOW and DOW2 online, though the last RTS I had touched before that was Dune 2 so I guess I’m not a typical RTS fan.
20/11/2009 at 00:04 sinister agent says:
Not really surprised, to be onest. Of all the people I know who play games, hardly any play them online, including myself. I have a crack at TF2 now and then, and played the odd game of Starcraft with friends years back, but beyond that I am simply not interested.
20/11/2009 at 00:16 Nero says:
I would pick a SP game over MP any day though I like to play MP games every now and then. I quite hate the focus today that many people seem to have the mentality “No MP, no buy”. I don’t want to share my gaming experience with someone else in every damn game and good thing there’s plenty of PC games that give me that.
Also, I don’t think I would dare play a RTS online.
20/11/2009 at 00:24 Saul says:
Interesting that most of the comments seem to back the figures up. I’m pretty much in the same boat, at least with strategy games. I much preferred the single-player in SC and WC3 (the multi was just too stack towards people with experience quick reflexes), and that’s the reason I’ll be getting SC2. I MIGHT play a few multiplayer games with friends, but only maybe. This is also the reason why I didn’t like Dawn of War 2. I really wanted to, but the campaign was just so repetitive and bland that I quickly gave up on it.
That said, I actually love multiplayer, and think it has the potential to be the best type of gaming. But generally not anonymous online multiplayer. I fire up TF2 occasionally, and it’s a fun game, but it just begins to feel rather pointless and futile unless I’m playing with friends. Left 4 Dead, for me, is the perfect multiplayer game. It is co-operative, rather than competitive, so it’s less frustrating playing with “better” players, and because it requires only four players it’s easy to form a regular team that you play with. Even if you play with randoms, the odds are better that you won’t have dickheads in your team.
20/11/2009 at 00:29 Serenegoose says:
I hate playing RTS games online for a really, really simple reason. They’re too hard and it isn’t fun. RTS games always begin like this.
*IT’S YOUR BASE FROM ABOVE, HOORAY!*
“where’s that wee bastard builder unit, QUICKLY QUICKLY I DON’T HAVE TIME”
“there he is!”
“Barracks, there, right now! no time to waste!”
“shite, I forgot to start queuing up more units already!”
*clicks preset list of 2 additional builders and three scouts*
“ok, now to send all of these guys out to grab these points here because if I do anything out of the established order for my faction I might as well resign right now”
“oh, that guy already has 4 squads of heavy infantry. He must have been able to click faster than me.”
*gets mauled*
*loses*
That’s why multiplayer RTS is boring and nobody wants to play it, essentially.
20/11/2009 at 01:31 malkav11 says:
That’s pretty amazing, especially given that you have to assume quite a few people (like me) skipped the game entirely because of the lack of a significant singleplayer component.
20/11/2009 at 01:37 malkav11 says:
To elaborate a bit further: I don’t play RTS games in competitive multiplayer, ever. Nor do I intend to change that. I’m not just not interested in it because I’d get stomped (although I would), I’m also not interested because I don’t enjoy the RTS model without the context of storyline and/or scripted twists and tweaks to the gameplay. The closest I have ever come to enjoying skirmishes is in the Dawn of War games, and that mostly because the combat is so viscerally animated. I don’t play straight up skirmishes in either Dawn of War I or II, although some of the campaign modes are essentially skirmish based with a layering of metagame.
So I just don’t buy RTS games that don’t include a campaign. I was fooled into thinking Sins of A Solar Empire might have enough going on I wouldn’t need one, but it doesn’t. That’ll be my last fooling, thanks very much.
20/11/2009 at 01:37 Frank says:
Yeah, that should teach them: know your target audience. I don’t play MP unless the single player part of a game is so much fun I want more (or there is no single-player part). Even then, if the matchmaking and such is onerous, I’ll quit.
Boo vocal MultiPlayers and the developers who serve them!
20/11/2009 at 02:22 DarthBenedict says:
I bought demigod for multiplayer, but never went online. I’d rather play LAN/Hamachi with those I can verify as human beings rather than the rat like untermensch who populate most RTS communities.
Balance, netcode etc. are important to me, but masturbating furiously to my win/loss rate is not.
20/11/2009 at 02:24 Y3k-Bug says:
The menu screen should have done a better job of pointing users towards the multiplayer aspect.
It isn’t a failure of game design, its a failure of proper UI assistance.
20/11/2009 at 02:36 nichevo says:
It seems to me that there is a trend in gaming.
80% single-player, 20% multiplayer
80% casual games, 20% “normal” games
80% don’t finish games, 20% finish games
80% consoles, 20% PCs
80% Wii, 20% 360/PS3
80% Madden, 20% Mirror’s Edge
Most people will take the “dumb” option. (I don’t like using the term “dumb” because it’s not exactly accurate, but I can’t think of anything better. Simple? Lazy? Easy?) Not that gaming is the only place where this happens. TV, movies and music show similar patters, I think.
(And those 80/20 splits are not meant to be accurate statistics, by the way.)
20/11/2009 at 02:45 Vinraith says:
You’re why most of us don’t like playing games online.
20/11/2009 at 07:35 Psychopomp says:
Correlation does not equal causation, asshat.
20/11/2009 at 11:08 groovychainsaw says:
Plus Madden is arguably a lot more complex than mirror’s edge, just to pick one example there.. ;-)
20/11/2009 at 13:22 The Sombrero Kid says:
he’s got a point, you know statistical distribution and all that, where he’s an asshat is assuming the 20% is always the same guys or that they’re right by virtue of the fact that they agree with him.
e.g. he eats chips so he’s in one of those 80%s.
20/11/2009 at 02:45 Collic says:
I’m not that surprised to hear that online RTS multiplayer is popular than the single player equivalent. I’ve enjoyed CoH and Men of War multiplayer immensely in the past (MoW more so), but it’s a very demanding, stressful experience for me. It has always seemed that I’m either playing against elite korean micro-management, or someone who’s afk having a sandwich.
What this tends to mean is either a crushing defeat, or a victory that I never seemed to learn from. I think in all honesty playing RTS’s online seem to be something only a certain niche, a select few of us, can really enjoy. I found this most true when playing others 1 v 1 (CoH and DoW II beta spring to mind).
It’s like playing a chess game, and if you lose, the losses are gruelling, since if you’re really trying it can be a very demanding experience. Remember when Kasparov demolished so many grandmasters as he emerged as a premier world talent? Well, I think RTS game losses must feel a little like that; theyre not easy to take, or learn from, and the easiest thing is to just go on to play something where losing is a little more fun.
20/11/2009 at 03:00 Phoenix says:
Hehe, “Blizznet.”
20/11/2009 at 04:33 hitnrun says:
RTS multiplayer just hasn’t interested me since the genre abandoned the pause feature en masse. “Blizzard style” (or “Korean style”) RTS games just are all RT and very little S.
Yes, this is my sour grapes to a certain extent. But I’m not really that bad. If you took 3 players – “skilled,” “average,” and “can’t turn his computer on,” they’re all equally futile roadkill against the player who is playing the game “right,” ie clicking as fast as he can and learning to sneak in bits of strategy as he gets better.
(Demigod actually has a MP break/pause function, but I doubt many people know that since it’s not standard for the genre.)
20/11/2009 at 06:56 bill says:
I think, a little like the “hardcore” vs “casual” debates, the problem is that th most vocal fans are rarely representative of the average player… but they make a lot more noise.
I guess the stats have changd recently, based on things like XBL, but i remember reading a few years back that only about 20% of gamers ever tried games online (and that included all gamers). Of course, no one on the forums back then could believe it, as they were all that 20%… but it’s possibly still a lot lower than many people think.
I personally almost never play online… i play for the story, and i don’t have the time to break into the communities.
20/11/2009 at 08:15 burningpet says:
I think that its safe to suggest that, basing on the approach blizzard took on starcraft, the numbers on the ultimate online RTS aint that diffrent. well, atleast they werent on the launch time.
blizzard knows this and thats why the game is not only south korean MP focused, otherwise it would have been released allready.
20/11/2009 at 08:25 Matzerath says:
I play video games to get away from people.
I’ve enjoyed TF2 some amount in my time, but that’s about it, and that will still crumble beneath racist commentary and the scary realization that almost everyone with a microphone sounds like Seth Rogan minus the sense of humor. And if you think Seth Rogan isn’t funny, that’s exactly my point.
20/11/2009 at 08:53 TheApologist says:
Thank goodness for this – rarely if ever play anything online, unless it is directly with friends, and absolutely definitely never a strategy game – that would be an experience in humiliation I don’t need in what little free time I have.
Hopefully we can see the trend of gimping single player reversed based on what customers actually appear to want…
20/11/2009 at 11:01 TotalBiscuit says:
Hopefully companies do what they should be doing and provide a good interesting campaign and solid, balance, properly supported multiplayer, instead of bowing to the wishes of scaredy cats whose egos cannot handle an online thrashing.
20/11/2009 at 09:12 Roi Danton says:
I play games for the experience (story, gameplay) and almost exclusively in SP. The only MP games I play are the occasional shooter (TF2, Shattered Horizon) or a few MMOS (not really often though, they bore me after about ten seconds).
20/11/2009 at 11:14 groovychainsaw says:
I’ve only ever played RTS games single player. Thats the point for me – I can take it at my own pace and enjoy the experience. Its rare that online would be anything other than ‘who can click quickest and most accurately’ or ‘who knows the correct order to build things in to win’ and there are flash games out there for both those skills, frankly.
I knew it wasn’t for me once i watched my friend playing a long time ago, he was pretty competitive on these things, and walked me through it. ‘You have to build exactly 7 builders to get the building rate up to get the first heavy infantry by 3mins 20s so you can press the attack…’. Not the game I want to play unfortunately.
This could be somewhat alleviated by very good matchmaking, where it could match you against people with a similar skill (trueranking style?), also a casual game against someone I know (a real person)is a different deal, obviously. But basically, online RTS = no fun, certainly less fun than other online alternatives…
20/11/2009 at 11:27 Hmm-Hmm. says:
I, too, play RTSs and rarely play online. In fact I think I’ve played Starcraft online.. once? The same with C&C. DoW I’ve not yet played online but I was planning to. I dunno. I feel like I’d really like multiplayer team games, but I also feel I rarely get an RTS sufficiently not to be a detrimental factor to my team. Hence, I generally don’t play RTSs online.
20/11/2009 at 11:41 Kester says:
Hmmm, the prevailing opinion seems to be that the low MP numbers are due to this being an RTS, but I’m not convinced. Left 4 Dead has already been mentioned, and anecdotally I know more people who just play single-player on the Unreal Tournament games than who play them online. I’d love to see these numbers for some other games to see if the number is approximately the same for various genres or if there really is a difference.
20/11/2009 at 12:33 Chris D says:
Demigod seemed to have a number of features almost designed to put new players off the game. At the point I started to play skirmish mode was pretty much the only way to get into the game, with 90% of games using some variation of “no noobs” or “good players only”. Not the most welcoming of starts.
Then there’s the whole levelling mechanic. Which means once you start to lose it’s only going to get worse. It doesn’t take long to turn an early mistake into a pounding.
Team size, too small to hide in but big enough that you have the pressure of letting the other players down if you make a mistake
Favour items. The other points are understandable but I don’t really get what they were thinking with this other than “If you haven’t played since launch then screw you”. You want to give the most experienced players more of an advantage? Really? In a game where advantages snowball really fast anyway. Not a good call this one.
After persevering for a while I picked up the ropes a bit and I did have some good games but then you’d have a bad one and frankly I don’t play games so I can just have abuse hurled at me in my own home. After a while it was just easier to always click single player on the menu screen.
That said I did have a lot of fun with demigod and consider myself to have got my money’s worth. Not with the campaign mode obviously. On Normal it’s so easy you can win without touching the controls once ( I did ). Hard is near impossible to compensate for your teammates before the other team just steamroller everything. Skirmish mode is fun though, when you figure out how to set it for your won level of challenge.
Anyway, when the new demigods are released I’m intending to fire it up again. Don’t think I’ll bother going online though
20/11/2009 at 12:48 ToadSmokingDuckMonkey says:
They reset favor points at least twice while I was playing. I never got beyond two basic favor items for two characters I played. I didn’t own it at launch, but I did end up buying it as soon as the internet multiplayer issues were hashed out about 3 weeks later; I think favor had already been reset once.
As for money’s worth, its fundamentally a $20 game. 8 characters, 8 maps, no mapping tools? I payed whatever it was at retail, $40 or $50 for it. It doesn’t even approach being a “good” deal until $10.
20/11/2009 at 13:01 Chris D says:
But a game is more than the some of it’s components. I prefer to use Value= Fun x Time. Despite my multiplayer frustrations I reckon I was playing Demigod for about two months and will probably go back to it as well. On that basis it holds up as being a pretty decent purchase for me
20/11/2009 at 13:17 Pod says:
Play any FPS game in single-player.
Play More FPS games in single-player — not much difference.
Now take one of them online. Chances are you can immediately start playing using the skills you’ve learnt in all the other FPS games you’ve played and you won’t be too bad. (Basically, wasd + mouse1).
Now take a modern RTS. Play campaign only.
Now take a nother RTS game. Forget all the buttons and mouse controls and unit types from the last one and re-learn them for a new one.
Now take that second game online and what happens? You have to forgot all the buttons and muose controls you used in single-player and learn a new set, and in addition to this you’ll find your SP tactics not working on single bit against a human opponenet. Infact you’ll usually find the online game modes are nothing like anything you played in the single player. It’s all about build queues and that :/
Unless you really want to play an RTS online and are willing to commit time to it, chances are you’re not going to play an RTS online.
20/11/2009 at 14:41 mrrobsa says:
When it comes to RTS these figures seem in line with my own play habits. Although I don’t own Demigod, I have SupCom and the Expansion. Tried SupCom online once or twice and was promptly wiped and the problem with RTS is its hard to learn from mistakes unlike in an FPS. My downfall might have been set in stone 20mins ago when I built 1 factory too many or whatever. Never tried the expansion online. It’s just easier to find an AI that provides a challenge and stick with that, mixing up different maps or whatever.
I did play C&C Generals online for a period though. That game was a bit easier on players though in that matches were over quicker and there was less strategic depth than something like SupCom. Damn good game though. ARE YOU LISTENING EA?!
20/11/2009 at 15:32 dingo says:
Another one here that doesn’t care about multiplayer much and even less with RTS particularly.
I tried Starcraft once online back in university and got steamrolled by those huge star destroyer things in no-time.
I play / played WoW though and UT / UT 2004 / TF2 online (CTF) and can hold my own ok on public servers in general.
I bought Demigod back in beta because it was cheap + the first previews spoke of huge units to command (no word of a strong multiplayer and lack of campaign then).
I didn’t even install the game yet because of the lack of a decent campaign.
Once I got flamed for wondering why “End War” has no campaign at all on a different forum. They fucking nuke Paris in a trailer so why not make a campaign based on that? I didn’t buy it because of the lack of story until recently as a bargain.
I will try the voice-recognition since it sounds cool and then uninstall it.
The thing I’m really concerned about right now is the tendency of co-op being essential to the game.
Sure if you are alone the computer will take over but usually the AI sucks and you are better off without any commerades. “Resident Evil 5″ and “Borderlands” come to mind.
I hope that the industry doesn’t forget that there are people out there that play alone either because they prefer it or they have friends that don’t play games. I know most of my friends since 10 years+ and I certainly will not dump them because of their lack of interest in games.
20/11/2009 at 18:42 Rane2k says:
Do these stats include people who played this on a LAN? On the last LAN I was at (April, ~100 people), the most-played game was actually DotA.
Maybe many people skipped the online play and just bought it for LAN?
20/11/2009 at 18:49 a says:
we dont have this concern at iracing.
20/11/2009 at 18:55 Railick says:
How is Diablo 2 shallow with single player content when EVERYTHING you can get in the game can be found in single player and multiplayer ? o.o The only thing single player lacks is other people, which would make it multiplayer :P
20/11/2009 at 19:05 Liquidize105 says:
These comments are just a sad sight.
Considering most sp games are pretty standard boring affair with wafer-thin storytelling, I don’t you how you folks could’ve stomached so much of it.
Then there’s StarCraft. Usually any game would be a lot better when played against a real opponent, even more so if the game is well-designed and balanced like SC. It’s just too bad some people can’t be bothered with the learning curve. Blizzard is right in saying that singleplayer has to be its own thing, and that any expectation that sp habituated completely wrong ideas and ill-prepared people for multiplayer.
20/11/2009 at 19:13 Liquidize105 says:
blegh, a few typos.
20/11/2009 at 22:45 pkt-zer0 says:
Shouldn’t “too bad that people can’t be bothered with the learning curve” be “too bad that Blizzard designed the learning curve to be so steep” instead? And guess what, the MP community isn’t blameless in that. “MBS will ruin progaming” and all that silliness.
20/11/2009 at 19:07 Frye says:
Warcraft taught me that most people don’t want their games to be competitive. Being a hobby, people play games to unwind and there is enough competition going on in the real world as it is. Then there’s the ‘Googlers’ : it WILL give you some kind of advantage to do research on how to play. That’s where I usually drop out: if i feel i MUST research tactics to stand a chance, something of the fun gets lost for me. Counterstrike is a good example of a game where google won’t get you much extra info, but the more complicated a game gets, the more useful macros / scripts / spreadsheets / whatnot become.
20/11/2009 at 19:33 Tom Davidson says:
There’s not enough randomness in most RTS games for me to enjoy playing them online against strangers. I don’t mind multiplayer against people I’m friends with — ideally people in the same room, so I can hear their cries of anguish (Age of Mythology was great for this) — but the problem is that it’s too easy to turn these games into “Here is the optimal build order; here is the strategy to defeat someone using that build order.” The speed at which you can queue things becomes far more important than, well, anything else.
It’s horrible. It turns out that real-time STRATEGY is much, much less fun than real-time TACTICS. I don’t want to implement a build order; I want to cleverly negotiate terrain and lure my enemies into a trap — or surprise them by bursting out of their traps. If my cleverness is defeated because, by focusing on evading their patrols, I have neglected to build a sixth barracks at the optimal moment, the game experience itself has failed in some way.
20/11/2009 at 19:40 Liquidize105 says:
Sounds like a turn-based game like chess is for you.
In other games like in sports there’re elements of both strategy and physicality. It’s something you can work on, practice. Let’s be honest, to deride that is just an excuse.
20/11/2009 at 19:45 Vinraith says:
Strategy is certainly something best done with time to think, else it’s more about reaction than action. There’s a reason my favorite RTS of all time is one of the few modern examples that retains a “pause and issue orders” function: Rise of Nations.
It also includes a lot of ideas from turn based strategy games, which I tend to like more than RTS’s anyway. RTS’s aren’t very heavy on strategy most of the time, it’s one reason I lament that the term “strategy” for some people begins and ends with games like Starcraft. I like Starcraft well enough, but I’ll take a Civ or an EU3 over that kind of thing any day.
20/11/2009 at 19:51 Tom Davidson says:
Let’s be honest, to deride that is just an excuse.
It’s not an EXCUSE. It’s the reason I don’t find MP in such games particularly enjoyable.
When chess is “solved,” when the best players in the world are computers playing each other, it will not be fun to play chess online against people who have Googled and are mimicking the computers’ strategies. It will not be appreciably more fun to do this in some kind of speed situation, in which the people who can move the little pieces the fastest — still according to the optimal published strategy — get bonus points.
If there is an “optimal” strategy for a game, I’m not particularly interested in playing it. It’s why playing Puerto Rico at tournaments is slightly depressing; it’s why I’m horrified by the fact that many of the best Scrabble players in the world are non-English speakers who’ve simply memorized words and point values.
That’s not PLAYING. That’s WINNING.
I play a game to play. I don’t play it to win. I get enough “win” from real things; I don’t need to extract it from people with whom I’m engaged in social entertainment.
20/11/2009 at 20:09 Liquidize105 says:
I think singleplayer people are putting too much emphasis on strategy and not enough on REAL TIME.
There’s a ton of strategies, and some are game-long and some exist within their own timing window. That’s why units and buildings have set build times. It’s all balanced.
If you really need a very long time to think things over, real-time is not for you. It’s akin to an instrument – it requires you to know the basics, practice the basics, then comes the music.
20/11/2009 at 20:13 Anthony Damiani says:
I think this is probably a GUI failure– certainly an indication that if you’re going to make a multiplayer-focused game, you need to strongly push the playerbase in that direction. TF2, for example, would not have benefited from a single-player component– it’s just not what the game was designed to do.
Now I really want to know the L4D/L4D2 numbers, because that was clearly a multiplayer game with a passable single player experience.
20/11/2009 at 20:15 Liquidize105 says:
You’re very confused and got it all backwards.
MP is fun cus people are adaptive. There’s no “optimal” way to play. Not in StarCraft it doesn’t. In any well-designed MP game there’s a lot of options. It’s all in the way you choose to play whereas SP is mostly about just seeing it through. Very few SP games respect your choices.
20/11/2009 at 20:24 Liquidize105 says:
That’s an excuse. And frankly you’re not telling the truth like some have.
There can be a lot of reasons why a guy can find something not enjoyable. Not winning is one of them, and with RTS it’s a huge one apparently. In a well-designed RTS like SC there’s no “optimal way to play.” That’s a complete fabrication by that gamespot guy that somehow picked up steam like color label for race in the 1800s.
It’s crap. If you’re really in it for the play and not the win, then you should have no problem with SC, cus playing it often means improvement.
20/11/2009 at 20:26 Liquidize105 says:
Both above @ Tom Davidson
Dunno why they aren’t in their proper reply windows
20/11/2009 at 20:31 Vinraith says:
“That’s an excuse.”
You keep saying that, as though not wanting to play games the way you want to play games required an excuse.
20/11/2009 at 20:51 Liquidize105 says:
If you don’t want to play RTS the way it’s suppose to play, then don’t play it?
Why is the blame of not having fun on the RTS and not yourself? Any good MP game would require skill refinement, a degree of dedication, and participating in a community helps it along. If you just want to play it the way that’s in your head, then it is an excuse and you’re welcome to not play it, or play singleplayer mode against scripted a.i.
20/11/2009 at 21:00 Vinraith says:
“If you don’t want to play RTS the way it’s suppose to play”
See what you did there? You turned the way you want to play the game into “the way it’s suppose(d) to (be) played.”
That’s why we don’t want to play these games with you, right there. Your fun is more important than ours, the way you want to play the game is the only right way to play the game, and anyone that doesn’t want to play your way, or doesn’t enjoy playing your way, is making “excuses.”
I play games for a challenge, I play games for the experience, but more than anything I play games to have fun, and dealing with a snotty child screaming at me for not playing “his” game “right” is never going to be fun.
20/11/2009 at 21:14 Liquidize105 says:
You’re just as confused as the last guy. There is no you and me.
There’s “playing the game around the framework that it’s designed.” The game is complex and slowly as it’s played more and more, as the skill level of the players rise, more complex strategies are discovered, more mileage mined.
And then I’ve discovered on mass gaming sites that apparently there’s another way to play – to play according to your own personal fantasy wish, that if it’s too complex or challenging to play against other humans, lay it on “you vs me” and take on a defensive mentality.
Yes, I’m saying SC is like a musical instrument, you need a basic level of competence before you can “play it the way you want to.” Learn at your own pace, it’s still a hobby. Some people take it on as a challenge like folks take on an instrument.
ultimately the framework has given it a layer of mastery, spectatorship, beauty, and respectability. CS, SC are both examples of this.
20/11/2009 at 21:17 Tom Davidson says:
I think the idea that an RTS is “supposed” to be played in a specific way — and, moreover, that it happens to be the specific way you prefer to play — is part of the problem. It may indeed be the case that there are certain gameplay elements which are common within the genre that I dislike. But I’m not convinced that those elements are inherent to or required by the genre. I enjoy RTS games. I dislike, however, counting down seconds before clicking a button. RTS games that require me to do the latter in order to be successful at higher levels of play, RTS games that actually reward players who are willing to count down seconds in their heads before clicking buttons, are not games I enjoy in that context. So I will play them for the bits I DO enjoy, and avoid scenarios in which I need to count things down in my head.
(By way of contrast, I know I dislike racing games. Plain and simple. I don’t like pretending to rush somewhere faster than something or someone else; on top of that, the physical mechanisms and metaphors used by racing sims simply don’t compel me. For this reason, I don’t play racing games as a GENRE because the act that defines the genre — racing — is not something I’m interested in.)
20/11/2009 at 21:22 Liquidize105 says:
And this personal fantasy wish, that doesn’t require one to practice or get better, just requires one to think inside his head and make choices, that completely disregards the passage of time, is pure turn-based gaming.
Historical battles are all RTS with emphasis on REAL TIME as well as strategy. Imagine issuing commands in a timeless vacuum, or issue commands slower than your opponent. It’s unthinkable.
20/11/2009 at 21:26 Vinraith says:
“that if it’s too complex or challenging to play against other humans”
You (and most MP RTS gamers I’ve talked to) really can’t even fathom that it’s not about that, can you? It’s so important to your sense of superiority that it be about SP gamers not being “able to handle” MP, or being “lazy,” it can’t possibly have anything to do with the community playing them. And that mindset, of course, is what’s wrong with the community playing them.
20/11/2009 at 21:31 Vinraith says:
“Historical battles are all RTS”
Actually historical battles are all real time tactical. That is, you have only the units you have, and must use them as best you can given the conditions, terrain, and movements of the opposition. The production side of things, the strategic side, occurs at an extraordinarily slow pace in real life. Slower than any game ever made, and certainly much slower than anyone plays a turn based game. No one ever clicked up a build queue for real tanks in a real war in between giving orders to flank the enemy with one unit and bomb them with another.
So if the goal is to be “realistic” the Total War series pretty much has it covered. Then again, realism really has nothing to do with this conversation.
20/11/2009 at 21:32 Railick says:
Epic Double Post corrected ! And Vinraith is right unless we get to the technology level where we can MAKE people out of a small building in less than a few minutes war will never be like an RTS
Shadowcat “It hammers at my retinas like an evil woodpecker of pure energy”
20/11/2009 at 21:32 Railick says:
It seems to me that you’re the one living in a fantasy here mate. You seem to think that Starcraft can only be played in competition with other human beings and that this is the way the game is meant to be played. However Starcraft was released with a giant single player campaign and then received an expansion that extended the campaign as well as giving some new units for people to use online.
In addition to this the game was released with a very good level editor for its time with a way to play this edited levels online with other players very easily. This resulted in a huge number of custom maps, many of which were co-op or non-violent and non-pvp many of which were not.
To add to this even with the default maps in the game it is possible for players to team up co-op against the CPU players and play the game as they wish to play it, not as you wish them to play it. All the evidence for this is against you mate. Some people like to play starcraft online yes, but not the vast majority of people it is only a small minority of the over all people who baught the game (other than in Korea where people seem to be willing to die for the game)
You should just accept that many people buy RTS games to play them they way they want to play them and developers have gone out of their way in the past to allow them to do this by making games easier to mod and easier to edit. All of paradoxs games allow you to edit the game very easily and they ARE in the truest form RTS games (Where as most RTS games should be call RTT games IMO) There are options to play these games online but it is hardly used I would guess.
20/11/2009 at 21:43 Liquidize105 says:
Yes, it’s fine to play only singleplayer, but there’s no future in playing SP and it’s naturally limited by the understanding of the mappers at the time, and the content itself. MP in SC has evolved so much that maps evolved with it.
It’s not a matter of ego so don’t make it so.
Look on the next page. I’ve listed the invisible aspects.
20/11/2009 at 21:55 Railick says:
When I played on battle.net back when starcraft was first released the vast majority of gameplay was going on in the custom games and AI bashing, I remember sitting there waiting for a ladder game for 10 minutes then when it finally came through the guy playing me had protoss warriors in my base killing me before I even had a barracks built on a huge map. I believe my record for Starcraft never went above wins = 0
20/11/2009 at 22:50 Vinraith says:
“there’s no future in playing SP”
One last note in this silly conversation, since I see this odd notion crop up periodically. Actually, there’s no future in multiplayer. Multiplayer (in the sense you mean it) requires a community, and MP game communities die. Sometimes they die a week or a month after the release of a game, sometimes it takes years, but inevitably some day no one is playing the game anymore. At that point, if you still want to play it, it’s the AI, your friends, or nothing.
20/11/2009 at 23:57 Psychopomp says:
Vin, I wish I could hug you.
20/11/2009 at 20:43 Failoan says:
Demigod is not an RTS game, its a new breed of strategy with RTS elements and you control 1 unit.
All you do is manage a single character much like a MMORPG and the bulk of the strategy involved is based upon which items you choose to buy and which skills you get.
And frankly when I got this game I didnt even touch the single player. To me single player is usually too easy in any strategy game (usually too many patterns) and I would only play to read more into the storyline more. There isnt a better opponent than a human one, which makes that low percentage even more surprising.
20/11/2009 at 21:04 Railick says:
If everyone that didn’t want to play a game the way it was meant to be played just played something else we wouldn’t have Valve at all Liquidize.
20/11/2009 at 21:22 archonsod says:
See, if people were adaptive it would be fun. But since half the time they’re using something they’ve found on gamefaqs or the like they’re not, they’re more predictable than the AI. The point of multiplayer is to move away from playing against a script, when people start running through pre-determined strategies then what precisely is the difference between playing against them and a pre-written AI script, the chat?
20/11/2009 at 21:36 Liquidize105 says:
In no competitive games are people who play by predetermined strategies on the top. At the most they beat newbies.
In StarCraft the evolution of gameplay has gone through so many phases I’m not surprised it’s invisible to casual observers.
New<–slow strategy<–repetition<–fast repetition<–fast strategy<–fast adaptation<–mind games
Being fast is just a natural evolution of gameplay trying to elevate itself in order to become better. So far the opinions here are just based on the "repetition" stage. The reason is simple – people have been playing SC for 10 years now, there's no reason that'd happen if the gameplay is stagnant and stays the same. And because it has evolved in that 10 years, the average battle.net player can seem like a pro to the first time player.
20/11/2009 at 21:43 Pappy13 says:
You’re not listening are you? Read thru this whole thread again and pay attention to what the vast majority of people are saying and then tell me again how Diablo II is primarily a multi-player game. Most people play games as single-player games, Diablo II included.
21/11/2009 at 00:34 archonsod says:
What you’re basically saying is in order to have a decent multiplayer experience, you need to go through all the crap until you’re somewhere in the top set of competitive play. In other words, if I were to pick up SC today, I could choose to play against the bots and have a fun game, or I could put up with months, perhaps years, of sub-par gaming in order to finally reach a point where I can have a game with one or more human opponents and still have fun.
Dunno about you, but I’m still not seeing any particular draw to multiplayer here.
21/11/2009 at 09:36 drewski says:
I’ve never, ever, ever played any strategy game online. The only games I’ve ever played online were the first two Diablos, and Vietcong.
21/11/2009 at 14:55 av says:
no, you can play against the vast majority of the players who aren’t very good, but some will appear like superhuman to you simply cus it’s just that deep
or you can aspire to get better, benefiting from the knowledge of just how far you can develop your play, and learn as you play.
if you just want to “ave some fun” as in waste some time then you can do just about anything.
21/11/2009 at 15:57 malkav11 says:
Why yes, I can do just about anything. Other than play multiplayer.
21/11/2009 at 16:26 Tom Davidson says:
The problem with “aspir(ing) to get better” at something like MP StarCraft is that the skills necessary to become competitive at the game are not in fact FUN (and certainly not skills that are going to have any application in the real world). It is not FUN to play the game the way you need to play it to have a chance. It is boring beyond belief. You have to learn to find a whole other set of things enjoyable — convincing yourself that, no, there really IS some deep satisfaction to be found by playing on this “other level” — before you can appreciate the experience again. And until that happens, what’s your motivation? Only the desire to WIN — which is, as I’ve said before, not why I play games.
Again, it’s like those non-English-speaking Scrabble players who are playing to maximize points, having memorized board positions and letter combinations to make that possible. They aren’t even playing the same game as people who started playing Scrabble for the simple joy of constructing elaborate words — and if that latter group wants to compete, they’re going to have to leave behind the thing they loved about Scrabble in the first place.
22/11/2009 at 02:43 innociv says:
These numbers are skewed.
See, the thing is, that Demigod multiplayer sucks.
So people told their multiplayer gamer friends “OMG DONT BUY IT.”
But you see, single player gamers don’t have the same community.
They don’t have IRC channels of hundreds of active people talking about games.
It’s multiplayer gamers that have vent, AIM, MSN, IRC that they influince each other with.
Now here is the important thing, Demigod multiplayer SUCKED. So people warned their MP playing friends about it. But singleplayer gamers were ignorant to this and fell into the trap to buy it.
23/11/2009 at 14:59 Gregzenegair says:
I’ve never, ever, ever played any strategy game offline. I do 3-4 missions and in go to online, but I am not a pro, I just like to play online strategy games. For me IA is not interesting.I prefer lossing 10 times streak against humans than winning 10 times streak against IA.
23/11/2009 at 17:30 Railick says:
You just said you never ever ever played any strategy game offline then went on to say in the exact next sentence that you do 3 -4 mission offline :P How can someone that contradicts himself/herself be a reliable source of information about anything? Also what is IA? Do you mean AI or is IA a game I’m not aware of?
24/11/2009 at 00:58 Tom Davidson says:
Oh, be nice.
26/11/2009 at 14:53 Liquidize105 says:
Who was the mod that censored me? That’s some crappy moderating.
26/11/2009 at 14:51 Liquidize105 says:
Why did my last response get censored?
29/11/2009 at 02:01 MrSpandex says:
I can say I generally don’t play RTS online because I get my ass kicked. I do play online with friends against bots almost exclusively. The one thing they never considered is LAN play. I often use hamachi or something to play among friends because I don’t want to have to deal with the BS of the actual multiplayer system.
29/11/2009 at 02:39 dadioflex says:
90% of gamers play solo.
Well… umm…
Maybe…
99%.
Casual games, Minesweeper, Freecell included? 99.9%?
Stupid argument anyway.
Make a compelling SP game for sales, add compelling MP content for repeat sales.
Honestly though, MP gaming on a PC is virtually non-existent, even allowing for WOW. WOW wishes it had a fraction of Solitaire’s numbers.
Or we can pretend that playing card games on a computer isn’t PC gaming. But…. I’ll just pretend that assholes on COD aren’t gamers either and… well… my gamers are still 100 times more than your gamers.
29/11/2009 at 02:48 dadioflex says:
And yet 23% of people who bought a primarily MP game ever tried to play it online. What makes pirates such MP fiends that they are willing to jump through hoops to play MP by faking LAN connections, when most people who actually bought the game didn’t care enough to try.
Pirates are collectors. Always have been since the floppy days. The same percentage of games would rise or fall, regardless of piracy. Pirates PLAY fewer game hours than someone who PAID for a game. They may play more games but it’s mainly sampling. If you buy a game you tend to play it, if you steal a game you play until you get pissed off and drop it.
Put even the simplest of barriers in the face of game crooks and they baulk. Faking IPs and conning your LAN is easy if you’re a hardened pirate. But it’s a major turn off for most pirates, who just want the SP experience anyway.
Unsurprisingly, most people who can pay for games want to pay for games.
I can steal milk from a doorstep or I can buy it. Which do you think I do?
01/12/2009 at 10:57 Michael says:
Here’s the thing: unless I’m really really in the mood for it, I find playing against other human players simply annoying. When I spend my precious free time on a game I want to be entertained, I want a story, I want to pause and take a piss whenever I like and I certainly don’t want to deal with the bitching of someone else. Which is my even in MMOs I mostly play solo (like I’d say probably 75% of all players do). I’m not in the least bit surprised by the Stardock results. It’s just that there is usually a crosssection between hardcore players and multiplayers and those tend to be, let’s say, very outspoken. See all the fuzz about left 4 dead 2 or MW2. Because they are so outspoken it may appear to some that multiplayer is all there is and is all that it’s about. Unfortunately, no, the silent majority still prefers their single player, story driven campaign setting.
There’s also the thing that unless you play from the very first day of release, it is next to impossible to keep up with the skill level to still have fun, unless you have a regular group of friends on your level to play with.
As an example, I have gone online exactly once with Dawn of War 2, just to see what it’s like. Other than that I only played the campaign and loved it. Same for Torchlight, Diablo….
If a game has no decent single player content, chances are I will _not_ buy it at all. I bought the Orange Box for Half Life, the fact that TF2 is so much fun (although I stopped after a few weeks) was a lucky coincidence. I’d not have bought it for that.