kerzain
2761
I expect to see that many NPCs running around Skyrim cities, or I’ll claim false advertising! Two things: A) Love the live action dragon, CGI would’ve have looked too fake. 2) That dude takes his LARPing seriously.
DeepT
2762
How could MP even work in an ES game? What benefit would it be? The ONLY thing I can see is an Arena mode where you can join with a buddy and just fight random monsters. Other than that, MP has no place in an ES game.
kerzain
2763
Well, the quests could work similar to Titan Quest, where they progress simultaneously for all members in a party. However, unlike Titan Quest, it would probably be best if all players were forced to party if there are world changing events like Oblivion gates and such.
The biggest problem with this that I’ve encountered in Titan Quest is if different players don’t have their quests synced up, making so certain folks can’t complete theirs without going back and doing them alone, offline. This makes me always segregate my offline and co-op characters.
Plus, I’m assuming there is more than one way to complete a quest - so if you wanted to do it by stealing the thing you need to recover, and your co-op partner is a walking tank, I guess you don’t get to sneak in anymore, you will have to go in with him fighting. Stuff like that would make MP messy.
DeepT
2765
Titian quest is linear. One of the biggest strengths of the ES games is the very non-linear nature of it. Sure, from a technical standpoint it can be done, but from a game-play standpoint, it makes no sense.
In ES games, the story is about YOU, the HERO. It is an open world sandbox for you to play in. What is a 2nd person going to do? The only real place they have is as an extra arm in combat. That isn’t what ES games are about.
Other games are about killing things, that is the POINT after all. Sure there is some story as to why you are butchering hordes of baddies, but really the entire focus of your character is to grow as a killing machine.
In an ES game, you do kill monsters, but that isn’t the point of the game. The scope of an ES game goes far beyond killing monsters. Part of it is exploration, part of it is shaping the world through your actions. Part of it is simply living in this virtual world for a time.
What would a 2nd player do? I am assuming he is sticking with you because if he wanders off, he might as well be playing in his own single-player version of an ES game.
kerzain
2766
In my experience the quests in Bethesda games are still bound by a checkpoint system. There might be different ways to progress from one step to the next, but when that next step is reached there’s still progress being made that can be tracked. Just because the world is sandbox doesn’t mean the quests are so completely open that they can’t be tracked.
In ES games, the story is about YOU, the HERO. It is an open world sandbox for you to play in. What is a 2nd person going to do? The only real place they have is as an extra arm in combat. That isn’t what ES games are about.
That isn’t what typical ES games are about, sure, but we’re talking about possible MP implementations of ES games, which would invite slightly different story trappings.
Other games are about killing things, that is the POINT after all. Sure there is some story as to why you are butchering hordes of baddies, but really the entire focus of your character is to grow as a killing machine.
In an ES game, you do kill monsters, but that isn’t the point of the game. The scope of an ES game goes far beyond killing monsters. Part of it is exploration, part of it is shaping the world through your actions. Part of it is simply living in this virtual world for a time.
What would a 2nd player do? I am assuming he is sticking with you because if he wanders off, he might as well be playing in his own single-player version of an ES game.
I don’t see why this would be a detriment. If players choose to play separately, I think it would be fun if both people wanders out there in the world, inciting change that could affect the other player as they each progress on their own terms. If they decide to team up later on, the quests each have taken part in will still have progressed, so that any new player taking part in them will start at whatever step the active quest has matured too.
Like you said though, there are many different ways to play an ES game, and because of this they don’t even necessarily have to be working on quests in order to enjoy their experiences out there sharing the same world.
Giaddon
2767
Animal Crossing + Elder Scrolls = $$$ from me.
Razgon
2769
I feel extremly ignored now :-(
KWhit
2771
Awesome.
Thanks for sharing, BleedTheFreak.
stusser
2772
Skyrim is a simultaneous release on consoles in less than a month. It’s been done for a long-ass time.
Giaddon
2773
I think he means a gone gold announcement, which I haven’t heard.
I want to like this, but I’m still really nervous that Dark Soul’s combat has spoiled me. Skyrim is very likely to feel clunky by comparison
Aeon221
2775
That video was backwards. In game, the NPCs would all be charging the dragon like psychopaths while the player is fleeing behind buildings and waiting for them to chew it down to a more acceptable level of hp, or for them to die so that there’s no chance of an accidental hit generating a criminal fine.
Sorry, my bad, I didn’t look up the thread far enough or I’d have seen it posted earlier this morning! You get “first” cred!
Not that I’m praying for MP, I like my ES games just the way they are, just that I feel it is inevitable - multi-player is a popular part of gaming these days so I can’t see them NOT including some form of it in a future release.
And that is exactly how I envisioned it: an Arena mode where you can take your in-game character and fight against other players for their loot.
With standings for bragging rights and special loot/titles to the top ranking players. I actually think something like this could be a lot of fun and not take away from the main game.
Er, why couldn’t MP just be like Crackdown or whatever- you join someone else’s world, and can pretty much do whatever. I imagine with Skyrim’s dynamic quest system, it’d be even easier- sure, you can’t progress on your quests in your world, but you could accept new ones, and the server might even remember them if/when you ever log back in. Essentially turn the game into a micro-MMO. I’m surprised that so many people have a problem imagining how this would work given the fact that ‘the ES games are pretty much single-player MMOs’ is a regular meme.
So someone comes into my world, and starts and then completes a quest to destroy the Dragon Lord, forever removing said lord (and his sweet, sweet treausre) from my world, and then leaves to do it again in his own world. Meanwhile, I find out about said quest online, go to the quest giver, and he’s all “uh, hey, someone killed the Dragon Lord already, so I’m good. Thanks though.”
No, I don’t think so.
Er, I might be wrong but I think Crackdown works like Borderlands i.e you need to actually be playing and set up a server for players to join you and when they join you know where and what they are doing (they actually spawn on you in Borderlands) and they can’t accept quests unless you accept them first… it’s not like an open server that people can sneak in when you are away and kill everyone in town or whatever, supposedly you’d play with a friend and you’d know what he was doing.
And even if he did kill Dragon Lord Whatsisname it would be on the server, not your main single player “campaign”.
Anyway, I think a Borderlands co-op system could work in Skyrim… actually, thinking about it, imagine if we could set up 20+ player servers in Skyrim… think of the RP possibilities… :D
