Single Player or Multi-Player?

[minmaster]

for some games, i do feel like playing SP because i want to kick AI's ass, not get my ass beat by some guy who mastered the game and is 100x better than me.

 

[zebano]

Depends on the day. Some days I just want to escape and I'll play Tower defense / RPG games and other days I want CS or LoL. Mostly it's been LoL lately but prior to that I was around 80% single player.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Thats how I see it too.
As dude already pointed out Unreal Tournament arrived in 1999! Do we really need to play the exact same thing constantly for 12 years?

It's not really a disposable game like most computer games. Rather, a high quality arena style FPS is similar to a sport. People still play chess, basketball, and football even though those sports are decades old. If you only played the games in single player or casually online then you might not have ever come to realize how it could be a sport, but competitive 5v5 capture-the-flag matches complete with voice comm and positional assignments almost feels like a real sport. I can almost hear announcers calling the plays and making comments with the players developing reputations, play styles, and personalities.

Its time to move on to bigger and better things, and I dont mean new iterations of Unreal Tournament that are basically the same game with better graphics. I mean entirely new games.

This wouldn't be an issue if a bigger and better game had actually been released in the online multiplayer arena style genre but that hasn't happened. Rather, the entire genre has been ruined by consolization. (Then people wrongly concluded that no one wanted to play arena style FPS's anymore since titles like Quake 4 (not even intended for online multiplayer) and the conolized abomination UT3 failed.)

We need to ignore all the crappy UT ripoffs until the industry gets a clue and makes something genuinely different.

What ripoffs are there? What other arena style FPS's have been released in the past couple years? The last one I can think of was UT3 itself (which, of course, was consolized crap).

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

multiplayer 75%

for games like SC2, i played solo to beat the game first and now it's all multiplayer.
borderlands, multplayer 95% of the time.

GT5 (PS3), 90% solo since there's so much to do in singe player mode.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I like smaller scale multiplayer games 2-4 players the best....


My friends don't have Civ5, and I don't care to play with strangers
Fallout games are single player only
X3 single player only
Wow is multiplayer, but unless you run with a group of 5 or more, most everything else is meant for 1 person .... (I wish there was more content focused on teams of 2 or 3 people)
Started playing Simcity 4 again ... single player
Sometimes I'll fire up Nexuiz, and do some deathmatch.... but haven't in a long time
Usually when I mess with OpenTTD it's single player as my friends don't care for it...

 

[crownjules]

The two games that get 75% of my playing time these days: LoL and TF2. The other 25% would be devoted to mostly SP games, though a little LOTRO is in there. So MP definitely dominates my play time.

 

[kamikazekyle]

Aside from MMO's or a once-in-a-blue-moon co-op session with my friend, I'm 100% single player. I prefer a story driven experience for the most part, so that naturally eliminates most multiplayer games. Multiplayer games are usually competition driven and oriented around such, so lack anything story wise. MMOs tend to be something on an exception, though I don't really play those anymore.

My preference also leans towards RPGs anyway, with some Action RPGs and R/TBS thrown in if I like the cannon (Dawn of War, for example). FPSes have gone damn near multiplayer only on the PC, and I think the last one I played was FEAR as that was a more story driven single player experience. When I was younger I got my fill of multiplayer I think.

I find that the older I get, the less friends I want and the less I want to interact with people in games. By the time I retire, I aim to be that creepy hermit guy on the outskirts of town that nobody goes near.

 

[Barfo]

80% sp.

 

[Lorne]

Used to like the multiplayer along time ago when it was Mechwarrior, Diablo, Starcraft, Tribes and Unreal.
The hacking got so out of hand my friends and I just started LAN only then the games just got boring in multiplayer, Now its just single player.
I do log onto a MMO often and socialize with friends but dont even play it otherwise.

 

[evident]

Thats how I see it too.
As dude already pointed out Unreal Tournament arrived in 1999! Do we really need to play the exact same thing constantly for 12 years? Its time to move on to bigger and better things, and I dont mean new iterations of Unreal Tournament that are basically the same game with better graphics. I mean entirely new games.
I admit I still play Baldurs Gate 2 once in a while, but thats maybe once a year at the most. I dont see the point in constantly playing something like that. Not that theres been anything better in the years since.

We need to ignore all the crappy UT ripoffs until the industry gets a clue and makes something genuinely different. If guys keep buying shitty titles by the millions there will never be financial incentive to move on.

you're telling me you wouldn't play an updated version of ut that was good? (ut3 doesn't count). i'm dying for one that will have the same gameplay of ut/ut2k4 and the same community.

 

[minmaster]

oops nevermind

 

[finglobes]

Single-player for its uniqueness.

Multiplayer isn't immersive, and usually follows a similar formula. I'm sorry, but it only takes 5 minutes to hear "OMFG", some annoying teenager's voice, or some overbearing control freak to ruin any illusion of immersion.

lol

My only experience of multiplayer is watching Leeroy Jenkins video on YouTube. I'm sure it can be fun. I just tend to game late at night to relax and
can't get into anything tribal with other people online.

​

 

[frozentundra123456]

I find that the older I get, the less friends I want and the less I want to interact with people in games. By the time I retire, I aim to be that creepy hermit guy on the outskirts of town that nobody goes near.

I am that guy already!!!!

 

[Kirby]

I love a good story, so single player for me.

 

[jlee]

Single player. I like the story and I don't spend nearly enough time gaming to be remotely competitive multiplayer.

 

[Sulaco]

Single-player.

Because as awesome as a good multiplayer experience can be (and with the right people, it's simply the best), all it takes are a few random jackasses, foul-mouthed 'pubers, team killers, and general a-holes to ruin a great experience.

Sure, if you have a great network of friends who are always ready for a match, it's not as big of a deal. But if not, half the time it's not even worth my trouble.

 

[Raduque]

A good FPS can become less of a game and more of a sport. If you can get involved with the clan community and end up playing more serious, organized games, it can get very interesting. The games don't even have to be clan matches; they could be spontaneously organized pick-up games set up in IRC. Consequently, people are still greedily playing 5v5 capture-the-flag UT99 PUG matches to this day even though the original Unreal Tournament is 11 years old now.

That's so goddamned boring. There's no point to it. I play SP games because I like the progression of the storyline. Aside from that, there's no reason to play games.

Edit: You bitch about the AI being stupid, but the AI isn't there to do anything but help the progression of the story move along and immerse you in the game world.