I was shredding it up Close Quarters style a few minutes ago, and I was selling 3079 – one of the games I told you to buy in IndieFort.
I’ll get to that review in a second, I had quoted somewhere that said “3079 is a mix of Fallout 1 and Minecraft” and my regular squaddies were all over it. Then one of them remarked “Does it have multiplayer?” I replied “No unfortunately” and he quipped “Awww, you lost me! No multiplayer, I’m not interested.” This struck me as odd, so odd I don’t even think I mentioned anything. Then I asked myself, is single player dead? Does everyone want to do everything with everyone? I had a good long hard think about it, and you know what? If it ain’t multiplayer, people aren’t just as interested, Humans are social creatures, they need Human-Human interaction – but writing off games for a lack of multiplayer… This is bad, this is wrong. This is badwrong – No, Badong. Yes. This. Is. Badong.
Call Of Duty and Battlefield
Two games series consumed massively by the masses, but not exactly for the single player. Lackluster and desensitizing sum that experience, but only in multiplayer games have I ever clocked over 200 hours on a single game. Why? It’s not new stuff, I’ve only been competitive over the last few months in BF3, what’s the hook? Where’s the appeal? It’s all in bragging rights, when I have one round for 15 minutes and I get a long range headshot with a smoke grenade – I’m done for the night. I need to prove myself on the fields of battle, and after nearly 150 hours I can say confidently “I can land a smoke nade launcher kill up to 50m, no problem.”
Dota 2, League, and HoN
The single player is just practice for the multiplayer, why are people so fanatical about this? I will admit these play much more like sports then your average video game – but you do get the lunchtimers here as well. I can see the appeal of hundreds of hours input here, but my god are those frustrating hours. I ask myself why I even play Dota 2, it feels like a chore. Again, it’s the bragging rights. “Should’ve seen my Kunkka with 2 Divine Rapiers, Blink Dagger, Bladefury and Shadowblade. Shit was SO cash.” I’ll play 6 games in a row, back to back, if I’m even winning or close to winning. I lose one game, feel like a loser, and swear to not play the game for a week. Then I’m back to it a few days later… Dragon Knight, you are a heartless master.
Imagine Those Games Without Multiplayer
Call of Duty would be $100 for 6-8 hours, Battlefield 3 for not much longer. Dota, LoL, HoN, wouldn’t exist. StarCraft wouldn’t be a national sport in South Korea, and Team Fortress 2 would actually just be a Hat Simulator. Multiplayer = Longevity, but why was this always something? Now a days, with DLC’s, map packs, skins, content, Premium, Elite Memberships, I can see why any AAA company would want loyal multiplaying fans – but what about the good old days of Doom? Where the multiplayer was for the fun.
Games have lost their fun. Companies are making games for money, for only money. Doom’s devs got nothing out of all of the SDK’s they pushed out, it was all free. All the community content was free, and you know what happened? A legacy was made. I play Battlefield now waiting for the next expansion (slightly different now that I am in a clan). I played Killing Floor till new FREE DLC came out, then I played my heart out, by then, new content! TF2 has the right idea, as does KF and any other game that runs like a service, not a good. We’ve lost sight of that in this day and age. “You’ve lost me at no multiplayer.” Maybe a perfectly honest thing to say, but it’s not fair on all the hard work done on all those masterpieces. Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout 1-New Vegas, Gothic(s), Mass Effect, Dragonage, Dark Souls, these are games of pure quality. Built around the concept of fun (except Skyrim, it’s a money grabber). The pattern is, they are all RPGs. If you want over 10 hours of gameplay, be smart, be multiplayer, or be RPG.
I guess that’s why MMO’s sell well and that’s why I stick to indie games.
