How many of you kids have ever played a game with a friend?

If so, you've experienced the joys of multiplayer gaming. I've been akin to it since the early 90s on NES. Even since the beginning of videogame HISTORY, Pong was 2 players, and was a big reason why it was so great. The entire evolution of gaming has stressed multiplayer components since the get-go on many major titles.

We first started with PvP games. Then we had Co-Op with Contra, Double Dragon and others in the late 80s, we then had 4p multiplayer on the N64, then we started trending to online gaming.

Online gaming is the next natural step in multiplayer gaming. Instead of having to play splitscreen with a friend (as many many multiplayer games have gone from single-screens with 2p like Contra and such) to split screens for unique gaming experiences for each player (even since ROTT for PC, Goldeneye/Starfox 64, and before that with various racing games like the Top Gear), have reqired split screens. Online gaming allows for a unique experience, as it's yours, and only your experience.

I must ask, have you ever played alot of online gaming? If you haven't, thats like saying you don't like the Wiimote without ever using it. Online gaming shouldn't be a required thing that companies just throw in there. Not every game should have, or need online multiplay. However, it's a certain good addition to any game that has multiplayer intentions.

Many, many of the games listed that don't have online didn't have it when consoles didn't have many, if any, online capabilities. The Xbox was very unqiue that it had online, and that's why H1/2 did so well.

I fear that in the end, Nintendo is making a stupid decision by not having much of it's library online. Everyone argues that the Wiimote is a more immersive experience (which I won't content), but major online multiplaying is just as important. If multiplaying wasn't so popular, we wouldn't see a game like World of Warcraft have more online subscribers than any other service/game in history (and almost as many Wii owners, btw).

If you haven't played multiplayer, go get a cheap version of Castle of Wolfentstien, download the lastest patches, and go play Beachead. IMO, there's no such experience as re-creating a quazi-normandy beachead landing with 31 other people.

I wouldn't say that it is a big deal atm, but that's the way the market is going. Plus, perhaps it's different in the States, but it's not like you can have everyone round your house all the time. Also, if you're playing on the same system, the screen's gonna be split up, and so I would find it better playing online because I've still got a full screen. On top of that, it can't be that hard for any developer to make a game online if it already has the multiplayer option, which virtually all games have. I mean if you have a Co-op multiplayer for instance, the only difference there is is that you replace player 2 with another console.

On top of that, online is only as good as it's matchmaking.

@ion-storm, it may be fun to you, but  have you never thought that it may not be fun for anybody else? Personally if I was slagged off by some random person it would quit the match, unless you're kidding, then it's not really funny.

before anyone asks, I have played online on R:FOM, BF:1942, AOEIII and motorstorm.

Your whole post made sense but I am just commenting on this part, I have played many online games: City of Heroes/Villian (lvl 40 Mastermind/Villian), World of Warcraft (lvl 35 Mage), Star Wars Galaxy (lvl 28 Jedi), Halo 2 (Xbox), Call of Duty 2-3 (Xbox 360), Gears of War (Xbox 360), and it's another war game that was 360 can't think of the name though. I'm not saying that online is a bad thing or that it's a step in the wrong direction, but I am saying that I don't think it's required. I don't think that a home console without ANY online would lose that many sales. And people who WoW play it online because that's the only way to play it, what I mean by that is you can't compare games that have no single player campaign to games that are built for online. Plus, PC is different from home consoles. I'm just comparing home consoles.

Edit: Halo 2 made me hate online gaming on the Xbox, but I did enjoy playing Call of Duty 3 online.

there are games that are good and sole purpose is for online play.


Sports games, racing games, fps, etccc are much more enjoyed online or multiplayer against others.

I guess you can play a machine too in single player mode for these but once u mater it there is no challenge left unlike against real people

I love online games.

When I first started college in 1999, and finally had a broadband connection and a badass new PC, boy did I ever play some online games.  We hosted regular Team Fortress Classic servers in our dorms, with 6 of us on the hall playing in the same clan.  Definitely some of the best multiplayer fun I've ever had.

That said, online is not a huge selling point for me unless competitive or cooperative play is the essence of the game.  In a game like Gran Turismo 4, the whole point of the game is to compete.  I badly wanted to race my friends around the Nurburgring, so I was highly disappointed when it was announced that the game was missing online play.  Most of my college buddies and high school friends live in different states now, and I only see them in person a few times a year, so it's not like we can regularly get all our PS2s and a bunch of TVs together and have a LAN party.

Similarly, I love playing games like Serious Sam cooperatively with my friends online.  The essence of Serious Sam is absolute insanity with hundreds of enemies attacking you all at once.  Adding a few guns to your side (and a crapton more enemies too) just makes perfect sense for the game.  I played deathmatch a few times in Sam, but it didn't interest me because it's really not what the game was about.  Games like TFC, UT, etc. were designed to be online-competitive from the ground-up and had a lot more to offer in terms of varied game modes.  This was one of the reasons I worked on Serious Fortress, trying to bring some more MP fun to the game, but that project fizzled for various reasons.

I'm not at all disappointed that Metroid Prime 3 will be lacking in online play.  I never expected it to have online play, and it has nothing at all to do with why I've been looking forward to the game.  But I'm no Nintendo apologist -- I'll be disappointed if Brawl doesn't have online.  One of these games is about exploring, by yourself, collecting powerups, accessing new areas of the game, you vs. the world.  The other is about beating the ever-loving shit out of your friends in a zany environment.

Anyway, online games are great, but games should not try to be all things to all people.  If they did, all of them would end up being exactly the same.  Who wants that?  It's just not possible to make one game that everyone will love.  Hell, people shouldn't even just like one type of game.  I like to play a whole bunch of different kinds of games, and my library shows it.

Need of online depends on how the game is built. Would SMB be better with online? Or would WoW be better without online? No.
I have played Starcraft thousands of games online, and that's what it is; a good online multiplayer game with sucky single player campaign.

Party games are better without online, for racing games online multiplayer don't matter so much (best times registered online would be good), most FPS:s are better without online.

I think online isn't something that should be put everywhere you or can't. Option for online is good, but usually the single player campaign is what makes your game good or bad.

I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I wanted to comment on this part.

There is a huge, HUGE, HUGE difference, from a programming perspective, between multiplayer with everyone on one console and multiplayer online.  Latency and synchronization issues turn a relatively simple game loop (collect input, perform actions, render the next frame) into a complete mess.  If you know anything about programming, you should read up on lag compensation, client-side prediction, etc. to get an idea of what makes online gaming difficult to program, even on broadband connections (though these are an order of magnitude easier to handle than dialup).

Outside the hardcore crowd, online is mainly for those people who have left high school and/or college and moved away from most of their old friends, it gives us a way to play them since we can't just invite them over. That said, some games -- like Mario Party, for example -- clearly get the most enjoyment from the in-room antics during the game, and even with voice-chat the experience would be a bit more sterilized online.

I don't really care about playing random strangers online. And obviously without voice-chat providing some level of interactivity there's no point in online for me at all (which is where PS3 is lacking I hear due to no standard headset). Nintendo will also suffer from this; and I think they know that their games in particular have almost always been best with a group of people in the same room, it's the third-party games that'd benefit the most from online so Nintendo isn't real focused on it.

Yawn, Online multiplayer is essential for many reasons, an human opponent is more challenging and fun to play against. Online MP also gives you replay value, you don't play the single player campaign 200 times.... Split-screen MP really sucks when you see what the other players are doing

I've played online since Doom with QW being my all-time favourite.

I'll transfer my post from another thread here, as it makes a hell of a lot more sense here: