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Only Xbox Port of Doom 3 Will Have Co-operative Play
Ant writes "According to this interview with the Xbox developers Vicarious Visions over at GamePro, only the Xbox port of id's Doom 3 will have co-operative play, and the PC version will not have co-op, unlike the original Doom games. There are also two recent interviews with id themselves on the GamePro site." Co-op was one of the parts of Doom (and Quake) that really got me into the genre, but after I got good enough fighting alongside my friends, I found it was more fun to fight against them, since they were more challenging than anything the computer could come up with then.
Why they didn't bring the co-op portion of the Xbox code to the PC version I have no idea. Personally, after Quake III I gave up hope on id ever producing something good ever again. Quake IV is hopefully in good hands at Raven, but I heard that many left that company that were responsible for their earlier great games.
Yes, playing against people of equal skill levels is more fun. But co-op is great for allowing less experienced people a chance to learn the game. About the 10th time in a row I frag my wife, its stops being fun... especially when she starts threatening a divorce...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Technically, the co-op that will be in Xbox will not be the same as you'd want in PC - it will be Split Screen. It's not as though the Devs can as easily take this split screen co-op and turn it into single screen, multiple location co-op.
While co-op is important to consoles, it's not such a big deal for PC games. How do I know? I recall Serious Sam having co-op and nearly all the games on the servers were for pvp, not co-op.
Quake? Doom? Weren't those ancient games people played before Unreal Tournament came out?
It's too bad Doom 3 won't have cooperative play when it ships. I had a very good time running around Doom's levels with friends, and I'd like to be able to do it again with the new game. The good thing is, id can always put co-op play in in a patch. They add features a lot with their patches, hopefully they'll add this once they get a little less busy getting the game shipped. I bet they just wanted to focus on the single-player game first.
From the post some people might imply that the co-op mode was given only to the x-box as some kind of incentive to play that particular version. However, it was not created by Id, but VV, the company in charge of porting D3 to the xbox.
Id didn't want a co-op mode, and these guys did. That makes me feel much better than if it had been a decision by Id itself in some kind of an attempt to make people buy both versions.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
They didn't really make it clear if the it is split screen co-op or over xbox live...
Co-op play should almost be required in action games. Even ones as heavily scripted and story-based as Doom 3.
..And please don't give us the "it's not implemented in the code" speech - if it's implemented for the XBox, then it's not hard to implement on the PC as well. Puhleez!
Neverwinter Nights and its expansions are very good examples. Granted, NwN is an RPG, not an FPS, but it is still has a very heavily scripted story-line. The single-player campaign is made to be played uhm - single player, but it is still _possible_ to play it in coop mode with your friends on a LAN or on the internet. This is a _very good thing_(tm).
HALO and a lot of other games have also implemented co-op modes. It's often MUCH more fun to play with your friends than playing alone.
Cheers!
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Serious sam is a game that if not for the co-op aspect, I would have played for 15 minutes before junking it. Thankfully for the co-op and the magic of lan, I was able to play it co-op on ultra hard with 2 other people for a few hours before junking it.
The single player missions in a game like Doom III will not be...
...sort of affairs. I'm sure Doom III will be full of scripted events, and will rely on certain things happening at certain times in response to actions. Adding a co-op player means re-thinking all that stuff, and multiplies the possibilities to be considered.
1. Start level
2. Wait until player arrives at end
As you say, co-op presents no special technical difficulties. It's just a matter of editing presentation and scripting - but that's a large affair in what, I'm sure, will be a large, complex game.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
This is certainly the case in terms of technology. Many engines are implemented this way, most of them make all games network games even if only 1 person is playing (i.e. Quake 3).
If a game is made to be multiplayer from the start, then the extra programming work to add things like coop etc. is normally minimal. If there's a single player version of the game and you want to add coop, then you're normally looking at alot of work.
However, technology is only half the battle, there's also the issues of level design, game flow and balance.
Whichever way you look at it, co-op is a significant amount of work. Unless a development team think that putting co-op in is going to shift more units, then they generally won't bother.
Normally, co-op will be used by more people on consoles (esp. if there it's 2 players on 1 machine) than on PC's, so it does kind of make more sense. To put it in only on a console version of a game.
Well.. the co-op for xbox is ok, but basically is the best news Ive heard on the port, theres a lot of talk about the game being released at the same time than pc's but theres no store preordering, is not even listed yet. Considering Doom3 for pc is coming out in june thats not a good sign. And probably means the game will be delayed until halloween or xmas, months after "the release hype" reaches its critical point, chances are you will already played and maybe even finished doom by the time it hits the xbox (considering it can run in a geforce mx card which is pretty common these days)
Aditionally one of the greatest strengths in doom 3 will be the extremely easy to modify engine, doom 3 wont use bsps and just like in tribes it will feature an in game IDE script "compiler" so you will be able to create levels on the fly literally, not to mention there already tools out there to create models for it. Expect the first mods to hit almost as soon as the game is out. None of these features have been discussed for the xbox port, they havent even mentioned downloadable levels, much less mods. Think "half life" without any mods.
I expect a cool but not very replayable game not even in multiplayer mode (which is doom's weakest points) considering that, the xbox co-op addition is a must.
Go ahead MOD my day!
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We're the consumers. NEVER FORGET, that WE dictate what platforms will offer what functionality - not vice-versa.
Never underestimate the power of the dollars in your wallet. Contact the vendor and tell them what games you've bought in the past, and how if they don't offer the functionality you want you won't buy any future games; and furthermore, you'll tell all of your friends (and blog-mates, and website visitors, etc) NOT to purchase the game.
They're going to "try" to limit the functionality, but I'm sure that if enough people bitch they'll see the err of their ways.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Many engines are implemented this way, most of them make all games network games even if only 1 person is playing (i.e. Quake 3).
I agree its more about design than tech, but I want to illustrate one point. Even Q3 engine games, with the possible exception of Quake3 itself, ship with seperate executables for single and multiplayer. But this is still about design. Even when the weapons, powers, etc. are all the same, what works for the single player portion doesn't translate directly to multi or co-op. Design a good single player game AND design a good multiplayer game, don't do one that goes both sorta well. This is just to point out that even when the tech is there, "slapping on" commercial quality co-op play is much more than trivial.
Player 1 and Player 2 (lets call them Sam and Bob for simplicity) are making their way through a hallway, with Bob watching the rear. While passing through a doorway, Sam and Bob are suddenly cut off and Sam is suddenly attacked by an infinite number of enemies. While Sam is yelling at the game trying to fend for himself, Bob has to find a switch/key in order to open the door while sounds of gunfire and yelling echo through the hallway.
If Bob takes too long then Sam dies and he has to wait until Bob gets to a "respawn area" (yes cheesy). But if Bob makes it in time, instead of the monsters simply stop coming, some "boss" comes crashing through a wall and they have to take it out. Very atmospheric if a little heavy on the action side.
I remember the days I played addons and mods with my buddies in DOOM 1 and 2 over dial-up modems and SirDOOM (lets you do 4 players on BBS' with dialup modems). It was much more fun when playing maps that we haven't played before.
I was hoping DOOM 3 (PC port) would have co-operative play like System Shock 2. I guess not. Maybe someone can hack DOOM 3 to have co-op like Sven Co-op.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I wonder what makes it so hard to make co-op for the PC version too then? I'd imagine that co-op makes the leveldesign part a bit more challenging, as you need to take in consideration that the players could be in very different places in the map so you'd need to be careful about locking doors behind the player for example. But as the levels are the same in xbox and PC versions (I assume) then what could be the reason for this? If the company doing the xbox port has time to do this, then why not ID? Isn't it the ID guys saying that the game will be released "when its done", so lack of time is not a very good excuse. Its a shame that developers seem to keep co-op play in such low regard today. For me personally co-op has given the most memorable gaming moments ever, and lots of people seem to share my thoughs about it (For example in the Stalker forums theres a huge thread where people cry for co-op support, after the developer announced that it might not make it to the final game).
Why are so many people mystified as to the reasoning behind this decision. People arguing that there is no technical reason why you can't have co-op on the PC are missing the point.
I'm almost positive that this has *nothing* to do with technical/time constraints and almost everything to do with a big fat check from Microsoft. In Id's Wired interview, they claimed that they were getting a lot of pressure to do an XBox exclusivity deal a la Halo or possibly a 6 month delay. I'm sure that this is a compromise.
Carmack's no saint. I'm sure with the amount of money Gates threw at him he agreed quickly enough.
I mean really. For Christ's sake.
Sellout anyone?
Go ahead & mod me flamebait, I'm in a FOUL fucking mood today, and this just pushed me over the edge.
Conspiracy theorist? Look at the track record.
Each and every godamned Id release has also had a Mac version with FULL godamned functionality.
They've even released Mac demos!
Now, once the mighty X-Box enters the fray, suddenly only 'It' (I'm using the Stephen Kingative version of 'It' here) will have co-op?
Wonder what fucktard thought THAT would go over well.
I'm NOT buying an X-Box, and I'm NOT buying Doom3 it seems. Co-op was one of the things I was REALLY looking forward to.
Fuck this Virginia. Santa Claus isn't only dead, his body's been donated to science.
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
I have to say that my love for videogames was spawned by a PC. I had NES and SNES back when they were initially released, but when I saw Wing Commander 2 on a 486 with all that speech (hehehe) back in '92, I was hooked. Since then, a PC has been my primary source of video game entertainment. Until recently, though, I've found myself to be a bit more satisfied with a console experience. Maybe it's because I got an HDTV for XMAS and I'm just still stuck on the novelty of high resolution console gaming, but for the most part I'm finding the console experience more "solid". There seems to be too much politics in modern game development, and it seems to be having the worst effects on PC game developers; Deus Ex 2, anyone? I played that demo for an all of 5 minutes before un-installing that nonsense, and the "dumbing" down of cross-port video games couldn't be more obvious. But then, on the flip side, look at what effect it seems to be having on rather PC-loyal companies like id... Granted, I understand that as far as development goes it could make sense to only support cooperative on a console and leave it up to loyal fans to devise a system for PC, but I've always trusted companies like id to release things how THEY want, and then watch the magic of mods and what not take over after the games release. A move like this shows how much of an influence the video game market as a whole has become...
...which leads me to the point of this rant. With consoles seeming to blend so much closer to PCs as far as multiplayer and even hardware architecture, it seems like it is only going to get worse. So, my concern is this: why bother spending so much money on computer hardware ($400 for a video card? Give me a break...) when you can just wait for QUALITY games to be released for your respective console? Granted, many of the cross-port games are just terrible and not worth the media they are pressed on, but it seems that the general consensus is that you'll be able to get all the "better" games released on your console. Especially if you own all three, like me. I mean, spending around $600 to get all three systems is probably what it could cost me right now to upgrade my machine to something that could play DOOM 3 at a framerate comparable to how smoothly it may run on my XBOX...
Please don't get me wrong; I do think the PC is a much better format for gaming. If you want to talk graphics, they are completely unmatched to anything on a PC, and PCs have the ability to configure game interfaces so that ANYONE can get a comfortable system set up (not to mention that the control schemes in FPS on a PC is the most precise setup you can get anywhere). It's just that as far as money and affordability goes, it seems like the best bet for gamers is to just invest in whatever consoles are dominating the market. Now, if you have the cash flow to AFFORD a new machine every six months, that is an entirely different story...
Just my 2 cents... I'm interested to hear anyone else's feelings on this matter.
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Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?