The Gamer's Quarter

[Ketch]

Weird game design musings.

Single player vs. multiplayer action-RPG.

It makes me wonder, if it would be possible to make the equivalent of a single-player game for several players, ie. a two-player RPG where one player is Link and the other player is Ganon(dorf). Or both are Ganon and compete for world domination, or are both Link and believe that they are the true hero, and either work together or fight each other to prove it.

One way that I think would work to make a game like this would be to base it around The Highlander. Ie. The players have their own powers, and each time someone kills the other they can absorb their powers (experience points). Or that they need to stand on the throne of power for a whole minute without being attacked by another character to win the game. (ie. so the good characters don't HAVE to fight each other).

[simplicio]

As in, Secret of Mana? Or FF Crystal Chronicles or, to add the competition thing to it, Zelda: Four Swords?

[SuperWes]

[Mister Toups]

You could do it on the DS as a wifi thing. The overworld would be persistant in an animal crossing sort of way. The villian player would do a sort of a resource management/dungeon building thing where he would set traps, enemy layouts, etc., on his own time. He could also, you know, go on quests to kidnap various princesses/artificacts/political figures/etc. to move the "game plot" forward, and give the hero a reason to uh, quest about. The tough part would be deciding victory conditions in a way that wouldn't skew things in favor of the villain.

If done well it would be very awesome.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[Szczepaniak]

So... an MMORPG then? Where everyone is free to become either a villain or a hero fighting the villains? A traditional 2D Zelda style MMORPG would be bloody awesome.

What was Ultima Online like? I've heard good things about it, from way back in the day.

You know what I always wanted to do? Create an infinite, never ending, randomly generated RPG, that contained no text, but depicted an epic storyline via pictorial images, yet actually worked as an awesome game.

In fact, I have like a dozen ideas of stuff I'd like to do with the RPG genre.

Somebody loan me a couple of mill to start my own development company. I'll pay you back, honest.

[Lackey]

A top down shooter where one person is the Hero Ship, and everyone else the Army of a Million Scrubs.

Some people get to be bosses (but they don't get to use their good attacks until they're half dead).
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Szczepaniak]

[Toups the Elder]

There was a thing called Zelda Online which used the ALTTP graphics. After Nintendo got a wiff of it it became Graal.

But MMORPGs are not what we are really discussing.
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This is a bat.

[Ketch]

Question: what would a multiplayer game that tries to provide an experience like Shadow of the Colossus be?I know that it wouldn't be SOTC anymore. Imagine the camararderie of being a posse of colossus hunters exploring and trying to defeat the colossus.

Of course this would not have the same feeling of exploration, so maybe it would need a more randomised landscape.

[Lackey]

Well, I could see it happening; just do it split screen. The players could work together or wander about seperately. Would be kind of neat to only rarely see the other person. Actually I've played multiplayer games like this on servers where there are few players.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[Persona-sama]

Kind of off topic but every single player game is multiplayer.

One person plays while everyone else watches. Interaction commences!


And look, my banner is totally up there! Awesome :D

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[dessgeega]

[Persona-sama]

Oh Dess, you've written EVERY article.

In my heart. :D



Well, okay, that doesn't make that much sense but still...
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[dessgeega]

<3
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[Lackey]

It's good to have friends who'll play through a game you want to see but don't want to play yourself. Even better if they know how to do it with flair (or finesse).
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

[Swimmy]

I love playing through Silent Hill games for other people. I made a party out of it once.

Totally a party series.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Lackey]

This is awfully topical; me and a friend just bought Silent Hill 1, 2, and 4 (still looking for 3) with the intention of only playing them in eachother's presence. Mostly he plays and I provide directional sense. He always gets lost but he's really good at knocking dogs out of the air in mid-leap.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

[wourme]

[Lockeownzj00]

I'd propose a few things--

One, I'm imagining a game that is comprised of several small adventures, let's say 5 or 6.

These adventures are like microcosms of RPGs--in the sense that they are set up the same way, but can be completed in varying times from half an hour to two hours.

I'll choose the DS as a platform.

Players connect to the 'server--' they're in the same world, with the same story, just at different parts. They're different people, with different goals. And they may run across each other at various points, they might even have to help each other. But it's a steady race to the 'finish.'

In one of the tales the goal could be the same final dungeon/boss and ultimately each other, but in another, it could be each party's respective end-goal. Hell, you could even extrapolate and add in other players teaming up and choosing to be on one of the parties. Perhaps there would be a global-stat menu screen, which at various intervals would give choice information about both parties? Sounds hella fun to me.

The other is, Spore. It basically is technically what you describe: a single player game that uses facets of multiplayer: everyone else's worlds.

[TOLLMASTER]