Foreplay? Important?

[cardinaluk]

Hey,

I've played many coop games with strangers in the night, mostly News at Six: the return of Nicholas Witchell. I've found if you search you can find mature Ginger players on servers who will stay behind to cover areas including your ass while you venture forth etc...
Usually BBC news offer this sort of behaviour, but then not every reader will want to join a clan. ^{I have joined clans but they have chucked me out for non-attendance!}

Can I have stories of good teamplay in specific games and maybe suggestions on organising and acting out "good teamplay".

[thecoopyears]

Although at heart its a competitive mod, Zombie Master I've found to be very good for team play, but of course on a good server. Having some one organise the barricade while dedicating certain people to go and get items, it's very good.

I think they main problem with playing with strangers is that there is no structure and your effectively a one man army with other one men armies.

I think one thing that co-op games would benefit is reliance on certain people, but not having to communicate with them to understand their role. e.g. in System Shock 2, your playing with a random person, how do you know the skills he has and how do you comminicate your need for him to e.g. hack a door open.

Real hard set roles are required, take battlefield 2 it's obvious who does what, but battlefield lacks the ability to control your squad as a unit e.g. what would be good is that if you were in a certain radius of the squad you would get an instant health bonus, something like that promotes teamplay without communication.

However good game to demonstrate random team play is Vietcong. Your pretty much dead if your on your own and your can't hear the rest of your team mates on comms if you go to far away from them. It's all about punishing the player for breaking ranks.

But perhaps you want to walk away and do your think, well you should be allowed to but you should be put at a disadvantage.

I think the best thing is to specify wether the server/game is casual or serious and implement some rules of engagement. Once you weed out the lone wolf and the timewasters you probably all get on ok. It's like being stuck in a room with someone who doesn't speak your language, because you both want to you'll find a method of communication that you both understand.

sorry lecture...

[Peetabix]

If a coop teamplay game is what you want then Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is what you want.
Its impossible to progress unless you work together. Theres even coop moves, like one player giving the other a boost up to reach a higher ledge.


Re the communication thing theres always in-game chat.

[cardinaluk]

An example of good and bad teamplay:

I had an excellent time with Star Wars Galaxies. I know its not particulary coop but it DID involve teamplay.
I was playing the 10 day free promotion to see how well it played and to develop my character.
I'd been playing every night for a week and was beginning to think its very very slow progress, and I was'nt really enjoying it.
I went to a bar in a mos eisley type city and stood my character at a bar and a bloke came over and talked to me. I entertained him for a while and he asked me to go and shoot a few wamp rats together. We travelled for a long time, running I remember, and we shot some wamp rats. After that we crouched behind a rock and threw a thermal detonator at some innocent storm troopers. (NPC's) they chased us but we managed to evade them. About 3-4 days of meeting online in the bar we did missions together, until I was hanging out at the bar one day and some philanthropist (spelling?) just gave me 150,000 credits.

I gladly accepted as I knew this would have taken me literally months to achieve. I left thinking why did he give me that? I went back and he said he had a property business (in the game) and he'd sold many that day. I went back to my friend and said that I had been given 150,000, shall we buy a speeder? He replied "he gave me 500,000" he had already bought a decent speeder and joined a clan in the game. He left me all because of some idiot giving out free credits.

It left me thinking, is that the right way to behave in a game? Is that teamplay? Is it COOP?

My time ran out in Galaxies and I never looked back.

All the MMORPG's I have played (including WoW) there are always people there abusing the economic system in the game which spoils it for me. What really bugs me is those people in markets who fill the screen with [glow=red,2,300]"nd FireAxe 1/4/2# & DeathCloak xchange 4 800gp plz NEED QUICK"[/glow]
That for me is deeply unsatisfying.

Tell me is a MMORPG nothing to do with COOP?

[Peetabix]

cardinaluk said:

An example of good and bad teamplay:

I had an excellent time with Star Wars Galaxies. ....

Tell me is a MMORPG nothing to do with COOP?

Well, you could say that the biggest coop experiance is to be found in MMOs. People usually know other people who play the game and thats why there are there. To be social and play together.
So yeah MMORPGs are part of the COOP "genre".

Regarding that guy buggering off, it happends all the time in MMOs. You'll meet someone, chat to them and quest with them for a few days then either you'll find someone else to go around with or they will.

[Peetabix]

To cardinaluk.
I'm trying to get my head around why this thread is here, don't get me wrong i love a good discussion every now and then.
Are you asking if teamplay is important in coop?

[cardinaluk]

Yeah!

I thought I might have strayed off topic with my rants on galaxies.

Just that I was quite hurt by my friend buggering off and leaving me for a clan!

Not really.

No, the real purpose of the thread was to give people a chance to share some good coop experiences.

Eg. In System Shock 2 me and my bro were trapped up in a little roof compartment while 2 rumblers searched for us.......and so forth.

Sorry if I was'nt clear at first.

I just think that if talk about stuff like this, developers may take notice......you never know.....

T.

[cardinaluk]

I know its slightly off topic again, but that's me, but I don't agree that an MMORPG is a coop game.

Sure you can team up and play cooperatively but then its not in the sense of what coop games are and should be.

There is nothing like playing against a good enemy AI with a mate. And nobody else trying to sell you a stunted growth axe or something.

That's my opinion.

Love to know anyone elses opinion on that. Or tell me to shut up ;D

T.

[Peetabix]

cardinaluk said:

I know its slightly off topic again, but that's me, but I don't agree that an MMORPG is a coop game.

Sure you can team up and play cooperatively but then its not in the sense of what coop games are and should be.

There is nothing like playing against a good enemy AI with a mate. And nobody else trying to sell you a stunted growth axe or something.

That's my opinion.

Love to know anyone elses opinion on that. Or tell me to shut up ;D

T.

Ok, your entitled to your opinion. I'm not going to tell you to shut up................................yet.

How can a MMORPG that allows you to form parties (or groups) to complete quests or raids not be considered coop? You are afterall cooperating with other players to complete a goal.
You even said yourself that "you can team up and play cooperatively", it just seems like your contradicting yourself.

BTW, i played WOW, EQ2 and Galaxies before i realised that i hate MMORPGs. Time, not to mention money, wasted in my opinion.


EDIT:
Just had another thought, maybe you mean the more personal coop experiance. By that i mean JUST 2 human people in the game world against comuter AI as opposed to a MMO with 10 million humans and god knows how many AI.

[Peetabix]

cardinaluk said:

I just think that if talk about stuff like this, developers may take notice......you never know.....

T.

Take notice? Here? This isnt the Quarter to three forums you know.

[thecoopyears]

you'd be surprised, I know there have been devs wandering the boards. All of them being co-op fans themselves.

I've spoken to a couple of them and generally the consensus is that problems developing a co-op game or mode originate from the planning/design stage.

I agree it may seem like a long shot to post here, but the co-op gaming community is far less vocal than any other. So if we don’t discuss in the open then we are really leaving it to a handful of developers to get it right.

I understand your reasoning though, I think I'll open another board for things like game mechanics to be discussed.

[cardinaluk]

I'm glad we agree on MMORPG's being crap Peetabix!

I do think that we should discuss this kind of subject though, I really think you'd be surprised at the amount of people who view this website.....
I know if I was being paid to design a coop game I'd want a clear idea of what people want and maybe a coop specific website would be the first place I'd search.