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If I mention Doom anyone who hasn't been locked in a cupboard and then buried in a concrete hole will know what I’m talking about.
Doom made us focus on something which had existed before the game’s release, but Doom brought it to the mainstream, what am I talking about? Internet gaming. Whether it is network or modem, it spans a large majority of followers.
Through the passage of time, the single player aspect of games has almost always taken a back seat to multiplayer opportunities. Games are now being developed solely for the purpose of multiplay, for example Turok Rage wars or unreal tournament.
Now whilst Doom gave players a good challenge with nice levels, and monsters with decent AI, it was always the multiplayer which kept you up until 3.00AM, the opportunity to frag a few friends, or even complete strangers was more satisfying than completing single player, largely because a human opponent is almost always more challenging than a computer sapient.
However where Doom introduced the deathmatch, in 1996, Quake revolutionised it. That was over 4 years ago. There have been definitive changes in the industry, but still people think that the industry has taken a step backward.
The recent increase in online RPGs, has steered gaming into the unstable world of online gaming, however your view on whether this is good or bad depends on how you look at the situation as a whole.
The majority of the FPS have a multiplayer option as standard, like a radio in a car, they just look like they should be there.
Moreover, not since the release of Everquest last year, has the online gaming fad really hit store shelves. I use the word fad, because at the moment that is all it really is, something that has got really big, really fast, remember Furby?
In all of this relative chaos, is it not then possible for a crash? Well in theory it could happen, now companies are not just milking the licenses, but the genre as a whole. When you get too many of one thing, people get bored, and the more you have the quicker the boredom sets in.
Still with the recent (well sort of) releases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, the genre has exploded with life, and even more high quality releases will send the genre into uncharted territories.
Multiplayer may be the future of gaming, with faster connections, lower pings and less lag online gaming can rocket into a new dimension. If there were more support from companies more high quality products will be released, there is money to be made here, as we have seen in gaming networks.
In my opinion I would be deeply saddened if online gaming were a mere fad, however there is opposition in the face of developers. High school accidents in America have seen an increase in shootings, stabbing, etc...And still politicians see killing your friend online as an act of self-less violence.
As it stands now, online multiplayer is here to stay; however it could go either way. Multiplayer joins people together in a fun environment, and unites different ethnic groups, different nationalities, and different races in a way that no other can. It is a place where you can express yourself in a non-violent way, and in the future, this could become very important.
Thanks for reading. CM :)
Doom made us focus on something which had existed before the game’s release, but Doom brought it to the mainstream, what am I talking about? Internet gaming. Whether it is network or modem, it spans a large majority of followers.
Through the passage of time, the single player aspect of games has almost always taken a back seat to multiplayer opportunities. Games are now being developed solely for the purpose of multiplay, for example Turok Rage wars or unreal tournament.
Now whilst Doom gave players a good challenge with nice levels, and monsters with decent AI, it was always the multiplayer which kept you up until 3.00AM, the opportunity to frag a few friends, or even complete strangers was more satisfying than completing single player, largely because a human opponent is almost always more challenging than a computer sapient.
However where Doom introduced the deathmatch, in 1996, Quake revolutionised it. That was over 4 years ago. There have been definitive changes in the industry, but still people think that the industry has taken a step backward.
The recent increase in online RPGs, has steered gaming into the unstable world of online gaming, however your view on whether this is good or bad depends on how you look at the situation as a whole.
The majority of the FPS have a multiplayer option as standard, like a radio in a car, they just look like they should be there.
Moreover, not since the release of Everquest last year, has the online gaming fad really hit store shelves. I use the word fad, because at the moment that is all it really is, something that has got really big, really fast, remember Furby?
In all of this relative chaos, is it not then possible for a crash? Well in theory it could happen, now companies are not just milking the licenses, but the genre as a whole. When you get too many of one thing, people get bored, and the more you have the quicker the boredom sets in.
Still with the recent (well sort of) releases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, the genre has exploded with life, and even more high quality releases will send the genre into uncharted territories.
Multiplayer may be the future of gaming, with faster connections, lower pings and less lag online gaming can rocket into a new dimension. If there were more support from companies more high quality products will be released, there is money to be made here, as we have seen in gaming networks.
In my opinion I would be deeply saddened if online gaming were a mere fad, however there is opposition in the face of developers. High school accidents in America have seen an increase in shootings, stabbing, etc...And still politicians see killing your friend online as an act of self-less violence.
As it stands now, online multiplayer is here to stay; however it could go either way. Multiplayer joins people together in a fun environment, and unites different ethnic groups, different nationalities, and different races in a way that no other can. It is a place where you can express yourself in a non-violent way, and in the future, this could become very important.
Thanks for reading. CM :)
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Do you know how much ADSL will cost?
I think Red Alert is a great online game but I refuse to get into it until I get ADSL or Ethernet. Online gaming is fantastic because it's a proper opponent that makes real mistakes. Going back to my AI topic, at the moment, computer AI can not simulate a real person so we will just have to make to WITH real people. This is where online gaming comes in.
I agree with gronti_v that online gaming is beyond a fad, certainly on PC's anyway. I'm not so sure about online gaming via consoles, though, as I haven't seen any details of the cost of accessing the internet through a console.
Now you can get dirt cheap internet access for PC's there's no way that internet gaming will dissappear, but until cheap internet access for consoles is available then it may be seen to be a fad.
Now you can get dirt cheap internet access for PC's there's no way that internet gaming will dissappear, but until cheap internet access for consoles is available then it may be seen to be a fad.
An excellent question and well worth consideration. Well, first we'll deal with the "fad" part of it. I would say that on-line gaming is already beyond a fad. There are people who play Counterstrike (an ever updated mod for an old game) for hours and hours, never getting bored of it and always enjoying the new challenge of different opponents. There are huge communities of people who play the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games and have an entirely separate life on-line through which they can meet with like minded folks and hunt for treasure in whatever ways their morals allow. There are also the hordes of people who log on to Battle.net for games of Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft II Battle.net edition, not to mention the people who use the MSN Gaming Zone to play everything from Chess to Mechwarrior. So I would say that online gaming has already become more than a fad and is at least a cult thing.
The other part of the question was "is online gaming the future". This one is a little harder since it's always difficult to predict the future, but we can always try to guess. Well online gaming is a fast growing thing and any game which doesn't include a multiplayer option is expected to have an excellent single player. Practically all games have some way of being played online, Practically every First Person Shooter can be played online these days and some are even invented with the express purpose of online gaming, there are many MMORPG and some normal Role Playing Games can be played online too, Real Time Strategies are getting more and more multiplayer with things like Starcraft, Space combat and Flight Sims can be played online meaning you have an unpredictable human opponent to dogfight with instead of a computer one with it's routines. All this shows, however, is that the online gaming community is growing and being fuelled and not that it is the future. The important factor is will we ever be bored of single player games? Will we ever give up the option of sitting at home on our own with a game to play without anyone else and with the ability to pause at any time and come and go as we please? Baldur's Gate is a very good game and while it can be played multiplayer it is a lot of fun to just play it on your own. It can entertain you without you having to wait for other players and it allows you to take your own pace and make all the decisions and lead an entire adventuring party controlled by you. It is an excellent game without ever having to go online (which is just a bonus). I seriously doubt we would ever give up our single player altogether. We still enjoy sitting back and watching a story unfold in a film in which we have absolutely no interactivity, computer games will probably never replace this completely. I expect it will be the same with online gaming, we will want the option as much as possible but we will always want to have a single player mode at least as a back up.
So is online gaming the future? No I don't believe so, but it will feature more and more in the future. One day it will be easy to do and extremely popular, more than it is now but it will never totally replace good old fashioned single player gaming.
The other part of the question was "is online gaming the future". This one is a little harder since it's always difficult to predict the future, but we can always try to guess. Well online gaming is a fast growing thing and any game which doesn't include a multiplayer option is expected to have an excellent single player. Practically all games have some way of being played online, Practically every First Person Shooter can be played online these days and some are even invented with the express purpose of online gaming, there are many MMORPG and some normal Role Playing Games can be played online too, Real Time Strategies are getting more and more multiplayer with things like Starcraft, Space combat and Flight Sims can be played online meaning you have an unpredictable human opponent to dogfight with instead of a computer one with it's routines. All this shows, however, is that the online gaming community is growing and being fuelled and not that it is the future. The important factor is will we ever be bored of single player games? Will we ever give up the option of sitting at home on our own with a game to play without anyone else and with the ability to pause at any time and come and go as we please? Baldur's Gate is a very good game and while it can be played multiplayer it is a lot of fun to just play it on your own. It can entertain you without you having to wait for other players and it allows you to take your own pace and make all the decisions and lead an entire adventuring party controlled by you. It is an excellent game without ever having to go online (which is just a bonus). I seriously doubt we would ever give up our single player altogether. We still enjoy sitting back and watching a story unfold in a film in which we have absolutely no interactivity, computer games will probably never replace this completely. I expect it will be the same with online gaming, we will want the option as much as possible but we will always want to have a single player mode at least as a back up.
So is online gaming the future? No I don't believe so, but it will feature more and more in the future. One day it will be easy to do and extremely popular, more than it is now but it will never totally replace good old fashioned single player gaming.
No, I'm not on MSN at the moment as I'm at work.
Hey there YH, are you signed into MSN 'cos you appear offline? Anyway thanks for the compliment :)
I'd say online gaming is highly likely to be part of the future of gaming, but it is by no means the be all and end all of it.
I love to play single player games, games that will not be benefited at all by becoming online games, and I hope to play this type of game long into the future.
Phantasy Star Online...hmmm not to sure, give me a new game in the classic Phantasy Star mould any day!
I love to play single player games, games that will not be benefited at all by becoming online games, and I hope to play this type of game long into the future.
Phantasy Star Online...hmmm not to sure, give me a new game in the classic Phantasy Star mould any day!
Nice post, well done!
I agree with you to an extent, as the internet connections get cheaper and quicker, then multiplaying games will follow suit.
However, I wouldn't want games to forget about singleplayer. A big recent single player game was Soldier of Fortune. That did well despite not having internet play.
I want other developers to take note of that, I want to see games with excellent single AND multiplayer aspects. I know it wil be awhile before that happens, if ever, but it's what I'd like to see.
I agree with you to an extent, as the internet connections get cheaper and quicker, then multiplaying games will follow suit.
However, I wouldn't want games to forget about singleplayer. A big recent single player game was Soldier of Fortune. That did well despite not having internet play.
I want other developers to take note of that, I want to see games with excellent single AND multiplayer aspects. I know it wil be awhile before that happens, if ever, but it's what I'd like to see.
If I mention Doom anyone who hasn't been locked in a cupboard and then buried in a concrete hole will know what I’m talking about.
Doom made us focus on something which had existed before the game’s release, but Doom brought it to the mainstream, what am I talking about? Internet gaming. Whether it is network or modem, it spans a large majority of followers.
Through the passage of time, the single player aspect of games has almost always taken a back seat to multiplayer opportunities. Games are now being developed solely for the purpose of multiplay, for example Turok Rage wars or unreal tournament.
Now whilst Doom gave players a good challenge with nice levels, and monsters with decent AI, it was always the multiplayer which kept you up until 3.00AM, the opportunity to frag a few friends, or even complete strangers was more satisfying than completing single player, largely because a human opponent is almost always more challenging than a computer sapient.
However where Doom introduced the deathmatch, in 1996, Quake revolutionised it. That was over 4 years ago. There have been definitive changes in the industry, but still people think that the industry has taken a step backward.
The recent increase in online RPGs, has steered gaming into the unstable world of online gaming, however your view on whether this is good or bad depends on how you look at the situation as a whole.
The majority of the FPS have a multiplayer option as standard, like a radio in a car, they just look like they should be there.
Moreover, not since the release of Everquest last year, has the online gaming fad really hit store shelves. I use the word fad, because at the moment that is all it really is, something that has got really big, really fast, remember Furby?
In all of this relative chaos, is it not then possible for a crash? Well in theory it could happen, now companies are not just milking the licenses, but the genre as a whole. When you get too many of one thing, people get bored, and the more you have the quicker the boredom sets in.
Still with the recent (well sort of) releases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, the genre has exploded with life, and even more high quality releases will send the genre into uncharted territories.
Multiplayer may be the future of gaming, with faster connections, lower pings and less lag online gaming can rocket into a new dimension. If there were more support from companies more high quality products will be released, there is money to be made here, as we have seen in gaming networks.
In my opinion I would be deeply saddened if online gaming were a mere fad, however there is opposition in the face of developers. High school accidents in America have seen an increase in shootings, stabbing, etc...And still politicians see killing your friend online as an act of self-less violence.
As it stands now, online multiplayer is here to stay; however it could go either way. Multiplayer joins people together in a fun environment, and unites different ethnic groups, different nationalities, and different races in a way that no other can. It is a place where you can express yourself in a non-violent way, and in the future, this could become very important.
Thanks for reading. CM :)
Doom made us focus on something which had existed before the game’s release, but Doom brought it to the mainstream, what am I talking about? Internet gaming. Whether it is network or modem, it spans a large majority of followers.
Through the passage of time, the single player aspect of games has almost always taken a back seat to multiplayer opportunities. Games are now being developed solely for the purpose of multiplay, for example Turok Rage wars or unreal tournament.
Now whilst Doom gave players a good challenge with nice levels, and monsters with decent AI, it was always the multiplayer which kept you up until 3.00AM, the opportunity to frag a few friends, or even complete strangers was more satisfying than completing single player, largely because a human opponent is almost always more challenging than a computer sapient.
However where Doom introduced the deathmatch, in 1996, Quake revolutionised it. That was over 4 years ago. There have been definitive changes in the industry, but still people think that the industry has taken a step backward.
The recent increase in online RPGs, has steered gaming into the unstable world of online gaming, however your view on whether this is good or bad depends on how you look at the situation as a whole.
The majority of the FPS have a multiplayer option as standard, like a radio in a car, they just look like they should be there.
Moreover, not since the release of Everquest last year, has the online gaming fad really hit store shelves. I use the word fad, because at the moment that is all it really is, something that has got really big, really fast, remember Furby?
In all of this relative chaos, is it not then possible for a crash? Well in theory it could happen, now companies are not just milking the licenses, but the genre as a whole. When you get too many of one thing, people get bored, and the more you have the quicker the boredom sets in.
Still with the recent (well sort of) releases of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3, the genre has exploded with life, and even more high quality releases will send the genre into uncharted territories.
Multiplayer may be the future of gaming, with faster connections, lower pings and less lag online gaming can rocket into a new dimension. If there were more support from companies more high quality products will be released, there is money to be made here, as we have seen in gaming networks.
In my opinion I would be deeply saddened if online gaming were a mere fad, however there is opposition in the face of developers. High school accidents in America have seen an increase in shootings, stabbing, etc...And still politicians see killing your friend online as an act of self-less violence.
As it stands now, online multiplayer is here to stay; however it could go either way. Multiplayer joins people together in a fun environment, and unites different ethnic groups, different nationalities, and different races in a way that no other can. It is a place where you can express yourself in a non-violent way, and in the future, this could become very important.
Thanks for reading. CM :)
Page: