18th May 2018 - Singleplayer vs Multiplayer

Leonardo Da Sidci - Yesterday at 10:32 PM
Today's Topic - 18th May 2018

Submitted by Flow

Question, do you guys feel that multiplayer games>single player games?

I mean like myself, I cannot find it in myself to put in 60 hours to complete a single player game, while I'm willing to sink in 1k+ in multiplayer, because of the people.

Makes me think if I'm really playing the game for the game or for the company it provides. Your thoughts. Social aspect > in game thrills ?
Winz - Yesterday at 10:33 PM
before i got a better pc and got into more communities i was only able to play single player games i have 1k hours in the borderlands games because of that, but currently i find that i enjoy the social aspect of more multiplayer games more eg overwatch or games that force you to have a party like destiny if you want to get anything really done.
both have their merits but i find i cant really go back to play BL solo because i liked it better with friends

ColdWetAndMiserableOrColdAndWet - Yesterday at 10:35 PM
I think its a different strokes for different folks thing.

I honestly think both of them have merrit and I know people who are drawn by one, the otehr or both.

I know for myself I tend to sink way more time into multiplayer games than singleplayer because for me I really enjoy the social aspect of video games.

but I have good friends who want each game to be a solo adventure and activly want that single player story driven experience you can't quite get in multiplayer games.

I do think there's too big an emphasis on massive multiplayer games right now and we could use more singleplayer games, but I also know that I tend to sink more hours into multiplayer than singleplayer.

NanoDrive - Yesterday at 10:38 PM
I've always preferred single player games to multiplayer games, but I'm an extremely introverted person. I find it much easier to immerse myself in games when nobody else is around and I can explore things at my own pace. Multiplayer games always make me feel stressed and like I'm constantly rushing, which isn't a great feeling. I always take frequent breaks when playing multiplayer games. That being said, I wouldn't want to exclusively play singleplayer games and I love games which encourage cooperative gameplay like Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime or Overcooked. On the other hand competitive multiplayer games like Fortnite and Overwatch I can only handle in short bursts, and only when playing with friends.

Space Tacos - Yesterday at 10:39 PM
I think the social factor is what works best, yeah. I poured hours on hours into Trackmania not necessarily because of the gameplay (no matter how good the driving is, it'd get boring trying to get the better time every day), but because of the people I've met on the servers. Skype convos that lasted all afternoon, meeting regulars, getting to know them, being involved in the community. That's how MMOs work for most people, right?

I haven't played Overwatch in what must be more than 1,5 years by this point. It's not because the game was bad, I wouldn't by it on launch if I thought so. It's just that the initial rush of excitement died down quickly, as I never found people to team up with. There are no servers like in TF2 where you'd just become a regular. You have to either befriend randos or play with the friends you already have. So eventually I just stopped playing. Even before that point my involvement in the community was restricted to watching high level play videos on Youtube. Eventually that became more appealing to me than playing the game myself, because I realised I'd never get that good playing by myself.

Nua the Sonno - Yesterday at 10:47 PM
I think that a single player game is under more pressure to be good when you play it. when playing multiplayer games with other people, more of the focus is on those people, and less on the game. Thats how me and a group of friends can have a great time in what most people consider to be a terrible game. Thats not to say that I don't love single player games, its just that I only like certain ones. If I'm playing it alone it has to be something that I enjoy, something that I love. If a single player game is out of my genre or has something wrong with it, I wont play it; however, if a multiplayer game is not my style, but my friends are going to play it with me, i would be totally fine playing it.

DarknessvsDawn - Yesterday at 11:21 PM
For most of my life playing video games, whether single player or multiplayer, has always been with people.  I can remember sitting around the television playing LOZ: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and Chrono Trigger (Still my favorite game) with my siblings. We were allocated somewhere around an hour of game time a day so we would all play a while and then trade off on the single player games or play together.  I remember not being allowed to play some of the games my brother would play like Evil Genius or strangely enough The Sims (because of the sex). I would sneak in and hide in our family room to watch until I was caught.  Later on in life my brother networked all of his old computers together and we would play RTS games and the common LAN games of the early 2000s.

I didn't really play by myself until got my first computer, a dell business laptop. Around that same time I started falling into depression. Video games became my escape. I don't have anything very positive to say about that time. I shut myself away from family which left many emotional scars. Honestly I really didn't have fun with the games I played during that time. The communal aspect was missing for me.

Now the vast majority of games that I play are local coop. I play with my nephews and my sister often as well as host game nights with my core group of friends. I do own a large library of single player games, but I tend to play them for maybe 2-3 hours, understand the main gimmick/gameplay and then move on. The only games I come back to consistently are games where I can put on a podcast and hit a state of flow easily.

Good games for me are ones that can result in a conversation or interaction with those I love.

May 19, 2018
Merc - Today at 12:32 AM
From my experience with single player games, they tend to be games that are associated with stories or adventure, and are games that are usually meant to be experienced alone. With game examples such as "Night in the woods", "Limbo" and "Firewatch" all being single player, they are usually played alone because a lot of them tell a story. It makes sense as to how you wouldn't be able to put as many hours into singleplayer games as you would in to multiplayer games, because there usually isn't as much fun as there can be had with friends or others, but with singleplayer games such as "Elder Scrolls: Skyrim", you could put an incredible amount of hours into it, because there is just so much content to go through, as a friend of mine spent almost 2700 hours into it. It's especially great when singleplayer games can be modded, which then gives the game even more content, and offers infinite replayability. Then of course there are those that speedrun a game, which means that any singleplayer game can have an infinite amount of hours put into them, because speedrunners will always want to achieve the fastest time to complete a game, as well as always find a faster way to complete it.

On the other hand, multiplayer games can range from anything. From casual gameplay with friends on the couch, or fierce competitive online play with others. Games with multiplayer tend to have infinite replayability, because you and other players can always find something new to do in those types of games. With games such as "CS:GO", "Overwatch" and any other competitive game, you could put an infinite amount of hours into because you always want to become better, and there is always something you can improve at skill wise. On the other hand, you also have multiplayer games that aren't competitive, but can be made to play with, say, 2 players only. Games such as "Ibb Obb", "Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons" and "Portal 2" offer cooperative multiplayer with fun gameplay. Games like these can be used to build relationships with friends and family, and are just nice ways to spend time with people in general.

I personally prefer multiplayer games, hop onto discord, and just talk and play with friends. Most of the multiplayer games I play are competitive, but I find myself also relaxing with friends and playing more cooperative games. When I feel tired or not in the mood, I hop onto games like "Night in the woods" and "Skyrim", because they relax me and are a nice time waster.
Nua the Sonno - Today at 1:18 AM
Another thing that I think is overlooked is the difference between multiplayer and couch co-op. I grew up playing black ops 2 and halo3 split into 4 sections on a tv smaller than an I-pad screen with my siblings and cousins. To this day I can’t play those games without someone in split-screen, it just feels wrong. Even with online multiplayer I can’t enjoy those games without someone physically there because of my previous experiences with them.(edited)

Old Senile Mushrooms - Today at 2:48 AM
I also grew up with my cousin playing games together, but we grew apart in high school and I have never had friends around me who game. We used to play sonic 2 and 3K a lot, but thanks to the internet and emulation, I actually recaptured that feeling with netplay among online friends when local ones were non-existent. To this day I champion online multiplayer (and will not support games with local-only) because of how far out of reach local is for some people, myself included.

On the topic of single-player games though, I am extremely mixed. Most of my friends who play games will drop the full $60 on a game, play for a week or a month, then drop it for god knows how long while they play the next thing. I don't have an expendable income like they do so I can't afford to keep up, and am often left out of things. As well, a lot of them are rarely around when I am, so single player games end up being more convenient to play. On top of that, I don't game as often as I used to, and I prefer shorter games of low expense these days.

I'd probably prefer multiplayer if I found a group that played the games I liked and was around when I am though, but that's something else hardly anyone in my friend circle does. The only game we universally have in common is minecraft and even then, we all like and play with different mods.

so I prefer single-player games out of convenience and low time/cash investment but honestly, multiplayer games are one of the few ways I can connect with people. It's my preferred form of socializing. I'm pretty awkward and lonely otherwise, and I only do well around others when we have some kind of shared goal we can work for. It's also why I only do voice chat when playing co-op games. I actually refuse to play a co-op game without VC, that's just weird.

I wouldn't say, on a personal level, that I like one over the other more, just that online multiplayer gives me something that is otherwise extremely difficult for me to attain: social interactions with others that feel like they mean something. I feel the most useful and fulfilled when working on projects or toward goals in a group, it's the one time where every social anxiety I have falls away and I can feel like an equal, so when I do find a game that everyone likes to play and isn't too hard for me, that's like the holy grail

Talhoffer - Today at 9:45 AM
I think both have their uses. Personally I prefer Single Player Experiences. Since I don't have a lot of friends who are into videogames, I play a lot with complete strangers. As you people can guess, that can be a completely mixed bag from players who are genuinely nice to french thirteen-year-old Hanzos who yell at you for not picking Mercy. Yeah, there is a lot more replayability in multiplayer than singleplayer games. And they're in most cases much more easy to pick up and play. But Personally Single Player experiences just stick a lot longer with me. There are Moments in Knights of the Old Republic II, the Mass Effect games, VA11-Hall-A, Grim Fandango, the recent Shadowrun-games and so many more that I'll probably never forget. Even more gameplay-focused moments like that one very tough boss in Furi or Dark Souls tend to linger much longer than, let's say, a really good round of Overwatch, Guns of Icarus or Magicka. Again, I don't want to downplay the fun in socializing through multiplayer games, but I don't necessarily play videogames to socialize. That's what Skype, Discord and my Meat-World-Friends are for. I prefer to lose myself and ponder over the story and characters, to enjoy satisfying mechanics or to meditate on how to beat that one boss with his time-stopping bullshit.

Old Senile Mushrooms - Today at 12:51 PM
I can definitely get that vibe, I like SP games for similar reasons, I play games primarily to escape. But I also have always had a (probably not healthy) desire to take my friends with me into my escapism, it makes the fantasy feel more real to me in some instances to have other people there, whereas with SP a lot of the time, it feels like it only matters to you and...yeah I dunno how existential I'm allowed to get in here but I feel like an experience shared has more substance than just being alone in a corner, it's like whatever I do when alone gets lost to the void whereas an idea passed between people is given a kind of longevity it wouldn't have otherwise.

I also like talking about games for the same reason, I will often play SP games that my friends are playing just so we can discuss our interpretations of the same thing. It adds a dimension to it that makes it more memorable, and even makes me want to replay games I've already beaten just to experience them with a friend.
IndirectCogs - Today at 10:54 PM
I think games, especially AAA titles, have been stagnant creatively as of late. I want to see some truly interesting innovations, you know? LIke a Fallout multiplayer war game, or a Halo Galaxy Exploration game. Just weird stuff. They have the budget and the talent, why not take some amazing risks?