First, to all the historically ignorant, single player is not the elder tradition of RPGs. Of old, most RPGs were a board game experience which all but REQUIRED several players. And note, it was as much a social experience as a gaming one, though its gaming value was both deep and thorough. The dominance of single player modes arose in RPG games for PC and Consoles because older systems often had very limited memory and capacity making the co-op much more difficult to intergrate than it currently is. A lengthy game, with graphics, storyline AND co-op would have blown the fuses of some of the older engines, though certainly sometimes it came down to sheer laziness on the part of the develepors, and the capacity was there but not the will. In either case, tech and memory limitiations are no longer the issue. A game like Elderscrolls, one similar to Oblivion OR Morrowind in set up, could easily support a drop in/ drop out co=op. It could be done, and without loosing the story, the graphics, the game length or the guilds. Period. However, for some hardcoe gamers, singleplay has become something of a religion, but in many cases, a religion without logical merit, merely a near fanatical determination not to yeild to the desires of "heretics" who would dare to want a gaming option that they themselves have no interest in, bolstered by an equally ludicrous notion that those who only desire a single play experience are somehow more serious or more geniune gamers than those who are open to or would enjoy a shared gaming experience.

To be clear, to all who have complained of not wanting some random jerk entering their game and destroying their world I AM ONLY ADDRESSING AND ADVOCATING COUCH CO-OP. DROP IN, DROP OUT, COUCH CO-OP, not unlike Fable III. If you cannot stop someone who you are sitting beside in real time from ruining your world, if there is someone sitting in your living room or bedroom who is somehow anonymous and unknown to you personally. . . well then that situation has alot more problems that need working out than how your gameplay is going to be affected.

The ONLY arguments against singleplay that have any logical value are those about resource and capacity, but even these have flaws and are based largely on hypotheticals. There is no definitive proof that any future ES game (or any past one) would have any less story or graphic content for having a co-op option. Yet I can at least understand and appreciate the concerns of those who worry that the implementation of a feature that they personally do not require, might cause defeciences in other areas of Development. I deem this to be a false fear at this juncture. I am certain that even with co-op added players would still get, in terms of story, quests, customization and graphics, the exact same game they would have gotten in a singleplayer game, but with the benefit of being able to play with a friend.

HOWEVER, what I find so troublesome and frankly appalling, is that most of the naysayers are not arguing about fears of loss of quests, or graphics or options. They essentially are merely saying "we don't want the games to allow anyone to play with a friend, because we don't want to play with friends and we don't want the sanctity of the game corrupted by the possibility that someone might be able to play with a friend!" It is an argument not only illogical but EXTREMELY obnoxious.

The notion that these games can only be played properly if in a singleplayer mode is ridiculous. If story, quests, graphics and all other options are maintained, how does the ability to have a local friend drop into the game a play alongside the main character detract from anything. All those who are arguing against co-op for non tech related reasons would seem much more sensible if they said, "I don't like to play co-op, and have no personal desire for the option," And just left it at that. But to say there is no place for co-op, or that it would damage the epic nature of the game, or that it would have no value etc. etc., those arguments are fundementally flawed. They are no less obtrusive, biased and inconsiderate than if I were to say, "I only like to play as a mage, and because of this Elder S needs to stop bothering with having a bunch of stupid armour and stupid melee skills in the game, and they need to get rid of the stupid fighters guild and the assasins guild and make the Mages Guild quest way longer and have a bunch more spells, and also, I like playing as an Elf, so they need to get rid of all those other stupid race options and devote their efforts to making an even more awesome game for elf characters." That is the logic a lot of you are using, the logic of, "If I don't personally desire a game feature then it is worthless and I don't want the game to have it, even if its presence does not directly impact my playing, even if it is only an option anyway and one which I don't have to partake in, I don't want it to be an option, and all the people who would really love it and derive great pleasure from it can go to Oblivion."

I have logged as many hours in Elder Scrolls as some of the most hardcoe gamers here, at least in its Xbox incarnations. I have a score of Archmages leveled into the fifties who helm every guild in the game, and have been to every corner of traversible Tameriel and The Shivering Isles and the Oblivion realm of Dagon. I greatly enjoyed the game, but frankly, there were just too many times in the long hours of play and wandering where I felt, frankly, Lonely :shakehead: :cold: . I was adventuring through this huge, beautiful game world, but I could not share that adventure, the chill of the dungions, the wonder of the forests and enchanted places, the intrigue of the guild quests, with anyone, and I would have loved to. My game would have been so much more satisfying if a friend or relative could have joined in my explorations. The best I could do was say, "hey, look at how cool this is" to a bystander, and maybe let them borrow the controller for a minute or two. Often they wanted to join in. . . but they couldn't. It wasn't an option :banghead: :flame: . As much as I would have loved to have them as a compainion in my game world, as much as they would have loved exploring that world with me with their own choice of clothing, race, gear and spell lore, and as much AWESOME fun as we would have had adventuring through that world together and interacting with it. . . it simply was not an option. And the more I played, the more keenly aware of the absence of this option I was. All this awesome gameworld, all these awesome features, never a way to share even a moment of that experience with a friend. Elder Scrolls offers an almost real expereince of immersion in a wondrous setting. . . however much of a loner you may be, surely you must realize that most people, entering into such a world, would want to take a friend. :whisper: :foodndrink: There is HUGE value and pleasure for millions in being able to play alongside a friend through the afternoon or the dark hours in a massive, interactive, Epic game adventure. The World of Elder Scrolls is better suited to it than almost any other. Because it is so deep, and so large, and so full of lore and explorable space and quests, it would offer one of the most spectacular venues for a pair of gamers to get lost in as companions imaginable. And there is Great Value in being able to play co-op in a game like this. Maybe they won't offer it, maybe some of you would never use it if they did, but do not be so bold as to say that it is worthless, that it would somehow defile the game by its mere existence, or that it would not greatly enhance gameply and options for millions of players.

Moderator: I have removed the font color and bold after complaints that it was difficult to read. There was no need to attract attention that way, your post as it stands is sufficient.
I have also removed the final paragraph which was flamebait.

This

No multiplayer of any kind please, I love Elder Scrolls a lot, my favorite series since 2000. NO MP!!!!!

i would like co-op 2-4 and arena match making i think it would be awesome. if there was to be... people who dont want it just dont play it.


And this....

co-op via network (i-e LAN) would be cool, if they added internet support everyone would be whining, but co-op with friends sitting next to you could prolly be fine, I mean, so there's no "ooo he stole my items ban plxxx :/:/:/:(:(:(:(:(::(:(((((( QQ"

uh. yeah, would be cool to smash some goblins with a friend just rauaging a cave. yum.

the thing is, it would take a lot of time to add, reducing time to work on THE ACTUAL GAME. and a lot of crap would be glitchy, people would start using hacks etcetc.

oh.. and everyone would be whining.

pointless flame-bait removed
Kudos

the thing is, it would take a lot of time to add, reducing time to work on THE ACTUAL GAME.Hire 4-5 programmers make them work the whole time on it here it is no time reduced on making the ''actual game'' even if multi is part of it.

and a lot of crap would be glitchy, people would start using hacks etcetc. updates patches etc... they are always present and i am a console player so i couldnt care less about hacks they are very rare

oh.. and everyone would be whining.This doesn't concern anyone who would play multi anyway. and hardcoe SP will buy it anyway.
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One point on the potential problems of balancing gameplay for co-op play.

The gameplay (if Oblivion is any guide) will already be balanced in parts for AI controlled companions. And if they take anything from their experience of developing for Fallout 3 then there should be no problems with balancing the whole game for one constant (but optional) AI companion. So would it really be that hard to make Skyrim balanced for one optional companion? And would it really take vast development resources to allow a second invited player to control that companion?

True, there would be issues with synchronising activity on two machines (unless it was a split-screen solution on one PC/Console), but these would be nothing compared to the MMO issues a number of people are thinking of.

Indeed, so long as the second player was prepared to put up with some limitations on their scope for getting involved in conversations, it would largely be a coding exercise. And there's going to come a stage (which they may have reached already) where the Bethesda quest designers, artists and world builders are piling in content, and many of the coders are moving onto other projects. So maybe it wouldn't be too much of a burden on development for a couple of them to stay on for a while to put in a very simple two-player co-op feature. True, it would be very basic, it wouldn't be to everyone's taste... but it probably wouldn't cost much either.

The main question would be - would it appeal to enough people to be worth doing at all? Judging from this thread, probably not, but that doesn't mean the basic idea is a bad one or prohibitively expensive. Just that it doesn't appeal to much of this game's particular fanbase.

Oh, and people please stop saying: '' Omg Omg no no no, The Elder Scrolls doesn't need this !'' Without explaining why ?

you cant judge from people here because we are just the hardcoe fanbase if i would ask around to people who dont come here the majority would say yes cause when we talk about the game where we hangout (oblivion) most of the time someone ends up saying wouldnt that be awesome if we could play together? and mostly everyone say yes. seriously. co-op is an option it costs less than 100 000$ to implement so why not doing it?

Hypothetical perhaps. But your assumption that it would not detract from the single player experience is at least just as hypothetical.

Simply put, again: coding, interweaving, play testing, balancing, re-testing, etc, a co-op does consume considerable development resources. You can make no case to deny this. Imho Bethesda would do well to spend those resources in making Skyrim the ultimate single player TES experience yet. They have enough to improve upon from the previous TES single player experiences to keep the dev team occupied, so freeing up resources to implement co-op (and implement it properly mind you) does seem like a waste of resources to me for the moment.

I have no issue at all with there being a co-op mind you, in any game, as long as that co-op does not detract from the single player experience in any way. And as things stand I have seen no proof that it won't so therefore from me still: a resounding no.




And yet again you make allegations of ignorance to people simply because they disagree. Sorry, but that says more of your ability to make a valid argument than it does of those who might disagree.

A large majority of the games that are geared toward co-op or are multiplayer seem to have single player campaigns that really aren't that spectacular. Games that are geared toward single player but have co-op or multiplayer added have co-op or multiplayer that isn't spectacular. One or the other always seems to suffer.

The Morrowind and Oblivion games aren't set up for either co-op or multiplayer. A lot of changes would have to be done; in Morrowind the enemies were geared toward a single pc. Adding a friend controlled player means adding more enemies? Harder enemies? Do all the enemies go after player 1, or player 2? Do creatures and enemies respawn faster? How do you deal with player 1 using Divine Intervention when player 2 uses Almsivi intervention? Do you allow friendly fire? What about picking up items, looting corpses, Player 1 have control over the quest journal, or player 2? If its player 1 would player 2 defeating Venim to become either Archmaster of Redoran or Hortator count? Who gets to be head of the guilds?

Really, I can't see that it could be done at all, let alone "easily" with the structure of Morrowind as is. If they had intended for co-op or multiplayer from the beginning and took all the variables into account, maybe.

But then if they were concentrating on "How do we balance this to account for multiple players?" how good would the single story have been? Almalexia might have been easy-going, but really, more than one husband-in-his-or-her-former-life? How many champions would Hircine consider fighting?

Personally, I wish co-op and multiplayer would leave the single-player ES series alone. Zenimax has a studio for more-than-one-player games. Interviews have been done. http://www.mmo-gamer.com/?p=284 http://www.mmogamer.com/12/19/2008/matt-firor-players-dont-like-new-game-features so people who want that will be able to see whether that would be a game they would like. Who knows? They may be releasing information about whatever it is soon.

One further caution; read the forum rules.

Calling people ignorant is really a "not-good" idea, and will earn warnings and posting ability suspensions.

Most people don't feel the need to do that, since they've done it over and over and over and over and over again in multiple versions of the multiplayer/online threads.

Tell me that the CoD Black ops campaing aint spectacular lol and then tell me that the co-op zombie mode is broken or that the multiplayer doesnt work.

There is no possibility of a co op feature; Bethesda Game Studios does not do multiplayer.

Out of curiosity, where are you getting your numbers from?

And you Sir, seem to be very very aggressive towards any multiplayer experience at all. Sorry, for what i'm about to say right now but: You seem to hate some kind of co-op experience because you can't play with anyone else, and because, Your precious single-player die-hard religion might not be as good as you expected. So please stop talking dirt about something we are speculating about.

Queue the absolute tides of people I've seen saying the SP in that game is garbage in 3...2...

I thought the black ops campaign was ridiculous and unrealistic
it was all "lolnumbers" without and sort of real explanation
it just didn't make sense to me

Because they shouldn't waste resources on something that the majority of fans aren't interested in. TES has always been a single player series and while there have always been people who wanted multiplayer, most people will want to play TES for the single player.

Bethesda has never done multiplayer before (Battlespire excluded), and with so many other multiplayer games out there, they'd suddenly be competing in an area that they have no experience with. Better stick to what you know you do well.

Tell me CoD Black ops is the same kind of game as Elder Scrolls: Morrowind or Oblvion. On the same kind of engine. That was designed from the beginning as a single player game.

From their site:



Going by the first page of the official site, is there even a single player option? Setting up the single player game, does CoD have the lore and background information that the Elder Scrolls does? Here: http://www.imperial-library.info/

They aren't the same kinds of game, imo. Co-op and multiplayer work well with one, but not with the idea of a single hero, a single champion, singled out by prophecy, to save or change the world.

FPS games do not have the quest/character depth/structure of rpgs and so ti is really easy to balance them... For example, all weapons behave the same for every character in an FPS, all characters in an FPS have the same skill sets, the characters do not have to make multiple choices among quests with conflicting goals. That is why FPS games are so successful as multiplayer games and why even established MMO's like WoW are fighting a never-ending battle with character balance issues.

That's a rather big assumption given the argument I've made and the concerns I've vented.

I have nothing against multiplayer. There are plenty multiplayer games that I enjoy a lot, even co-op modes, especially in games that have been specifically tailored for being multiplayer. But there's hardly any multilayer games that have a noteworthy single player of the scope and extent that TES has, without there being consequences to that single player mode.

Now I'll stay polite in spite of your obvious blatant flamebait: please actually present a valid argument do disarm my argument against a TESV co-op, and please respect the opinions of others without defaulting to blatant insults simply because you lack a valid counter-argument.