[Poll] Co-op, why it's possible and why we should have it.

[Mad Vader]

To be fair, you don't need co-op when you have no friends.

 

[cifre]

To be fair, you don't need co-op when you have no friends.

 

[Silen]

To be fair, you don't need co-op when you have no friends.

Stop reminding me of my situation, it's hard enough. 

Spoiler

 

[Orion]

To be fair, you don't need co-op when you have no friends.

I want coop so I can multibox my companions. Then they can't shoot me in the back of the head.

 

[Lord Blade]

I don't know why they'd have to cut content to add in co-op. I mean, I don't really care about co-op, as I doubt I'd ever end up playing it. But really, it shouldn't be hard to implement.

Everything would work the same as single player, except for the passing of time. Simply put the game would go at the speed of the slowest acting player.
So if everyone's travelling, then the game would be going at that normal pace. If someone's in a scene (in town or talking to someone) the game would slow down or pause for that (telling all other players why).
If one person is choosing to rest, they would basically be sat there until other players allowed game speed to go that fast.

Admittedly the more people playing, the slower things would have to go in general. But really if you're playing co-op, you're most likely only playing with a friend or three, so it's not like you'll have 20 people all trying to manage things at once.

 

[masterhound3]

I really don't care about co-op. It will mess the game up and cut off from other vital components. I don't even care about Multiplayer. I just want a complete and consistent single player experience.

 

[masterhound3]

I don't know why they'd have to cut content to add in co-op. I mean, I don't really care about co-op, as I doubt I'd ever end up playing it. But really, it shouldn't be hard to implement.

Everything would work the same as single player, except for the passing of time. Simply put the game would go at the speed of the slowest acting player.
So if everyone's travelling, then the game would be going at that normal pace. If someone's in a scene (in town or talking to someone) the game would slow down or pause for that (telling all other players why).
If one person is choosing to rest, they would basically be sat there until other players allowed game speed to go that fast.

Admittedly the more people playing, the slower things would have to go in general. But really if you're playing co-op, you're most likely only playing with a friend or three, so it's not like you'll have 20 people all trying to manage things at once.

It happens to be a little more complicated than that. It's not about the speed of the lowest player. And saying there could be more than 2 players makes things even more complicated. What if we are fighting, not in automatic battle, but in real time, and the third player enters a city? Do we just freeze up with our axe one inch from each other's head and then time magically continues when he exits?

What about trading, businesses, diplomacy, relations building etc? Coop can't be made, simply cause every action that affects the economy and the defense capability of a village/city/castle/empire, affects the potential of the other player to win. Only way in which they could implement coop would be for it to be players in the same party inseparable. Which is not what the masses ask for. They want different war parties dynamicaly interacting with the game in their own respective time. Which simply is not happening.

 

[Orion]

It happens to be a little more complicated than that. It's not about the speed of the lowest player. And saying there could be more than 2 players makes things even more complicated. What if we are fighting, not in automatic battle, but in real time, and the third player enters a city? Do we just freeze up with our axe one inch from each other's head and then time magically continues when he exits?

What about trading, businesses, diplomacy, relations building etc? Coop can't be made, simply cause every action that affects the economy and the defense capability of a village/city/castle/empire, affects the potential of the other player to win. Only way in which they could implement coop would be for it to be players in the same party inseparable. Which is not what the masses ask for. They want different war parties dynamicaly interacting with the game in their own respective time. Which simply is not happening.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Battles the player are involved in are events which pause the game in singleplayer. If someone is in a battle there's no question about someone else entering a town during their battle, because the other players are either spectating or controlling soldiers in that battle. This is an ideal way to handle battles, as it gives everyone in the game something engaging to do when one of the players is in an event that would necessitate a campaign pause. Players reinforcing others in battles is a concern created from this approach, but it isn't difficult to theorize a simple calculation to determine if one player can reinforce another based on distance from the battle and party speed.

There's also nothing wrong with players having different or competing objectives in coop. I would argue that the game would be much more interesting if the players took different sides in the campaign, and were at war or peace with each other depending on the diplomatic status of their factions. Why restrict our idea of coop with terminology? Just call it a multiplayer campaign instead of coop if that sits easier with you.

 

[Silen]

There's also nothing wrong with players having different or competing objectives in coop. I would argue that the game would be much more interesting if the players took different sides in the campaign, and were at war or peace with each other depending on the diplomatic status of their factions. Why restrict our idea of coop with terminology? Just call it a multiplayer campaign instead of coop if that sits easier with you.

We could just say they're 'cooperating' to fight each other. 

 

[Mad Vader]

Since deathmatch is for single battles only, maybe anti-co-op could be called deathcampaign?

 

[Cpt. Nemo]

Since deathmatch is for single battles only, maybe anti-co-op could be called deathcampaign?

 

[Lord Brutus]

Did someone call me?

 

[Silen]

Did someone call me?

False alarm, you can head back to the cryo chamber.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Ah.  Brutal, not Brutus.

 

[masterhound3]

It happens to be a little more complicated than that. It's not about the speed of the lowest player. And saying there could be more than 2 players makes things even more complicated. What if we are fighting, not in automatic battle, but in real time, and the third player enters a city? Do we just freeze up with our axe one inch from each other's head and then time magically continues when he exits?

What about trading, businesses, diplomacy, relations building etc? Coop can't be made, simply cause every action that affects the economy and the defense capability of a village/city/castle/empire, affects the potential of the other player to win. Only way in which they could implement coop would be for it to be players in the same party inseparable. Which is not what the masses ask for. They want different war parties dynamicaly interacting with the game in their own respective time. Which simply is not happening.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Battles the player are involved in are events which pause the game in singleplayer. If someone is in a battle there's no question about someone else entering a town during their battle, because the other players are either spectating or controlling soldiers in that battle. This is an ideal way to handle battles, as it gives everyone in the game something engaging to do when one of the players is in an event that would necessitate a campaign pause. Players reinforcing others in battles is a concern created from this approach, but it isn't difficult to theorize a simple calculation to determine if one player can reinforce another based on distance from the battle and party speed.

There's also nothing wrong with players having different or competing objectives in coop. I would argue that the game would be much more interesting if the players took different sides in the campaign, and were at war or peace with each other depending on the diplomatic status of their factions. Why restrict our idea of coop with terminology? Just call it a multiplayer campaign instead of coop if that sits easier with you.

One more reason why it can't work.

 

[Orion]

Thanks for that well-reasoned and thoroughly-explained analysis of the perceived problem. Your input is highly valued.

 

[Silen]

One more reason why it can't work.

Concise.

 

[Orion]

Spoiler: Opinions

 

[Arch]

Oh man, reading through this whole thread made me remember my lurking days on the forum. Specifically this topic:

Spoiler

Hello, and welcome to my post. If you are reading this post, you are either A) a person who wants M&B to have multiplayer, or B) some one who thinks I am making a post about multiplayer and how much I want it.

This post is aimed towards the A-people, to help the B-people.

Please, consider the following.

Multiplayer will NOT be implemented in to this game, the only real possibility for M&B to have multiplayer is M&B2. Try NOT to make more posts suggesting multiplayer. These posts clutter up the suggestion board, and are annoying to the people who have to scroll to find a topic that they've been posting on.

NOBODY likes to login to the forums, go to the suggestions board, and find 10 new topics about multiplayer that they need to scroll through to find the topic they posted on yesterday.

All new members to the forums, please try to NOT make new suggestions about multiplayer, unless you have discovered, and are willing to reveal to us, a simple way to implement multiplayer. You would also need to inform Armagan, find a good server to host M&B on, etc. etc. So, unless you are willing to do the above, do NOT suggest multiplayer. If you can:

Find the simplest way to code multiplayer in to M&B
Get Armagan to approve your method
Find a server suitable to host M&B multiplayer
Pay for server that is suitable to host M&B multiplayer
Get the multiplayer up, running, and working properly
Test multiplayer with chosen testers
Release multiplayer to public

then sure, go ahead and suggest multiplayer. If you can NOT, don't make another topic about it.

P.S. some people (I won't point fingers) have been making numerous topics with already mentioned/not-so-great ideas, just so they can make a poll about Multiplayer. This is also annoying, because a post about an arena in every town has nothing to do with multiplayer. Do not make useless posts just to make polls about multiplayer.

Thanks.

More on topic, I'd love to see a co-op that's more along the lines of what you've been saying Orion. Not a glorified Battle Time. (No hate on the mod, just want something a  bit more than that) At the end of the day though, I'm excited for Bannerlord regardless of if it has this or not.

 

[Orion]

That thread ended up being rather useful. There were at least ten new topics every day about multiplayer for the first game, but that one was eventually stickied and became the one place to freely discuss multiplayer. It ended up over 100 pages long before the announcement of Warband. I'm glad we haven't seen nonsense on that scale for Bannerlord.

Gonzo is still an idiot, too. He was one of the morons that would make a bunch of new threads all at once, and every single one would be a carbon-copy of the others, all demanding multiplayer. Looks like they were deleted at some point.