5th February 2007, 4:21 PM
Erm... what the heck? None of those things are true. Single-player games are great, and I play them a lot. I don't want multiplayer games to replace single-player ones, never have, and don't think I ever will, so accusing me of that is absolutely and totally wrong. Games which are single-player shouldn't have multiplayer modes forced into them.
Expecting games which are multiplayer to have good multiplayer modes is a completely different issue and does not affect the single-player argument. The issue is multiplayer games, and there, it is not "putting inordinate importance" into the issue to expect something maybe equal to what I got on PC eight or nine years ago. Really, quite the opposite, that should be a given... the issue should be "what MORE than that can they give us?" not "why doesn't this match PC online games from 1997?"... (random-matchmaking mode excluded, those games usually didn't have that)
Acting like this is okay is ridiculous. Why should anyone bother playing an online mode where you can't contact the other people? What is the point? THERE ISN'T ONE! The idea that that is in any way a defensible policy is ridiculous. It is NOT putting "an inordinate amount of importance" onto online gaming to expect a bare minimum feature list (not all the things I listed above; stuff like guild/clan support, Custom modes beyond just hosting for friends, keybaord chat, online stat tracking (as opposed to just ingame), and commands like /whereis or stuff are optional, if greatly appreciated). It is simply wanting to have an online gaming mode that is actually online.
What Nintendo has now is like those little built-in Windows games Microsoft has (built in to ME anyway) for online Go, Hearts, etc -- you can't chat, just choose from some options on a menu for predefined chat selections. It's crippled and gets boring really quickly...
Expecting games which are multiplayer to have good multiplayer modes is a completely different issue and does not affect the single-player argument. The issue is multiplayer games, and there, it is not "putting inordinate importance" into the issue to expect something maybe equal to what I got on PC eight or nine years ago. Really, quite the opposite, that should be a given... the issue should be "what MORE than that can they give us?" not "why doesn't this match PC online games from 1997?"... (random-matchmaking mode excluded, those games usually didn't have that)
Acting like this is okay is ridiculous. Why should anyone bother playing an online mode where you can't contact the other people? What is the point? THERE ISN'T ONE! The idea that that is in any way a defensible policy is ridiculous. It is NOT putting "an inordinate amount of importance" onto online gaming to expect a bare minimum feature list (not all the things I listed above; stuff like guild/clan support, Custom modes beyond just hosting for friends, keybaord chat, online stat tracking (as opposed to just ingame), and commands like /whereis or stuff are optional, if greatly appreciated). It is simply wanting to have an online gaming mode that is actually online.
What Nintendo has now is like those little built-in Windows games Microsoft has (built in to ME anyway) for online Go, Hearts, etc -- you can't chat, just choose from some options on a menu for predefined chat selections. It's crippled and gets boring really quickly...