Defending the Devs on Multiplayer
ThunderShock27
America Join Date: 2017-02-13 Member: 227880Members
America Join Date: 2017-02-13 Member: 227880Members
I might be getting in to some controversial territory here but I've seen so much hate toward the developers of Subnautica about this issue that I thought I should help clarify some things so that maybe some people who were confused or frustrated might understand.
Why Multiplayer isn't being added.
I'm going to start with getting something off my chest: Yes, as with most other people on the Subnautica community, I was sad and maybe a bit frustrated when the final say on Subnautica multiplayer was announced stating that it would NOT be added in. Personally, I believe that Multiplayer increases a game's replay-ability and encourages those with siblings or close friends to purchase the game and can increase the enjoyment level as well.
HOWEVER,
After doing research and reading the dev posts that address the issue of multiplayer, I have come to realize some key facts that maybe some of you have not understood or known.
1. - Whether it looks like it on the outside or not, Subnautica IS, to some extent, a 'horror' game, but instead of blood, guts, ghosts, and demons, Subnautica preys on a humans natural fear of the ocean. Sure, you might not necessarily be afraid of the ocean itself (Thalassophobia), but every human has a natural fear of the unknown (Xenophobia) which the ocean causes due to its depth, size, and darkness. When you jump into an alien ocean and you look down and you cant see but maybe 5 yards below you and you have no idea how deep it goes and then you start to wonder what sort of creatures lurk just out of sight in the dark blue depths, any person would be afraid and that's the genius behind Subnautica. If you play a horror game with the lights on and a good friend sitting right next to you talking to you and helping you play, you might get startled a few times, but the full impact of the game would never be fully realized for as long as you are comforted by your friend. In the same way, if Subnautica had multiplayer, a Reaper leviathan wouldn't have the same effect if you're swimming right next to some one. Being completely alone, entirely isolated in an ocean filled with dangerous creatures at every turn is why the game is scary, and with multiplayer, a good portion of that effect would be lost. Not to mention the fact that multiplayer would probably cause some severe balancing issues.
2. - Most games that have multiplayer, started developing the multiplayer aspect of the game early on. With Subnautica, the devs held off on it because they wanted to flesh out the story and game mechanics first before they considered it. Multiplayer had always been in the back of their minds, but they wanted to satisfy the single-player experience first which if fully understandable. However, by the time multiplayer was starting to be fully considered, the devs realized that sadly, they had come too far in the game to add multiplayer. They had developed the game to a point where adding it would take years. You need to understand what goes into adding multiplayer to a game. How do players start in the world? How do we persist information about their progress? How do we deliver updates to players? How do we service thousands of users? How do we address the lag issue? How do we balance the game for more than one player? etc. These are just a few of the many questions that have to be answered before a team can EVEN BEGIN multiplayer development. Multiplayer isn't just difficult in terms of development either, it drastically increases cost too. Buying and maintaining servers and making sure every player sees exactly what the other sees, hiring a team to work on developing multiplayer, and hiring a team for just plain server maintenance. Steam as a platform helps with a few of these issues, but the game server code is a whole other book itself. A typical rule of thumb I read on one of the articles I did research on says that any multiplayer component typically doubles the development time of a game. Basically what I'm saying and what I've gathered from other sources is that multiplayer takes time, effort, and money and the Subnautica dev team is already pouring their hearts into the development of singleplayer. No, they aren't lazy or whatever else you want to label them, they just understand better than gamers that there is A WHOLE HECK OF A LOT that goes on behind the scenes to create things like multiplayer.
So yes, there are reasons, very VALID reasons why Subnautica won't be getting multiplayer. It might be disappointing but the reasons behind the decision makes sense. Subnautica is, and will continue to be, a great, unique, and enjoyable game with its story, visuals, and mechanics. There are plenty of singleplayer games out there that are successful, popular, and fun to play. Don't let one decision ruin this game for you.
So commend the devs for all the hard work they're doing on single-player Subnautica and enjoy the game for what it is!
I hope I was helpful in clarifying the story behind the Multiplayer dispute. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons I may not have covered that the devs have for not implementing multiplayer, but these are just the ones I have read about and that seem the most obvious to me.
Please leave CONSTRUCTIVE comments. I don't want this post to become a giant argument and get closed. This is simply here for clarification.
Thank-you for your time,
-ThunderShock
Why Multiplayer isn't being added.
I'm going to start with getting something off my chest: Yes, as with most other people on the Subnautica community, I was sad and maybe a bit frustrated when the final say on Subnautica multiplayer was announced stating that it would NOT be added in. Personally, I believe that Multiplayer increases a game's replay-ability and encourages those with siblings or close friends to purchase the game and can increase the enjoyment level as well.
HOWEVER,
After doing research and reading the dev posts that address the issue of multiplayer, I have come to realize some key facts that maybe some of you have not understood or known.
1. - Whether it looks like it on the outside or not, Subnautica IS, to some extent, a 'horror' game, but instead of blood, guts, ghosts, and demons, Subnautica preys on a humans natural fear of the ocean. Sure, you might not necessarily be afraid of the ocean itself (Thalassophobia), but every human has a natural fear of the unknown (Xenophobia) which the ocean causes due to its depth, size, and darkness. When you jump into an alien ocean and you look down and you cant see but maybe 5 yards below you and you have no idea how deep it goes and then you start to wonder what sort of creatures lurk just out of sight in the dark blue depths, any person would be afraid and that's the genius behind Subnautica. If you play a horror game with the lights on and a good friend sitting right next to you talking to you and helping you play, you might get startled a few times, but the full impact of the game would never be fully realized for as long as you are comforted by your friend. In the same way, if Subnautica had multiplayer, a Reaper leviathan wouldn't have the same effect if you're swimming right next to some one. Being completely alone, entirely isolated in an ocean filled with dangerous creatures at every turn is why the game is scary, and with multiplayer, a good portion of that effect would be lost. Not to mention the fact that multiplayer would probably cause some severe balancing issues.
2. - Most games that have multiplayer, started developing the multiplayer aspect of the game early on. With Subnautica, the devs held off on it because they wanted to flesh out the story and game mechanics first before they considered it. Multiplayer had always been in the back of their minds, but they wanted to satisfy the single-player experience first which if fully understandable. However, by the time multiplayer was starting to be fully considered, the devs realized that sadly, they had come too far in the game to add multiplayer. They had developed the game to a point where adding it would take years. You need to understand what goes into adding multiplayer to a game. How do players start in the world? How do we persist information about their progress? How do we deliver updates to players? How do we service thousands of users? How do we address the lag issue? How do we balance the game for more than one player? etc. These are just a few of the many questions that have to be answered before a team can EVEN BEGIN multiplayer development. Multiplayer isn't just difficult in terms of development either, it drastically increases cost too. Buying and maintaining servers and making sure every player sees exactly what the other sees, hiring a team to work on developing multiplayer, and hiring a team for just plain server maintenance. Steam as a platform helps with a few of these issues, but the game server code is a whole other book itself. A typical rule of thumb I read on one of the articles I did research on says that any multiplayer component typically doubles the development time of a game. Basically what I'm saying and what I've gathered from other sources is that multiplayer takes time, effort, and money and the Subnautica dev team is already pouring their hearts into the development of singleplayer. No, they aren't lazy or whatever else you want to label them, they just understand better than gamers that there is A WHOLE HECK OF A LOT that goes on behind the scenes to create things like multiplayer.
So yes, there are reasons, very VALID reasons why Subnautica won't be getting multiplayer. It might be disappointing but the reasons behind the decision makes sense. Subnautica is, and will continue to be, a great, unique, and enjoyable game with its story, visuals, and mechanics. There are plenty of singleplayer games out there that are successful, popular, and fun to play. Don't let one decision ruin this game for you.
So commend the devs for all the hard work they're doing on single-player Subnautica and enjoy the game for what it is!
I hope I was helpful in clarifying the story behind the Multiplayer dispute. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons I may not have covered that the devs have for not implementing multiplayer, but these are just the ones I have read about and that seem the most obvious to me.
Please leave CONSTRUCTIVE comments. I don't want this post to become a giant argument and get closed. This is simply here for clarification.
Thank-you for your time,
-ThunderShock
Comments
I'm sorry but this is too good of an opportunity to pass up
But TBH, there's some good points in there. I'm just not sure we have to keep repeating this game over and over again either
It's been flogged to death this one. I don't think further clarification is needed. However, I can see you're trying to be helpful.
I respect your intentions, but we'll never ever be able to end the discussion on this xD
Maybe you're right. I just felt that there needed to be a post that compiled all the valid reasons for the decision because, honestly, the info on this situation is all over the place and most of it isn't positive. Not including the dev posts that is.
Can you replace the carriage returns in your post with spaces? xD Driving me nuts. (on non-widescreen monitors, it's hard to read, eg, cell phones and work computers).
Here, I think I did it all for you, you could just quote - copy - paste (or not!) lol:
The people who want multiplayer and are belligerent about it? There's a stickied thread explaining how there's not gonna be multiplayer, and why there won't be.
They don't read it. They never read it. That's why it's so frustrating for the forum regulars, there's literally a sticky thread right there at the top of the forum that says "Coop or Multiplayer in Subnautica? I'm afraid not" and they don't click this thread. They never do.
Instead they just jump in, make their post, and go "GUYS GUYS GUYS I HAVE AN IDEA THAT I'M SURE NOBODY ELSE HAS HAD! What about, wait for it, coop?!"
On the Steam Discussion I see things like "We keep making noise so that the devs know we want it", as though the devs could flip a switch that says "Coop Now" and it would be done in time for the next update, rather than taking the ten seconds required to find the thread that's linked everywhere and reading up on it.
(Though if you wanted to you could probably inform more people if you posted this on the Steam Page Discussion every week or so)
To be fair, the picture only says about multiplayer...
I think part of it is that most of the people who demand multiplayer in Subnautica don't stick around long once it's clear that it's not happening, and most of the people who stay on the forums have accepted that it's not coming to the game, at least not anytime soon. So a BIT of preaching to the choir.
Quite the opposite, actually.
I'm glad that Subnautica avoided the multiplayer trap. When you consider most games that have a multiplayer aspect, they use it as an excuse to dispense with creative worldbuilding, storytelling, and, truthfully, most of the facets of good game building. "We let the players craft their own story and path!" Yeah, that's called lazy developers. Don't believe me? Look at Call of Duty sometime. Campaigns have been steadily weakening, but who cares? Multiplayer! Which is all well and good for people that focus on it, but for those of us who want a good single-player experience, it's been a colossal disservice. In fact, offhand, only one game series comes to mind that actually managed to strike a good balance between single player experience and multiplayer, and that's Borderlands.
Opening the doors of possibility just as wide as they'll go, let's say maybe, at some point in the distant future, when Alterra has bought Australia and turned it into a cave crawler hatchery (don't worry; they'll fit right in), multiplayer is added to Subnautica. That's fine. Great. No, really; because the game was fully developed first. It's an actual game, not just a multiplayer map.
When you look at the development path the game has taken, it's really quite remarkable for the current environment. It's a game that's been in development for a good while, has undergone substantial changes and improvements, has avoided the most abhorrent features of current game development practices (like microtransactions and endless DLC-stuffing), has benefited from an open development team that interacts with the fans, and yet still hasn't lost sight of what it wanted to be when it was all grown up. Sure, there are parts that we fans and supporters don't quite understand and aren't totally on board with. It's sad to see rockpuncher snipped out and ILZ entrances closed, both for no apparent reason, but I think the devs have earned some slack. If they're making these changes, there's probably a reason for it that we're just not party to yet. Or maybe not.
The point is, I'm far happier to see them expending effort in crafting a game rather than bolting on a multiplayer angle at the expense of the game itself. Because, in the long run, well...that's how all the great ones were born.
Again, just my two cents. There's nothing wrong with enjoying multiplayer and wanting it in an environment you already like. I'm just personally grateful that all the effort it would've taken is instead being poured into building a masterwork of a game.
Or how about EA / DICE's Star Wars BattleFront remake? Ugh.
Well-said! It IS good that the dev team is focusing on single-player. Though I doubt Subnautica will ever receive multiplayer officially (excluding the modding potential), focusing on single-player does make it so that if multiplayer is added, the game will have already been established so that there will be a firm foundation for multiplayer to be built on. Also, I don't know if the rock-puncher has been fully thrown out or not yet, but I have a theory why it's taking a while to be implemented. Recently the devs removed the ability to terraform in the game by removing the terraformer from survival and preventing bases to alter the terrain it's built into. With a name like rockpuncher, perhaps its initial design was to break rocks or even dig the terrain slightly and with the discovery of how much lag terrain alteration causes, they pulled the rock-puncher back and are either never implementing him or are going to re-purpose him.
Would make it a bit more dangerous for us to gather those same nodes, as the Rockpuncher could swat at us for stealing it's dinner.
Would also create somewhat of a symbiotic relationship between two very different species in the game.
Yeah, yeah! Kinda like Metal Fatigue! Various Corpo-nations trying to usurp each other in the balance of power, taking on and destroying rival factions, discovering alien secrets, researching opponents' and alien technology... Something along the lines of that game but set in the world of Subnautica, either as a top-down RTS or even... a version adapted for the current 3D engine. (Think Subnautica's Exosuits but modified to operate like Combots would but in first person!)
Man, I miss Metal Fatigue. It won't run on modern Windows systems (It barely runs on Windows Vista as it is), I wish Psygnosis or whoever owns the license now could release an HD remastered version on Steam.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/MetalFatigue/discussions/0/558746089704702798/
▲ It appears you just have to use nGlide and install the patch -- right-click PatchInstall.bat and click edit, and change it to then save and run it.