Unconventional Multiplayer
I’d like to brainstorm a bit about asynchronous multiplayer. I’ll suggest a few definitions here:
- Multiplayer: an aspect of a game that allows one player’s game experience to be affected by another player’s in-game actions. (Is this flexible enough? Should Achievements count? Should the actions have to be in the same game, or can it work across games?)
- Synchronous multiplayer: a multiplayer element that relies on the players being in the same instance of the game at the same time. Multiplayer Starcraft and Halo, for example, are primarily synchronous. Meeting up with your friends and killing helpless animals in World of Warcraft is synchronous.
- Asynchronous multiplayer: multiplayer elements that can occur between two players who aren’t playing at the same time, or connected via a network connection at the same time, are asynchronous. Geometry Wars’ high score list is asynchronous (but is it really multiplayer?). Sending mail to someone in World of Warcraft is asynchronous.
Asynchronous multiplayer is pretty cool. It requires less commitment from the players, who don’t have to play at the same time as their friends, or stay at the computer for long periods of time. It also doesn’t require the same development resources as synchronous multiplayer: a client-server architecture, elaborate matchmaking systems, and so on. It’s also much less discussed than synchronous multiplayer, so let’s get started.
Some types of asynchronous multiplayer:
- Play By E-mail: for naturally asynchronous games like Civilization, X-Com, and Chess, there’s no need to keep two people confined to the same time or place. Just alert them when it’s time for them to play their next turn! This is well-suited to games that require a lot of thought each turn. This game type need not be restricted to just e-mail: instant messenger or a custom client work well, too.
- High Score Lists: simple and old-school. Geometry Wars, with its high score lists restricted to only your friends, has come a long way from the anonymous 3-letter score chart on the video games at your local arcade. Are these multiplayer? They don’t actually impact a player’s game– just a list that’s kept outside of the game.
- Achievements: Another border case. Achievements have surprised me with their success: I hear lots of gamers comparing their achievement points, or talking about the challenge getting the last few points from game X. But they also don’t really impact another player’s game.
- Stand-ins: This PDF about asynchronous multiplayer, from the developer of several political games includling Activism, pointed me towards a game for the Palm called The One (based on the Jet Li movie). Palm to Palm communication could only occur when the device was docked, so the game would devise an AI version of the player based on stats and such. Players could then fight on their own Palms against other players’ avatars.
- Visitors: Bits from one player’s game move to another player’s game. For example, in Animal Crossing: Wild World, some characters leave one player’s town and show up in another’s.
- Player-Generated Content: (This category needs a better name.) Through gaming, one player causes content to appear in another player’s game. Will Wright has suggested that Spore may have content like this: players’ planets will be make an appearance in other players’ universes. Nethack bones files are created when one player dies; then, when a new dungeon is created for a player on the same server, it may incorporate the bones file, making it possible for one player to stumble across another player’s remains (and loot).
- Item trading: Items can be traded asynchronously, whether in the same game like in World of Warcraft (via auction hall or just mail), or across games (need an example).
Okay, that’s a lot to cover, and I’m sure I’m missing plenty! I’ll be coming back to this topic later. It’s on my mind a lot recently, because I’m trying to devise multiplayer aspects to fit into my current in-development game. I’d love to hear if anyone has more types of novel multiplayer, favorite types, great experiences, or just any other thoughts.
September 8th, 2006 at 1:27 am
This may be another facet of what you listed as Player-Generated Content, but I’m really liking the idea of applying the Prisoner’s dilemma to the idea of asynchronous multiplayer gaming.
The idea being that actions taken by one player will have effects upon other players in subtle ways. Now, you’d have to be careful not to make them too heinous, as it might encourage “griefing”, and there might have to be a temporal quality (The ability to destroy part of your environment might just lead to the environment becoming a permament smoking crater)
I’m picturing more the scene from Brazil where they’re playing tug-of-war with the desk. You move some object to do some task, and on the other side of the wall, it pushes another player off a platform. Or gives them enough height to get to some other platform. Or whatever.
Another thought I’m having is that many of these games have a real-time interaction quality to them. Do you know of any that connect to a central server only when the game starts up, grabs some data files, and then posts any results or changes on shutdown? It’d save a lot on bandwidth costs, implementing the server would be pretty easy (heck, use a web server and just have some CGI arbitrate the state changes when they arrive), and it would allow for games on devices with intermittent connectivity. Maybe this is just another respinning of play-by-email, but with the handhelds now getting 802.11 interfaces, you could get some interesting effects by way of coming in range of an open access point.
-erik
September 9th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Asynchronous gaming is really interesting to me. I’ve always disliked the play-by-email style because your investment in the game has to be almost exactly that of your opponent. If you want to play another turn right now but your opponent isn’t going to move for another 24 hours, then tough shit. I guess people get around this by playing like 20 chess games at once… but others don’t want to divide their attention like this.
I’m kind of into the asynchronocity (oh man I’m all about making up words on Em Eff’s blog) of Worms. You have to commit to it in a synchronous fashion… you need to be in the game with your opponent at the same time… but your moves within the game are definitely asynchronous. Turns are brutally short (like 20 seconds) so the game moves along at a good clip and the players that are waiting don’t get bored. It’s an interesting blend.
There’s also the asynchronously-played-yet-synchronously-resolved hybrid style that I’ve only seen in Laser Squad Nemesis. It’s X-Com style (and I think it’s by some of the original creators) where you have some troops in a nice little isometric battlefield. You give your orders, but a lot of them are -conditional-. Like you tell your sniper “wait here, and shoot anyone who comes into your view this turn.” Orders are asynchronously sent in by both players and then resolved by the main server once they’re both in. You then download what -actually- happened, you watch it (with either disgust or elation), and then plan your next turn. It’s a pretty cool hybrid.
www.lasersquadnemesis.com
I would know a lot more about this game if it didn’t have a damned monthly fee. They’re basically charging you MMO-like fees for email-like bandwidth usage. :\ I could never bring myself to pay for it.
September 10th, 2006 at 2:58 am
Erik: yeah, I think the “player generated content” section is actually a lot of sections that are waiting to be explored. How obvious do you make the cause and effect? How much is player-authorized? What kind of opportunities do you offer for communication and collaboration? That can get realy interesting, because then you’re planning for things that occur outside of game: are they playing next to each other on library computers? Communicating via IM or e-mail?
Brad: Ruth brought up the differing time commitment thing. My response was also “play multiple games”, but you’re right– sometimes you don’t want to “play an alt”. There are plenty of games with asymmetric element (different fighter characters, races, even Savage: Battle for Newerth with its commander role), but how many have an asymmetric commitment? MMORPGs do, but for the most part they fail in the same way: you can’t play with friends with a different level of commitment. EVE doesn’t really fail that way, but everyone who plays EVE is crazy.
Worms was freakin’ great if you could get a group of people around it. I really wanted to play LSN (because of the XCom connection, and because I’d like a good PBEM game), but it kept crashing on me. I should try it with my latest computer config. Still, you’re right: I’m not paying monthly. Charge once, and sell add-ons. Profit!