Is Split-Screen Multiplayer Dying?

[A Nobody]

What happened? Online gaming took over and pushed offline multiplayer away. Single player is left in the dust and split-screen fun is thrown out of the window. People accept it and it's a problem. How did the world take a step back? I want AI bots to return. How will Xbox and PS4 players enjoy those multiplayer-only games without paying for subscriptions? What if the servers go down? How will you play the games then? Tell me what do you think.

Edited May 19, 2018 by The-Heretic-Assassin

[[McD] James]

Don't care, personally. I don't play first-person shooters with a controller anymore, and when I'm socializing with friends I'd much rather be drinking and listening to metal than playing video games. 

[Arctangent]

is there really more to say to this than "ok"

[wheresthebeef]

The Switch and indie games on PS4/XBone/PC are the way to go for local multiplayer.

[Argent Agent]

55 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

is there really more to say to this than "ok"

no not really

 

never really cared for having my view crammed into one side of the screen

[Mr. Freeze]

dear god the nostalgia goggles are fused to your face 

 

Anyone lamenting the loss of split-screen never had friends screen-look to gain an advantage (fuck you, Cameron). 

[A Nobody]

50 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

dear god the nostalgia goggles are fused to your face 

 

Anyone lamenting the loss of split-screen never had friends screen-look to gain an advantage (fuck you, Cameron). 

What? Anyway, nostalgia isn't bad, and I can't believe no one here supports offline multiplayer.

[Doomkid]

I think splitscreen was an excellent addition to many games and would also like to see it incorporated where possible. The thought of a game like Mario Kart without splitscreen absolutely sucks ass. As someone who enjoys socializing and face-to-face contact with other humans, I too lament the overall loss of this useful feature in many games.

 

People here like to lash out at others for no good reason whatsoever - think nothing of it. (edit: looks like the lashy posts were mostly removed)

Edited May 19, 2018 by Doomkid

[Blastfrog]

I don't miss the days when my peers as a kid would blurt "screen-looker!" whenever they weren't doing well in a match, regardless of the legitimacy (and I swear I never cheated like that :P). I also don't miss the obscenely excess/cropped FOV, or the lesser resolution, or the inconsistent screen sizes when it didn't divide well on a single screen (in 3 player matches, the game would either give one guy a big view or just leave an annoying blank space in the corner).

 

What I just said was only really about FPS games in a competitive setting, though. Not that it doesn't have its uses, but it depends on the game. If it doesn't break the game's intended design, then it should at least be an option.

[A Nobody]

5 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

I think splitscreen was an excellent addition to many games and would also like to see it incorporated where possible. The thought of a game like Mario Kart without splitscreen absolutely sucks ass. As someone who enjoys socializing and face-to-face contact with other humans, I too lament the overall loss of this useful feature in many games.

 

People here like to lash out at others for no good reason whatsoever - think nothing of it.

Thank you. :)

[Teder]

I remeber very well times when I played Doom Legacy split screen - good fun time!

[A Nobody]

1 minute ago, Teder said:

I remeber very well times when I played Doom Legacy split screen - good fun time!

Sounds great.

[Teder]

I played on a little 15" crt monitor on shared keyboard :D

[A Nobody]

Just now, Teder said:

I played on a little 15" crt monitor on shared keyboard :D

Nice. :)

 

Topic has been completely edited, everyone.

[Teder]

@The-Heretic-Assassin What if the servers go down? How will you play the games then? Tell me what do you think.

That's how died my lovely Quake Enemy Territory, and I moved to battlefield 3, but it's not the same. I don't know did you play Riddick game. I have original version which I couldn't play cause I can get throw online activation cause online web doesn't exist!

But back to doom - there is still a "special" version of Doom 2016 alpha... with bots, and it works fine.

 

EDIT:

hah, even battlefield 3 Close quarters combat (running and gunning with shotguns) servers are totally empty.

[A Nobody]

2 minutes ago, Teder said:

@The-Heretic-Assassin What if the servers go down? How will you play the games then? Tell me what do you think.

That's how died my lovely Quake Enemy Territory, and I moved to battlefield 3, but it's not the same. I don't know did you play Riddick game. I have original version which I couldn't play cause I can get throw online activation cause online web doesn't exist!

But back to doom - there is still a "special" version of Doom 2016 alpha... with bots, and it works fine.

 

EDIT:

hah, even battlefield 3 Close quarters combat (running and gunning with shotguns) servers are totally empty.

Power of the internet.

[Demon of the Well]

I'm tempted to say I'd miss it, but in reality that's probably not the case, given circumstances. Nostalgia, I guess.

[Flesh420]

2 hours ago, arobase said:

Nobody said nostalgia is bad. This isn't nostalgia. This is you fetishizing a bygone era that in all honesty was a lot crappier than you remember. You're seriously bemoaning the death of something that died 10 years ago?

 

I think you need to get out more. Get away from the computer, go make some friends.

The 90s were great, certainly better than the 40s.  I'd say the 1700s probably blew major dick.

 

5 hours ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

What happened? Online gaming took over and pushed offline multiplayer away. Single player is left in the dust and split-screen fun is thrown out of the window. People accept it and it's a problem. How did the world take a step back? I want AI bots to return. How will Xbox and PS4 players enjoy those multiplayer-only games without paying for subscriptions? What if the servers go down? How will you play the games then? Tell me what do you think.

Are there not many split-screen MP games on Console anymore?  All you need is a drinking buddy. 

 

We'll have a real problem when the console players start accepting stream gaming as an industry standard.....   they inevitably will. 

Then we're totally fucked.

 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Flesh420

[Edward850]

5 hours ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

Single player is left in the dust and split-screen fun is thrown out of the window.

I can't speak for singleplayer (also that's not a provable statement, many studios still make single-player only games after all), however splitscreen started to get left out because it became impractical to implement, also it stopped being 1999 and the 10FPS splitscreen the N64 had was no longer acceptable. Remember that splitscreen needs to draw multiple viewpoints, and there's no shortcut to that. Your CPU must push out mesh and scene data for every viewpoint that needs to be drawn. In relation to this, the engine may need to handle multiple sets of LODs for the same scene as well. This can start becoming a crazy amount of data to micromanage in under 28ms, even for just two cameras. Then you need to create UI for multiple screen configurations, UI for handling multiple players in the menu and their various options. You need to handle multiple sets of options, stat tracking, achievement tracking, control layouts (easier said than done depending on the engine), and sometimes the engine you're using just doesn't even have a native splitscreen solution and you can't engineer in a solution.

 

Oh, and sound source and listener management. As I understand it no mainstream third party API (FMOD Studio, OpenAL, XAudio2 3D...) even supports multiple listeners, requiring a custom implementation of some kind.

All this is only scratching the surface of the huge undertaking all this has. It wasn't forgotten, just doing it became progressively harder to implement and manage.

 

5 hours ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

How will Xbox and PS4 players enjoy those multiplayer-only games without paying for subscriptions? What if the servers go down? How will you play the games then? Tell me what do you think.

LAN play and direct-IP (where available) are the typical alternatives. You don't need to have splitscreen to have nil-service-multiplayer.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Edward850

[kb1]

Any game that requires there to be some company-driven server to stay in business is a crock, in my opinion (Hello, Steam - hard-core DRM disguised as 'player experience-enhancing'.)

 

As far as split screen goes, you really ought to be playing with people that aren't inclined to cheat, or you have to temporarily adopt some of their morals. When I was developing KBDoom multiplayer, I could have totally given myself some sort of advantages. Sure, it would have been funny as a gag, but I would not expect anyone to trust me after that, and rightly so.

 

I don't understand the thrill of winning by cheating. I'm sure this makes me naive, and easily cheated. But, I'm also sure that the alternative is worse.

 

If you can't trust your 'friends', you're better off connecting to them remotely - so they don't come over and rob you blind. Been there.

[A Nobody]

I play with AI bots, KB1. Newest hardware can able to handle split-screen. Just decrease the graphics, they shouldn't matter. Or maybe the frames can be kept at 30 for split-screen multiplayer.

[Edward850]

21 minutes ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

Newest hardware can able to handle split-screen.

Hardware doesn't have a lot to do with it now, it comes down to asset management and scene construction. For example if your level structures don't allow you to construct a single mesh per frame, you have to recalculate the mesh visibility for every viewpoint. And then you have to generate all the rendering calls for this, and you have to be sure that every single possible viewpoint in the level stays under a number of render calls and CPU time, otherwise you get widely unpredictable performance that can go well above 28ms frame times (30FPS). Not to mention shader management, which may not scale linearly to resolution.

It's never as simple as "turn down the graphics/frame rate". If only it was.

 

("Turn down the graphics" also isn't something you can just do either.)

Edited May 19, 2018 by Edward850

[insertwackynamehere]

It's interesting that now more than ever split screen would be less of a mess also with regards to enjoyment. I can't believe I used to play split screen video games back on 27 inch CRT televisions and think that was a friend with a good television. I don't even know how I made out the characters. Now everyone has 50"+ screens with amazing clarity if they want (practically disposable to buy a good enough large HD television) and you'd have more screen real estate and visibility for your half of the screen then you would have had for a single player game during the split-screen heyday.

[Flesh420]

1 minute ago, insertwackynamehere said:

It's interesting that now more than ever split screen would be less of a mess also with regards to enjoyment. I can't believe I used to play split screen video games back on 27 inch CRT televisions and think that was a friend with a good television. I don't even know how I made out the characters. Now everyone has 50"+ screens with amazing clarity if they want (practically disposable to buy a good enough large HD television) and you'd have more screen real estate and visibility for your half of the screen then you would have had for a single player game during the split-screen heyday.

 

That's what I'm wondering!  What the fuck is going on here?  How is this acceptable?

Some of my finest gaming memories are playing Quake 2 DM multi-tap (PS1)!  And back then console limitations were ridiculous. 

 

[Arctangent]

2 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

That's what I'm wondering!  What the fuck is going on here?  How is this acceptable?

I mean, I'd say most people don't actually have people to play local multiplayer but like to play multiplayer anyway, so providing a poor netcode for them to play with other people or even long distance friends is far, far, far less acceptable to the general population than skipping out on a feature a smidgen of buyers are going to use.

 

It seems pretty damn selfish, y'know, to not only demand that development time is taken away from the parts that most people find far more vital to their enjoyment of a game, but also claim not doing so is some abomination against the true nature of gaming or whatever.

[Flesh420]

22 minutes ago, Arctangent said:

I mean, I'd say most people don't actually have people to play local multiplayer but like to play multiplayer anyway, so providing a poor netcode for them to play with other people or even long distance friends is far, far, far less acceptable to the general population than skipping out on a feature a smidgen of buyers are going to use.

 

It seems pretty damn selfish, y'know, to not only demand that development time is taken away from the parts that most people find far more vital to their enjoyment of a game, but also claim not doing so is some abomination against the true nature of gaming or whatever.

So you're basically saying no one has friends these days outside an internet connection?  I haven't demanded a thing, I'm just curious what's happened? 

Sitting beside your buddy and cooping a game were good times.  Have a bowl of chips, a fine chunk of dank weed.....maybe a pill bottle full of cocaine and a case of beer.  Good times.

 

[kb1]

1 hour ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

I play with AI bots, KB1. Newest hardware can able to handle split-screen. Just decrease the graphics, they shouldn't matter. Or maybe the frames can be kept at 30 for split-screen multiplayer.

Ok. Ah, I get it - you are replying to my demand to play split-screen with people you trust. I was referring to the posts where people were cheating by looking at the wrong half of the splitscreen (wasn't that obvious?)

 

Ok, now I'm curious: Why would you need to see the bot's view, if you are competing against them, other than to cheat? (I guess it might be useful, in some games...)

 

17 minutes ago, Flesh420 said:

So you're basically saying no one has friends these days outside an internet connection?  I haven't demanded a thing, I'm just curious what's happened? 

Sitting beside your buddy and cooping a game were good times.  Have a bowl of chips, a fine chunk of dank weed.....maybe a pill bottle full of cocaine and a case of beer.  Good times.

 

Yeah, with friends like that, who needs an internet connection?

[A Nobody]

19 minutes ago, kb1 said:

Ok. Ah, I get it - you are replying to my demand to play split-screen with people you trust. I was referring to the posts where people were cheating by looking at the wrong half of the splitscreen (wasn't that obvious?)

 

Ok, now I'm curious: Why would you need to see the bot's view, if you are competing against them, other than to cheat? (I guess it might be useful, in some games...)

Cheat? I play with AI bots because I like it.

[riderr3]

So does capitalism work. Offline multiplayer does not provide money to companies. So they will milking the online multiplayer by solding new DLC.

[CARRiON]

Never cared for it.