What many VR games lack (Multiplayer/Co-op)

[setra]

TLDR; VR games are becoming very innovative, and a lot of the super great games have one MAJOR setback: they do not have co-op or any form of multiplayer, and simply put VR is a social platform.

Currently, in my opinion, VR has hit a blockade of sorts. While there is certainly a vast number of multiplayer and co-op titles out there, it seems that a lot of the gems fall short of this. To me, VR is a platform that performs and hits off the best in the social realm, that being said when a VR game does not have any multiplayer or co-op I basically ignore the game. This is not to say that this game has no hope, (I have not tried it) or that it will never be good/fun in singleplayer, but it is just disappointing to see all of these solid games say they never plan to have multiplayer. There is SOOO much potential for games like this to have co-op, I mean the amount of increase in audience/playerbase would be exponential. This is the case for Hotdogs horseshoes and hand grenades as well, that game would be great with co-op but with it being stricly singleplayer it really limits the content. Not sure how possible or realistic this is from a developers viewpoint with current circumstances but... Just throwing out my two cents, lmk if you agree. Maybe you don't, and that my friend is okay.

[Kit Kat]

VR is very niche and is mostly being pushed forward by indie developers who don't have AAA level budgets and resources. Multiplayer support in games is complicated enough, let alone the technical hell that I'm sure VR multiplayer is. Until VR is adopted by mainstream consumers don't expect games with the kind of features non-VR games have.

[setra]

Forsure, I am not even saying that I expect these things from smaller developers like this. I agree it obviously requires a higher budget, more supplies etc. and overall may be out of the question for certain dev teams and or lone wolf developers. More so I was just kind of opening up conversation about it and speaking upon unfulfilled wishes/desires of mine. This game looks great, the dev looks like the job was well done, I just can't help but wish ;'( I think rather than that (referring to budgeting and becoming more mainstream) it would be nice to see an innovative software and/or platform released for VR developers at a fair price that would allow for much easier multiplayer/co-op physics networking, idk obviously this is all just hopes and dreams but just food for thought

[Chaunsey]

this game is being made mostly by one guy. there are a lot of indie projects that bite off more than they can chew right at the start and never really get anywhere as a result.

kospy is doing a great job of first building a solid framework that people enjoy, then he can work on content and maybe expand his team. and if the game works out well, then maybe hopefully one day multiplayer will be a realistic goal.

but a one man project like this has to be very careful of managing time and expectations.

on the flip side the benefit of a small or one man team is that he has plenty of time to get things right, if the game sells a decent number of copies, which i suspect it will considering the excitement for it already, then he will have the resources to devote as much time as necessary to build out the game, together with community feedback, over time.

large development teams cost a lot of money to maintain, and therefore cant afford to draw out a project.

so the bottom line is patience, from what we've heard from kospy, i think we're at only the beginning of the journey towards an amazing game, even what we already have is incredible, and worth every penny.

[ModerateToSeverePlaquePsoriasis]

Why don't VR developers contact eachother after completing projects and work on something big and innovative as a team?

The tech world needs to become less of a hermit society for the betterment of us all.

[YetiBin]

Co-Op VR melee combat multiplayer is not out of the realm of single developers. Look at VR Dungeon Knight for example. Also a single developer and he figured out multiplayer early on as it was a focus, but the combat and physics are not as strong as Blade and Sorcery. Co-Op can be done, the dev already put it on the future roadmap based on feedback and sales, it just takes time and we need to be patient, but if people keep asking for it and support the developer things can only get even better from here.

[setra]

forsure, I definitely think patience is important. Not only with early access games and what not but the VR market as a whole. Like some have stated, it IS a niche market right now working its' way towards mainstream and we are seeing it in its' infancy just as people in early 2000's and late 1900's saw computer gaming in its' infancy. It is all a work in progress

BUT I definitely agree with you @moderatetosevereplaquepsoriasis in that there really needs to be a lot more communication and unison in this field specifically. With computer games and consoles etc. it isn't as much of a big deal when developers compete so much, but in VR we really can't afford all the competition and "I wanna be at the top" attitude. VR can NOT afford all of these console specific games, it just isn't a big enough market and there is not a big enough audience. This is only going to break apart the VR community and make content for VR gradually worsten. Having VR exclusives imo is such a NOGO period. VR systems are way too expensive and there is no way in hell any of us (that aren't as wealthy or content creators) are going to purchase each and every VR headset out there to play all the exclusives. A bit straying off topic and not so much concerned with this game specifically but tbh I just think it's a really important topic.

[IAmGoingplaces]

it was also the other way around too, great games like Virtual Fighting Championship who is developed by a single man fell off the rador because it was PvP only at launch (it does have single player now thou), because the population of VR is just not there yet (even creed multiplayer is now getting harder to find matches). those kind of stories presents as a horror story to future developers when cosidering to add multiplayer content

nowadays people prefer a solid single player content combined with possiblities of multiplayer.

[setra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh IAmGoingplaces:

it was also the other way around too, great games like Virtual Fighting Championship who is developed by a single man fell off the rador because it was PvP only at launch (it does have single player now thou), because the population of VR is just not there yet (even creed multiplayer is now getting harder to find matches). those kind of stories presents as a horror story to future developers when cosidering to add multiplayer content

nowadays people prefer a solid single player content combined with possiblities of multiplayer.

yeah i get what you mean, there is definitely that aspect to worry about and after all there is no way to tell when a game will hit off so well, with games like this (blade and sorcery) where it has a really nice start and a lot of people jumped in, multiplayer would do great for it. I don't even necessarily mean matchmaking multiplayer or any form of PvP, really all I want in majority of this game (and similar games) is to be able to jump in with a friend and have some fun together. I am always on the look out for games like that and I think truthfully in this game's case it could only help, not hurt it. But I certainly see where you're coming from and yeah it is unfortunate to see great games have dead multiplayers and a lack thereof due to it only being multiplayer or the only good content being in multiplayer etc.

[SolviteSekai]

VR games with multiplayer like Vox Machinae average between 5 and 20 players total most of the time.

as of now putting multiplayer into a VR game is suicide for an indie dev.

[Max Hyper]

Blade and sorcery is fundamentally physics based, meaning that for PVP to be feasible the ping between the players must be non existent. However co-op might be a possibility and is actually listed on the roadmap :)

[setra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh SolviteSekai:

VR games with multiplayer like Vox Machinae average between 5 and 20 players total most of the time.

as of now putting multiplayer into a VR game is suicide for an indie dev.

I think that’s a bit silly to compare a game I’ve never heard of, this game has too much hype and playerbase to belittle it like that. I think co-op would do great for it personally. Never said anything about multiplayer only, which you then could make your argument feasible

[setra]

Diposting pertama kali oleh supermassimo:

Blade and sorcery is fundamentally physics based, meaning that for PVP to be feasible the ping between the players must be non existent. However co-op might be a possibility and is actually listed on the roadmap :)

I know! I hopped in the discord and saw that on the roadmap and it made me super stoked for the future of this game! I bought into it and have no regrets in the current state even, best of luck!

[Caldor]

Yes, co-op is more likely to happen than PVP. These physics would be a pretty big problem, I think, for multi-player. Maybe there will be found a way around it at some point. Maybe if it was just 1 vs 1 like in Creed it could work. Its easier with Creed though as its just boxing... you dont shoot arrows, send swords flying and swing weapons around. Creed also clearly had a skilled team working on it, indie developers often do not have that much time to develop games like this.

I have had a lot of the same ideas as this developer. Final IK to do a VR avatar using the UMA2 character system for customizable characters. Giving the avatar an active ragdoll so it does not have to follow your hands fully, but can be blocked. But so many things to look into... also looking into terrain systems and procedural level generation systems and solutions. Getting it all to work together is the big problem. Right now I am trying to find a good AI system and then use Puppet Master with it to give the enemies active ragdolls.

But this developer has done pretty much everything I hoped to do with the characters, AI, combat and physics system. The lightning magic is so polished, so is the character system, and that stabbing system is just awesome. I am unlikely to get close to this even in two years I fear.

But multi-player would be awesome. Maybe at some point there would be some indie developer that figures out how to do it with physics based combat and shares it as an asset or something. One big problem is the ping of course, but as with other multi-player games you might get around that by doing tricks on the server / host system.

In Unity 2018.3 they finally updated the Unity physics system, its based on Nvidia PhysX. But now its at version 3.4 I think it is, and they just released version 4, so I hope Unity will implement that soon, because it sure seems to have gotten it much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rotbzekf0

[GridLost]

Diposting pertama kali oleh supermassimo:

Blade and sorcery is fundamentally physics based, meaning that for PVP to be feasible the ping between the players must be non existent. However co-op might be a possibility and is actually listed on the roadmap :)

Can anything be done to shorten that Gap with current Tech? What kind of Ping are we talking about? What about a Lan type setup?

[Caldor]

Diposting pertama kali oleh GridLost:

Diposting pertama kali oleh supermassimo:

Blade and sorcery is fundamentally physics based, meaning that for PVP to be feasible the ping between the players must be non existent. However co-op might be a possibility and is actually listed on the roadmap :)

Can anything be done to shorten that Gap with current Tech? What kind of Ping are we talking about? What about a Lan type setup?

LAN should fix that part of the problem... but a bigger problem is probably to get the physics stuff to work well over a network.