Halo 3 Multiplayer Design Lead Talks Online Gaming

When important people talk, the world listens, so listen now. Henceforth, strawberry cheesecake (the baked kind, not the crappy pre-frozen dreck) shall accompany every meal eaten, like forever. Chris Coker hath spoken. Okay, okay, so maybe I’ve got delusions of grandeur, maybe I’m not important at all, but Tyson Green, Multiplayer Design Lead on Halo 3 is, he recently sat down for a pow wow with the folks at GamePro, and we’ve got da juice… Wooo!

GamePro: We think Bungie is one of the few developers that is doing online gaming right. What are the biggest problems plaguing online games today?

Tyson Green: For big online games, the biggest problem is probably getting the right population. A matchmaking model, or an MMO (persistent or not) requires a large enough population to keep the system fed. Not enough, and the system fails, so nobody uses it, and it’s a downward spiral. And even if your system works fine with a small population, your players may be uninterested because not enough of their friends are playing.

There’s also a lack of focus on the offline-to-online transition. There are games which are fantastic offline, but have very rough, unfinished network code, or a bare bones interface for finding a game. If you don’t fully and seriously support the online experience, it’s going to turn out badly, and then you’re going to faceplant into the population problems.

GamePro: Gears of War is a great example of how to do co-op online play right. Should co-op (online) be considered a standard, and is that a direction Bungie is interesting in moving?

GREEN: Again, depends on your game. A very atmospheric game like Resident Evil or F.E.A.R. might be ruined by having someone else in the game with you. Doubly so online, where you don’t even have the connection you might have with someone on the sofa beside you. Likewise, a very exacting game like the original Ghost Recon could be pure frustration (though for people in the right mindset, it was a superb coop game.) So no, not a standard… but if you can support it, and your gameplay supports it, it’s a fantastic feature.

And it’s an interesting direction for Bungie, certainly. Marathon and Myth both featured network cooperative modes, and we’ve wanted to do it for Halo, but so far it’s been something we’ve been unable to really commit to doing right. It’s non-trivial, but we’ll see what happens.

For the full interview, hit the read button below.

Via GamePro

When important people talk, the world listens, so listen now. Henceforth, strawberry cheesecake (the baked kind, not the crappy pre-frozen dreck) shall accompany every meal eaten, like forever. Chris Coker hath spoken. Okay, okay, so maybe I’ve got delusions of grandeur, maybe I’m not important at all, but Tyson Green, Multiplayer Design Lead on Halo 3 is, he recently sat down for a pow wow with the folks at GamePro, and we’ve got da juice… Wooo!

GamePro: We think Bungie is one of the few developers that is doing online gaming right. What are the biggest problems plaguing online games today?

Tyson Green: For big online games, the biggest problem is probably getting the right population. A matchmaking model, or an MMO (persistent or not) requires a large enough population to keep the system fed. Not enough, and the system fails, so nobody uses it, and it’s a downward spiral. And even if your system works fine with a small population, your players may be uninterested because not enough of their friends are playing.

There’s also a lack of focus on the offline-to-online transition. There are games which are fantastic offline, but have very rough, unfinished network code, or a bare bones interface for finding a game. If you don’t fully and seriously support the online experience, it’s going to turn out badly, and then you’re going to faceplant into the population problems.

GamePro: Gears of War is a great example of how to do co-op online play right. Should co-op (online) be considered a standard, and is that a direction Bungie is interesting in moving?

GREEN: Again, depends on your game. A very atmospheric game like Resident Evil or F.E.A.R. might be ruined by having someone else in the game with you. Doubly so online, where you don’t even have the connection you might have with someone on the sofa beside you. Likewise, a very exacting game like the original Ghost Recon could be pure frustration (though for people in the right mindset, it was a superb coop game.) So no, not a standard… but if you can support it, and your gameplay supports it, it’s a fantastic feature.

And it’s an interesting direction for Bungie, certainly. Marathon and Myth both featured network cooperative modes, and we’ve wanted to do it for Halo, but so far it’s been something we’ve been unable to really commit to doing right. It’s non-trivial, but we’ll see what happens.

For the full interview, hit the read button below.

Via GamePro