The decline of LAN support: your thoughts

[Lisnpuppy]

@Lisnpuppy

 

I played Civ V and Company of Heroes 1 offline MP with LAN recently. But they're becoming outliers I guess. Oh and I wasn't asking but rather, ranting. And Blacklist is just one example....

 

I'm curious about the stealing point though. Is it really? It's not like I'm dishing out my copy for public use. They're only installed on two PCs max. And in the same house.

Yes it is.

 

I really don't care what you do or don't do at your own home. But I do care when it is discussed here. I am asking again...please for the sake of your account...don't bring up using or sharing games in ways the developer did not intend. Talk about the death of lan and how lack of co-op sucks (and it does, I love to play with the family) but stay away from the other stuff. If you don't I am gonna have to ban you and I really don't want to do that.

OK? Thank you.~Lisnpuppy

[Thor.]

 

Bordeerlands 2 has lan, that's what makes in one of the best shooters of all time.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Thor.

[JimboUK]

We can thank pirates for the lack of LAN, they used it to get around MP keychecks.

[sneezemonkey]

Sorry Lisnpuppy if you took my words the wrong way (or if I worded them wrong). I was merely using the sharing thing as one example as to why I think lack of LAN sucks. pls don't ban me :ohdear:

 

Anyway, getting (kinda) back on topic

 

hoofhearted4 does make a good point though about the decline of couch co-op for consoles (ie split screen). I think that sucks even more considering the cost of console games in general compared to PC games. I can think of a few games where split screen would work but they decided not to put it in.

 

But yeah another reason I think lack of LAN (this applies to couch co-op too) sucks is that for some games, you want to be able to talk to other guys in the same room and be able to see what's on their screen if need be (like if the guy wondered off and got lost, Day Z for example, though you would want to play this online anyway). It's a coordination thing. You could buy a mike I guess, but you won't be able to see their screens in an emergency. You may disagree but I still think being able to talk to the people your playing with in the same room can't be entirely compensated by a mike.

 

If you are blessed with amazing internet however, this is a moot point.

[Vagrant0]

For console splitscreen... Unless you're talking about games aimed at kids, I say good riddance. Don't get me wrong, Goldeneye64 was great and all... But Playing with 4 people, each having a quarter screen tended to suck on account of other players being able to just glance over and see exactly where you were. That and having to split the screen usually meant an exceedingly small area to see what you're killing. Yeah, it may be cheaper, it may be more social... But the gameplay suffers for it. On the PC, it just never made sense.

 

If we're talking about minimalist versions of a game that can be installed on several computers... Then frankly, that was never particularly common to begin with. Even before the age of piratebay, there were only a few companies doing this sort of thing, most of them eventually phasing this out as soon as the internet and matchmaker services became more accessible. At this stage of the game, about the only companies who could even be bothered to do something like this are usually small, or are trying to cater to LAN players.

 

If we're talking about the whole option of LAN connections... Then we are talking about a different situation that has much more to do with internet services becoming more common and easier to implement than a whole other game mode just for the handful of people who still do LAN parties. The key part being the whole aspect of development time related to online features and the testing of those features. It makes much more economic sense to just implement an online component for your multiplayer, and just get that kinda working, rather than split focus between both an online and LAN components. In splitting the focus, you end up having less time to implement, test, and bugfix each game mode, leading to more connectivity or usability issues. Combined with the fact that almost all of these games end up having to connect to some service like Steam, Live, or Origin just to be able to play, and the whole idea of LAN just ends up being impractical... Both for those making games, and for those trying to have a LAN party (since all those computers would need individual internet access to validate their game before they can use the local network). Simply put, at the end of the day, it just ends up being more practical to just play your friends using that online service that you'd have to be connecting through anyway.

[sneezemonkey]

For the split screen thing, I think that those that do do it have max of 2 player. At least those that I have played recently like Dynasty Warriors and R6:Vegas. The new splinter cell has split screen too.

I agree 4 player split screen is a bit riddiculous, but 2 player split screen should be fine.

 

For LAN though, not all games require DRM. Some just require a one time validation. There are a few that do allow offline play. You would also be suprised how many people still LAN aswell. Not everyone has good internet. Something like only a 1/3 of the world is connected? And not all have reliable internet that can handle the amount of data needed to be transferred for modern games when playing online.

 

For example, your connection may be able to handle DRM validation from say three copies of the game at once, but it lags like s*** if you try to play online MP even if only one device is connected to internet. In this case it would be more practical to play LAN. You could just play wireless LAN if you don't want to buy more cable.

 

So yeah, I don't know about the developer thing but from a consumer point of view, having LAN isn't a bad thing.

Edited August 31, 2013 by sneezemonkey

[baltasaronmeth]

We recently played a Borderlands 4 player splitscreen match using a beamer and a pretty big wall. It looked like crap, but still better than Goldeneye64, which was fine back then. Couch Coop is an important feature for us, because we want to celebrate our hobby together, in the same room, having a brew, bbq, watching the stars at midnight, make out a little, watch a movie together, play a game, without always carrying a tower around. I would be hit harder, if couch coop dissapeared entirely, than I currently am by the decline of LAN modes.

 

But then again, I would like to have a LAN mode in every MP game. Once a year or maybe twice, I actually like carrying my tower with me, sit in a room with a few more friends and play games like Starcraft, Left4Dead and UT. We used to have such sessions at a friend's property out of town. It has a pond to cool off, a big fireplace, a tarte flambée oven and a small one room house with a kitchen, a bathroom and the necessary infrastructure to allow twenty people to just sit down, connect their gear and start playing, including chairs, power and network jacks, a fridge and a guest couch. We all helped him built this little gamer's paradise, when we were younger and spent entire summer holiday's there.

 

This won't happen again too often from now on. It is too expensive to have an internet connection on a distant property, just because you go there once a month. Mobile is not an option either, I want to see that mobile connection, that allows twenty players to have a lag free experience.