Week 4: From Solo to Group Effort

"Just imagine...
You've come upon the strange door, part of you wants to step in and take a look, but another part of you is fearful and wants a companion. NPC companions bore you, you want something with a little more life to it. through a microphone, you call to your friend playing on the same co-op server as you to come over and venture these missions with you. you both step into the door, and venture forth into the shivering isles."


A user on Steam proposed this idea of multiplayer game-play on one of the forums in 2009. Steam not only allows its users to download various games, but is a popular places to discuss games, play, codes, and ideas. Naturally, this message sparked a number of responses. While this isn't the first time players have considered what the game would be like with a multiplayer option, it still provokes a strong response from both sides of the argument. After playing the game, imagining it as a multiplayer is just as hard to picture as it is easy. And, not to mention, it's an incredibly interesting proposal.


While I have been playing the game for over a month, it would require even more game-play hours to figure out if a multiplayer setup would be more beneficial to the game than harmful. But even with that additional game-play, I would need to look into all the different reactions from the Oblivion community. Looking at just one fan site's responses to this idea are not enough to explore this idea. Steam will be the first step, but I would need to look into other forums, both on sites focused on Oblivion (such as the Elder Scroll Forums) and those that are just online for general gaming (like GameSpot). There are many more outthere that I'll need to explore to see if they have a thread about players' opinions on what Oblivion would be like if a multiplayer setup were included.


Personally, I don't know if I would be for or against it. People are already discussing how it would make it too similar to World of Warcraft, with people possibly relying on the work of others to move father into the game with group hunts (or they just don't want to bring Oblivion into the WoW realm, in general). One user claimed it would "rock" to share the "beautiful world they (the engineers/artists) spent so long creating" with other live players. Then there are those that take the neutral decide, believing it would be fine as long as it was a choice for the player, but that gets into whether or not you could start one game and switch the multiplayer mode on and off or if you would need to start two separate games, one where you play in a multiplayer world and the other where it's just solo. As long as it's an option, multiplayer is fine. After researching some more, hopefully I'll find out if that really is the answer to upgrading (or possibly ruining) Oblivion.