The major ways of integrating online components this generation include leaderboards for single-player experiences (e.g. Mirror's Edge) and co-op (e.g. Resident Evil 5). I think Demon's Souls for PS3 offers something abit different and unique in its online play and am wondering whether other posters can inform me about other ways that other games use to take advantage of online play.
To sum Demons Souls quickly, it is a third-person action RPG in the veins of King's Field and Oblivion. You traverse across different stages mostly alone with occasional NPC appearances, and the game is shrouded in a very dark, gothic and medieval setup.
So where does the online play come in? First, here are some normal gameplay screenshots:
So it all seems rather regular right? The interesting thing is that while you can play all these stages offline, you can also opt to play them ONLINE. Now, I'll leave out talking about the PK and Co-op modes because we are rather familiar with them so I'll focus on Phantoms, Bloodstains and Messages; which are relatively minor but unique features.
When you play the game online, you will occasionally be able to see transluscent polygonal meshes of another character, Phantoms, running around you. They fade after a few seconds and appear again in other areas without notice. This is supposed to be someone else playing the same stage as you, in real-time. Apart from the psychological effect that it has ("Oh, there's someone else playing!" etc.), there is a gameplay effect where this sometimes helps to reveal hidden enemies around corners because you see these Phantoms getting attacked ahead of you. A normal Phantom looks like this below, but in white.
Now, when other players get killed in their worlds, they will leave Bloodstains on the floor of your world. By pushing Circle on that Bloodstain, you activate their death sequence, meaning you get to see the last 10-20 seconds of this player's movements and activity before he or she dies (said player appears as a pink translucent polygonal mesh). Not only does this reveal potential hidden enemies or traps, an area with LOTS of Bloodstains indicate that the foe ahead is extremely strong and you better come equipped.
I also enjoy it when I'm gaming the game and killing a strong enemy using a cheese method while the bloodstains around that area just keep growing :lol By the way, Bloodstains fade over some time as well. Here is a classic Bloodstain:
Here is a Bloodstain warning you of a great fuck ahead:
Finally we have Messages, which can be left by all players including yourself. These Messages can be Rated, upon which the person who wrote it will be instantly healed in their world and which will help the Message stay longer on the floor. There are also permanent developer-left messages in parts of the world helping you get through the game. You can write these messages using a pre-set list of characters and words provided by the developer, like "Safe Place here", "Beware of Ambush ahead", "This is Harsh, Evaluate me" (the last one is someone begging for a Rate so they get healed.
Here is what a Message looks like:
I think these are pretty innovative online features to put in a single-player game while mostly preserving a single-player experience. You are aided by the online components and don't feel the lone terror of playing alone in a dark, threatening environment (where you can get killed anytime, at anywhere.. and many of our posters know this :lol). You can obviously opt to play offline without the online components as well but there's nothing quite like the feeling of seeing a "Your Message Has Been Rated!" appearing on the screen and knowing that you've helped someone on their lonely quest
In my opinion, developers should look at Demon's Souls and its online integration as a model to learn from or as a platform upon which they can think up of even more innovative online play features. Who knew that a Japanese developer could pull off such a good game? Not even Sony Japan, who published and undershipped the game in JP :lol It has a firstweek-LTD (current) sales ratio of 30%, which means it has very long legs for a hardcore game; a sign of its quality. Now it's time to see what other Japanese developers and Western developers can do.
NeoGAF Demon's Souls Official Thread
Demon's Souls WIKI
To sum Demons Souls quickly, it is a third-person action RPG in the veins of King's Field and Oblivion. You traverse across different stages mostly alone with occasional NPC appearances, and the game is shrouded in a very dark, gothic and medieval setup.
So where does the online play come in? First, here are some normal gameplay screenshots:
So it all seems rather regular right? The interesting thing is that while you can play all these stages offline, you can also opt to play them ONLINE. Now, I'll leave out talking about the PK and Co-op modes because we are rather familiar with them so I'll focus on Phantoms, Bloodstains and Messages; which are relatively minor but unique features.
When you play the game online, you will occasionally be able to see transluscent polygonal meshes of another character, Phantoms, running around you. They fade after a few seconds and appear again in other areas without notice. This is supposed to be someone else playing the same stage as you, in real-time. Apart from the psychological effect that it has ("Oh, there's someone else playing!" etc.), there is a gameplay effect where this sometimes helps to reveal hidden enemies around corners because you see these Phantoms getting attacked ahead of you. A normal Phantom looks like this below, but in white.
Now, when other players get killed in their worlds, they will leave Bloodstains on the floor of your world. By pushing Circle on that Bloodstain, you activate their death sequence, meaning you get to see the last 10-20 seconds of this player's movements and activity before he or she dies (said player appears as a pink translucent polygonal mesh). Not only does this reveal potential hidden enemies or traps, an area with LOTS of Bloodstains indicate that the foe ahead is extremely strong and you better come equipped.
I also enjoy it when I'm gaming the game and killing a strong enemy using a cheese method while the bloodstains around that area just keep growing :lol By the way, Bloodstains fade over some time as well. Here is a classic Bloodstain:
Here is a Bloodstain warning you of a great fuck ahead:
Finally we have Messages, which can be left by all players including yourself. These Messages can be Rated, upon which the person who wrote it will be instantly healed in their world and which will help the Message stay longer on the floor. There are also permanent developer-left messages in parts of the world helping you get through the game. You can write these messages using a pre-set list of characters and words provided by the developer, like "Safe Place here", "Beware of Ambush ahead", "This is Harsh, Evaluate me" (the last one is someone begging for a Rate so they get healed.
Here is what a Message looks like:
I think these are pretty innovative online features to put in a single-player game while mostly preserving a single-player experience. You are aided by the online components and don't feel the lone terror of playing alone in a dark, threatening environment (where you can get killed anytime, at anywhere.. and many of our posters know this :lol). You can obviously opt to play offline without the online components as well but there's nothing quite like the feeling of seeing a "Your Message Has Been Rated!" appearing on the screen and knowing that you've helped someone on their lonely quest
In my opinion, developers should look at Demon's Souls and its online integration as a model to learn from or as a platform upon which they can think up of even more innovative online play features. Who knew that a Japanese developer could pull off such a good game? Not even Sony Japan, who published and undershipped the game in JP :lol It has a firstweek-LTD (current) sales ratio of 30%, which means it has very long legs for a hardcore game; a sign of its quality. Now it's time to see what other Japanese developers and Western developers can do.
NeoGAF Demon's Souls Official Thread
Demon's Souls WIKI