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Why There's No Bulletstorm Co-op

[Feb 20, 2011, 3:22 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Bulletstorm developer interview on the Telegraph talks with "Clifford" Bleszinski, asking the artist formerly known as CliffyB some questions about Bulletstorm as Epic prepares to launch the first-person shooter they co-developed with People Can Fly (thanks Computer and Video Games). One question asks why there's no campaign co-op, and Clifford explains that they found that it made the game into a "downhill skiing simulator," saying:

First off, it was in there at one point and it actually worked, but we found that the game shifted from being this kind of puzzle shooter into essentially this downhill skiing simulator, where people were seeing how fast they could get to the bottom of the mountain. Really the game just broke down, and it was a situation where people would race through the game, ignoring the vistas and they wouldn't set up as many skillshots. So when we made the decision to go straight campaign, it gave us the chance to put in one-offs that could only be controlled by one player, like the giant robotic dinosaur, where you don't have to worry about Player 2, or slow motion one-offs that could only occur in a single player game.

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43.

Re: Why There's No Bulletstorm Co-op

Feb 21, 2011, 12:31

Beamer

ike I said, leave the code in there and see if modders can do something with it - it's been done before.

It's UE3 - code is in there.

For what it's worth, I found Bioshock 2 multiplayer to be unnecessary, but had they spent resources on it, got it working, then left it out I'd find that dubious too.

Why? Features that aren't fun get cut all the time. In reviews games get knocked much harder for including things that aren't fun than for having feature sets missing, and when people remember games or recommend games they do it less on what isn't there and more on what is.

If BulletStorm released with a dull, unintuitive co-op feature it would have been judged for it and judged negatively. So the feature got cut.
I don't see how pointing this out is anti-consumer. Consumers shouldn't want products released touting features that the developer knows is bad. What if I go to the store with a buddy looking specifically for a co-op game and pick up BulletStorm for that reason. We'd be pissed.
This is what Epic and PCF look to avoid. They're being consumer-friendly here. But since they're Epic everyone puts an evil spin on anything they do.




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Comment [quote="Beamer"Feb 21, 2011, 12:31]q[ike I said, leave the code in there and see if modders can do something with it - it's been done before.]q It's UE3 - code is in there. q[For what it's worth, I found Bioshock 2 multiplayer to be unnecessary, but had they spent resources on it, got it working, then left it out I'd find that dubious too. ]q Why? Features that aren't fun get cut all the time. In reviews games get knocked much harder for including things that aren't fun than for having feature sets missing, and when people remember games or recommend games they do it less on what isn't there and more on what is. If BulletStorm released with a dull, unintuitive co-op feature it would have been judged for it and judged negatively. So the feature got cut. I don't see how pointing this out is anti-consumer. Consumers shouldn't want products released touting features that the developer knows is bad. What if I go to the store with a buddy looking specifically for a co-op game and pick up BulletStorm for that reason. We'd be pissed. This is what Epic and PCF look to avoid. They're being consumer-friendly here. But since they're Epic everyone puts an evil spin on anything they do. [/quote]

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