Another Nintendo patent: Massively Single-Player Online Game

[Fear Zoa]

Id say its a bad idea....but nintendo gets that all the time with their ideas so i'll just hold my judgement till I see it in action

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I feel like I'd rather play a MMO and experience all of what they talk about, just with other people playing.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I'll wait to see how this turns out when a game uses this structuring rather than immediately say it's a bad idea because it's different.

 

[awssk8er]

Don't really completely understand how this would work, but sounds sweet.

I hate multiplayer games. The reason being, if I want to do something with people, I will do something with them in real life. I play video games (rarely) to just be by myself.

So this is a good thing for me. I like MMO style games, but when you're playing with people you know, you end up playing longer than you want to. With this, you get the experience of playing online, but if you have to turn the game off, you don't end up screwing people over or depend on people.

 

[ferofax]

this is Nintendo sticking to their tried and true format of NOT DOING MULTIPLAYER the way other companies, or pretty much everybody else, does. so it's almost multiplayer, but not quite. each player interacts with the same environment and everything else in it EXCEPT other players.

sounds like the ideal world for a very ronery guy. i mean, even other ronery people go to online games to supplement their need to "socialize", but this concept practically takes that away. :/ probably because how a vast majority of nice people can be absolute dicks online (Internet Anonimity thing).

well, in any case, this patent simply cements my opinion of Nintendo when it comes to multiplayer. Friend Codes will never go away, and there probably won't be any friend messaging system either.

If you guys want features like that, it will have to be up to 3rd party publishes to incorporate a system like that on their respective games.

 

[Depravo]

Could be good. The only thing that spoils online games is other players.

 

[FireGrey]

I bet Zelda will be an MSO

 

[PsyBlade]

this idea is not new at all, its OLD
the bones files of rougelikes were doing that decades ago

take nethack for example
a single player dungeon crawler with permanent death
while the games is single player it was played "online" (mainframes (remember the decades part?))
there is a chance that you encounter the dead body of another (failed) player
along with his stuff, whatever killed him and his restless ghost

 

[FAST6191]

The patent gives a few examples of how such an idea could be implemented, starting with a single-player game in which the player's actions impact the characters and environment of other players enjoying the same single-player game. As the filing suggests, that would offer players some of the benefits of a traditional online world without a potential drawback inherent to massively multiplayer online games.
According to the patent application, "Those who want to play games that are more dynamic, not-based on Al and not-pre-scripted like multiplayer games, however, don't want to 'deal' with other people, appreciate the privacy it provides."

I dare say some of the MUDs (multi user dungeons) might take exception but a I am drawing a blank for names of those right now I am going to say demon's souls. Similarly if I am going to push it harder some people have been known to solo MMORPGs (I believe I saw a hack to making soloing a bit easier), fighting games have long mimicked the best players as time drags on. Equally the real world RPG/arg stuff might pop in here.

a game with an economy affected by player demand for (and scarcity of) items.
I have seen this somewhere before but the name escapes me, in the same ballpark though are surely the DLC or prior to that even some of the patches to the football management simulators and failing that some of the metrics (or plain old bug reports) leading to weapon balancing in later patches. I am also thinking some of the VRML worlds made way back when or indeed some of the PlayStation Home stuff.

Additionally, Nintendo's filing suggested that one player could gossip to a non-player character in the world, who would then pass it along to other players.
I recall an online zombie game but I am too lazy to do a search right now. Failing that the recent mindjack had some ideas along this and other lines.

Another example given had one player spotting a pile of building materials in a virtual world and making a house out of it. Since the world is the same, the next player to happen along finds not a heap of lumber and tools, but a finished house (with the builder nowhere to be seen).
Again I think back to that online zombie game- it had fences that could be cut or later traversed.

The application also covers one tweak to make the gameworld more traditionally multiplayer. If players have "friended" one another, they would be able to see each other and interact in the same environment.
You mean like animal crossing?

Oh well another day another seemingly nonsense patent on things that if they were not already obvious have a good chunk of prior art. I have that wiiU patent to scan through but I guess this is now next on my list. I would like to see how they overcome various pitfalls ( http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/ ).

 

[Gagarin]

Hi FAST6191!
So they let you out? How much was the bail?

 

[Ikki]

Smells like some sort of Animal Crossing Online.

I don't really like the concept they presented.

 

[Jamstruth]

I quite like this idea. Not wreally the dea of other players affecting the world physically (we'd run out of shit that could be editted really fast) but the idea of certain items changing in price as demand worldwide increases or a rare item appearing in a shop somewhere because somebody else sold it to them for money sounds like a great idea and it doesn't have the drawbacks of not feeling like you're part of a giant world full of "Chosen Ones" for the main story and millions of fetch quests that are integral to MMOs.

Also I think by 3D capable I think they just mean capable of running 3D graphics not actually 3D screens.

 

[moose3]

Ok, beyond what the game mechanics are... WTF?? Is no one else wondering why they even bother patenting something like this and will they try and enforce it? It would be like the guys at ID software patenting 'virtual first person perspective fantasy combat experience' and then producing Wolfenstine and saying no one else can make a FPS without licensing the patent from them...

 

[Rayder]

While the idea sounds good and I could see how it could add a fresh element to games, the cynic in me can't help but think it's just another level of AP in games.

 

[Demonstryde]

ninty is about 12 years late.. diablo 2 exp. uses this type of mechanic in their online realms..... however, the idea of players affecting the world around you without the need to be present is intriguing. i support this, as long as you have the option to still use the mmo and have others that are not friends in the world, i.e rivals and such add to the game dynamic.