Im actually attempting to make a game that i'm thinking about selling as shareware... and i began to think.. what would make this 2D action-shooting RPG game stick out at all? Even if it had a good storyline, ti would die out with boredom or something.

then i thought... multiplayer -- thats why games such as everquest, diablo, etc. have survive so long..

so my question is (more to people that may have done shareware games) .. how important is it to have deathmatch or co-opertive play in your game.. does it have much of an effect on how many people may register/purchase your game?

IS everyone and his dog doing shareware games now?

Back, back I say!

I'm not going to make any sharewares at the moment and I'm not planning to do any. Knowing that somebody plays what I made will be enough for me.

Anyway, I'm not against programmers who are making money on games, because everybody has to make money some way. Sad but true.

Let the Open Source be with you!

Ontopic: Multiplayer is important, but probably it isn't essential for RPG being successful since probably gamers are more used to deathmatches than cooperative modes (although it would of course add to game play value). I'd rather pay more attention to make game as much modable as possible (and easily modable) and strongly encourage people to submit their creations. Many additional maps and quests should be another good reason for buying a game.

It might be because people's Sekrit Projekts are finally nearing completion, and we'll be damned if we're not gonna force some recognition from people through them

For myself, unless the game is specifically designed to be primarily a multiplayer experience, I want to see the strongest possible gameplay for single player mode(s), then you can worry about multiplayer. There are times when I have friends over, and there are times when I've got a fast net connection, and then there are times when I'm sitting along in a hotel room with nothing but my laptop, and those are the times when I want to know I can fully enjoy a game all by myself

For me, multiplayer can enhance a good game, but by itself it won't save a crappy game. I'd rather see developers concentrate on the core game, and throw in multiplayer if their time/budget warrants it.

Edit:

And I really, really, really, REALLY HATE games that allow for multiplayer modes, but are too lazy to program any bots, thus forcing you to have friends over just to play.

well, the imporatnat thign about mutliplayer, when doing AI and story modes and all that is that when you start coding for it, the game has to be DESIGNED around multiplayer... its near impossible (with a rather big game) to just 'plug' in multiplayer when you have a completed single player.

I agree that strong single player is important, which is my main goal.

and as for peoples feelings on shareware.. my goal is to have a game with 8+ hours of gameplay, multiplayer, and co-op. single player will be limited to as far as you can get in a certain amount of time, hopefully making the player addicted enough to pay $1 -> $4 or something for it... but nothing else will be restricted (except perhaps co-op mode). multiplayer will be free, although items and abilities you can get may be limited (needs more thought).

im hoping this way people will play single player, maybe get a taste for it.. or play it as straight DM or T-DM and enjoy...

and who knows, maybe i'll give up on shareware and just open source it, or charge like 50 cents.

also, im not exactly near completion (theres the design docs and such).. but it will be done by august since im doign this as a school independent project... i have a release date I have to meet only thing that make take some extra time would be replaceing some place holder graphics and possibly sound effects. I already have a lot of music done

the sekrit project will amaze and astound you all!!!111!11!!1111

or at least make you think "he spent HOW long on this crap?"

sigged.

In my not yet finished game i solve the problem by abstraction, i only care about if the gamecharacter is AI or Human during the creation, then solve it by subclassing.
http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dal02kln/ai_or_human_abstraction.png
Of course the above example isn´t complete, but it shows the general idea

Inside my game loop i call update() on all my GameCharacter:s, if they are human they check the appropriate keys and make their action. If they are AI they make decisions based on how the worldData looks.

Some good things with the above solution is that you can handle all your gamecharacters in the same way. It´s easy to add multiplayer, or add a different smarter AIPlayer. You can put the concrete classes (HumanPlayer and AIPlayer in the above example) inside a DLL and add them as runtime. Let the users download new types of enemies as they please. Perhaps a networked DLL which adds the ability to play over a network.

Anyhow.. The main idea is that you can design your game and handle all players the same way. Be they AI or human controlled.. Which is what you where thinking of.. Hope i gave you some idea.

Thats my 2 cents.. Or 1 krona or similar as i live in Sweden. :-)

You where fast, i posted a reply before yours .. Check it out and let me know what you think.

[edit] Yes you can, however i don´t think it´s a good solution. In that case i think it´s better to let the jump() etc methods in the base class have exchangeable behavior (a nice OO way to do it is using the state pattern) and only call a "change state" method in the baseclass from your subclasses when you want different behavior. But that´s just what i think, it might be wrong, but it´s my suggestion if you want a flexible design.

I'm doing a multiplayer game. It's not a question of 'how important is it', but more of questions like "Do I need it?", "Can I do it?", "Would my players like it?", "Is it worthwhile?", "Will I have fun?", and so on. If you choose to incorporate multiplayer, make sure it's something new and exciting. (because that's better )