We want cross play, but we don't want always online. Why?

With the current news of cross play between PS4 and Xbox One, lots of people are hoping that this will make Sony accept cross play, but at the same time, most people hate on the idea of an always online game from a series that never had that. Why is that? Why do we only like online to some extent?

Cause we don't always want to be online, but when we are online, we want to play with the maximum amount of people

Why are we comparing things that are drastically dissimilar? One limits SP content behind an online wall, that doesn't necessarily need to be there. The other utilizes online for multiplayer facets.

It's not that hard to figure out. Always online is exactly that. It means your game is always connected to the internet and cannot be played in any fashion without that active connection. In the past this has prevented people from playing single player games as the servers they connect too go down or their own internet goes down.

It's pretty rare that either of these things happen today, but many consider it an unnecessary variable. Having to rely on your internet connection 24/7 for single player games is an unnecessary risk.

Cross platform play has nothing to do with always online.

I'll answer that for ya

We want crossplay why?

Simple. It removes a check from the pro column of a competitors pro/con checklist. Brilliant marketing

We don't want always online, why?

Because not everyone wants to always be connected online.

I like being helpful.

Having the option to have a game connected is good, having the option to play people in other walled gardens is good.

Removing the "option" and making them mandatory is bad. Not sure why that's hard to understand?

What aigis has said. :P

I don't necessarily want/need to be online to play a single-player game, but when I do play online, I'd like the accessibility of playing with whoever I like regardless of platform.

Is this serious?

@phbz: Yeah, i'm serious.

Can't i ask a simple question?

@Ant_17: Because it's not logical at all. But ok.

@phbz: I don't play online games that much and was wondering why always online gets so much hate.

It's all about choice. Crossplay gives you the choice to play with gamers on other platforms online. Internet leashes takes away your choice to play your games offline.

Because one is an extra option and the other is not.

I never disconnect so I'm always online anyway so bring it on especially that StormCloud powah as well. :P

Because online connectivity should only be necessary for multiplayer. Why should it be required for single player campaign? Where games are separated by their game modes, online connection should be optional, not mandated. How is this so hard to figure out?

I think people need to understand that gaming is and always will be a "In the moment" experience in regards to multiplayer.

There is always a golden age, before a game falls off in popularity. If it doesn't die completely, only the most diehard players remain. No one can ever relive the early years of World of Warcraft, even if the exact same game were still playable today. Likewise every multiplayer game reaches a point where it isn't the same anymore. Some games cling to life, like Quake 3, but most of them either end up relegated to gameranger or similar community efforts or completely dead. Your favourite server will die off, your friends will quit playing and the game just won't be the same anymore.

On the flip side, while you may never be able to play Destiny in 5, 10, 15 years or whatever, video footage of some dude playing the game will exist.

Anyway, I think pirates manage to crack most always online things anyway. Assassins Creed II will still be playable in some form in 10 years, I'm fairly confident.

Live in the moment, replaying Ocarina of Time may trigger your nostalgia, (trust me, it does for me) but I promise you going back to a multiplayer game that is a shadow of it's former self does nothing for it. Seeing servers full of bots all pretending to be humans is truly a terrifying thing!

one thing has nothing to do with the other

I have no comment on the always online thing, just go back to the Xbox One 2013 reveal comments if you want to know why people dont want online only.

As for the crossplay thing, I used to care about it, but not really anymore because I'm convinced it would just create an even more toxic online ecosystem of stupid fanboys shouting insults at each other, they're too stupid to set aside their differences to play together, not all of them but many of them unfortunately. You think system wars trolls are crazy, you should see some of the stuff on Twitter, its in a different league.

Killer Instinct recently was updated to allow cross play with the upcoming Steam version and these things are cool with PC, not as many fan boy nonsense (at least in my experience with cross play with Forza and Gears, you still get the occasional losers of course that's unavoidable).

So as long as I can find games quickly, I really don't care anymore about Xbox and PS4 crossplay, lets stay like this its better.

Sony is smart not letting the nut jobs that use xbl onto psn. Please dont allow crossplay. Not having to listen to creeps harass each other on a daily basis is a great thing about psn.

Well in the first case we want crossplay because it increases the player base

Always online is pretty stupid for a game that doesn't necessarily need to be online. Now in the case of Titanfall 1, Overwatch, and many many others that are primarily online multiplayer games with no real compelling single player content, you kind of have to know what you're buying.

I assume this is a reaction to the recent Gran Turismo news about certain features not being available offline. If they are locking single player features behind an internet connection, then yeah I guess fans have might be a little upset about it. I'm not sure what the FIA is or what their reasons are, but it does sound a little bogus to me.

Why do we want more options while rejecting more restrictions?

Seems pretty clear.

My experience with SP games that require an online presence is rare, maybe only required for Blood Bowl 2 from what I have played, fortunately. But online is nonetheless essential for many not so important aspects, automatic cloud saves, meaty game updates that usually install while system is in sleep mode, automatic achievement registration. Sure, if online goes down, I can't play latest Destiny as it should be played, thankfully I have enough SP content that can be played offline I can switch to.

That's my thing also.

Only game i have played with this is the last Need For Speed game.

Didn't see the point of the alwys online, but it wasn't a problem for me. Game played well and it was fun watching other players do a race while i was doing burnouts in the middle of the road.

@twizded: Sounds like you have had many bad experiences in the past, I can tell you as someone who plays online a lot on XBL, I encounter just as many losers online as smart, cool people. In the last week alone I must have added 7-8 friends I met randomly online playing Path of Exile, very decent people from my experiences so far.

I very seriously doubt there are no bad apples on PSN, and if you are implying nobody talks on PSN that's unfortunate, but still possible for someone to meet cool people if they try.

I definitely agree with you, cross play should not happen between PS4 and Xbox One because the fanboys of each side will probably just insult each other over the mics, thus ruining the experience for the decent people who just want to have a good time online. And it can already get pretty bad as is, as you implied. This happens already without crossplay, and crossplay would probably just make it worse. In my experiences it also depends on the type of game. I think they should forget about crossplay completely its been a lingering issue for a while now.

You are comparing two totally different things that aren't connected at all.

@Alucard_Prime: I highly doubt most people would care if you made friends with them in a game and they were on PS4 or Xbox One. I certainly wouldn't care if I had fun playing with the person. Only the crazy hardcore fanboys would care, which is such a minute number. It'd be worth it for cross play on everything, in my opinion.

Can't agree with this at all. I wish cross-play wasn't being held back right now, I bought Destiny 2 on my Xbox to play with a couple friends. A large chunk of my friends bought the game on PS4 and I miss playing with them. I bought Destiny 1 on both consoles so I didn't have to choose between friends, but I refuse to buy 2 copies of every game that has MP. I'd love to be able to run the raid with my teams from both consoles.

As for the OP, Destiny 2 is also a good example of why I hate always-online. My ISP sucks a big fat ****, which means I have loads of trouble connecting to the Farm or Tower. It usually takes me 4-8 attempts before I can get in, and I have to run to decrypt engrams and turn in missions as fast as possible, sometimes I get in and error out 5 seconds later. For me a large portion of the end game content is nearly unplayable for me since i've spent 30-45 minutes just trying to turn in 4 engrams and talk to two other vendors. I had the same problem in Destiny 1 after TTK released, basically made some content unavailable to me and I had to quit the game. Errors were on both consoles as well.

its 2017 who's internet isnt always online?

And I dont really see how the topics actually relate to each other. The reality is Sony isnt supporting crossplay out of greed nothing more.

I get the argument that people that collect games feel like the servers will be shut down and then they dont have access to their games. But the counter argument is once a game gets to the point where its being shut down, nobody was playing it anyway. Nothing against people that collect games, but as a primarily MP gamer I dont collect games and if a game gets shut down I move on to the next game.

The real issue here seems to be that single player gamers always want their cake and to eat it too.

Thats why so many games have screwed up, tacked on pvp that messes them up in general throwing off balance etc. Developers are to blame since they basically need to decide if they want their game to be pve or pvp but dont and settle on weaksauce hybrids since they are trying to sell units. If the game is really going to be competitive (in pve or pvp) it cant have both in the same environment. I dont know when this trend started but it was probably with WoW and everyone else followed the model trying to get that WoW money. But back in the days it wasnt an issue for games to only be hardcore pvp or pve. But you hardly ever see that anymore. BTW thats the main reason PUBG is so popular. Because the devs that made it understand this concept.

@twizded: Hyperbole. I've personally encountered way more trolling and racists on PSN than I do on XBL as far as consoles go and PC has the actual worst online community in my experience. I primarily drifted away from PC gaming because of how toxic its community is online since I mostly play MP games. Between the racists, the toxic ragers and the hax I just got tired of it. See old school bnet and the old vanilla Dawn of War lobbies which was like an alt right chat room.

Xbox's online community is way better than Sony's thats one of the main reasons I prefer Xbox. The community aspect of it is far more robust since more people play online on Xbox and yes both have their share of jerkoffs, but its easier to filter them out and find respectable online clubs on Live.

That said, anyone that actually enjoys MP gaming should be in support of crossplay. The larger the online community means games live longer.

@suicidesn0wman: @DragonfireXZ95: Hopefully you guys get what you want, personally I don't care anymore about PS4-XOne crossplay because I can very easily find people online on XOne, and most of what I see on these boards is people stating Sony should not allow crossplay, and Sony seems to be of that stance. So me personally I stopped caring about this issue, as I can easily find people on XOne and for some games with declining online population, we'll get PC cross platform play when possible.

But hey in theory it could work and maybe your optimistic view will be fulfilled one day. Good luck !

Actually, I care more about PC - Xbox and PC - Playstation cross platform since I'm a PC gamer. I honestly don't really care if the consoles get cross platform with each other, because I don't buy their systems. However, PC is becoming cross platform with both the PS4 and Xbone in many games, so my optimistic view is already coming to fruition. ;)

@DragonfireXZ95: Indeed we are on the right path for that, I've played with many PC gamers from my XOne, no issues whatsoever. I know Sony supports that as well with some of their games. I think it's great and it allows more people to enjoy the game, allows for a bigger online population.

Killer Instinct recently announced they are cross play with Steam-Xbox-PC Win versions which may be the first game to ever do that, and while I think any game can benefit from this scenario, I think it's particularly beneficial for exclusives which usually have less sales than multiplatform games do.

Yeah, I'm happy they're doing it since I have friends both on the PS4 and Xbox One side of things. I'd love to be able to play games with them, also.

How are the two even related?

Single player games that are online only is a plague.

This is one of the dumber threads I've seen in awhile, congrats tc.

Yeaah, all this crossed my mind too but people actually gave paragraph responses for whatever reason.