I’ve resolved to start getting more picky with what games I offer for multiplayer. There’s nothing worse than customers expecting to play a game with their friends and the setup either takes too long or is too confusing.
Big no nos:
- Having ‘room codes’
- Searching or “quick joining” through public games (for popular titles at least) which can lead to joining the wrong match
- Navigating through many menu layers, or navigating through the virtual environment
A few titles off the top of my head which are getting the chop due to the above:
- Smashbox Arena
- Dick Wilde 2
- Baam Squad
- Crisis VRigade
- Warplanes WW1 Fighters (though a fix is coming soon)
- Racket NX
- Trickster
There’s probably more, those are some I’ve come across so far.
The best current method for multiplayer, in my opinion, is one or more of the following options:
- Auto-join via LAN or online (the drawback here is it makes it harder to play against people online if that’s what the customer wants, plus the auto-join via online method can sometimes fail if a player is sent to a different region - as in Cowbots and Aliens)
- Multiplayer selection from the main menu or a controller button press with either:
- Join via Steam friends (create private game on one player, then the others join by selecting the friend name)
- Join via Private room (but no room codes, the other players need to join from a server browser in-game)
- Steam friend invite (can be messy with Steam pop-ups though, and co-ordinating 2 players at once to send and accept invites, but generally works well enough)
Games like QuiVR, Elven Assassin, Clash of Chefs, Rec Room, Skyfront, The Forest, Furious Seas (though not perfect) do at least one of those and that’s what I end up recommending my customers play (one exception being Serious Sam Last Hope because the search function works 90% of the time and the game rocks)
