Gameplay mechanisms to encourage cooperative play

[jasonridesabike]

Something I've noticed in most of the servers I've played in is that players have a tendency to play single player in multi player; often barely communicating at all. It's actually kind of turned me off of playing, nearly alltogether.

 

Multiplayer cooperative games survive or die by their in-game community and I was thinking perhaps some built in gameplay mechanics that encourage and reward cooperation and communication could help foster a community that would be more engaging and fun to participate in.

 

Also, voice chat! That could overcome a lot of the problem all on it's own. I know steam voice chat is an alternative, but really who takes time to set that up with strangers when first getting into a new server? We need some kind of built in option.

 

Thanks for all the work!

[DeepFried]

I've not tried playing on random public servers to be honest but yes i'd imagine voice chat would be vital to any coop experience.  That aside I can suggest organising a game with people before hand and setting up a voip server.  If you don't have friends that play then you can probably look for a group on these forums or on steam/reddit or something like that.  Hell i'd be up for it if you're on UK times.

[Chesska]

Play with your friends -- your FRIENDS -- and talk over skype or some other voice chat program.

 

You can't play on a server with random people you don't know in any game and expect them to cooperate. That's why the majority of online multiplayer cooperative games are full of frustration and compromise.

 

As for adding in-game voice chat... I wouldn't be opposed to it, but if it's going to cause more lag on my own personal server I host from my laptop than it needs to, I'd rather just use skype instead.