don't you dare bring "real life" into this.
don't you dare.

hm... actually, it's fun playing in coop mode alone for the respawning, actually. 

I like the idea of having co-op with one life each, or perhaps with 3 lives each? (or free respawn if tked?). I also like the idea of 'anti-coop' where two teams push buttons to make the other team's job harder by dropping extra monsters in, or forcing them to go a longer way around or whatever. It'd be nice to see some kind of sacrifice for such, actually - you can drop a shambler (or a Than :P ) right in your opponents' path, but you have to go out of your way to make some tough jumps or fight some extra beasts for the privilege.

I also think the ability to drop ammo / guns is a far better way of sharing than any multiple-pickup-of-the-same item method. I'd rather weapons / armour disappeared in co-op once one person picks them up, but possibly have them respawn after 30sec / 1min or so. Of course I implemented all this in my coop realism (*cough*) mod 'Black Ops' about five years ago :) 

I'm going to be different again.

I think a better mode of coop would be one with no special allowances whatsoever. No extra weapon pickups or special key stuff - if there's one grenade launcher in the map, then one guy picks it up and he becomes the grenade launcher guy. If another player picks up the gold key, he's gotta be the guy that opens the door. Coop is often a lot easier just because there's a fairly infinite pool of ammo and health available as long as the players keep dying. I would rather see Coop with the extra challenge of making two guys finish the map with only as much supplies, or maybe a tad more, as the designer deemed necessary for one.

This would, of course, still require a few extra items that are coop only, like a few more armors or multiples of the staple weapons like the SSG. It wouldn't be entirely fair to have one shotgun in the map and make the other player faff about with the pistol until a machinegun shows up.

Also, as long as the map isn't too hard, I say, if one player dies, game's over. Dying in Coop doesn't seem to carry any kind of penalty other than the mild inconvenience of having to walk back from the start point. Staying alive in SP is half the challenge - why should coop be any easier? 

i think what you're describing would work better in something like D3, where a constant shortage of ammo would help to make more tense gameplay.

but, i think for something so radical, the map would have to be designed with it in mind (not necessarily coop only, but that there was some real thought put into item placement w/regards to coop)

also, if weapons weren't available to all, then i'd think it would require a way to drop weapons and ammo to give them to other players

i still am unsure about permadeath in coop...
it wouldn't be as carefree fun as it is currently.
the whole fun part comes from the lack of penalty from dying.
if death becomes permanent, then that means people have to play a lot more seriously. it becomes more of a tactical challenge than anything else, instead of just running guns blazing.
it would also make other players angry if you accidentally shot them. this, i think, is the reverse of what coop should be.

i'm open to discussion though. 

www.coopordie.com is a pretty cool quake 2 coop mod. If one person dies, everyone dies, and you have to play the map over again from the start. This is pretty fun, and there is a large deal of cooperation needed, but its alot less spontaneous than normal coop as you need to organize a bunch of good players in order to get a proper game going. The mod changes item placement on the maps, for coop bonuses(with one guy standing on the others head to get something etc). It's quite fun, but it doesn't have difficulty levels, and that makes it a bit too hard for me and my friends in many spots. Friendly Fire is also forced, which is both fun in some ways and irritating in some. 

forgot to mention that weapons stay is on in coopordie. I think Lunarans idea is pretty cool, with each one carrying a role. But as he said, maps would need to be made with this in mind, so that there are several grenade launchers throughout the campaign, etc. 

that's just what i'm talking about though. coop shouldn't be a serious affair, at least, it should necessarily be one.

coop is one of those things you can just say "yo, let's go beat up on some monsters"
and you go in there and just have fun.
it's simple and straight forward like dm.

you add in things like tactical decisions, preplanning, perma death, and you make it into a serious thing, where every action you take matters.

like i said, this is cool for slower paced games like d3, but i don't think this would work in q1 (which i assume we are all still talking about, no?) 

"at least, it shouldn't necessarily be one" 

Part of the fun of Q1 and Q2 coop is that it's not serious and meticulous. I'd like to keep it that way. 

Let's say each player respawn each time he die: so I really think a kind of statistic should be great (like you can find in DM), in order to know how many times you died, how many monsters kills you have etc.. etc.. etc..

I also think it's possible to have fun with tactical decisions and make the game go (not too much) into a serious thing... It's not incompatible to prepare an assault like a commando, and have fun when butchering some shamblers/vores/etc... The thing is it must not turn into a "real life" commando preparation with its months of training, etc.. etc.. the boring stuff... 

I still think you'd need some allowances eg. if the guy with the key dies, he drops it where he dies, so someone else can carry on where he left off. 

If you're gonna drop the key so that people can carry on, you might have to have some provision if the key lands somewhere unrecoverable, like in lava or in a section of the level you can't walk to(yet or ever). Perhaps a time limit before the key returns to where it started, like CTF flags. You could even design the map with that feature in mind, with respawning enemies along the route to the key/from the key to the door so if you die with the key, you'd have to try and recover it quick or you'd have to fight through again. Just make sure you've got some respawning ammo too :-).

(Stupid off topic comment: First time I played CTF I didn't know flags returned after being dropped, and so when I dropped it into a lava pool I kept trying to dive in to recover it, then grapple out before I died. Needless to say it didn't work...) 

if there's a fight that might benefit from doing something specific, then fine, but it shoulnd't be necessary to plan anything.

if there is more preperation than asking "Ok, ready?" than it's boring. this is not csquake where elaborate plans and strategies are required to win. 

if death becomes permanent, then that means people have to play a lot more seriously. it becomes more of a tactical challenge than anything else, instead of just running guns blazing.

Give this kid a cigar!


Unless you want to follow that train of thought to completion, of course. Maybe have players respawn with the items they had before they died? And, even better, have them teleport to the spot they died so they don't miss anything! In fact, how about let's just make all players in Coop invulnerable?

All you guys who don't want coop to be difficult can have it if you want, but the fun of single player doesn't lie entirely in blasting stuff, it's in survival and supplies as well. I don't think that whole arc of FPS gameplay should be written off just because there's a second guy in the game.

If someone produces a decent D3 cooperative codebase I can roll Byzantine into, I think I'm going to have "Sissy Coop" where players respawn and weapons stay, and "Man's Coop" where they don't. :P 

Amen Lunaran! 

I think the harder mode can be fun, but I'm guessing that most people here are arguing against it because Q1 coop is just a fun relaxing romp. They don't want it to become competitive or serious because of just that: they don't want seriousness. Q1/Q2 coop is its own breed of FPS gameplay, and it should either be tweaked to emphasize its current strengths, or radically changed to become entirely different.

I also tend to agree that a serious mode just wouldn't work with Q1 the way everything is designed--especially the weapons and levels. 

at least, some one understood. :P 

If it becomes too easy, it bocomes boring and not interesting... If you want an interesting coop mode, you need to have a certain level of difficulty... In SP mode, does anybody here still play map in easy skill ?? everybody start at least in normal skill, when it's not in hard skill (for the best players...)... So in coop mode, there is no reason to "trash-bin" the spirit of Quake, and make a Sissi Coop Mode like... o_O
In fact, without difficulties, without a little bit of strategy, etc.. there is no fun, that's my humble point of view... We now have to find a trade-off to please everybody... ;) 

no, actually we don't.

q1 coop is very good as it is, and only by concentrating on it's strengths will it be made better.

if you want to completly alter coop gameplay, go ahead, but it's not something I or many others will want to play.
frustration and annoyance are something best left to SP.

I'm not against the the changes, in general however. i still stick with my earlier statement that perma death and non sharing weapons would work well in D3. try that game instead. 

When I said We now have to find a trade-off to please everybody... ;) I was not meaning that I want to change all the coop mode of Quake... I was just guessing we can find what could be the changes, according to everybody, in order to please everybody, that might be implemented.. The "goal" is, like you said, to improve Quake coop mode, by increasing its strengths, increasing perhaps a little bit realism and difficulty, and all of this should increase fun ! That's all.. 

frustration and annoyance are something best left to SP.

Well, there's the problem. I was under the impression quake single player was neither of those. 

I played Q2 coop awhile ago, it was fucking awesome thing.

I think we should leave coop in the way that it is atm. But makin' coop oriented maps sounds interesting, but usual SP maps sound more interesting for me.

I can be wrong (posting drunk), but anyway... 

tell me please, is there anyone playing custom maps in coop mode? 

kell and i have played quite a few custom maps in coop mode, both, some of our own maps and maps made by others. 

mmm, yeah, sorry that was just a bad way of putting it.
what i meant was, introducing elements that are present in a Single player experience into a Multiplayer experience would create frustration and annoyance.

what i was trying to say is that coop should be a lot like dm. it shouldn't try to adhere to the rules of SP or try to be realistic as possible. It should also try to keep 'downtime' to a minimum, in fact, i thought the idea of letting players keep at least the weapons themselves (there should still be a bit of a penalty from dying besides time lost... maybe you start with 1/4 the original ammo you had?) sounds like a good one.

also, in a map oriented towards coop, and also if it's long and linear, should open up teleporters at certain points to allow you to jump back in faster than walking the whole map over again.

think about it: what are the worst times in coop? not dying, but when you have to walk all the way back, thinking "what cool things am i missing?"