[Game On?] Dark Messiah Multiplayer

Liquid Ghost

So there I was, in the middle of a cornfield, smoking a bowl of Smurfs with a couple of aliens, when I realized two things: I had never really tried the multiplayer in Dark Messiah and I had apparently left my feet back at McDonald's. My extraterrestrial friends decided that we had consumed enough illegal substances for one day and tried to convince me to go home. I shook my head feverishly, wiping the blue residue from my teeth, and stared longingly towards the road, awaiting the pitter-pattering return of my loyal feet.

I awoke to find myself in my living room, with a slight pain in my ass and a still-pervasive desire to stab some Undead in the groin. This is why I'm making this stupid topic here, so I can perhaps judge the interest in DM's online play. Yes, it actually had multiplayer attached, but balance issues and a general apathy towards all of it led to the feature pretty much collecting dust on people's hard drives. I'm not sure if they ever tweaked the classes enough to make the field of battle a bit more even, but I suppose there's only one way to find out...

First, let's briefly discuss the maps. There's five of them in all, placing Humans versus Undead in a bloody, violent battle across five separate locations. They're all larger than I expected, but not so big that traversing from one side to the other is a pain in the ass. The environments vary, with large open skies in the battle-torn streets of neutral towns and cobweb-infested darkness pervading the underground catacombs of Undead cities. With that said, here's a quick look at the gameplay selections. It's mostly standard fare with the nifty addition of Crusade mode.

(Note: This information comes mostly from memory, with a quick glance or two at this large magazine article and a write-up on HEXUS Gaming. Some of it could be outdated, so you've been warned.)

COLOSSEUM: Fight to the death. There's individual standings, multiple camera angles, and a list showing you who's up next. I wasn't able to get much else out of this, since the fight doesn't start until people join and it was only me there.
DEATHMATCH: Maim. Kill. Burn.
TEAM DEATHMATCH: Maim. Kill. Burn. Just watch out for your teammates. Friendly fire can, thankfully, be turned off.
CAPTURE THE FLAG: Okay, I want you to go over there and defend our flag. Don't wander off to look at statues of naked women or whatever. Okay? Can you handle that this time? May God help us all.
CRUSADE: Basically a game of Battlefield spread across all five maps, with persistent experience gain throughout. Choose your class and gain XP for killing opposing players and neutralizing/capturing flags at various strategic points. Drive the Undead back to their dusty graves or flense the Humans and hang them up from their own battle spires. The choice is yours.



That should about cover the basics there. Now for the classes you can choose from.

CLASSES
Archer:
"Boom! That was left-handed!"
- Long-ranged attacker. Not very good at close combat, but can squeeze off an arrow or two before hauling ass in the opposite direction. Use the environment and physics to your advantage in making your escape. Upgrades include zooming, faster reloading, elemental arrows, and "special" attacks like double and triple arrows, armor-piercing tips, etc.

Assassin:
"War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade."
- Gruff-voiced, ass-poking mercenaries for hire. Uses stealth to great advantage, with the ability to kill their victims in one hit by delivering swift, brutal justice to the opponent's carotid artery. You can use your skill points to reduce the sound made by walking, to improve the "cloaking" effect that keeps your ass alive, or to add little things like poison daggers, feign death, traps, and the ability to disguise yourself as an assassin belonging to the opposing team.

Warrior:
"Where is the blood I was promised?!"
- GRONK LIKE SMASH. The warrior's upgrades tend to emphasize survivability, with damage reduction, magic resistance, and health boosts to the warrior and nearby allies, as well as a few offensive-minded things like a running attack and increased attack power.

Mage:
"I will destroy their minds and burn their bodies."
- Pew, pew! PEW! Set stuff on fire and watch your enemies jerk about as you electrocute their smoldering bodies. A larger mana pool, increased regen, magic-deflecting shields, and various spells await to consume your hard-earned skill points. Can't turn people into sheep, unfortunately, and the rather annoying mana issues that plagued magic-users in the single player game seemed to carry over somewhat.

Priestess:
"Arise, my champion!"
- Healer, buffer, debuffer, rezzer, and all-around sexy side-boob queen. Can restore health to allies or harm her enemies, both with the same spell, slow down approaching attackers, mark opponents for increased XP when killed, and generally be a massive pain in the ass wherever she goes. An interesting mechanic with resurrection is the "binding" of your soul to hers. If she dies after reviving you, it's curtains once again and you can spend your time sleeping with Slippery Dick McGee in Davy Jones' Locker.

There you have it. Now, hopefully, we can get something together for this. I can try hosting, if you'd like, but I'm not sure just how successful that would be. If we experience any horrible lag, I suppose someone else can give it a shot. Let's talk about it a little bit first.

Take heed, then! Commence with the merriment and MAEK SUM POAST.

EDIT: Fixed some of the information. I'm sure there are reasons, after all, but I know of none of them. Hence why I proposed the idea first instead of asking people to immediately come online and join in.

rayofash

There are reasons nobody plays this multiplayer.

DisruptorX2

DM multiplayer is such a disappointment, I really don't want to think about it. Its nothing at all like the single player game.

Should have just given you the weapons from the SP, and let you duke it out and hack off each other's limbs. Hard to fuck up, right? WRONG!