The Conduit: No DLC, friend codes look likely
by Chris Greenhough 
{ Sep 15th 2008 at 1:38PM }
Now that we've all agreed on our hatred of friend codes, will The Conduit be lumbered with them? High Voltage's Rob Nichols suggested it would in a recent Nintendo Radio podcast, admitting that the studio will "probably" have to use the dreaded digits. Though this isn't outright confirmation and we shouldn't take to the streets in anger yet (Nichols' colleague Tony Mecca promises that High Voltage is considering "every other option"), the general tone of the transcript is rather downbeat. We look forward to grumbling with you, dear reader, at future Game Nights.
In other news-we-kind-of-expected, the pair confirmed that the game won't feature downloadable content. A double blow, then, depending on whether you view DLC as a boon or a burden.
Gallery: The Conduit
[Thanks to all who sent this in!]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
bukizzle715 @ Sep 15th 2008 1:46PM
So is Nintendo publishing The Conduit, or is still a secret?
WiiHD.net @ Sep 15th 2008 4:08PM
Nothing is official yet, but their tone and tenor and ongoing closeness to Nintendo certainly point in that direction.
Further, both companies could benefit from the arrangement. Nintendo has been working to beef up their core lineup following a constant stream of gamer complaints. And first party games succeed on Wii, so if The Conduit is published by Nintendo, its odds of selling a million copies go up dramatically. I imagine High Voltage would like to see their baby succeed.
Roto13 @ Sep 15th 2008 1:48PM
There are so many more important aspects to a game than whether or not you need to trade friend codes it makes me incredibly sad that people are so ready to bitch about them constantly. Priorities, people.
ramuji @ Sep 15th 2008 1:53PM
No bad news to be seen here, as far as I am concerned.
Hardy @ Sep 15th 2008 2:06PM
They could do what Mario Kart did, and have random multiplayer with people regardless of friend codes, but only allow the WiiSpeak whatever the hell it's called for people with your friends code.
Course regardless, people will for a fansite or forums where friends codes will be thrown around.
But I REALLY do hate the friends code thing. huge digit pass codes are so early 90s.
meist3r @ Sep 15th 2008 2:10PM
Please don't use that dreadful game as an inspiration. MK Wiis multi player is horrible. It takes 2 minutes to find the players and have everyone select their track and then you can play for 3 minutes and the whole thing starts over again. Also why can't I choose coin or battle mode so that I keep playing the mode I want? To have it swap every round is totally annoying especially when you hate one mode or the other. The GP was absolutely unplayable online sometimes and the "special event" races are more a pitiful joke than anything.
I still hope there'll be a gamespy style server browser and some options. If they have half the options they have for the control setup we should be fine. I'm looking forward to this game but this whole friend code business is getting ridiculous.
il_duce620 @ Sep 15th 2008 2:20PM
Hardy, I agree with you...if it works like MKWii, I'll be relatively happy with it (although I'd prefer something like MoH:Heroes 2, where I can choose the game type between deathmatch, CTF, etc.).
meist3r, I just logged on two nights ago around 10:30 CST here in Missouri and got hooked up with 10 other people within 10 seconds. I can agree with the random matching on game modes, but I don't think most people experience a 2 minute wait to find more people...unless you're talking about SSBB... :-P
Either way, random matching multiplayer is make-or-break for me. If I can't find random people without the need for a friend code, I'm not buying this game. Simple as that.
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 2:27PM
Really? I quite liked MK Wii's system, though it certainly lacked some options, but that's because Wii totally neglects any kind of lobby system, which is in turn due to the lack of communication
But given the artificial limitations imposed by Nintendo, Mario Kart Wii worked great. Sometimes a little slow in getting everyone back to the stage select screen, but great otherwise.
mian @ Sep 15th 2008 3:05PM
@Kahn: You don't get to choose your map, if it ends up on one you don't like, you have to exit the game to avoid racing it (I can't race Rainbow Road without a barf bag nearby, so I know a little about that). You don't get to choose who you play with, or even the general rankings of those players, so making a real game of a competitive shooter would be a bear. Plus, if you find someone you play well with, or enjoy going head-to-head with, good luck finding them again.
That's fine for a game that's barely competitive like Mario Kart. I have some fun with a little cheesy racing myself. But multiplayer FPS is about skill. It has different requirements to achieve the same amount of fun.
One thing that MKWii did better than MoHH2 was ranking... at least on one level. MoHH2 subtracts your deaths from your kills and determines rank based solely on that--leading to a signifigant number of the top 100 players, and an even larger percentage of the top500 owing their rank to noob hunting.
MKWii gave you different scores for winning based on rankings of the people you beat. Beat someone with a higher rank, get a bigger bonus. Beat someone with a smaller rank, get a smaller bonus. Rank can be helpful in getting into challenging games, but only if it actually measures skill.
Requiring Friend Codes to get the full online experience (or, what qualifies as "full" for Nintendo is ridiculous. Especially since Friend Codes actually endanger children rather than protect them. A decent lobby system plus commonplace parental controls would be far safer for kids without destroying the ability to play a full game without going into FC bookkeeping mode all the time or having to mine the internet for codes.
TwEE @ Sep 15th 2008 5:56PM
Im not sure I understand the mario kart complaints Im hearing.. 2 min wait time to find an online match? Really?. It takes seconds when I try..
And you dont get to choose the course you race on?
I swear I can do that in the version I have.. I must have the championship edition..
And yes there is just as much "skill" involved playing mario kart as an average fps..
8-bit.artist @ Sep 15th 2008 8:12PM
meist3r is an idiot.
mk wii has great online. id be willing to have the conduit online be like that since i doubt the death matches will be 3 minutes long.
i was really wishing for online to be done like MoHH2 though.
hellhammer @ Sep 15th 2008 2:11PM
The incredible amount of hate for Friend Codes still throws me for a loop.
It's not like you have to have them to play, you can play any random person without entering a single code. Friend Codes are specifically for playing with people you know.
When a friend gets a new cell phone number, I just add it to my phone. It takes about 30 seconds, which is just as long as it takes to enter a Friend Code. You have to add you friend's gamertags if you want to play together on Live, why is it that a few more characters is such a huge bother to add?
I'd rather enter a thousand FC's than chat with ANYONE on xbox live.
/rant
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 2:30PM
I agree: Friend Codes are not bad things, in and of themselves
Its the philosophy they bring along with them that is bad. The whole thing about having absolutely no Nintendo-sanctioned means of being able to swap friend codes, meaning it has to be done with a 3rd party, either a website providing an opportunity, or just knowing the person, and then there's the total limitation of chat, even when you're with friends often enough
WiiSpeak will fix some of that, but there just needs to be a total philosophy change from the top-down on Nintendo's part. Friend codes help their strategy in that it eases your ability to access online play (absolutely zero account setup, which i do enjoy), but then you pay for it in every other conceivable way
hellhammer @ Sep 15th 2008 2:46PM
"it has to be done with a 3rd party, either a website providing an opportunity, or just knowing the person"
That's just my point. If you don't know the person, you don't need their FC. You just chose to play a random opponent, without entering anything.
And I agree that WiiSpeak is a great thing and is definitely the right move for Nintendo, even if it is a little late.
"(absolutely zero account setup, which i do enjoy), but then you pay for it in every other conceivable way"
But how do you pay for it? Entering a 12 digit number? That's five more than a phone number. Think of how many phone numbers you've bother with in your life. Thousands upon thousands, without hesitation.
Yet when Nintendo requires you to do it, you're 'paying for it'?
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 2:50PM
Hey, i'm on your side. I never saw what the big deal was, but i never really saw what the big deal was with online play, outside of MMOs
Its fun, but similar fun can be derived from bots, unless you're into trash-talk, which i am not
I just think that the system could be a helluva lot better, and what kinda fanboy would i be if i didn't shout for Nintendo to do more, without being actively hateful, of course
Vcize @ Sep 15th 2008 3:04PM
The whole problem is that it requires so much extra communication outside of Nintendo's console.
Yeah, you have to enter a gamertag on XBL, but then it's there across all games, forever (or until you remove it). So if I add someone in Call of Duty, and I log on and see them playing Gears, I can invite them with a simple button click and now bam, we're in Gears together. Now, compound this by dozens of people and we start to see it get worse. I start up a Gears room, and I need to find 7 other people. I can scroll down my list, see who's in Gears (or not even bother), and press one button to a number of individuals to fill up the room.
On the Wii, I play SSBB with someone, that doesn't mean I can play Mario Kart with them. Let's say I buy Mario Kart and want to start up a room with people I know. Well, now I have to send the following messages:
"Hey, do you have Mario Kart? If so, what's your FC in it? Let me know, and then I'll let you know when I add your code in and you can join my game"
But that's not all. Many of them need to be sent out via email, or talk to the person on the phone, or have some way to exchange said friend code. Consider that most people's friends list are a mix of people they know in real life, and people they don't (and let's face it, most are people they don't, because no one knows 100 people in real life that have the same console as them and play the same game online), so how are they supposed to get a hold of those people?
Bottom line, you buy Mario Kart and try to fill a room up with friends for some good old college shenanigans recreation and you have an epic struggle on your hands, and it's not going to happen for days, or weeks.
Yeah, when you play with random people it's no big deal, since you probably don't want to hear them anyway. The whole point of XBL is playing with friends, and making it universally easy and accessible to do so. It's about recreating the old atmosphere from when you were a kid and you all went over to Johnny's house and were playing in the same room and joking around, laughing your asses off as you enjoyed the game.
Different priorities for different folks. That's why some people care about this stuff and some don't. Sure, if all you want to do is connect to random games and play against online figures that are basically advanced AI drones, or if you're still in school living in town with all your friends that you all spend every weekday over at each other's houses and haven't yet graduated and all moved away to distant places, then it's probably not that big a deal to you.
But let's get over this "I don't get it" stuff. I "get" the reasons you don't care about, surely you can "get" the reasons I don't. For me, Mario Kart with XBL type online play would have been epic, and something that I spent several hours of most days playing just like I did back in school when we could all gather in the same room and play MK64. As is, I've barely put a couple hours into it.
Vcize @ Sep 15th 2008 3:09PM
Woah, wall of text there, huh? After all that, I think Mr Khan expressed our differences perfectly.
"Its (online play) fun, but similar fun can be derived from bots, unless you're into trash-talk, which i am not"
That's EXACTLY how I feel when I'm playing online with the Wii. It's no different than playing a bunch of bots, what's the point?
But when you get a real online experience, it's completely different. It's people. It's just like being in the same room with your friends when you were kids, only now you're all old enough to drink. Everyone is laughing, joking around, fake trash-talking, ooooooh'ing and ahhhhhh'ing, etc. It's just a totally different experience, and more fun than gaming alone could ever be (don't get me wrong, I love many single player games, but it just doesn't compare). Throw online co-op into the mix and it only goes even further in this manner.
mian @ Sep 15th 2008 3:14PM
@Kahn, There's no bot alive that can really simulate a competitive FPS environment like real people. Even advanced AI's like you find in Halo 3 aren't capable of the creative feats real players are.
Now in a game like MKWii, I see your point. There's really not much a person can do in that game that a bot can't.
But FPS don't take place on a fixed path with highly limited tactics. Humans adapt towards the best set of tactics where bots either stay the same or change at random (sometimes changing when they should stay the same). Humans work together in new and creative ways as the game progresses where bots are stuck with same code they shipped with.
For competitive play, there's just no, uhh, competition between humans and bots. Even smart bots are just target practice. They present no tactical or strategic challenges.
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 2:36PM
What? no props?
I did send y'all that exact link, though you may have uncovered it independently
As for the story at hand, it does (as WiiHD pointed out) hint more and more at Nintendo publishing, as if we didn't already get clued in enough by WiiSpeak and Motion Plus support, two things that absolutely no other 3rd parties were made aware of
Chris Greenhough @ Sep 15th 2008 3:55PM
Eek, sorry, that's totally my fault! We actually got a few tips about this over the weekend, so I'll add in a thanks. Sorry again!
Rob @ Sep 16th 2008 11:41AM
Good thing there will be Friend Codes. How else would we be able to play with our buds?
mian @ Sep 16th 2008 2:07PM
Names.
The same way people have been playing with their buds for a decade in online games before Nintendo decided to screw the pooch.
cmdrpwn @ Sep 15th 2008 2:56PM
Super, even more reasons to contribute to my total disinterest in this game.
I don't mean to sound cynical or begrudging, really, I commend the High Voltage guys for what they're endeavoring to accomplish; the Wii needs more expeditious and versatile development outfits like them.
But really, I'm a guy with a pretty high-end PC rig. I've been playing FPS for a very long time. I'm geting a PS3 this winter.
Can someone explain to me why I should be interested in The Conduit, keeping in mind my aforementioned background?
Sure it looks nice, for a Wii game, the latter corollary being the operative component there. Beyond the motion-controls (which still, in my humble opinion, don't even hold a CANDLE to the good ol' mouse/keyboar configuration), the game has zero appeal or itnerest for me. It seems like a fairly derivative sci-fi shooter. No local multiplayer is a huge deficiency and turn-off, and now we can be assured of more superfluous and stupid FC online interactivity, something I just find insufferable. No DLC is like adding another layer of dust to the debris.
I say this full knowledge that 99 percent of the people reading this will disagree, and that's fine. But please guys, its just my honest opinion, it just so happens to be a contrary one, I'm not making it to spite anbody or anything.
Maattp @ Sep 15th 2008 3:12PM
Why doesn"t nintendo just allow you to make a username that you have to trade with friends that works for EVERY Game. That way you still have to trade your code to play with people, but it is a lot easier to remember and you only have 1 of them for all online games.
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 3:35PM
Thats what we all originally hoped for with Wii, since the system uses the WiiConnect24 codes
But it wasn't to be. An account isn't much of a burden, but LIVE-style total online integration would be neat. Non-gamers do it, too, being called AIM, so it wouldn't be far out for Nintendo to emulate a similar system that is still non-confrontational to the expanded market
hellhammer @ Sep 15th 2008 3:25PM
"The whole problem is that it requires so much extra communication outside of Nintendo's console."
"That's EXACTLY how I feel when I'm playing online with the Wii. It's no different than playing a bunch of bots, what's the point?"
Both great points that I didn't really consider. For one, I don't usually add people I don't know in real life(and maybe a friend of a friend) But since there's no voice chat on the Wii, I've never seen the nessessity.
However, when Wiispeak is released, I know I will feel differently.
TheOverlord#2 (Playing: SMRPG, SMG, & Okami) @ Sep 15th 2008 3:40PM
Hmm...I wonder if they got Nintendo to publish The Conduit. If they didn't, I don't know why they would have a problem making a MoHH2-esque lobby and username system.
And, No, I wasn't expecting DLC. Though it would be a good to add some new maps every once in a while.
Maybe some High Voltage staff maps, and then they would set up a map creator on their website and take some from the fans!
Thinking about it now, I would like some DLC. :P
Sonic_13 @ Sep 15th 2008 4:05PM
"I don't know why they would have a problem making a MoHH2-esque lobby and username system."
That would require High Voltage to operate their own server farms for online play. It's something that a huge game company like EA can do, but not a small developer like High Voltage.
WiiHD.net @ Sep 15th 2008 4:01PM
You read WiiHD? Or did you spot it from Kotaku or another linking blog?
Either way, thanks for stopping by.
WiiHD.net @ Sep 15th 2008 4:04PM
Opps. This was supposed to be a reply to Mr Kahn above where he said he'd sent in this link.
Mr Khan @ Sep 15th 2008 4:31PM
I somehow found my way to Kotaku, and then traced the link backwards, because sending in Kotaku tips is somewhat taboo around here
mian @ Sep 15th 2008 5:23PM
They used to not trade links at all between gawker and Weblogs, but nowadays they both are lot looser about it. I've seen kotaku linked at wii fanboy, and I've seen ds fanboy linked to at kotaku.
It might still be somewhat taboo, but I think the two entities have reached some sort of detente.
Sonic_13 @ Sep 15th 2008 4:10PM
"Now that we've all agreed on our hatred of friend codes"
I don't agree. I don't mind friend codes at all. They are simple and easy to deal with. I really don't see what all the fuss is about - and after reading other comments here, it is clear that others feel the same way that I do.
ZombiePikmin @ Sep 15th 2008 4:25PM
As long as i can yell "pew pew pew i gots u" and "Ima chargin meh lazerz" im satisfied
manyquestions @ Sep 15th 2008 7:37PM
Ok, who was really that clueless that they didn't see friend codes coming? Unless they can get some kind of special deal with Nintendo and set up a lobby, we're likely to end up with a BWii-like system: Choose friend/anyone, then choose game type, then choose map and wait for a game, where friends will require normal friend-code swapping. I only hope they have better matchmaking than BWii.
Little old me who only very rarely plays online and can never seem to win a game of assault on the attacker side always gets mtched up against four star commanders. Not exactly a self-esteem booster. :)
I also wouldn't mind seeing normal split-screen multiplayer and some way to hook a few consoles together for a game, although I won't get my hopes up for that last one.
I personally have no problem with the lack of DLC. Less stuff for me to play catch-up with.