The Social side of gaming

[alias]

lower paced games from my experience do/can offer some more social aspects,
as opposed to the higher paced ones.

and i base that purely on nothing but from my biased ideas.

[signofzeta]

[quote=alias;215138]lower paced games from my experience do/can offer some more social aspects,
as opposed to the higher paced ones.

and i base that purely on nothing but from my biased ideas.[/quote]

is it because the slower paced ones are more thinking and less doing, and the faster paced ones is less thinking and more doing?

[3Suns]

Great thread, Senyin!

To me, “The Social side of gaming” is called a LAN party.

Interesting you should say that, because that is exactly what Bungie had in mind when they made their matchmaking, party up systems for Halo 2. Over and over again, they said their goal was to bring the LAN experience that so many loved with HALO, over to Halo 2, into everyone’s living rooms. LAN from your couch, not in your garage.

From here I am just going to talk about my personal experience as regards the social aspect of online gaming. I will try to avoid saying what I think it should or shouldn’t be, but rather what it can be.

Until the Internet became available to everyone, being an ex-pat in Japan was an incredibly isolating experience. With the Internet came unlimited access to English (and other languages), and eventually gaming with full communication capabilities.

In the early days, I actually tried Roger Wilco and some other PC software, but half of the time it didn’t work, or it wasn’t compatible with the game, or my family/friends in Canada didn’t have the OS on which it would run etc. etc…

When I heard that the original Xbox was going to offer voice chat gaming, I was thrilled. At first, I was excited just for the fact that I would be able to hook up with my family and talk for as long as I wanted for the price of my XBL subscription. It wasn’t unusual for me to be paying $300+ /month for my overseas phone bill.

I figured the beauty of the Xbox was going to be that if my family had one, it would be dummy proof and no one would have to worry about hardware, software, or config issues. It would all just work.

All this to say, from the beginning, I had huge expectations from the technology as a means to get and stay in touch with my family and friends back home. Unfortunately, I am the only gamer in my family, so no one really became available via that means.

In the meantime, however, I got to know some people via game forums, and when we all picked up the game of our passion, we naturally hooked up online, and carried on our conversations from the forums via voice chat in the game.

I have had a “Gold” account for over five years now, and I have made three best friends by any definition, many very good, close friends, and met a lot of interesting and great people.

Japan is very different from what I am used to in Canada and the U.S. Beyond school, socializing is done mostly with people from work (at which days are long and grueling) in the few spare hours of the year, and it usually centers around stuff I am not into.

XBL gaming (or even just hangin’ in party chat) is my social event of the week. In high school and university, it used to be cards with the ‘tards, rentin’ videos, and going to the park, or mountains. Now it is turning on the Xbox, and the difference between the former and latter in laughter, fun, and bonding (as well as emotional support in hard times) - is almost indistinguishable.

[Nail]

lol, tried Roger Wilco in my Delta Force 2 days, didn’t like it so we set up conference calls on speakerphones, worked pretty well for a while

[Lequis]

Generally moving forward with regular plans is not nearly as good for your team as solo flanking. Is ET basically the same thing as non-arena TF2? because I play arena-only because I hate the choke-points and overused engineers. Heavies are ok when it comes down to it, a soldier beats a heavy 80% of the time, and the soldier can move about as fast as a scout if you rocket jump rush like I do.

Personally I think SD should add as many flanking routes as they physically can without adding teleporters (because we all remember how confusing that map on halo 1 was).

[Senethro]

[QUOTE=Lequis;215470]Generally moving forward with regular plans is not nearly as good for your team as solo flanking. Is ET basically the same thing as non-arena TF2? because I play arena-only because I hate the choke-points and overused engineers. Heavies are ok when it comes down to it, a soldier beats a heavy 80% of the time, and the soldier can move about as fast as a scout if you rocket jump rush like I do.

Personally I think SD should add as many flanking routes as they physically can without adding teleporters (because we all remember how confusing that map on halo 1 was).[/QUOTE]

Thats a sadly typical pub-TF2 experience. Many servers break the settings Valve has designed by making respawn instant (because sitting out is more boring than defense winning all maps because you can’t kill them all!) and other stupid stuff. Also, medic is the most important offensive class especially for clearing out the hordes of engi trash. Did you know that until recently 1/3rd of all TF2 playtime was in the Engineer class, the class where the computer aims for you, you can’t attack and all you have to do is build a sentry?

I can easily believe you were forced onto arena servers by all this. But give the real game another chance. Look out a server with -nocrits tag or something similar that higher level pubbers would put as a server tag. Once you’ve got good medics combined with good medic partners the game becomes a lot of fun. The lack of good medics on low-pub is often because they can’t find a good partner.

I’d say ET is very different to TF2. In TF2 the classes have hard-counters, fights where one class is at a disadvantage and likely to lose. This can be because they’ve got higher health or the right kind of gun or whatever. The only solo classes are the Soldier who is the deathmatching guy and has no hard counters and the Scout who has the option of running away from any fight he doesn’t like. If anyone else tries to solo they’ll likely bump into someone who gets an easy kill on them because of their class.

In ET everyone is pretty much the same with almost 100 health and the option of taking a medium range automatic weapon. Brink is breaking away from this with the Heavy/Skinny bodytypes but my expectation is that most classes will be able to fight most other classes without disadvantages, so solo efforts would work.

[3Suns]

Lequis and Senethro, interesting discussion, but I am just wondering if it isn’t the wrong thread.

[douglas_quaid]

Good ole gaming!

Playing online is sometimes a magical experience. I play games for fun and when I say fun, I mean having a laugh and highlighting a game’s quirks to entertain my fellow players (regardless of them being strangers). I have found that people really do respect this and you get the odd nutcase that actually joins in with you while messing around.

Just little things can really be funny experiences. Moments like being caught up in a knife fight on a hill with gdf vs strogg 1 on 1, and then a mortor kills both parties. Or parking the husky in-doors getting stuck in a hallway amongst the enemy and beeping the horn before you blow up :). This is the reason I play games and I know there are other nuts out there that really appreciate this kind of gameplay.

I think sometimes people forget that we are only playing games but I do understand and respect the serious gamer, that’s their way. But if you get a crazy cooperative team game going, you’re in for a really rewarding game time.

[SockDog]

While I agree it’s funny when these things happen by accident having someone on your team who’s sole purpose is to recreate these things, for a laugh, gets old fast if everyone else actually wants to play the game.

Time and place, time and place.

[Lequis]

I play games 1) for adrenaline 2) for the lulz 3) to get off stress, so I agree.

All I’m saying is playing socially usually does imply coordination, but solo flanking is usually the best counter to any foothold. Usually if you play with coordination it implies rushes on the frontline, defensive positions, etc, but rarely multi-point flanking.

I like to play with fellow rushers, and so many players in any given game can think that fast (ever gotten think fast stun in MW2 when you run out of ammo? I have (granted you could still get it by chance)).

I play for moments like that in games, where people randomly hear you laughing you tell them, wait for them to say “Cool Story, Bro?” and if they don’t ask them why they didn’t (not surprisingly, when you do this people spontaneously burst out laughing).

I remember a TF2 server did an O really?/ Ya really deal once. A guy randomly said he ran in to a wall as pyro, thought it was a spy, flipped out and spun in circles for a few seconds, he told the the story, I gave it a traditional several seconds of awkward silence before saying O Really? Everyone burst out laughing and the guy was like No, not really, I just made up that intricate story.

I love social gaming, because it’s all about playing for the lulz (ie running around no-scoping enemies with shotguns or using 10 (ie insane) sensitivity (even both combined with spin/drop-shotting) and still getting a .5K/D in CoD.

Imho no game should be serious. TF2 does the gaming concept well.

[alias]

[QUOTE=Lequis;215796]
Imho no game should be serious. TF2 does the gaming concept well.[/QUOTE]

dont forget gow1, unranked matches.
on xbox360 it was an hell a of an social game, might also be tied too the small
team sizes, imagine 32 people chit chatting randomly… :eek:

[Senyin]

Ah yes VOIP. Forgot all about it.
I want to use it but eh…can’t :o
I could get away with it in ETQW but it didn’t feel quite right sometimes.

Anyway, I dont mind if people are fanatics/serious gamewise.
As long as they are are relaxed and friendly on a personal level!

No one ever died of a little joking, fairplay, little chitchat or even a simple smile or ‘n1’.
But in the long run this make strangers less astranged, which enhances everyone’s game experience:
more willingness (teamplay), less whining, less laming, less (rage)quiting.
= More good and satisfying games.

Anyway, I just want Brink to be awesome and longlasting.
A sense of community and "social enjoyment’ contribute a lot to that happening IMHO.
(providing the gameplay is good in the first place ofcourse)

[zXSwordXz]

I like to win in everything I do because I’m very competitive. However, I accept when I get my ass handed to me by a better player. With that being said, I prefer to play with friends because when you play as a team and communicate as a team, you will win most of the time.

I’m an old school PC/Original Xbox gamer but no longer play on PC, I play on Xbox Live now because it suit my life style. Even thou I’m married and have other responsibility. I still have a little kid in me who like to play video games, football, volleyball, soccer, tennis and work out religiously. However, I’ve notice some thing that most old school gamer can relate to that discourage me from playing online.
Online gamers have no limits any more. I find alot of kids playing mature games, swearing/cursing, unfriendly and just plain out rude and have no respect for elders.

Back in the days, most games were very mature, friendly and had positive conversations. I had so many online friends that I’ve never meet face to face but we communicate like we are friends and have known each other on a personal level.

[hellspawn7]

[QUOTE=zXSwordXz;215995]
Online gamers have no limits any more. I find alot of kids playing mature games, swearing/cursing, unfriendly and just plain out rude and have no respect for elders.

Back in the days, most games were very mature, friendly and had positive conversations. I had so many online friends that I’ve never meet face to face but we communicate like we are friends and have known each other on a personal level.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I know most people want to act like genuine @ssholes or like they have down syndrome it’s really sad It’s got so bad that I don’t even go into game chat anymore I just stay in party with friends.

[Senyin]

[QUOTE=zXSwordXz;215995]
Online gamers have no limits any more. I find alot of kids playing mature games, swearing/cursing, unfriendly and just plain out rude and have no respect for elders.

Back in the days, most games were very mature, friendly and had positive conversations. I had so many online friends that I’ve never meet face to face but we communicate like we are friends and have known each other on a personal level.[/QUOTE]

Yes, It’s really sad, online gaming is heading for the gutter.
Or maybe it’s already there on Xbox? I don’t know.
I find on PC it really isn’t that bad (yet)
But then again, I don’t play many resent games online.
So maybe Im in the dark about the (social) state of pc online gaming.

[zXSwordXz]

Yep, Xbox is already there and from what I’ve heard on the PC side. Not sure about the PC side because I haven’t played on a PC for over a year now.

[LyndonL]

It’s declining on PC too…

Just finished playing L4D2 VS (8v8) and had some douche singing Keehsa - Tik Tok constantly without stopping in a REALLY bad voice…

Thank God games have “disable voice comms” features or I’d have to kill someone.

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=LyndonL;216139]It’s declining on PC too…

Just finished playing L4D2 VS (8v8) and had some douche singing Keehsa - Tik Tok constantly without stopping in a REALLY bad voice…

Thank God games have “disable voice comms” features or I’d have to kill someone.[/QUOTE]

That is just what you get for using steam actually .