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Are we missing a critical component in social gaming?
Zombiemambo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This thread is a result of many previous thread where someone mentions how in the good old days, gamers gathered together and played games. Two people, two controllers, one television and one couch. I think most of us here fondly remember our childhood, when someone in your neighborhood had the latest and greatest videogame system and all of their friends would come over and play with them. Gaming has always been a social experience - it started in bars, moved to arcades, then the home. But wherever it was, there was a strong social aspect to it that I find severely lacking in this day and age.
Some of my best memories were playing the NES with my brother. We've always had a strong relationship, and I thank gaming for having a big part in that. We almost always played together, whether it was Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros., Rampage or a dozen other games. As we grew older, fighting games became real popular, specifically Mortal Kombat. By that time we had a SNES, and we'd spend hours figuring out special moves for every single character. When Mortal Kombat: Deception came out, we'd have 4-5 people playing in tournaments until three in the morning or later. We played Starcraft religiously, hours and hours a day. When Warcraft III came out, we played that religiously. The computers were in two different rooms, but we'd yell across the way to talk about our strategy for the game, or move both computers into the same room. Whatever we did, we were in contact. Not by text, not through Vent, but actually talking to one another.
But as internet gaming became more popular, experiences like those became more rare. Now most of my friends are addicted to WoW, and while we do play in the same house a couple nights a week, I'm actually more comfortable talking to them online than in person. It's a shame, because modern convenience has taken away something so important. Gaming originated with a group of people around the table rolling dice. But now we talk through text or over a headset, and many of our "friends" we have never even seen. You could argue that online gaming is just as, if not more, social. But ask yourself this: can this forum replace your interaction with your friends? Because it can't for me. Text is one thing, speaking to each other face-to-face is quite another. As MMOGs become increasingly popular, our social experiences become more and more artificial, and one day we might never see our friends in person at all.
Some of my best memories were playing the NES with my brother. We've always had a strong relationship, and I thank gaming for having a big part in that. We almost always played together, whether it was Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros., Rampage or a dozen other games. As we grew older, fighting games became real popular, specifically Mortal Kombat. By that time we had a SNES, and we'd spend hours figuring out special moves for every single character. When Mortal Kombat: Deception came out, we'd have 4-5 people playing in tournaments until three in the morning or later. We played Starcraft religiously, hours and hours a day. When Warcraft III came out, we played that religiously. The computers were in two different rooms, but we'd yell across the way to talk about our strategy for the game, or move both computers into the same room. Whatever we did, we were in contact. Not by text, not through Vent, but actually talking to one another.
But as internet gaming became more popular, experiences like those became more rare. Now most of my friends are addicted to WoW, and while we do play in the same house a couple nights a week, I'm actually more comfortable talking to them online than in person. It's a shame, because modern convenience has taken away something so important. Gaming originated with a group of people around the table rolling dice. But now we talk through text or over a headset, and many of our "friends" we have never even seen. You could argue that online gaming is just as, if not more, social. But ask yourself this: can this forum replace your interaction with your friends? Because it can't for me. Text is one thing, speaking to each other face-to-face is quite another. As MMOGs become increasingly popular, our social experiences become more and more artificial, and one day we might never see our friends in person at all.
Zombiemambo on
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I do think we're seeing a bit of a revival, though, with things like the Wii. So that's a good thing.
Decorum.
Both online and off.
But I hate aim. I hate texting, I need a voice. It's better if they're in person, but sometimes you can't have that when you're doing work and want to chat online.
But what really gets us playing together is Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and a bunch of Wii games ranging from Wii Sports to Mario Strikers, and assuredly Smash Bros Brawl in a few days.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Learn how to be a DM. You'd be surprised how many people are willing to play, but don't know how to run the game.
I might try that with WH40k Dark Heresy, but I have to play the game for a while first to get a hang on the mechanics. That and the city I live in doesn't exactly have a wealth of gaming stores or other places to look for potential players...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Now, people don't do that anymore. It used to be like an ice breaker when i was trying to get to know someone
MineCraft: Menetherin
Steam: Vloeza_SE++
I wish I could of be a little older to experience those times. a few beers and chips around the table and getting in some old fasion paper d and d
MineCraft: Menetherin
Steam: Vloeza_SE++
Yeah, it's really nothing about modern convenience for me. As you get older you get more responsibilities and people move apart. If I want to play with friends that I used to hang out with constantly in high school or college, it's not a question of playing on the same couch or playing online, it's playing online or not playing at all. When we get together on the weekends, it's generally not to play vid games we could have played on the weekdays from many miles apart.
It's obviously better to be in the same room, but XBL w/ voice chat isn't a terrible alternative. Smash Bros has me concerned with no voice chat, but I guess I am going to have to figure out how to get vent working properly on my labtop or having my 360 on at the same time (really don't want to do that).
That's pretty much the reason right there. In the past, when multiplayer always meant sitting around the same TV, the people you sat around the TV with were already your friends, so of course there was a social component. If they weren't your friends, they were most likely friends of friends, which means you will get to know them quickly and without a lot of social barriers that are existent between total strangers.
Whenever I play multiplayer games now, I play with total strangers. Sure, they are all regulars, and I even know a couple by voice now, but I don't know anything about them besides their favorite TF2 classes.
The internet (especially with the flourishing of MySpace and Facebook) has twisted the word "friend" all out of whack. The people I play with are my SteamCommunity friends, but in reality they are pretty much total strangers.
To answer the question in the topic of your post: yes, we are. The component we are missing is that we can't really get to know other people and become their friends via text chat and voice chat. We become friends by seeing each other in person. Playing video games with a friend that enjoys them is a natural activity, but becoming friends with someone through playing video games is extremely difficult unless you are in person.
This is such a big problem. It seems that when me and my friends hang out we will go out somewhere, a bar or club. We are inside all day working and then often don't see each other on week days and it makes gaming together that much harder. The only lan party I've been to in a year was PAX. It's sad to think that I may never recapture old Starcraft lan experiences or playing split-screen Goldeneye, or all night games of Mario Kart.
"Read twice, post once. It's almost like 'measure twice, cut once' only with reading." - MetaverseNomad
And when Brawl comes out this weekend it's gonna get even better, I'm pretty excited.
Oh, MMOs and online play have their place in the gaming world, but offline multiplayer should never go away. It is just so much greater.
It wasn't official or anything, but back when Pokemon was all the rage back in Year 7-9, it wasn't uncommon to see upwards of 60, 70 kids playing and trading pokemon during lunchtime.
Followed by Mario Kart, WCW vs NWO, Goldeneye and Smash64 after school.
I'm lucky in that I've got a good group of mates that meet up every couple of weeks for some gaming, some of which I've known since highschool. Since I'm getting Brawl about midway through next week instead of whenever the hell it comes out in PAL land, my house is pretty much getting invaded by friends for the next few weeks once it arrives. Not to mention the 4 day long Easter weekend in a couple of weeks.
Should recapture some of that awesome on the couch gaming. Especially on the Wii, its perfect for it. A nudge/shove at the right time in Excite Truck? Priceless. Hell, thats what most of our races on there turn into.
Shout out to any PA'ers in Melbourne's SE suburbs, PM me if you're interested in getting some Smash on over the next few weeks.
You don't have to be older for any of it. Unless you're talking about obtaining alcohol, but I'm sure that's nothing one of your older friends can't handle for you.
Last year (sounds like a long time I guess, doesn't feel that long though), some friends and I used to gather on the weekends for some D&D. Well, sort of... different rulesets, settings, etc... point is, it was P&P and it kicked ass.
And oh, the exploits our characters would get into after we'd been drinking. Good times, good times.
I hate you and everyone like you.
Oh yeah totally. Every time I play a game that has, say, four party members and the game is only single player? Yeah, I am pretty sure God kills a kitten.
Or going to another friend's birthday party and having 20 or so 8 and 9 year olds crowded around the TV to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Both Smash Bros. and Power Stone fulfilled all of these requirements, and look how popular they were/are. Mario Party (however good/bad you think it is) because it does exactly this: for each minigame, it puts everyone on the same screen, playing at the same time (most of the time).
It doesn't matter how big your TV is, splitscreen sucks, because it's always a pale imitation of the quality you get when playing one player, or when playing alone on your machine against others online. When the one player game needs all of the power it can muster from the machine in order to render the pretty grafix, having it render four viewpoints at once is always a disappointment, and the fact that you can screen-look is lame.
Now I've got a freakin' job 5 days a week, a mortgage, and a wife. Not that it means I'm "too old for games," but I'm not going to subsist on hot pockets or frozen pizza, so I spend time making my own food, chatting with my wife, etc. We play games together sometimes. For the most part, though, I've got an hour here or there where I can play a game. Yeah, I'm not going to coordinate having someone stop by for an hour so I can play a game with them.
I got pretty into Halo 2 when it came out due to the good group of guys here at PA. Otherwise, I would've only had the 3 Halo Parties in person -- where we had a guy bring over his Xbox and we had split-split screen on my big-ass 53" projection TV (that handled dual inputs on the split screen, so we had 8 people on one screen). it was a lot of fun BUT it was also very basic and straightforward because no one was an expert at Halo 2. Why? Because only half the guys had Xboxes or spent time playing Halo 1/2.
Compared to the truly awesome tactics and moments I encountered online with a group of "random" PAers, it was sad. Sure, it was fun because everyone was there, but the *gaming* was better online. The hanging out was better but it's an important distinction.
I think the in-person social gameplay serves more as an outlet for social functions, rather than a reflection of actual gameplay. Exactly why a game like Mario Party can actually be popular.
Personally, when I have friends over now, I pull out some good boardgames. Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphrates -- these are all more fun than playing video games with my friends because they're more straightforward and put more emphasis on the social interaction. And when I'm by myself and just feel like playing some good games, I play single player video games or I play online video games.
Satans..... hints.....
Uh, they still make the books guys.
I miss my old 2 ED campaign. I'll never forget the night my valiant yet stupid monk got his head bashed in by an ogre's club trying to save some local fishermen. I failed my resurrection throw, and everyone at the table was shocked. My DM even offered to fudge the roll for me. I had to decline, because what's the point of rolling for it if you can't fail? Besides, it gave me a chance to make a new character.
There was a cute little blonde girl that lived about four doors down from me. We used to play in my kitchen because that's where the table was, and my shitty little apartment only had a window AC unit in the living room, so we had the window open. I'll never forget the day her and her friend came by the window after swimming. Both of these girls had little bikinis on, and they must have heard all of the ruckus from us and came to see what was going on. They were treated to the sight of five grown, sweaty guys making voices of characters and rolling dice. The first thing I thought was "HIDE THE BOOKS!" but it was too late. We were busted. We sat there in awkward silence, and the girls didn't know what was going on, but they didn't say anything, until one of them managed a "bye" and they hurried off. Probably one of the most embarrassing but hilarious moments I can think of.
And that, my friends, is social gaming.
I agree... on another note... I have a few friends who recently picked up their own 360's and games like Gears and Call of Duty 4... I don't know how often this happens to other people who game regularly and have friends who don't but... it's not fun... we played multiplayer COD the other night and I had to tone down my competitiveness and let them win a few or risk the game ending quickly. These were the same guys back in highschool who used to hold their own at Goldeneye...
Your friends must be whiny little girls, then. My friend kicks my ass all over the fucking place in CoD4. Seriously, I'll kill him like three times in a 45 minute match, and one of those is because I'm a grenadier and he didn't run from my corpse fast enough. I don't throw any hissy fits about it. I suck at CoD4. All console shooters, for that matter.
Because goddamn that was fun.
Also Bushido Blade. It went something like this:
"You fucker, stand still so I can smash you with my hammer."
"Uh....no, I like running around with my rapier."
"Oh you bastard, you stabbed arm and now I can't swing my hammer."
"Yeah, thats too ba...."
"HA! Mallet to the head!"
I know that, and I own a fair number of RPG books. But what the both of us are agreeing about is that it seems the days of getting a local group together to play in person is gone, replaced by play-by-post or IRC chatrooms.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I know there's been groups and places to go to play every place I've ever lived so I'm not entirely sure you've been looking hard enough.
Also, I'm not sure they are the sorts of people that you'd want to associate with. But hey, they play PnP RPGs.
I'm actually rather pleased with the internet gaming gig, I somehow ended up with a stable of people who did not play games. Or read.
They do drink rather a lot, though.
All in all, the web is the best place around for me to have a good time outside of suggesting stupid things to drunk people. The days of goldeneye and smash may be over for me, but the gaming goes on. It ain't necessarily a bad thing.