The Populating of Friend's Lists

bficky

I wanted to make a poll asking this question, but I don't I don't seem to be cool enough.

How many of the people on your XBL / PSN friend's lists do you know in real life?

0%
1-25%
25-50%
50-75%
75-99%
100%

I ask this because my answer would be 0% - none of my friends around here are into gaming (except for Wiis, but I don't have one and that's not really what I'm talking about). With my new PS3, I'm hoping to begin some online gaming, and the few games I have (Burnout Paradise, GTA4) seem like they have pretty good online features and communities. But for people like me, people whose friends do not have online consoles, what's the proper way to flesh out a friend's list? Search PA forums for people's gamertags and just start randomly adding people? Start playing online and meet people there? I don't have a headset, so it seems like communicating online would be a pain. Is one necessary? Is this a Facebook thing where you request a friend and they have to add you to their list for you to have them on yours?

I'm just not sure of the etiquette of the whole thing (I know, online gaming and etiquette are rarely used together, but I can hope, right?).



(This thread may be a little too H&A for the G&T forum, so please move it if necessary. I just figured it would get more action here.)

Shmitty

theres quite a few games, both that you listed actually, that have their own thread on here complete with many people looking to play with others. generally, someone has set up an all-encompassing "friend list" account with the intent of adding fellow forum goers. add that account, see who is on and willing to play whenever you hop on, and send an invite. its about that easy. i'd say a headset is probably worth the investment. not everyone has one, but it makes setting games up quite a bit easier when you can actually communicate with the people you're playing with. i wouldn't get too shy about it; most people wouldn't be here if they didn't like playing games.

Local H Jay

1-25% easily. I know about 10-15 of mine is friends in know in real life, 30-40 of them are peoples I met through forums, and the last bit from people I've met in game.

ze swift class

100%. Unless it's mmos. Then it's like 0.80.

bficky

One 1-25% and one 100%... I figured that it would be a wide variety.

Looking through the Burnout thread, it seems like XBL has a "Burnout PA" friend to add, then you look at the the friends of friends. PS3 doesn't have this, correct? Oh well... seems like a pretty good feature.

Darlan

100% To tell the truth, I get extremely bored of online multiplayer within the first week or so unless I'm playing with my friends. I need either the narrative/carefully made structure that single-player games have or some fun stuff to do with my friends.

Playing multiplayer with no one but strangers always seems like a depressing waste of time to me.

bficky

Darlan wrote: »

100% To tell the truth, I get extremely bored of online multiplayer within the first week or so unless I'm playing with my friends. I need either the narrative/carefully made structure that single-player games have or some fun stuff to do with my friends.

Playing multiplayer with no one but strangers always seems like a depressing waste of time to me.

Yeah, I was afraid of this. I was playing Burnout last night with 7 random guys. I had no communication with them (no headset) and really didn't get anything out of it. I figured that getting a few guys on my friend's list would help, but it may not be enough. That is what prompted this thread.

Zercof

On XBL, about 25% of my nearly full list are people I know IRL.

DeathPrawn

It's funny. About 25% of my friend list is made up of 360s owned by people I know in real life, but in practice I don't play with any of them. I'm the only one out of my social circle that brought his 360 to college, so during the school year that 25% is in actuality made up of younger siblings of RL friends.

Zilla360

It's probably about 50%, but then because it's so hard to get my social circle to focus on any one game in particular, I mostly end up playing against strangers (people from PA, etc) anyway.

Willeth

bficky wrote: »

Yeah, I was afraid of this. I was playing Burnout last night with 7 random guys. I had no communication with them (no headset) and really didn't get anything out of it. I figured that getting a few guys on my friend's list would help, but it may not be enough. That is what prompted this thread.

You don't have a headset? Man, get a headset.

Mine's 50% or so. But I have a large portion of people on there who I met online who I would still consider actual friends, in addition to that.

Steev

100%, but then again I just got my 360 a few weeks ago. Also, I haven't even tried playing online. I'm kind of terrified of playing online against strangers, but it's probably the only way I'll actually be able to play online with anyone. But then again, I don't really have a game I want to try online yet.

Ultrachrist

Like 30-40% of my XBL friend's list are real-life friends.

But, about 85-90% of my actual XBL playtime is with those guys.

Bedlam

0%

I have no gamer friends and most of the people I play with online are from PA. Some people are guys I met randomly but not nearly as much.

Sanius

Like 10%

I honestly prefer playing online games with PAers because the hilarious commentary and luls from such people is enormous, most of my friends just want to play halo and get pissed off if I get a rocket launcher.

Arikado

I have a few college buddies on my LIVE list but for the most part I have PAers on my Steam and LIVE lists for the usually reliability that they aren't total douche bags and that I can expect a good time when playing alongside them.