By John Walker on October 23rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm.
You’ve probably encountered them, whether in shops, on trains, or perhaps burgling your kitchen. Other people are everywhere, like some sort of uncontrolled disease. Recognisable by their not being you, with their different faces and opinions, they’re exactly the sort of thing that‘s wrong with society. History books show there has never been a war that wasn’t caused or exacerbated by the involvement of other people, and while anecdotal, I’ve yet to get into an argument which didn’t involve at least one other person. And they’re ruining my videogames.
Since I was four years old, games either involved no one else, or at least only a very select few hand picked after passing a rigorous selection process. As I sat on stacked cushions to reach the Spectrum’s squishy keyboard, my entertainment was not encumbered by other people marching into the dimly lit cave and taking the rope before I could type my way toward it. I did not have to share my victory. Any gold I found? Mine. All mine. Am I a narcissistic curmudgeon? Yes, yes I am.
But now games are changing. The whole gaming landscape is changing. Remarkably, the single player game is rapidly become a niche within the wider spectrum, almost no games appearing without at least some form of multiplayer or co-op play. Now, I’m going to step in and make an exception for in-the-same-room-co-op play. We’re back to my elitist selection process, where a carefully chosen one can play alongside me. That’s not what’s on trial here – co-op can rest easy.
Multiplayer gamers, however, that’s right, look afraid. From online shooters to MMOs, will you people just leave me alone.
I’m not an unreasonable person. In fact, I’ll gladly play an MMO. But let me be clear: I have no desire to team up with you, I in no way want to be in your party, and joining your guild is the last thing I’m going to planning on doing. Because at the very moment I’m playing with anyone else, I’m suddenly responsible.
That’s the last thing I want. Responsibilities are what force me to fill in tax returns, or remember to put the bins out. In no way should my taxes and bins become a part of my leisure time. I absolutely do not wish to be beholden to anyone else when I’m playing. I don’t owe you anything, and I was perfectly happy before you came along, so just leave me alone. God.
This is why I’m so excited to hear about Bioware’s new MMO, The Old Republic. An MMO where you get NPC party members? Good grief, yes. A thousand times yes. I get the extra hands I require to tackle a stronger foe, but without them bitching and whining at me because I didn’t use my double-cloaking no-hit AOE poison buff at exactly the point they would have used it if they were playing on their own. See? SEE? Every single bugger in these games just wants the others in their parties to be the over-qualified AI companions that perform the tasks they don’t have time for. If you don’t play like they would have done it, you’ve failed them, you’ve let them down, you’ve spoiled their game. Why would anyone want that pressure? Why not fill in their tax returns too?
But if my party members are NPCs, they’ll do what they’re programmed to do, or when I tell them to do it. That’s great for any of the above frustrations I might experience. But more importantly, when I don’t do what they might want when they might demand it, they’re not going to storm off in a giant pissy huff and block me on IM.
Knowing you, you’re probably saying, “Then what you want is Knights of the Old Republic 3, not an MMO.” Well, that’s not true. I really do want an MMO of KotOR’s world, because then I’ll have myself a KotOR game that doesn’t end! And Bioware, mightiest at the RPG, utterly suck at endings. What better thing could I ask for than a favourite RPG series made infinite? And how glorious that I’ll be able to experience it without rubbish other people bloody going on.
Of course, someone might point out that in The Old Republic’s plans, NPCs who don’t like your behaviour might walk out the party. That’s something else entirely. Not approving of my moral choices – that’s fascinating. And rather different than puffing their chests out and whining because I didn’t hit the baddie they wanted me too.
So is this just because I’m rubbish, and let other people down all the time? No, it’s really not. It’s because I might want to go over there and look at that flower, and it’s no more reasonable for me to expect everyone else to join me on that sidetrack than it is for anyone else to ask me not to.
This isn’t exclusive to MMOs. If I’m playing a first-person shooter, you know what? I’m going to take my time. You don’t like that? Then kindly move along. I’ve sat in a room recently with people playing Team Fortress 2, screaming – and I mean SCREAMING – in anger at a Medic’s failure (someone not in the room) to uber-charge them the very instant they wanted it. The person may have been screwing up, I don’t know. But I do know that I have no desire, ever, to be that poor guy. Why would I? Why would I want to be weighed down by that much responsibility, such that other people playing a game get so incredibly angry with me? Maybe I didn’t want to do it then, because it wasn’t my fancy. Teamwork is a miserable experience when you’re meant to be playing. PLAYING!
Okay, that’s not fair. Those people are angry because that Medic’s play is spoiling their game. If the Medic had played to their advantage, they’d have had a better time, possibly not been killed, and their time would have been altogether more enjoyable. And once again I come back to the pressure. What messed up set of events are in place where my actions are responsible for other people’s having a decent game? Too much! Get me out of there! See, I’m very happy to play TF2, but so long as I can muddle along with my own thing, in my own time, making my own mistakes. I’ll be the one trying to solo the game, thanks indeed.
So I say to you planet Earth, enough with other people. Either you all back away and leave me to enjoy my games in peace, or I start to introduce sanctions. Harsh, possibly unfair, but I think entirely appropriate.
23/10/2008 at 13:41 Kieron Gillen says:
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but John Walker is a terrible healer.
KG
23/10/2008 at 13:42 schizoslayer says:
So is this why we have “Beware! Walker is a terrible Healer!” on the RPS TF2 server?
23/10/2008 at 13:43 AbyssUK says:
amen.. some people have forgotten computer games are meant to be fun.
23/10/2008 at 13:45 schizoslayer says:
I guess I am willing to put up with the responsibility due to finding it far more rewarding to win as a team than win as an individual for precisely the reason that more is at stake.
Single Player gaming is just so…. safe.
23/10/2008 at 13:47 Tei says:
Well.. my sarcasm detector is broken, so I don’t know what to write here.
Either way MMO mean Massive Multiplayer Online. If you want to solo, you don’t need Multiplayer and withouth that M, the other M also evaporate. You just need a “Online” game that autoupdates with new contents. Episodic Content? that is Half-Life2, and the Penny Arcade game.
IMHO, soloplayers are a infection, a virus, that spread and make all other people play with that gamestyle. But the problem here, is that The Trouble With Other People, is that you can’t live a real live withouth other people. One day, everything is pointless if no one know. Fame, Glory, is nothing if only your dog aknogmgement you conquest of the empire Evil, and your 90 wars to rescue the earth from the titan evils.
23/10/2008 at 13:49 felix. says:
that’s why it’s called teamWORK. work sucks.
23/10/2008 at 13:49 Kieron Gillen says:
Tei: So you don’t read books?
KG
23/10/2008 at 13:49 Andy says:
This is a great article, and describes exactly what put me off raiding in world of warcraft. I loved the rest of the game, but the most enjoyment was playing 2v2 with my best mate sat behind me on a laptop. It’s extremely difficult/impossible to enact proper teamwork over the internet, even with the recent rise in popularity of voice-comms.
Has anyone ever played a pub CS game where there was actual teamwork?
23/10/2008 at 13:51 Flint says:
Yup. My dislike in playing with complete strangers is simply because I’m constantly scared of the armies of theorycrafting geeks who await to burn me with their floods of insults after I miss one second of something or if the way I have built and trained my character isn’t 100% submissive to their readymade guides. The single reason I haven’t even touched TF2 is because there’s no way of training by yourself before hitting the public fields and submitting yourself to massive embarrasement in front of hardcore elitists.
Sod them. I’ll adventure alone, in my own peace, the way I want to play and simply enjoy knowing that there ARE other players around me instead of just NPCs. Just don’t give me pressure and stress of group performance.
Although I have had group experiences in WoW which have been really pleasant, I’ve no interest or confidence in doing it constantly.
Unless it’s friends. Everything’s better and more comfortable with friends.
23/10/2008 at 13:52 qrter says:
John, you’ve pretty much summed up why I stopped playing multiplayer games years ago (and even then I mostly played with people I actually knew, really).
But I don’t agree with your reasons for still wanting a Star Wars MMO – I’d much rather Bioware spent the time they’re obviously going to pump into this into making a solid singleplayer game with an actually satisfying ending (because you’re absolutely right – Bioware can’t do endgames, they inevitably become dungeon crawls). I don’t want an endless game, I want to be able to move on to something else.
Damnit John! I want closure!
23/10/2008 at 13:56 Matt says:
It’s not that I dislike other people (although I do), just that they’re so unreliable. In what, 2, 3 years of playing Diablo 2, I think I found one other person who I didn’t already know in real life who was OK to play with. Everyone else would steal your loot and/or stab you in the back when convenient to them.
Yes, teamwork has some great highs that can’t be matched in single player. The teamwork needed in Eve for a successful fight gives an incredible buzz. But single player is a solid, constant experience that you know you can relax with. No demands, no worries, and like you say, no responsibility. Sometimes that’s all you want when you’re trying to relax.
23/10/2008 at 13:59 Dan Milburn says:
Flint: I had very similar feelings about TF2. When I finally did decide to give it a go I simply didn’t find any of those elitists. That’s not to say they don’t exist, but in general, I was able to run around healing and not being especially good without feeling like a total idiot. The game still needs a mode where you can run around an empty map or play with bots though.
Anyway, good piece. I don’t fully agree with this one either, but at least John’s not trying to tell anyone else how they should be enjoying their games.
23/10/2008 at 14:02 Bobsy says:
Responsibility + success = reward!
Which is why certain people actually like being a healer. Being that lynchpin on which the group’s success depends makes you a better person, and possibly better-looking too.
Oh, and WoW without other people is Diablo. And Diablo’s jolly fun too.
23/10/2008 at 14:07 M_the_C says:
Great article. Multiplayer has been on the increase lately, and that’s good, but it does mean solo experiences are getting less and less attention.
I’ve experienced the other side of your TF2 woe. I was a heavy being healed by a medic, we were on 2fort and we’d just entered the enemy base, suddenly we were attacked from in front and behind. While I was busy trying to hold back the frontal assault my medic was killed. After I respawned a message came up, ‘M_the_C doesn’t know how to take care of his medic’. Yes it was partly my fault, but what else did he expect me to do???
For your particular TF2 example, it all depends on the situation. Sometimes you do get a bad medic who misses a wide, gaping chance, and then it is their fault. But as in my situation, sometimes you just have to move on.
23/10/2008 at 14:07 FP says:
Great article, this is pretty much how I feel about multiplayer too.
Also, why are so many people so nasty and mean-spirited in online games? It seems like in everyday life nasty people are relatively rare, yet you can’t go on a server without hearing at least one abusive person.
23/10/2008 at 14:08 Colthor says:
I agree. I don’t mind multiplayer games so long as the other players leave me alone, and I don’t have to interact with them directly or if I don’t want to.
If I wanted to spend time talking to/getting shouted at by other people I’d be in the pub getting drunk.
23/10/2008 at 14:12 John Walker says:
Hooray for all the curmudgeons coming out!
23/10/2008 at 14:12 Tei says:
I don’t read books written by myself, because suck. I read books written by “The Other People”.
Now I am reading Ian M. Banks “The algebraist”, page 66, Taince and Fassin are talking after the coitus (sex is another thing that is better with The Other People).
23/10/2008 at 14:16 Urael says:
Wonderful article, John. As a card-carrying Introvert I dread the death of single-player gaming because my beautiful hobby will become a socialising nightmare very much like the RL socialising nightmare I originally turned to gaming to get away from!
I love burying myself in a good book, as Keiron smartly riposted a few comments up, and view games in very much the same way – an adventure I can have in the privacy (emphasis on that word there) of my own home. I feel real despair at gaming being ruined by having to introduce other real people into my fantasy worlds, at having to become responsible to others or bearing the weight of their expectations, however nice these people might be. I don’t play MMO’s or even shooters online; this is not what gaming is for me.
23/10/2008 at 14:18 James says:
Spot on! Although, every MMO i’ve tried (14-day trails on WoW, SWG, EVE, LOTRO and Guild Wars), no one would play with me anyway. So then I just felt lonely – surrounded by ‘Other People’ that refuse to acknowledge me. Screw ‘em!
23/10/2008 at 14:21 Colinmarc says:
My problem with MMOs is the fact that the worlds are too finite. Sure, there’s plenty to do, but my problem is character creation. I always excitedly join a game, with a cool idea for a character class in mind with complementing strengths and all that. But as soon as I start actually leveling (or training) this character, I learn that everyone else has already thought of this idea. Moreover, it’s the noobiest character build ever.
For example, I fired up WoW with the awesome idea of a warrior with that fury ability and dual wielding. And when I started out with EVE, I thought it would be really cool to be a Caldari that specializes in shield boosting.
Honestly, innovation is dead enough in the real world! I hate the idea that all the ideas have already been thought of. It’s depressing.
There are two solutions to this, I guess. First of all, you can have user-created content, but that doesn’t always have the quality that developers can impart (think Second Life) and can be risky for other reasons.
The second, and I have no idea how a developer would do this, is to make character builds more about the way a person plays it. Instead of having skills directly impact dps, or health, or armor, link skills to strategy. This coincides with Mr. Rossignol’s idea of versatility being the reward for experience instead of linear power (Evecraft, I believe, was the post). Sure, have those skills that do damage or heal or whatever or improve your stamina, but have skills mostly help you play a certain way. I can’t really think of an example of how this would be implemented, or I would be a developer.
23/10/2008 at 14:25 Juleske says:
Great article! I like taking on a bit of responsability towards others now and then, but most of the time i play games to relax, and kind of play is not relaxing to me.
23/10/2008 at 14:26 c-Row says:
Now if you could combine the joys of sex and the joys of WAR’s public quests…”You know, I was just walking around town last night, minding my own business, when all of a sudden a public shag broke loose!”
23/10/2008 at 14:29 Dinger says:
I read lots of books, but when I go to a conference, I expect to have a discussion.
Hell is other people. Nowhere is it written that a game should appeal to everyone in the market.
My major objection in the previous thread was that the “broad appeal” recipe used in MMOs is to tap the multiplayer aspect just enough to enhance the addictive qualities of the game, without adding much value in terms of gameplayer or social experience. In other words, it’s a social experience more like going to an opium den than going to a pub full of drunken regulars.
Responsibility only becomes a problem when failure is uninteresting and your fellow players are jerks. There are plenty of online gaming communities where the players don’t take it that seriously. They’re just not easily visible to every 8-year-old that passes by.
23/10/2008 at 14:30 Butler` says:
Hehe, Colinmarc, I know exactly what you mean – that’s why you play MMOs or their respective expansions from day 1 where possible!
The fact is MMOs evolve over time, and there is room for innovation in builds, gear setup, party setup etc.
But yeah… I’m afraid single player just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Looking at the past decade, most of the best single player games I’ve played have been shortlived, ultimately leading me to the mutliplayer anyway (i.e. WarCraft 3 to Call of Duty 4 and everything in between.
23/10/2008 at 14:30 Theoban says:
Oh John Walker I agree with every word you say. The only problem with online games is other people, I love the good old single player narrative, where I’m in control and I can play at my own pace. YES!
23/10/2008 at 14:35 Bop says:
Amen. Walker = RPS MVP.
23/10/2008 at 14:36 nikos says:
Good article, good comments. For the sake of argument (and this is the point of the article, no?) team sports are analogous – you can have a “friendly” game and you can have a professional competition. It is the points within this spectrum that are not as stressful as work and yet enjoyable in a singularly non-solo way.
Of course this is all theory, I never play MMOs and almost never multiplayer :)
23/10/2008 at 14:37 Seniath says:
The moment I started reading this, I was planning to comment jokingly with “but John, you’re just bitter because you’re such a terrible healer”. Shame I was beaten to the punch by a good hour or so.
23/10/2008 at 14:37 Dizet Sma says:
The “Hell is other people” thing is the main reason why I’m worried about the prospective Warhammer 40K MMO. I’d like to noodle about by my own with a bit of Tau tech, possibly as a Rogue Trader and certainly not being fluffed to death by gangs of teenage Ultramarines.
P.S. Ooooh, shiny preview mode!
23/10/2008 at 14:45 Dizet Sma says:
c-Row says:
Now if you could combine the joys of sex and the joys of WAR’s public quests…”You know, I was just walking around town last night, minding my own business, when all of a sudden a public shag broke loose!”
Second Life. All day, every day…
23/10/2008 at 14:47 Paul says:
Indeed. I hate other people, and this extends into the world of computer gaming. Too many online games turn into a competition as to who can perform the most efficiently rather than actually playing, which will likely get you branded a noob. Too few people play in the spirit of the game. The abundance of “dust_2 24/7″ servers seem to exemplify this to me.
23/10/2008 at 14:49 Monkfish says:
That was a great read and sums up why I’ve pretty much given up on team-based multiplayer games.
I played quite a lot of TF2 when it first appeared and, like you John, I was happy to go about my own business. But it took just a couple of games where Other People were barking orders at me over voice comms that it became a joyless chore. I haven’t played it since.
I’m now in this quandary where I’m really wanting to buy Left 4 Dead and enjoy it, but I’m kinda hesitant about it. Hmm.
23/10/2008 at 14:51 itsallcrap says:
I’m getting to the point where I have to play medic because other people suck at it so much.
Not only that, but even if there appears to be a surplus of docs at the start of the round, you can pretty much guarantee that they’re all going to get bored after two deaths and leave me on fire, on the front line, with nary a healer in sight.
23/10/2008 at 14:51 Tei says:
Killing mobs gets repetitive. The AI is terrible simple (maybe just a “move to player, attack”).
History telling in a MMO is somewhat a utopia, because you can’t change the world.
And players create his own historitellling, with something called Guild DRAMA.
Soloing is “the Nothing” eating Fantastica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neverending_Story), I avoit it, because is killing teamplay, chatting, ..and creating a world devoid of life.
23/10/2008 at 14:54 Fox1 says:
Fuckin’ A, where the “a” stands for “amen.”
Additionally, note that I restrict my position on this to personal preference and do not begrudge you multi-play junkies yours.
This means, happily, that I never make an ass of myself in public by saying things like “IMHO, soloplayers are a infection, a virus, that spread and make all other people play with that gamestyle,” which is clearly bullshit.
23/10/2008 at 14:54 Dave says:
Other people really do screw things up. Back when I worked on DragonRealms, the worst day ever was the day the boss started to let players in, tromping all over our nice clean streets, killing the wildlife, and finding bugs. Bastards.
23/10/2008 at 14:56 mirdza says:
To Bobsy: WoW with or without other people is Boredom.
23/10/2008 at 14:58 John Walker says:
L4D falls into my co-op exception. With people you know, it’s utterly wonderful. However, include just *one* Other Person… shouting was involved.
23/10/2008 at 15:06 suchchoices says:
One of the few things that saddens me in TF2 is when players (often the better ones) start berating the docs over voice. It’s awful. I try to send the odd “thanks doc” over voice whenever someone heals me, and thank them for their job at the end of the round.
23/10/2008 at 15:16 OldmanTick says:
I’m primarily single player because I’m on dialup at home. Back when everyone was on dialup I’d play as best I could. Most of the time there was little teamwork in CS or TF or BF1942 anyway. Seemed like most people played in DM mode.
Pure joy was playing at a LAN party with people you knew.
Back to the sex analogy, fun by yourself, most fun with other people that you know, it can be fun with other people you don’t know unless they are critical and/or don’t do what you want.
23/10/2008 at 15:19 Butler` says:
Paul, hit up some fy_ servers, the tone is usually a lot more lighthearted.
23/10/2008 at 15:22 Carey says:
I think it’s probably less other people and more public servers. I reckon you’d have nearly as nice a time playing something coop with us wot you know online (and only us mind you) as you would playing something with same in a living room somewhere. I’ve got a stack of chums who I play with in bunch of games (OK OK, MOSTLY Arma… but not only, honest…) most of whom I’ve never met. You’re right though. Most Other People are shits. But if you find a good group, you can have the ‘me and four mates playing coop games together’ fun every night, rather than just when you manage to get a LAN party going…
23/10/2008 at 15:28 Scallat says:
There’s another side to this: Has anyone ever been in a 25 or 40 man raid and been held back by the one player who isn’t living up to their responisibilities? When a raid boss has an easily avoidable instant kill ability and most players literally NEVER get hit and the same 2 or 3 players are dying literally every time it happens it’s difficult not to get frustrated.
I’ve often said the problem with MMO’s is the people who play them. It seems that while you’re tired of being rushed I’m tired of being held back. If only we all played at the same pace.
That said, there’s no excuse to get abusive. If I’m playing a game with a team and I’m not enjoying it (for whatever reason) I tend to give up.
Actually this is why I quit WoW. The value of the reward I was chasing (in this case pvp gear) was insufficient to compensate me for the frustration of trying to pvp with 15 people soloing a battleground.
23/10/2008 at 15:31 Conquests.of. says:
Both sides of the debate are wrong, WoW-style teamWORK (for obvious reasons) and selfish playstyle (cause MMO means sociality)… The right solution is obviously interaction with people. Discussing moral choices with people, before undertaking a mission that you know might be counter-moral to you. And i hope that’s what TOR wants to do.
Simply because it’s diminishing to “exploit” a person just for his character class and skills, it’s humiliating to use me as healing bot (or HP vampire, since i was rogue in WoW), people should be forced to know ME, and that can be done by asking me the reasons why i wanna do things and my opinion on the upcoming task, to see if i will not ruin their alignment by doing dishonorable deeds.
That’s the only way MMO’s can express their social potential.
23/10/2008 at 15:32 The Sombrero Kid says:
anarchist! burn the witch! i hate MMO’s
23/10/2008 at 15:33 Morph says:
Woah, with so many comments I was expecting a slagging off from MMO players. Instead it’s curmudgeons everywhere. And I’ll add my support to that.
Everytime WAR is mentioned I think ‘Where’s my single player Warhammer RPG? Where?’ and cry a little.
23/10/2008 at 15:41 Yfel says:
Multiplayer games are for playing against other people, not with them. MMO games are for playing against a LOT of other people, not with them. When will the developers understand?
23/10/2008 at 15:42 cyrenic says:
For me, the reward of impromptu teamwork coming together far outweighs the potential for someone to bitch if something goes wrong.
I generally just ignore people when they get all pissy in a game like TF2. Guess I’m lucky to have thick skin :P. It probably helps that I generally play online FPS’s with one or two friends and we just make fun of anyone taking the game too seriously.
23/10/2008 at 15:46 Conquests.of. says:
cyrenic> but you’re not playing with people, you’re playing with their classes and the way programmers decided they were to be played.
Sociality is different.
23/10/2008 at 15:47 Bobsy says:
@mirdza:
“I don’t like the game we’re discussing” is rarely, if ever, a valid contribution.
23/10/2008 at 15:50 Ian says:
As a new comer to the MMO, I was originally very sceptical about grouping up with others I didn’t know. I learned, however, that the knack is to do so when you can get out of it quickly and easily. Just for one short quest etc.
For instances I avoid going in with anybody I’ve played extensively before because people have a tendency to turn out to be obsessive bastards.
23/10/2008 at 15:55 Noc says:
So what we really want is a single player game with procedurally generated (or, frequently expanded) content, that may or may not have an optional multiplayer aspect.
The MMO is an inefficient means to this end, I think.
23/10/2008 at 15:57 Myros says:
Great article, can totaly relate :)
23/10/2008 at 16:01 Alex says:
Add me to the curmudgeon list. Great article.
23/10/2008 at 16:02 brave_otaku says:
This is a game design problem, not a people problem. As gamers we all want to have fun in our own way. I want to play with other people because AI opponents and AI teammates suck. They suck developer resources during development, and they suck CPU resources during game play. And, I also don’t want to feel any extra responsibility to my hobby. I already have all the coworkers I need. I want coplayers.
How does a designer…
1. Encourage strangers that can’t or won’t communicate to work together towards a common goal?
2. Not punish playing a few rounds and then vanishing?
3. Reward skill and experience in a persistent world without upsetting balance?
These things are not impossible. Look at Savage or FrontLine Force for design cues. Also, I think APB is going to get it right. God, I hope so.
23/10/2008 at 16:04 LeFishy says:
I agree on so many levels. The only Xbox live game I play is Halo3 because it is very easy to mute people. Other people have made online gaming worse in my opinion. Co-op is all I live for though. I love ganging up with friends and beating on some poor defenceless monsters. This is how I play MMOs so your point is lost a little on me. I have never had the desire to get into the whole raiding scene because, yes, it is too much responsibility.
I have had two friends who lost themselves to WoW’s endgame. One has since given up entirely and the other plays everynow and then with me. Trying to get new characters to level 70 in time for the new expansion. What he doesn’t do is get worked up over tiny things going on in his guild and whatnot. This is how to enjoy games. The CO-OP is king.
23/10/2008 at 16:05 Bobsy says:
This is likely to sound all socially smug and that, but… a lot of people seem to equate playing with other people as playing with strangers. Why? Games are always better with friends.
I started playing MMOs with City of Heroes/Villains and folks I knew outside the game. We played the vast majority of the time with at least one other from our group, usually four or five at a time.
When I migrated to WoW, it was with two from this same group, and again we spent the majority of this time together. We would meet new people through instance grouping and roleplaying (it was an RP server) and this seemed to be the perfect balance – we mixed and mingled with the wider community, but having friends we were familiar with on hand most of the time meant we had support against any of the annoyances that the lolcrowd might put on us.
So I advise all you antisocial curmudgeons to try playing like this – small groups of two or three, able to play as an insular group as well as with the general public, as it suits you.
23/10/2008 at 16:09 General Ludd says:
I’m very much a computer game loner. Even when I’ve played online games I’ve always ended up drifting away from other people. With BF2 I started off playing all the classes, having fun working with other people but ended up happiest as a solitary sniper lying in patient wait.
23/10/2008 at 16:11 aerone says:
Penny Arcade said this a lot better, in one of my favourite strips:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/02/16/
@Tei, Gillen
I think the response he was looking for is “I would, but my glasses are broken.” Do I win something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last
23/10/2008 at 16:15 shinygerbil says:
You hit the nail on the head. Responsibility is something I’ve tried to stave off all my life – and I’m still doing a great job of it at 22. Games are escapism for me; I don’t want to “escape the real world” just to find myself in a world full of metaphorical tax returns.
23/10/2008 at 16:19 Ben Abraham says:
I think John Walker has a lovely voice and I don’t ever want to stop hearing it (in his posts at least). Ever since I listened to all those back-podcasts from the RPS Wireless show…
23/10/2008 at 16:22 Dexton says:
The thing is about multiplay games is that yes John is right, other people are the worst thing in them, but they are also the best. Just like real life, you have to put up with some idiots if you want to meet some really cool people.
23/10/2008 at 16:45 RichPowers says:
I really love multiplayer games, but none of my real-life friends and acquaintances play PC games! The tradgedy.
Certain games, such as Halo 3, Battlefield 2, and CS 1.6, have pitiful communities. But at a LAN center or on a private server, all three can be incredibly fun.
TF2 is one of the few games where you can consistently have enjoyable pub server games. The game’s design lends itself to that.
23/10/2008 at 16:53 The Archetype says:
Tei: (sex is another thing that is better with The Other People)
I tried that line with my girlfriend. She didn’t buy it. :)
23/10/2008 at 16:53 jonfitt says:
I don’t mind multiplayer shooters at all. I find the irritation of someone trying to order you around if far outweighed by the benefit of fighting against enemies who put up a decent fight.
There are also a few TF2 classes which are best for solo players, Pyros can be good doing solo raids, and Spies almost always work alone, Snipers too.
Even not including that, with the exception of medic, if you join a server with enough players you can just disappear in the crowd until you get good.
I don’t see any point in MMORPGs though. 50000 people can’t all be the one chosen great saviour of the world, and I don’t want to play a game just to be a peon. Within a while after starting an RPG I want to be the King Badass Pwner of Dragons.
Guild Wars was the closest I’ve got, and I only ever did instances with the missus. The weak-ass plot, and grind put an end to that before we’d finished it though.
Oblivion is much more my style.
23/10/2008 at 16:56 Chris says:
AMEN!
Of course, growing up on turn based strategy games where not only was it single player, but I had infinite time to ponder choices, has given me a vastly different perspective on “other people” in gaming than my children have.
23/10/2008 at 17:10 Paul says:
The Archetype says:
Tei: (sex is another thing that is better with The Other People)
I tried that line with my girlfriend. She didn’t buy it. :)
I just wish my girlfirend would stop yelling at me when I use my uber too early.
(I apologise if this joke has already been posted.)
23/10/2008 at 17:20 Bremze says:
What, only multiplayer? Because of other people I got oblivion instead of Morrowind 2 and Deus ex:IW instead of Deus ex 2. Call me an elitist bastard but I still blame the xbox crowds for both of them.
23/10/2008 at 17:44 Ken McKenzie says:
Add me to the Curmudgeon Army. I’m not going to play any MMOs, ever. There is literally nothing any MMO could do to get me to get me to play them short of promising me that no Other People will be found in that MMO to bother me by informing me that I’m not having the right kind of fun.
If I want to interact with other people, I have a large building a few minutes from my house, called a ‘pub’, that I can go to.
23/10/2008 at 17:47 D says:
That is oh so how I feel about online games. The only people I enjoy grouping with are “real life” friends or colleagues. As soon as someone from three timezones away -or from the other side of the city- joins our perfectly imbalanced group -2 dps, one healer, no tank, that sort of imbalance-, people start getting tense and don’t show any level of respect to the bunch of pixels doing not exactly what you were expecting it to do.
And I don’t want to be considered as a bunch of pixels. I’d rather be the friend who “has messed up, we’ll explain it to him in a kind way because we’ll be standing in front of him tomorrow” than the noob who needs to L2P.
23/10/2008 at 17:49 Klaus says:
I’m, not a fan multiplayer games. I now have the computer and money to pay for WoW and yet am adverse to it. I’m sure there tons of cool people who play for fun but for every one of them, there seem to be three more of those others…
Invariably there’s some
douchesnice guys in there ready to beunhelpful and tell me how I picked the wrong class, or a bad class, that I’m not progressing in the appropriate skills, that isn’t the way to play the class and my fave which encompasses all genre’s; “I don’t wanna tell you how to (blank)” and then proceed to do so. I remember playing Tibia, as a pseudo merchant of all things and beyond all the pk’ing and stealing, it was the “You’re supposed to kill people! Not sell things” which turned me away.I’m not in your ‘party’ or in your ‘guild’ and I didn’t even put in an inquiry about it, so buy something and move along, please.
There have been people who have explained nicely that as an “X” I should learn “Y” to easily be able to do “Z”. But they’re few and far between.
Also because this is a game I don’t care if I die, being killed by a powerful monster because I want to collect semi-rare items to sell was fun. I solo because other people take the GAME too seriously. Real life or game world, that’s a deal breaker and I’ll just play CoD4′s campaign mode another go.
23/10/2008 at 17:51 Morte says:
Other people mostly suck, or at least suck to you, but some of them don’t. If you can game exclusively with people who don’t that’s generally better than playing alone. The trouble is that compatible groups are really hard to arrange and games don’t make it any easier. The matchmaking in MMO games is downright pathetic.
To group up with other people you need to know about their: gameplay skill, preferred tactical niche, timezone, timekeeping, levelling speed, level of seriousness/goofiness, stance on winning vs having a good time, language, and leader vs follower preference. Then you need to put together a synergistic group that is compatible in (almost) all these dimensions. If you don’t get all or very nearly all of these things right, the other people will grate on you and you’ll stop having fun.
The standard tools of matchmaking in MMOs are “looking for group” spam (usually specific to a location/quest) and the guild. If you want to find a group for that tough mission, you either (a) spam LFG at the jump off point and hope you won’t get a dickhead (it only takes one to ruin things) or (b) ask your guild and find that most of them have either done the mission already or not reached it yet. It’s no surprise that these systems fail a lot, and many people would rather play with AI sidekicks than put up with current MMO grouping.
What we need is for MMOs to make a determined attempt at matchmaking, e.g. describe your preferences in a database and have it try to throw out compatible people. We also need games to be designed from the ground up to ameliorate the problem. WAR has taken a small step by just letting you just join in whatever multiplayer happens to be going on without wedding you to the people involved. Bioware’s henchmen may help a bit by providing an alternative rather than a solution. But MMOs need something more substantial and more radical.
I used to play/GM/build multiplayer Neverwinter Nights, organised via http://www.neverwinterconnections.com. For a couple of years I was in a regular group who played 7-11pm Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think about 15 people went through that group, never more than 4 or 5 at a time, with a hardcore of 3 who were there for all of it. It was far and away the best multiplayer gaming I’ve had, and it only broke down when one of the players changed preferences and became personality incompatible with another.
I’d like to see MMOs recreate that for the story part of their games. I specify that I’d like to play a couple of evenings a week UK time (these days OK), I’m tactically inclined but less bothered about optimal builds, I take completing the mission seriously, I like to be calling the shots, I dislike playing a healer, I want to do the lightside Jedi path, I’m not that interested in Star Wars lore but I’ll accomodate people who are, and so on. The game chews trough the 500000 people who answered the same questionnaire and puts me in touch with the people who seem most compatible. That tackles the “everybody in your guild has either done the mission or not reached it yet” problem. Something more like WAR’s “join in the ongoing mayhem with minimal fuss” can give you something to do when you’re not in a scheduled session. And AI henchmen can fill in when you skip the Thursday scheduled session and need to catch up with the rest of the group.
Well, it’s a start. Let’s see if the industry can do better.
23/10/2008 at 17:54 Downloads_Plz says:
I was agreeing with everything until I got to the TF2/Medic part, and it made me think of another game with immense pressure. Unfortunantly, that game is World of Warcraft.
Pre-TBC I was a Healer, and Post-TBC I was the main Tank for my guild (Druids for life). And ala the Medic example, there were times that I would mess up and be screamed at on Vent to the point where I felt like complete shit for wasting everyone’s time.
But for everyone one of those moments, there were also just as many if not more moments where I would do something so right, so perfectly executed that I would be praised so much on Vent that by the end I would be wearing a huge shit-eating grin on my face.
And I came to the realization that while there is a lot of frustration to be had in multiplayer games when things go wrong, there is also the feeling of pure joy to be had when things go right that single player games will never fully match.
23/10/2008 at 17:55 edward blake says:
I would much rather play solo if I could, which if I’m honest is a pretty poor state of affairs.
I’m trying to change but I keep getting let down by Other People.
23/10/2008 at 18:01 OldmanTick says:
Noc
One of the amazing parts of SOF2 was the mission generator. I don’t know how they did it but a good 70% were interesting and varied.
It’s funny how some games get crap because they are repetitive and others cause they are short. If you have enough content (objects, textures templates) you could have an option to insert generated missions in between plotted missions.
23/10/2008 at 18:11 Tei says:
@aerone: nice one.
23/10/2008 at 18:14 Gap Gen says:
I think it’s unfair to complain that multiplayer games force you to interact with other people.
Personally, I get frustrated at inept teammates. But then shooters are supposed to raise your adrenaline so that you’re pumped up and in a fighty mood. Shouting at inept people is natural in that situation, even if the shouting is unreasonable.
23/10/2008 at 18:20 darthpugwash says:
I feel the opposite way about TF2. The kind of impromptu co-operation that it encourages is one of my favourite aspects of it. Even on a public server, when everything comes together and you get on a team that has a good mix of classes, all mutually supporting each other, the game is a real joy to play.
Yes, there is some bitching but that’s the way it goes. In my experience it’s actually much less common in TF2 than in other games, due I think to the cartoonish graphical style and humour that goes with it.
23/10/2008 at 18:24 Vinraith says:
Bless you sir, you put that better than my SP-loving heart ever has. Being beholden to other people when playing a game (especially strangers) sucks ass.
23/10/2008 at 18:29 Erlam says:
“The second, and I have no idea how a developer would do this, is to make character builds more about the way a person plays it. Instead of having skills directly impact dps, or health, or armor, link skills to strategy”
Like… an FPS? Seriously, FPS MMo’s could remove that problem entirely. Make a modable weapons craft, modable armour, and you just kit out your character. Then you fight FPS style.
You have the plusses of RPG character creation, interesting useful crafting, and the combat is based on skill. Add in the fact you tailor your character, and if your FPS skills arent quite up to par, you can make a utility character, or a medic, whatever.
23/10/2008 at 18:41 Larington says:
I know how you feel. Heck, even in LOTRO of all places, I’ve had an encounter where I player told me how to play the game. I’ll make my own mistakes thanks. What really pissed me off however is that, he completed a quest we were working on TOGETHER and recalled right there and then and after coming back (Leaving us waiting 5 minutes for his return) tried to talk us into doing some other quest. I should’ve logged right there and then.
I ended up having to finish it solo after the group broke up trying to do this other quest. And this wasn’t even his first character, so I bet hes rubbed a number of people up the wrong way on his way thru the levels.
23/10/2008 at 19:00 Flint says:
Bobsy:
So I advise all you antisocial curmudgeons to try playing like this – small groups of two or three, able to play as an insular group as well as with the general public, as it suits you.
Back in the days when I first started WoW, several of my friends and I decided to play together and form a tiny guild while at it. It was all fun and stuff for a while.
A month or two later, two of our members stopped playing due to IRL events, two had quit because their subscription had ended and they didn’t feel like buying the full game after all, one had moved to the US servers because she was fed up with the cross-Atlantic lag and I had abandoned the guild due to being aggravated by the PvP realm and continued with my primary PvE realm where my WoW-life started.
Company of friends doesn’t always work out :i.
23/10/2008 at 19:07 Tei says:
Internet words:
Newbie: The new guy, she or he don’t know how things work.
Noob: Guy that don’t know how things work, and don’t want other to teach it. You can be level 70 and noob.
newbie != noob != new guy, fresh player, neophite
23/10/2008 at 19:50 undead dolphin hacker says:
Funny WoW terribad pub anecdote: There was this idiot Warrior who sat in Shattrath all day and made fun of other Warriors’ gear and spec choices. He was reviled but also enabled in a way, because the stupid, vitrolic shit he spouted was so obnoxious that it bled over into hilarious.
One day Blizzard released the Armory and someone decided to look this pro up.
This expert of everything Warrior had spent 15 talent points maxing out THREE OF THE WEAPON MASTERIES. Shattrath chat exploded in spam of the noob’s Armory URL, and the shockwave was felt for days. About a week later it was revealed when his Armory page broke that the guy had TRANSFERRED OFF THE SERVER IN SHAME.
The lynching of this pub is still my favorite WoW moment.
23/10/2008 at 20:36 ph0tik says:
Other people ruin things in real life. We have people in the US of A that voted for Bush twice for Christ’s sake. No wonder your online experiences are being ruined.
I am really enjoying WAR though, you can meet some cool people.
23/10/2008 at 20:50 beermaster says:
Excellent article John.
23/10/2008 at 21:00 Oktember says:
Back in the day, I never once played Unreal Tournament online, despite being more than capable of doing so. Why? Because the bots were so damn good, I got used to having so much fun in single-player mode than I didn’t see much point in bringing other people into the experience.
I love multiplayer gaming as much as the next person — I was a huge fan of Q2 CTF before UT came along and I still clock up a couple of hours of TF2 and Quake Wars (which also plays pretty well as a single-player game — it once took me about 30 mins to realise I’d logged into a server full of bots) every week. But, for some reason, I never felt compelled to play Unreal Tournament online.
Alas, it’s pretty much a commercial necessity for major games to have a multiplayer mode. I can understand that and will certainly play it if it’s fun, but I think it just goes to show you that, in many cases, computer controlled opponents can present more of a challenge than human players.
I’ll take the challenge over the social aspect any day of the week.
23/10/2008 at 21:07 Mman says:
“Back in the day, I never once played Unreal Tournament online, despite being more than capable of doing so. Why? Because the bots were so damn good, I got used to having so much fun in single-player mode than I didn’t see much point in bringing other people into the experience.”
On that note, I recall reading there was some sort of research on this, and 50%+ of players who bought UT only ever played it with bots.
23/10/2008 at 21:13 Bozzley says:
My girlfriend at the time and I spent fucking aaaaaaages playing World of Warcraft, with both on and offline friends, from all over Europe. I can’t pretend that I didn’t enjoy it, but after a while it started to get a bit like a second career. Leading the guild we were in didn’t help matters; I started to feel like I was spending more time sorting other people’s enjoyment out rather than enjoying the game myself.
And then one night down the (real life) pub, I had an epiphany. The half-drunken light bulb flickered into existence, and even more unbelievably, stayed lit.
The next friday, I organised a full raid on Zul’Gurub (this was before the Burning Crusade and level 70), with added real life proper oh my sweet Christ I can’t see alcohol. The Pan-European Zul’Gurub Drinking Game had begun! Fuck me sideways, it was funny. The usual gripes of “heal me”, “I need to repair my armour”, “you need to stand here and hit it when I say” all vanished, and were replaced with “so when do I take a shot of ?” and “I don’t want to win any more loot, I’ll be sick” and twenty players all giggling like children. Boozed up children. One of whom had been singing (slurring, really) Row Row Row Your Boat in Italian for twenty minutes.
So yeah, as much as other players can be a pain in the ass in MMO games, I’ve learned that adding booze to any game with other players works wonders in making it all enjoyable. For what it’s worth, I recommend it.
23/10/2008 at 21:40 Jenny Creed says:
Speaking of bots, did you know the Quake 3 bot dialogue was written by RA Salvatore? Just realized that the other day.
I love single player. Playing with other people is so stressful, I can’t stand it for more than a few hours per month at most. Sure it’s rewarding when you do well and people acknowledge your skill and send /friend requests and stuff, but it’s hardly worth the effort. Give me a game where I can save the world to the adulation of the people without ever having to consider someone else’s feelings.
Give me a game with the size and the scope of WoW but let me play it alone, as a guy who’s better than everyone else at everything and don’t have to rely on teammates or anything, like in the good old days. I’d gladly pay a monthly fee for that, as long as continued expansions are guaranteed. No server loads for the developers: Everyone wins.
23/10/2008 at 22:55 Monele says:
A great article. But what’s even better is that comments show this is a shared thought! And I was sure no one else enjoyed single player anymore.
23/10/2008 at 23:21 sinister agent says:
John, stop being so likeable and entertaining. It leaves me with confusing feelings of affection for humankind.
23/10/2008 at 23:43 Trousers says:
“Responsibilities are what force me to fill in tax returns, or remember to put the bins out. In no way should my taxes and bins become a part of my leisure time.”
Joke or not, on some deep level you nailed the way my thought process works, and I’m not even talking about games (or leisure). If only it yielded better results for me…
I played Wow for 2 years after launch, the whole time thinking “Why the hell can’t I just pay 5 gold to have some healbot follow my party, instead of waiting X (and occasionally XX) amount of hours to find a real person who isn’t in the game for a “clang, clang, gish”, “pew-pew”,or “HADOOKEN” type of class.
So yeah, anyway, up with this sort of thing in games. Great read.
23/10/2008 at 23:58 Arathain says:
See, I deal with the Other People problem by thinking of all of them as sort of advanced bots, who occasionally make jokes or say stupid stuff. Really, I don’t find it helpful to allocate them the same mental space as real people. This allows me to be completely unbothered by their moronic Other Peopleness. Doesn’t mean I don’t like to be a good team player, or even play support classes- I mean, if I want to win I have to help out the bots.
Sometimes the jokes are quite funny, though.
24/10/2008 at 05:22 no says:
I’m fortunate enough to work 100% from home and have for more than a decade, so I don’t ever have to deal with other people unless it’s a delivery person dropping something at my door.
24/10/2008 at 05:51 RichPowers says:
We’re all so gloriously antisocial when it comes to games, aren’t we? At least we can be antisocial together! :p
@no: you lucky, lucky man. Just wait until the delivery people are replaced by delivery robots.
24/10/2008 at 08:09 Mr. President says:
Even playing with friends can be too much pain.
-”Okay, see ya tomorrow at 9pm, we’ll go raid bla bla bla yadda yadda”
-But what if I can’t make it tomorrow at 9pm? Or just won’t feel like playing? What if I suddenly decide to grab a beer and watch TV? But no, I can’t do that, or I’ll disappoint my friends. Screw that, I don’t wanna make plans; you go on and raid without me, and maybe I’ll join you later.
24/10/2008 at 08:38 pepper says:
The problem with multiplayer games is is that you just dont know if you run into a bunch of nice people whom you can have fun with and do some teamplay with. Yes, they exist. But not every server houses them. What i usually do in BF2 is join a server, say hello, and see if anyone responds. If they do and are in a squad then i will join them and see what were up to. And mostly, stick to the team leader, no matter how bad there decisions are, sometimes its more fun hiking along together finding your way, even though you know its not the fastest, then going on your own.
Unfortunately a lot off people take games too serious nowadays, and cant have it when you kill them, they start swearing and shouting at you. What i usually do then is argue with them, which is one thing they obviously suck at, so you can easily corner them, and sometimes make them leave the server on there own.
Although, the best fun i’ve had in games, is in a clan, not a serious league playing clan, but just for fun.
24/10/2008 at 10:31 El Zomba says:
Stuff like this always reminds me of the Bill Hicks joke about the ‘People Who Hate People’ political party:
‘People who hate people, come together!’
‘NO!’
24/10/2008 at 10:56 KindredPhantom says:
So who is going to write the counter blog to this?
24/10/2008 at 13:38 Chris says:
I think you are being a bit short sighted about games like this.
For me the key thing to do with an mmo is to find a bunch of organized people that have the same play-style/lifestyle as you. Even to a point where if the guild that you are in decides to quit playing that game you would all as a group move on to another one.
As mmo’s mature game guild/teams etc are becoming more of a important part of online multi player gaming. Games are fun but with a bit of serious organization you can have serious fun!.
You seem to be trying to rationalize why kicking a football against a wall on your own is better than play with in two teams of 11. I dont know why people speak out against cooperating.
Not playing team games is gimping your opportunities to have a bit of fun.
PS: the continued rise in the numbers and popularity of game guilds is very interesting and worth looking into. Bizarre as it sounds but guilds like Nihilum have a massive fan base. It would be interesting to read up what RPS chappies have to say about them.
24/10/2008 at 14:04 silencer says:
This is kidna why I’ve never bothered to play the copy of TF2 I got with Orange Box. I’d be that guy going the wrong direction trying to figure out the keys and what I’m supposed to be doing while everyone else spews obscenities in all caps in my general direction.
24/10/2008 at 14:46 H says:
I wonder if we’ll ever see a proper offline, single player MMO… I mean, because lets face it that’s just dying to be clarified, you play on your own (in terms of players), but the world is FULL of NPCs you can interact with, which would be the substitute for the other players.
In my head it sounded great. *pouts*
24/10/2008 at 15:32 Sonny Day says:
itt: shit people.
glad you can’t stand the heat, you suck anyway. too long have you diluted the talent pool. clear out and let’s keep raising the bar. shame this doesn’t happen so quickly and efficiently irl. oh well, it’s a good model at least.
24/10/2008 at 15:45 Cooper says:
Amen
I’m a little worried about Left4Dead. I know I’m going to have to buy and play it, it being a zombie apocalypse game and all (I can’t let a game genre I’ve been hoping would emerge with a glorious game go by) but 4 people having to work together… I’m probably going to have to buy copies for those select few…
24/10/2008 at 16:02 Klaus says:
I am often amazed at how the people who praise the philosophy of eugenics and elitism are often the very people who I don’t think would reach the bar. At all.
You don’t see rocket scientists or neurosurgeons and the like championing it but masters of videogames and obscure nerd lore. But, yeah. I lol’d.
24/10/2008 at 16:07 Malibu Stacey says:
Oh the irony. Never have I read a comments thread which proved the articles point where most of the comments are actually trying to agree with the article.
erlam meet Team Fortress 2.
Team Fortress 2 & Counter-Strike are not the same game.
24/10/2008 at 17:17 Morte says:
H: “I wonder if we’ll ever see a proper offline, single player MMO… I mean, because lets face it that’s just dying to be clarified, you play on your own (in terms of players), but the world is FULL of NPCs you can interact with, which would be the substitute for the other players.”
It seems like you’re looking for a really good sandbox singleplayer RPG. Well, Fallout 2 is avaialable again….
Oblivion might have fit the bill if it had strung some of those dozens of inconsequential linear microquests into quest chains involving and affecting more nuanced NPCs. But it didn’t, alas.
[ISTM Oblivion is a lot like an offline version of Guild Wars -- loads of quests, loads of NPCs, but few of them are at all special. It would be nice if we could one day say that Fallout 2 is a lot like an offline version of Bioware's Star Wars MMO -- loads of quests, loads of NPCs, and quite a lot of them are special.]
24/10/2008 at 17:47 Ergates says:
I’m hoping that Left4Dead will have a good lobby system that helps you find people to play with. I’m not currently a member of a gaming “community”, and don’t know enough gamers in RL to make it work.
24/10/2008 at 19:06 Guhndahb says:
John, part of me kept thinking you were writing ironically. But, whether or not you were, and I’m guessing from your comments you were not, I couldn’t agree more with each and every word you wrote. I think I may feel even more curmudgeonly than yourself on some of these points but that may just be my overinflated pride rearing it’s gorgeous head.
However, ‘responsibility’ is not my core reason for disliking MMOs (although I’ve played many of them). My primary dislike is the other people. The only way to for me to begin to make WoW palatable it to turn off all public channels so I don’t have to listen to all these people trying to suck the immersion out of the game I’m trying to enjoy.
I’m not antisocial. I used to be a passionate MUDer and have even been known to date despite that obvious handicap. But modern MMO players just drive me up a wall. MMOs can be fun if I want to play a game as a game, like a card game. Potentially fun mechanics, action, etc. But if I want immersion, and I DO want immersion more so than anything else in a PC game, then I just can’t seem to find that in current MMOs.
I’m glad they are promoting SP-play in SW:TOR. This is not because it’s a good idea. I generally think that attempts at doing so will fail and it will do neither as well as if it had specialized. However, I’m happy because I desperately want a KotOR 3 and am stuck with this. And if Bioware sticks to their blasters and does as they are saying, maybe they’ll just prove me wrong. Perhaps, they’re our only hope.
24/10/2008 at 19:58 eyemessiah says:
I couldn’t disagree more!
Single player games hold my attention less and less these days, they are too repetitive, predictable and superficial.
I love multi-player games and I love to play with random Joe Pubs.
The secret to my success is that I am actually genuinely unfriendly. I don’t join groups in MMPORGs to make friends or chat about firefly. I’m polite and diplomatic but I don’t engage at all in the personal soap opera that would make the play so offensive.
If people start to mouth off about x, y or z I just ignore them. Not just in a pretending to ignore them, but actually still listening and getting a bit annoyed sort of way, I really do become completely oblivious to them.
IMHO, this represents a kind of tolerance (admittedly a cynical sort of one!), and is probably an essential skill for enjoying games with random others.
Personally I think that tolerating other people’s crazyness is a small price to pay for the extra variety and dynamism that playing with people rather than wonky AIs brings.
Its also worth bearing in mind that every now and again you can have really positive interpersonal experiences playing games with random strangers too, although I’ll accept that its far from the norm!
24/10/2008 at 22:13 M. P. says:
I have to disagree with Mr. Walker. I know that soloing in an MMO can increase immersion and be a more relaxing experience than grouping up. It’s like playing a single-player sandbox RPG except in an MMO you have a built-in irc client to chat to your friends in while playing!
Now, there’s nothing wrong with playing an MMO like that and enjoying it – not as an activity in itself. However, when a lot of people are doing that, they’re effectively preventing the people who WANT to group up from doing so by diluting the server population available for groups! You’re effectively taking away a server spot from someone who would want to group with other people, and therefore detracting from their enjoyment of the game.
I’m not saying people should’t solo at all. It’s comforting and relaxing to go off and kill a few mobs on your own without having to worry about keeping pace with someone else. But when a game is designed so that progression via soloing is just as fast and easy as when you group then you’re effectively discouraging people from grouping, and what’sthe point in playing an MMO if there’s no incentive to play with others?
(My private opinion is that content optimised for soloing also leads to addiction, in that your play patterns gradually fall into the “Pick up quest, use skills 1,2,3,4,5, go back for quest reward, pick up next quest, kill mobs by using skills 1,2,3,4,5, rinse, repeat”. Playing with others breaks up this pattern because it provides variation, even if it comes only from watching another player’s avatar move about on screen without conforming to the movement patterns of the AI, and therefore makes play less addictive. However, I’ve got no way to prove this so I won’t bring it into this.)
For me to want to pay a sub to be in a world filled with other players, I want to either be able to fight them, or group with them (and preferably both). Most modern MMOs don’t offer any decent 1v1 PvP, because class balance rests on the rock/paper/scissors design, and it’s not much fun when the outcome of 90% of fights can be predetermined. So that leaves grouping, either to fight mobs or to fight other groups of players. But if most of the content is designed to let you solo it, it makes forming a group both harder (cause there’s fewer people willing to group) and less rewarding (cause most of the content becomes too easy).
24/10/2008 at 22:21 ik ben dood says:
what is the problem with lettting your teammates get slaughtered, wha ha ha ha ha. even funner if freindly fire is on. too stupid to keep themselves alive? let em die
25/10/2008 at 01:38 x25killa says:
I understand John’s anger with other people. I play mostly Medic on team fortress 2 and as soon as I play Medic, everyone shouts for me and asking for ubers!!! I cannot be in two places at once, all the enemy scouts hunt me down while my teammates are wondering where that blasted medic is? All I got to say is playing medic is taxing but… I seem to enjoy it. Just makes the game a little bit more as soon I let my ubercharge RIP. If someone shouted at my crap healing or not ubering them, I change class and play as a sniper humping up and down near them. Alot.
25/10/2008 at 17:26 JoshJ says:
For the people talking about TF2: It does have a mode where you can run around empty maps. Either find a completely empty server, or “create server” of your own and just run around the map so you know where stuff is.
It’s not playing against bots, but I’ve played against Counter-Strike’s bots, and you’re not missing much.
26/10/2008 at 00:26 Dr Snofeld says:
For the people talking about TF2: It does have a mode where you can run around empty maps. Either find a completely empty server, or “create server” of your own and just run around the map so you know where stuff is.
It’s not playing against bots, but I’ve played against Counter-Strike’s bots, and you’re not missing much.
Or play those levels in Gmod of course. All the same fun plus you get to make silly pictures!
26/10/2008 at 02:22 Vulpis says:
And a big aaaaaaahmen to this–Mr. Walker’s fairly nicely outlined a good many of the reasons I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for modern MMOs (though he did forget the flipside of the ‘responsibility’ issue–just like you don’t want to have to feel ‘responsible’ for your part, you also don’t want to have to be stuck relying on someone else being responsible in order for you to have fun).
My view on MMOs–I love the purely social aspects, like being able to chat with others I know have similar interests while playing, having an in-game resource for help when I get stuck (instead, of, say, hitting GameFAQs while my game-avatar just stands around), and being able to hit up PCs and/or PC-stocked shops for items/gear that would be annoying/tedious for me to go fetch on my own.
Buuut…I absolutely loathe setups that make partying required instead of optional, both for Mr. Walker’s reasons, and for the ones I pointed out above–if it’s a situation needing extra muscle/whatever, I’d rather have the option of hiring/renting skilled ‘bots’ instead of being absolutely forced to deal with other players.
Mind you–I can quite understand the opposing arguments, too–getting a good team of people you know and work well with together and going out and accomplishing some big task can be a rush, yes…but frankly, you’re the lucky ones. If I wanted to deal with the headache and heartburn of having to worry about whether or not someone else is going to show up when needed and be competant at what they do in order to accomplish what I want/need to do in the game, I’d go back to work where at least I get paid for it. :-/
26/10/2008 at 02:45 Speaker-to-Animals says:
Sartre said it best: Hell is other people.
26/10/2008 at 03:06 Servitor says:
I like Massively Single Player games. That is what I like.
26/10/2008 at 04:49 malkav11 says:
See, I vastly prefer singleplayer games. But not at all for most of the reasons Walker cites. I’ve never really had a point in any multiplayer game I’ve played where I worried about responsibility or being yelled at for not playing properly. I just find that I enjoy games a lot more when I can play them at my own pace and be the star of the show in a good, scripted, exciting gameplay experience. Competitive multiplayer is basically the equivalent of sports – do some insanely repetitious thing against other people because….well, I don’t know really. It does nothing for me. And competitive multiplayer is the vast majority of the multiplayer scene (albeit less so these days).
But I really do enjoy cooperative multiplayer – on my console, same system in my living room. On PC, online with my online friends. The joy of the MMO, then, is its focus on doing huge swathes of game with a big, organized group of players interacting. And frankly soloing ruins that. (In addition to being stultifyingly dull in most MMOs, particularly before World of Warcraft, because a singleplayer RPG can provide a far, far livelier, more impactful play experience than you can achieve as one guy whacking things with a stick in an MMO. At least now they give quests and storylines. You still have no impact on the world, though.)
And there’s where I do agree with Walker – if I want to play with other people, but they don’t want to do what I want to do, well. Then there’s most definitely a problem.
26/10/2008 at 05:07 Rhade says:
Brilliant article.
The thing that made it possible to make MMO’s last so long, is the huge amount of people that pay you the money you need to develop that amount of content. MMO’s have several downsides though. When you’re making a game that lasts so long, you can’t make it so that every moment you play is fun. In a single player type game, having timesinks that aren’t fun is usually frowned upon, while in an MMO most people figure the time spent is worth the reward. Also, an MMO includes The Other People. A lot of them. You can’t do anything you want when The Other People rely on you and you rely on The Other People. Well, you can, but The Other People would probably not like you much more than you would like The Other People if they did something completely wrong when you relied on them. Anyway, this can take away a lot of freedom, and so take away a lot of the fun for many people. This is your problem with the game, I guess.
To some people, those sacrifices in freedom to do what you want isn’t worth it, while others enjoy using teamwork to overcome a challenge. The former would be the people like you, who doesn’t think the lack of freedom to play the way you want to play when you’re responsible for other peoples enjoyment, is preferable to the freedom to explore everything the game has to offer, without people calling you a noob for it. The latter would be the people that are patient enough to accept the lack of freedom and the mistakes and/or failures of you and everyone else you play with until the challenge is overcome.
It’s pretty obvious that there is a market for the people who want a game that lasts as long as an MMO, lacks The Other People, and is as fun as a classic Single Player/coop game. But is it possible to make a successful game this way, I wonder?
26/10/2008 at 07:42 M.P. says:
They did – it was called Morrowind :p
Seriously, I really get what makes soloing enjoyable, I’ve done it myself not infrequently, but I always thought of it as a relaxing break from grouping, or, at worst, as a last resort when I was playing at some ungodly hour and there was no-one else around. The thought that there’s millions of people there who PREFER to play solo except when necessity dictates otherwise, using an MMO that cost tens of millions of $$$$ to make as a glorified IRC client is mind-boggling!
26/10/2008 at 08:48 Tei says:
What MP say.
My favorite stuff from Morrowind is that I am greeted by all NPC’s, I feel warm on my interior to *really* be know and loved as a hero after *YEARS* playing, killing foes, saving people. Morrowind is more a alternate universe, than a videogame. MMORPG games hare becomming lobbys +grindboxes. If you don’t want the lobby part (you don’t want people) theres only teh grindbox. As a RPG, most (reads: all) MORPG suck. Singleplayer RPG’s like Mass Effect, The Witcher, Morrowind or Baldurs Gate, have much better RPG and sould be played insted… And If you like grindboxes anyway, then play some korean free RPG, like Atlantica Online, AION (will be grindintense?), Shaiya Online, Perfect World , Maginobi, Hello Kitty, or other stuff.. IMHO.
27/10/2008 at 08:32 Melf_Himself says:
You’d like Guild Wars. It has a henchmen system where you can obtain a full party of 8 without having to interact with another soul. This includes 3 ‘heroes’ whose stats and gear you can customize to your liking. PvE deliciousness.
Um, ignore what jonfitt said about the grind. It takes maybe a day to get to max level, a couple more days to get the max items in the game. After that, all grind works towards non-essential stuff, ie.
a) Better looking items, with the same stats
b) Cool titles or emotes
c) Unlocking new builds for your character to try
27/10/2008 at 10:42 Mark says:
I never play multiplayer games (cooperatively) unless there’s somebody I know playing it with me. Once there are none left, I quit. It was like that in Planetside, it’s like that in TF2, and it’s the secret sauce of console gaming. I don’t mind competitive-only play against strangers, provided that the only interaction required or minimally expected is that of the game itself – if, in short, aside from the occasional “thanks” or “good game” we are all just bots to each other.
If the only thing I have in common with a person is that we’re both playing the same game at the same time, I don’t want to meet that person. The odds are terrible.
10/11/2008 at 05:10 busby seo test says:
be sports in any game we play…tnx
05/12/2008 at 04:31 Komaru says:
I have to keep this brief, and I wasn’t able to read the whole list of comments, but here goes:
I love single-player games. I prefer to play them with headphones and away from other people. A single player experience is a private matter.
I love multiplayer. I play on AOF (Angry Old Farts) servers whenever I can, because they play for fun and and you don’t get any swearing 13 year olds.
John, after reading your article, my first reaction is to try tell you that “We’re not all that bad.” and defend MMOs and their players. But I can’t honestly. I’ve never enjoyed MMORPGs for long because there’s no RPG. All it is is a glorified math simulator so people can determine the downright best way to do things. And then that’s all anyone ever does. I assume you enjoyed Oblivion? There’s a mod out that lets a few players play in the same world. Perhaps you’d enjoy something like that, since you’d never NEED to meet anyone.
But I’m rambling now. You are entitled to your opinion. I just want you to know that Multi-player CAN be fun. It all depends on the players.
18/12/2008 at 16:34 ugottoknowme2 says:
This is the reason I prefer playing with plp I know in rl, or guildies, those I can trust will not scream at me if im wrong but simply accept it. And yes I play monk in GW (guild wars) and I enjoy the responsibilty. (I love having power over plp ;P)
08/07/2009 at 10:46 Schwerpunk says:
Completely agree with the article. In fact, this more or less mirrors my own psyche. I play MMOs quite a bit, and never, ever team up. Not in the last few years, anyhow.
The only exceptions are when I’m trying out a new trial version, and join into a fellowship by accident, then don’t know how to politely bow out; so I play along for a bit, but it’s absolutely fun-killing for me, and I can’t wait for the first opportunity to split ways.
Here’s a question for others of the same ilk: do you think it’s a fault of the games, themselves, that we don’t enjoy teaming up (in what are supposed to be social, or team-based games), or is it just a personality quirk, that can’t be mitigated by even the most subtle gameplay design?
I remain hopeful.
22/07/2009 at 16:13 TheGabe says:
I totally agree. Other people ruin games for me.
Co-op is fine, but I haven’t played an MMO for years.
I have to say though, Bioware the mightiest at the RPG??
Bethesda dude, that’s all I’m sayin
09/02/2010 at 00:09 Miradan says:
No one will write a counter blog to this because he is absolutely right and there is no grounds for disagreement. I have decided this and so it is true… so long as those despicable ‘other people’ stay out of things. :-P
10/02/2011 at 16:35 AlexTaldren says:
I find it hilarious that the author is arguing that because people might get mad at or put pressure on him, he doesn’t want to play teamwork-related games. Seems like someone is a bit to sensitive to what other people say/think about him.
This idea that someone should expect to be “left alone” when logging into a multiplayer game is idiotic. There are plenty of single-player games out there for you. If you still prefer playing multiplayer games with a solo attitude, then man up, expect people to yell at you sometimes, and get over it.