Board Games: The Ultimate Multiplayer Experience

[Nazrel]

Man, the video game industry really needs cool it with their censorship.

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

did you REALLY think it would be smart to post THAT nonsense?

its irrelevent to the topic and suggests your some kind of post-bot.

It was a joke. The implication was that the reason that it's still 404 is becuase the video game industry doesn't want anyone saying that board games are better than video games.

 

[Omegatronacles]

Man, the video game industry really needs cool it with their censorship.

You waited 2 years. 2 whole years without making a single post. For that?

*SLAP* You FOOL!!!

OT: The link is broken. I'm certain they know about it. I'm certain that they will fix it.

 

[Andronicus]

Man, the video game industry really needs cool it with their censorship.

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

did you REALLY think it would be smart to post THAT nonsense?

its irrelevent to the topic and suggests your some kind of post-bot.

Uh, I think it was supposed to be a joke...

OT: Alright guys, lets get this discussion on the road!
I was never really much of a boardgame person, but I can totally see where this article might be coming from, if I could read it. When it comes to multiplayer, there really aren't any better examples than a game of Risk or Monopoly. When it comes to all-inclusive, social gameplay, boardgames have been right on the money for centuries, even millenia.

Of course, judging by the tag ("Board games excel at the very thing videogames are forgetting: playing face to face"), we can assume the article is based heavily on the comparison between actual face-to-face gameplay, which I can agree with is some ways, but not others. You can still have a LAN party or play a multiplayer game on a console, and this means you'd still be more or less face-to-face. The biggest problem is practicality; having to cart your PC or console around to friend's places and setting them is certainly going to be more of a hassle than grabbing a box out of your cupboard and cracking it open. Furthermore, boardgames offer a degree of flexibility as well. Whereas you'll be expected to play according to the rules in a videogames, boardgames allow you to bend or change rules on the fly to make the gameplay more exciting. Of course, board games do come with their own limitations; I mean, when was the last time you got an epic headshot playing Cluedo? And they're designed for almost exclusively for multiplayer use.

But, I think that with the surge in online gaming, and the disabling of LAN in some games (*cough*starcraft*cough*), the industry is forgetting the essence of what makes multiplayer gaming fun, specifically other people. Boardgames show us that it's playing with our own friends and family (and consequently grinding them into the dust) that make the experience enjoyable. If you're playing on something like Starcraft 2's new Battle.Net, which connects you to a random player, you lose that sense of playing with other people. You know that there's a real person of the other side, building additional pylons and calling you a noob, but without being face-to-face, including the fact that the system will just connect you to another faceless player next time, you lose the sense of sociability and "playing with real people" that you're not going to get with anything else than a board game.

So, is this sort of what the article is hitting at?

 

[GloatingSwine]

I was never really much of a boardgame person, but I can totally see where this article might be coming from, if I could read it. When it comes to multiplayer, there really aren't any better examples than a game of Risk or Monopoly. When it comes to all-inclusive, social gameplay, boardgames have been right on the money for centuries, even millenia.

Ironically, two of the worst games in the entire world.

Monopoly especially is a hideous excrescence. It takes hours to play, but from a quarter of the way through the game it's bloody obvious who's going to win, there's no real significant strategy involved because it's just roll and move, buy up whatever you land on, wait until people get ground out of the game because they weren't lucky with their initial dice rolls and are stuck with no sets or shit sets.

Risk is less bad, except for the taking a billion years to play but not being sufficiently complex to engage for the time thing, and half of the time whoever starts off strongest in Australia can turtle there collecting easy continent bonus until they have a monster armyblob and then rampage across the world.

Board games are great, if you play good ones. Carcasonne (or Continuo, an abstract of the same game style), Struggle for Empire, Nuclear War (or Naval War), Battle Cry, Samurai, Lost Cities, the real good games are out there, but they're not the ones your parents have heard of.

 

[Andronicus]

Board games are great, if you play good ones. Carcasonne (or Continuo, an abstract of the same game style), Struggle for Empire, Nuclear War (or Naval War), Battle Cry, Samurai, Lost Cities, the real good games are out there, but they're not the ones your parents have heard of.

...or me, apparently.

I can see what you mean about Monopoly and Risk though. As I said, I'm not much of a boardgamer; I can't really say I've even played either of those two games in years. I was only really using them as examples. In the context of my post, they are less "examples of good boardgames" than they are "good examples of boardgames", good examples meaning ones that everyone would know.

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

Man, the video game industry really needs cool it with their censorship.

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

did you REALLY think it would be smart to post THAT nonsense?

its irrelevent to the topic and suggests your some kind of post-bot.

It was a joke. The implication was that the reason that it's still 404 is becuase the video game industry doesn't want anyone saying that board games are better than video games.

awww... ive been waiting for an opportunity to say

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

for a while now. >_<

 

[tscook]

Until this article works lets attempt to predict which games get a nod:

Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne
Battlestar Galactica or Pandemic
Small World or Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico or Power Grid

 

[lacktheknack]

Man, the video game industry really needs cool it with their censorship.

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

did you REALLY think it would be smart to post THAT nonsense?

its irrelevent to the topic and suggests your some kind of post-bot.

It was a joke. The implication was that the reason that it's still 404 is becuase the video game industry doesn't want anyone saying that board games are better than video games.

awww... ive been waiting for an opportunity to say

OOBER FAILZORGUS​

for a while now. >_<

Oh dear. Consider going over to the derailment thread and say it there.

And yes, 404 fail.

 

[DoW Lowen]

Reminds me of this poem I found on the internet:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while i porn surfed, weak and weary,
over many a strange and spurious site of 'hot chicks galore'.

While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark,
Suddenly there came a warning,
And my heart was filled with mourning,
Mourning for my dear amour.

'Tis not possible!, I pleaded,
But my browser, so conceited,
Remained blank, I then repeated,
Just a blank and nothing more.

With a scream, I was defeated,
For my cookies were deleted,
So i begged, no longer seated,
Give me back my free hardcore!

Then, in answer to my query,
Through the net I loved so dearly,
Came its answer, dark and dreary:

Quoth the server,
404

 

[Omegatronacles]

Reminds me of this poem I found on the internet:

Once upon a midnight dreary,
while i porn surfed, weak and weary,
over many a strange and spurious site of 'hot chicks galore'.

While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark,
Suddenly there came a warning,
And my heart was filled with mourning,
Mourning for my dear amour.

'Tis not possible!, I pleaded,
But my browser, so conceited,
Remained blank, I then repeated,
Just a blank and nothing more.

With a scream, I was defeated,
For my cookies were deleted,
So i begged, no longer seated,
Give me back my free hardcore!

Then, in answer to my query,
Through the net I loved so dearly,
Came its answer, dark and dreary:

Quoth the server,
404

Your post sir, it is full of win.

Thank you for making my day a little bit better.

 

[Ben66]

Geez, an entire day and it's still not fixed? Did the entire Escapist staff just decide to go on vacation randomly?

 

[MasterSplinter]

Until this article works lets attempt to predict which games get a nod:

Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne
Battlestar Galactica or Pandemic
Small World or Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico or Power Grid

The only one there I haven't played is Caracassonne.

I don't own any games, but through a friend I found out of some sort of lan party for board games, we meet once a month in a place we rent (everybody chips in for that), we gather up all the games we've got (I haven't got any because they are kind of expensive and a big hassle to get here in Uruguay) and we play all night different games. I've found that everybody's super cool and very eager to teach how to play (although every game has a manual it's often MUCH easier to learn if somebody is teaching) and to spread the word on "designer board games".

Really, more people should know of these games they are A LOT of fun and there is a thing for everybody.
There even is a zombie game whith a small town sheriff, a prom queen, a nurse, a drifter, a priest, an all kind of zombie movie stereotypical hero characters. There are guns, building you can enter, and you can do all kind of crazy shit, like strap dinamite to something (like a dog) and then shoot it from afar to blow up the horde. You can play as the zombies too. Just though you L4D fans might like to know.

 

[syndicated44]

Until this article works lets attempt to predict which games get a nod:

Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne
Battlestar Galactica or Pandemic
Small World or Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico or Power Grid

I had no idea any of these existed. Or for that matter where I would possibly get them. I was never that much into board games mostly because I have no one ever to play them with. But I will have to look some of those up and try to convince some people to play it with me.

On a side note how in the hell would you possibly play the game Puerto Rico?

 

[tscook]

Really, more people should know of these games they are A LOT of fun and there is a thing for everybody.
There even is a zombie game whith a small town sheriff, a prom queen, a nurse, a drifter, a priest, an all kind of zombie movie stereotypical hero characters. There are guns, building you can enter, and you can do all kind of crazy shit, like strap dinamite to something (like a dog) and then shoot it from afar to blow up the horde. You can play as the zombies too. Just though you L4D fans might like to know.

Ah Last Night on Earth. Excellent game!

I had no idea any of these existed. Or for that matter where I would possibly get them. I was never that much into board games mostly because I have no one ever to play them with. But I will have to look some of those up and try to convince some people to play it with me.

On a side note how in the hell would you possibly play the game Puerto Rico?

Most cities and towns have game stores, usually focusing on Games Workshop (Warhammer Fantasy/40k) and Wizards of the Coast products (Magic: the Gathering). However, many of these stores also carry designer games. Barring that, there are lots of reputable online stores.

As for Puerto Rico, I am going to steal this description from BoardGameGeek, an amazing resource:

The players are plantation owners in Puerto Rico in the days when ships had sails. Growing up to five different kind of crops: Corn, Indigo, Coffee, Sugar and Tobacco, they must try to run their business more efficiently than their close competitors; growing crops and storing them efficiently, developing San Juan with useful buildings, deploying their colonists to best effect, selling crops at the right time, and most importantly, shipping their goods back to Europe for maximum benefit.

The game system lets players choose the order of the phases in each turn by allowing each player to choose a role from those remaining when it is their turn. No role can be selected twice in the same round. The player who selects the best roles to advance their position during the game will win.

 

[Jesse Custer]

I mean, when was the last time you got an epic headshot playing Cluedo? And they're designed for almost exclusively for multiplayer use.

Board games have their clutch moments as well. The other day I was playing my first game of Shadows Over Camelot [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot] and I happened to have put down the card that allowed the "good" side to win the next test with just a tie. The traitor soon finished the game, not realizing that his bonus for remaining undiscovered until the end wasn't enough, thanks to my card.

Try looking into what many call the "euro" games. Many games that are usually designed in Germany (apparently they have a market for board games like the US has for video games).

As a replacement for Risk, for example, let me suggest a just-as-simple but more epic in feel war game that also has no randomness in its gameplay: Antike [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/19600/antike].

By the way, those links are both to the famous BoardGameGeek listings. The best feature of that site is the attention to details you'd have to start a thread to normally get an answer for - check out the "User Suggested # of Players", for example, or the "Mechanic".

 

[Jesse Custer]

Until this article works lets attempt to predict which games get a nod:

Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne
Battlestar Galactica or Pandemic
Small World or Ticket to Ride
Puerto Rico or Power Grid

I had no idea any of these existed. Or for that matter where I would possibly get them. I was never that much into board games mostly because I have no one ever to play them with. But I will have to look some of those up and try to convince some people to play it with me.

On a side note how in the hell would you possibly play the game Puerto Rico?

I'll assume you're in the US (I rolled a die and it came up US) and suggest the sponsor for a good podcast I listen to (The Dice Tower): Funagain Games [http://www.funagain.com/control/main/~affil=DICE].

Of that list I haven't yet played Battlestar Galactica, Pandemic, Small World and Power Grid. The first two I really want to try (especially BG - talk about stressful!)...

About Puerto Rico, though: it's not a game you'd pull out and present to your friends as an introduction to board gaming - even if it's ranked the top board game ever created [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame/page/1?sort=boardgamerank]. But, if you ever sit down to learn it and suffer through the set up (it's one of my favorite games but the setup is long), it's extremely simple. My experience (and I introduced it, in retrospect, a bit early) was that we get through three or four rounds and everyone "gets it" and wants to start over so they can "really" play.

Here's a couple of great podcasts that teach Puerto Rico, the first one I enjoy more and is still in existence the latter is a video explanation but starts off badly because he thinks it's difficult to explain (I disagree). The How to Play podcast (choose episode #7) [http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-how-to-play-podcast/id335879651] and the Board Games with Scott podcast [http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-play-puerto-rico-board-game-194061/].

 

[Jesse Custer]

As for Puerto Rico, I am going to steal this description from BoardGameGeek, an amazing resource:

I like to introduce people with this:

In Puerto Rico you can only do the action described on your chosen role card (the Builder role allows everyone to build buildings, the Trader role allows everyone to trade their goods in for money) and you get a special privilege for choosing that role. These actions follow very strict rules which the violet buildings allow you skirt or break.

 

[Jesse Custer]

all the games we've got (I haven't got any because they are kind of expensive and a big hassle to get here in Uruguay) and we play all night different games. I've found that everybody's super cool and very eager to teach how to play (although every game has a manual it's often MUCH easier to learn if somebody is teaching) and to spread the word on "designer board games".

I agree wholeheartedly! I just went to visit the country of my birth (Uruguay), for the first time, a couple of months ago and I wanted to buy Carcassonne [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne] for my cousins and The Kids of Carcassonne [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41010/the-kids-of-carcassonne] for their children and not one store could even order it for me. I saw there was a really expensive store in Argentina but I opted to wait until I got back to Paris to buy and ship them from here.

Really, more people should know of these games they are A LOT of fun and there is a thing for everybody.
There even is a zombie game whith a small town sheriff, a prom queen, a nurse, a drifter, a priest, an all kind of zombie movie stereotypical hero characters. There are guns, building you can enter, and you can do all kind of crazy shit, like strap dinamite to something (like a dog) and then shoot it from afar to blow up the horde. You can play as the zombies too. Just though you L4D fans might like to know.

There's definitely something for everyone. The themes run the gamut - you can be a hard-trading bean farmer looking to get richer than the next bean farmer in the amusing Bohnanza [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11/bohnanza], a wild-West gunslinger trying to get ahead in the rough-and-tumble location of Dice Town [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40793/dice-town] (think "interactive Yahtzee"); you can be a member of the knights of the Round Table in Shadows Over Camelot [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/15062/shadows-over-camelot] as it is under siege on multiple fronts; you can face off against the English and use hit-and-run tactics with the Braveheart, William Wallace, in Hammer of the Scots [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3685/hammer-of-the-scots]; or you could settle down with a wife and try and become a successful farmer in 17th century Europe, while feeding your family, raising livestock and growing your crops in Agricola [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31260/agricola].

Heh, I wonder if someone who plays Farmville would like Agricola... (I have no idea but I think the theme is the same (he says, without having ever tried Farmville).)

 

[Jesse Custer]

Here's what I think videogames should learn from board games to improve multiplayer:

In board games losing is not a bad thing.

>snip<

That's what multiplayer games don't get. Losing should be fun. They keep trying for a best of both worlds approach (let's let the bad player be a support class while the hardcore worries about his kill/death ratio), but they only ever muddle the experience for experienced players while remaining inaccessible to newcomers who get called names when they are not proficient in whatever they are learning how to do.

So yeah, here's my boardgame-induced advice to game designers everywhere: remember to make losing fun. At least as much fun as winning. Nintendo gets this beautifully, and I don't mean in Wii Sports, I mean in Mario Kart or Mario Party. Take notice.

Yep. In addition, in many euro-style board games, you don't even know who's going to lose (or even win, in some cases) until the game is over.

I remember getting that feeling in some video games: Combat Mission [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Mission_%28video_game_series%29], Myth: The Fallen Lords [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_%28series%29] and Shogun: Total War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogun:_Total_War]. Hmm, but maybe that's because those were tactical games with fog-of-war and your whole house of cards could collapse at a moment's notice if you didn't keep on your toes... Actually, FPS games with one-bullet kills also gave me that sensation, like my old favorite Rogue Spear [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Spear].