Goth Mercenaries

[The_Amaster]

I totally agree with you on TF2. I absolutely loved it when it first came out...the game had so much character and style. It was fun, carefree and pretty non-elitist. You could get really good at the classes if you wanted to, but it was still perfectly acceptable to run around on pure dumb luck and fun.
I stopped playing after overdoing it for a few weeks, a few updates came out, and have since felt unable to rejoin due to all the changes. I realize that I could probably get back into the swing of it, but why? I liked it how it was, I'm happy to remember it that way, and have no particular interest in getting slaughtered by the obsessive TF2 cultists.

As for WoW, I play off and on primarily due to the friends I've made in the game and love the social aspects, but I definitely understand where you're coming from. I've met a few folks like that, and make characters on random servers once in a while to enjoy that feeling of being the gothic mercenary. It is rather fascinating that an MMO can be so enjoyable on one's own.

Cool article.

I dunno, I only got into TF2 about a year ago, and it doesn't seem like its filled with obsessive micromanagers as much as other games. I mean I've currently got like a .8/1 kill/death ratio, that's not bad for a guy who only pops on on weekends.

As for the MMOG thing, yeah, I'm currently playing Star Trek, and I just prefer the single player experience. Yeah, joining other people can be fun, but by and large, I'm treating it single player.

 

[MurderousToaster]

I want to use the double-piped bong rifle.

It sounds awesome.

Where can I buy one?

 

[Raithnor]

The only reason I bother with MMOs is because the genre associated with specific MMOs aren't usually mainstream genres.

I play City of Heroes and Star Trek Online because they generally do not have single-player games with roughly the same gameplay experience. The biggest reason I would play The Old Republic is because they're not making KoTOR 3. However I have no use for WoW with games like Dragon Age and the hundred other fantasy single player RPGs floating about.

One trend I've noticed is less of a need to group to actually play through the game. Sure you need people for raid-like content, but the average gameplay experience can usually be soloed, even with "support characters".

Here's the thing: I don't socialize while I team unless it's with a group I already know. Otherwise it's a "know your role" situation, you don't yak about strategy over chat and vent unless the current approach isn't working. Otherwise even a reasonably decent PUG can steamroll through most content.

If I want to socialize then I usually go to the social hubs in the game and just hang out, then the MMO becomes a very pretty chatroom.

 

[johnman]

I see his point, I couldn't bring myself to play morrowind because the world was dead and boring, outside the cities it was just a barren wasteland with little to see or do, and the cities themselves felt hollow. Same appiles to Oblivion, though I had much more fun with that since I felt encouraged to explore.
I tried to get into Morrowind on 4 occasions before people pile on the hate, that game is incredibly popualar for some reason.

 

[qbanknight]

heh you really have a love-hate relationship w/ valve, on one hand they create excellent games; on the other they keep tinkering with an old one and keep holding off the conclusion to a series to infinity and beyond

 

[Benjeezy]

I love these. Look forward to them each week.

He made excellent points about Borderlands, too.

 

[Salidin54]

Maybe it's because I'm a Diablo 2 fan, but I really like Borderlands, until I got to the final boss fight. At that point I just gave up on the game and now I can't bring myself to play it unless I'm playing with a friend.

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

Maybe we need a game that actively punishes people for being dimwits. And it needs to be the awesomest game ever so dimwits have no choice but to play it. We'll make finishing it be a requirement to get a driver's license. In the end, this game will crush the stupid out of humanity like an unusually entertaining Skinner's box.

You're talking about Demon's Souls there.

Actually, Demon's Souls multiplayer is a lot like Yahtzee's "soloing in an MMO" as well... there are constant reminders that other people are around and playing the game, which is great even if you take it on mostly as a single-player enterprise.

About Borderlands: that thread was a sweaty man train of Yahtzee's me-toos, it was sad. Yeah I can see why someone who only played single-player or with a bunch of jerks online would say the game's no good. Someone who only plays with himself or a bunch of jerks would say the same about a deck of cards or having sex. Dead wrong on all counts, and I pity anyone whose life is empty enough that they can't arrange a good time in any of the above activities.

 

[_Serendipity_]

Interesting article, it seems you play MMOs in the exact opposite way to me. I play these games almost exclusively for the social aspect. I don't mean, of course, that I live out my social life on there, IM-ing my guild-buddies to talk about shoes, but rather than I enjoy the multi-player aspect far above anything else.

For this reason, possibly my favourite game of all time is EVE online. Yes, I mean game in general. As much as I love my single-player games, none of the compare to EVE presuming you play it with other people. As a single-player game it's fucking awful, and always will be by it's very nature.

I played solo for about three weeks and hated it, and was about to quit when, on a whim, I joined up with a corporation (which is somewhat of a misnomer with bad connotations, think of it as a guild or clan) and had a year of amazing fun. I had to quit in the end, because work murdered my playing-time, but everything I ever did that was fun in that game was entirely due to other players.

(ATLAS forever )

 

[Abedeus]

"Complain, complain, no nerdrage is bad, complain, TF2 complains, CONTENT IS BAD COMPLAINS".

Seriously? You complain that they've kept the game healthy and fresh after over two years? That they keep giving players new, fun maps, new weapons to promote different styles and roles for classes?

 

[KDR_11k]

The only kinda-MMO I currently play is Global Agenda and although I haven't joined any guilds it just isn't a game where you can ignore other players because you run through discrete missions and they are either regular FPS competitive matches or Left 4 Dead style cooperative missions. There is no solo play, no bots to fill spots, only other humans. Making friends helps with making sure your team has a lower rate of doofuses though.

 

[ntw3001]

I am in favour of pretty much everything Yahtzee has said in this article! Except for the level of Borderlands-hate. I find the same problems with it, I just don't despise it to such a degree. The look of it sways me; I still want to play it on occasion because it looks pretty. Also, I'm not sure what the issue might be with the final boss. I don't think it had an excessive number of hit points, it was just that it was a really poor fight. Aside from the odd attack that forced me to step a few feet to one side, it worked out as an exercise in holding M1 with my right hand and drinking tea with my left. I guess if it had had fewer hit points I could have finished it quicker and cradled the tea in both hands, which would have been warm, but the number of hit points was far from the main fault there.

Also, TF2: Right on. I've been playing it since the pyro update so I'm familiar with all the changes, but I sure as hells wouldn't bother starting now. It used to have instantly-understandable visuals, now it has bright colours and spinning things everywhere. I tried to introduce a friend to it, but he kept standing too near to one spinning thing, or too far from a slightly different spinning thing, and dying because of it.

Also, some unlocks change the role of the class a little too drastically (well, the medic and demo). Time was, you could see two or more demomen on your team and be assured that there would be some kind of explosions happening. Now, the only way to know if there's a single explosion-making dude around is to find every friendly demo and look for the tiny shield. Or ask, but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

 

[Xanadu84]

As much as I love single player games, and likely play them more often then multiplayer games, I have to say that he is just plain wrong about a game absolutely needing to stand on its single player alone. Chess is a good game. Pen and Paper RPGs are, frequently, good games. Plenty of sports are good, from a design perspective at least. To say that modern day games, with all the technology we have, can't focus on a social experience does a disservice to the medium. If he happens to not like multiplayer without a single player component, hey, some people juggle Geese. But that's his personal perspective, and not a perspective that can be generalized to all that many other gamers, or really be taken as a useful perspective in encouraging better games. There is no reason why a developer should shrink away from an attempt to craft a game experience that involves social interaction as the primary focus. Why would someone so vocal about the need for innovation in games discount an entire realm of potential play experiences? Gaming has evolved for the better in many ways, and exploring a more social form of play is a great leap forward. And while Yahtzee is just stating his opinion and being funny, I have to say that it carry's with it all the, "I don't like it, therefore it sucks" stigma of an abrasive fanboy, hating on the opposing intellectual property of there choice. Multiplayer is a legitimate choice for game design, and brings most gamers hours of entertainment and exploration, and I don't think we would be better off if a game designer threw an incredibly brave and innovative idea for a game out the window because it did not lend itself to a single player experience.

 

[A1]

Yahtzee brings up an interesting point. Borderlands WAS popular for a while after it's release before it largely fell by the wayside so to speak.

I guess that's what makes a good game different from a great game. Namely the ability to make a long-lasting impression. I guess one such example of a great game by this token is Final Fantasy VII.

 

[ntw3001]

I don't think there's really any reason to complain that he doesn't pay attention to multiplayer, because the list of things Yahtzee does not review is colossal. He reviews the single-player components of a game, and that's fair enough. He's always upfront about that when it's relevant (like with Borderlands), and it's not like he's ever pretended to give any kind of objective opinion. He reviews a game and says what he likes (or, sometimes, dislikes) about it.

 

[LordWalter]

/snicker
YOU HAVEN'T ACTUALLY PLAYER!?

=D

 

[mechanixis]

What I find is that MMO's actually break immersion more than anything else; while the world is indeed living and breathing, it's not so much a world as a sort of meta-world. A meta-world where everyone runs as fast as they can at all times, speaks only in acronyms, and does all the same things you're doing (even though you were under the impression you had received an exclusive request to retrieve the Amber Starstone from the Harpy Nest for that fellow back in town). Nations, settlements, even the very citizens of the world are all completely static, and no matter what you do, you have this niggling awareness that nothing will ever, ever change in this world for better or worse.

Personally I'd prefer MMO's with more realistic restrictions on player movement - enforced walking and no willy nilly hopping - but usually that results in agonizingly slow travel. Perhaps if MMO worlds were designed a little more content-dense?

 

[Shjade]

"If a game is only fun when you and your friends do it together then that's a review of your friends, not the game." <-- exactly the point I was making in the Borderlands review comments.

@A1: making a long-lasting impression doesn't make something great, it makes it memorable. Something can be memorable for being terrible just as easily as for being great, or, as in FF7's case, for being a sort of landmark: not great, not bad, but a breakthrough into RPG-ville for enough players to change the playing field in a dramatic fashion. It's a gateway game. Or was. I dunno if new players are still picking that up to get an introduction to RPGs these days. Somehow I doubt it but I suppose it's possible.

 

[carpathic]

A curious parallel between MMOGs and TF2, which, while an MMOG doesn't seem like one to me.

I suppose that should I ever play an MMOG (which seems unlikely) I would likely loop in under the lone wolf style player. I'd much rather just play oblivion.