Jimquisition: Only The Lonely

[stonemaskstoryteller]

Love my friends as I do, sometimes it's just healthy to relax by yourself. If we did everything with our friends what the hell would you talk about? =/
"Hey! you know that quest in Skyrim I was struggling with?"
"umm...yeah. I was there remember?"
"oh. i forgot."

 

[The Funslinger]

In the first year or so I had my Xbox 360, I felt this.

I'd have all my friends being all 'come on CoD. Come on Halo!'

No, I want to play some Red Dead Redemption and just chill for a while!

 

[wrightguy0]

I think there's a time and a place for Co-Op play and online MP, and there are times when playing solo is nice.

I know that i couldn't play Borderlands alone, it just wouldn't be as fun without me and my friends making asses of ourselves in an all consuming miasma of violence and snark

And i will play dishonored alone forever, because it's awesome and intimate and just feels like it was meant to be that way (the lack of MP proves this fact)

Now when GTA comes out, when i need a break from the story, i will gather my friends together for some good old fashioned dogfights in fighter jets, Why? Because that's awesome.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

The point here is that multiplayer shouldn't be at the expense of good single player, so I'm a bit dubious about applying this to RPGs. They don't really have problems with keeping single player intact while adding multiplayer. Take for example the Diablo series, which obviously consists of Diablo 1 and 2 and nothing else. D2 in particular is a perfectly complete RPG experience when played single player and loses absolutely nothing for having multiplayer, but because it DOES have multiplayer, it has also become one of the most entertaining staples of LAN gaming for me and my friends. Why exactly can this not be done for RPGs like skyrim? Dungeon Siege 2, Sacred 2, Titan Quest and such are great but getting old, and this trend of making single-player only games that COULD have multi at NO expense to single is getting very annoying. Yes, axe the multiplayer if the game is supposed to be focused on single-player and anything else would take away from it, but RPG 1p modes are usually impervious to the effects of having multiplayer capability elsewhere on the disc, so why not?

 

[The-Bas]

I played Borderlands 2 alone.
There, i said it.

 

[Sergey Sund]

People who think "loneliness in games" is a bad thing don't get that games are a retreat, an area to relax.
For them, there needs to be constant action, games are entertainment-dynomite, exploding in your face every minute that you play.
Adrenalin-fueled FPS sessions and tense MMORPG raids are a valid way to experience a game.
I guess, after such events, the "everything needs a co-op mode"-people just leave their computer to be alone and relax in the real world while reading a book.
Well, sorry that my lifestyle is not the exact same as theirs.
I like the loneliness in games. It gives me time to immerse myself into a well-constructed virtual environment, enjoying it in ways that I couldn't if I had the constant worry that some Steam-pal simply joined my quiet world.
I want to be alone sometimes in games! The sensory-deprevation tank was an apt analogy for something that I have found: Loneliness is stress-free and safe. You can't fuck up with no-one around, or at least it doesn't matter that much.
Certain parts of your brain can shut off and relax when you're alone, giving you the capacity to deal with your gaming experience more deeply.
I can handle it when someone tells me to stop talking to the NPCs and to stop gawking at the nice environment in an MMORPG because that is not the main point of an MMORPG. However, games like Skyrim have environment, NPCs, basically their atmosphere as the main attraction. The immersion is the entire point!
That just doesn't happen when you're dragged around by one of your friends, who wants to speedrun every quest and who gets annoyed when you stop to smell the roses.

 

[Anchupom]

As a solitary gamer, I agree. A lot of my games are geared to single-player enjoyment... Things like the Assassin's Creed and Devil May Cry series', God of War, Pokemon, Prototype, etc. Yes, Assassin's Creed has multiplayer, but I scarcely play it and when I do I don't ever interact with anyone on it.

Except maybe to hum the jaws theme as I stalk someone.

 

[theklep]

Jim I agree with you on everything. You rock keep up the good work.

 

[KrystelCandy]

I'm just an introvert.

I hate being around people all the time, I get enough of that out at work or going out with friends, when I'm home playing games, I'm more than happy to do it alone. I have multiplayer games... when I want multiplayer I play THOSE, like TF2, or league of legends. Not Dead Space or whatever.

 

[Scyla]

I would love to have Dragon Age 3 and Mass Effect 4 to have a co-op mode to play it together with a friend. Especially after I played The old Republic with a buddy.

That experience was awesome but hindered by the game design of a MMORPG. The scenes were not nearly as epic as in a single player games. You can defeat the best of the best only so many times before it gets dull and you realize that you play a grindfest and not an immersive experience.

But the mechanics for group play in a traditionally single player game worked really well. That shows that you can do it.

Regarding Sim City. Jim you have to understand the inclusion of social networking is the last resort for EA do inject relevance into Sim City before that brand goes down the drain. Please don't destroy their illusion that what they do is still relevant and useful .

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Jim, if you are reading this. I don't care if you don't believe in God. But do you people have to insult everyone who does?
You are being the exact same kind of people that you hate. I know the reasons why you have certain kind of religious people, I live in Pakistan I see some of these people often, my email is on Yahoo and every-time I sign out and am taken to the front page of Yahoo UK (there is no Yahoo Pakistan, and i don't want an account on Yahoo India) and almost every news story there has commentators bordering on the KKK. They use nationalism and sometimes religion to insult people who are different. You insult the UK there you get hundreds of dislikes, insult Muslims or Jews you get hundreds of likes. And I know you actually have to deal with these kinds of people every day in real life.
These are terrible people but their religion has nothing to do with it. Insult them however much you like, insult Muslims or Christians or any other religious group however much you like but please refrain from insulting Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or any other religion.
AlQuaida or the Taliban know nothing about Islam, the Westbro Baptists know nothing about Christianity and I am sure Israel frequently disobeys Judaism.
And if the point isn't clear enough, one of the fiercest famous critics of terrorism, sectarianism and extremism in Pakistan is a bearded religious scholar and lawyer Dr. Tahirul Qadri(he might have been in BBC News recently due to his Tahrir Square style rally outside the parliament house in Islamabad).
Also see your fake nerd girls video again. You mention that you think that evangelical Christians think that Atheists and Muslims spend every minute of every day think of ways to ruin their lives. What does that make you? You think religious people spend every minute of every day thinking of ways to ruin your life?
Previously you were disrespected for being atheists now you are member of some elite club that we don't want to be part of. Is it too much to ask to not have my religion insulted while I watch your insightful opinions(almost all of which I agree with) on video games and all related things? You rue that girls are belittled at conventions due to booth babes but insulting religious people watching a video on something not related to religion is completely fine?

 

[Quellist]

Well shit, Jim pretty much got in my head and said exactly how i feel about gaming. Fuck multiplayer, i like to play a game by myself and be absorbed by it, not have other people to contend with when i want to chill down.

 

[Calvin]

You know Jimmy..... When you starded here I was disapointed in your shows in you to say the least.
However, over the time you concered my hart and I learned to truely apreaciate your insight. Im not shure if you became more enjoable or if I lowered my expectations towards you....
Nevertheless, keep it up, you seem to getting the hang of it

 

[Zenn3k]

I find my friends don't usually like the same kinda games that I do.

Therefore, most of the games I play multiplayer requires me to play with "randoms". Randoms ruin multiplayer.

Therefore I find I prefer single player games, because then I don't have to deal with online randoms. The new SimCity is completely ruined by this forced online-multiplayer, which is sad.

The only kind of game I can STAND to play multiplayer are MMOs, and I usually solo in those as well

 

[Triality]

Oh Jim, you magnificent blasphemer!

Your lecture today reminded me of a book I picked up at my library today, "Quiet: The Secret Power of Introverts." It's basically the first book that tells the Extrovert-loving-earth to fuck off! I -being and introvert- appreciate as much time as I can get in solitude, because it is where I engage myself with distractions, entertainment, enrichment, or recharge for when I am ready to make human contact again. Humans may be social animals, and need some amount of social contact, but like you I really don't appreciate this attitude the mega-developers/publishers are conceiving that everyone wants multiplayer and to not be alone.

Let me share a tiny little secret with everyone: You can only feel lonely around other people most of the time. Gasp! Shocking right?! Being as we are social animals if there is no one around to worry about, our minds don't engage in feeling lonely. More often they work out how to find something (I'm going to say it again, patterns anyone) engaging! I think this evolution of thinking is merely a mutation of the extrovert sneaking his slimy greasy unwanted fingers into parts of life that the introvert wishes be kept alone.

Thanks again for reinforcing what I appreciate in single player, Jim.

 

[ex275w]

There is absolutely no problem with having more options in a game. I've enjoyed, greatly, playing multiplayer in Minecraft and Mass Effect 3, for example. I wouldn't play Minecraft if I was FORCED to be alone, and the multiplayer in Mass Effect is incredibly deep and rewarding, nevermind wildly well-supported by the Bioware and EA.

I don't understand why you would talk down at a game developer for wanting to make a more rounded experience for the player.

The problem is that most of the time these extra options take extra resources. Mass Effect 3, while it has a good multiplayer (from what I've heard), is still played for the most part for the single player. Maybe the campaign wouldn't have been so bad, maybe the ending wouldn't have been horrible, maybe they could've put more Role playing elements.
Sure it's nice to have options, but those options shouldn't take away from the core experience, in fact having more options may limit the depth (and thus more options) of the game. In an opposite example, I think CoD should be online only and shouldn't have single-player.

The best games are those that offer a great single player that can be adapted easily into an online mode, like Tetris.

This argument is exhausted and ought to be retired. You can outspend the gdp of a small island nation with the average AAA game development budget. I'd rather have an alternate avenue of enjoyment in a game I just bought for sixty dollars than have only one playtype with one extra coat of polish. And shame on you for calling Mass Effect 3's campaign "bad". It was fifty hours of tightly composed and emotionally investing excellence, and they fixed the ending.

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/we-play-alone-together-why-conventional-wisdom-about-single-player-games-is

Well I really don't mind one playtype I love modes like the Devil May Cry Bloody Palace, or playing as other characters like the Kratos dressed as a fish. Games should've incentives for being replayed, other than being really good. These options are fun and don't require a lot of the programming work.

The problem is that online multiplayer is the most common and expensive option that is used for games, and it's not really used by as many people as it should be, especially considering how expensive it is compared to other options.

As for Mass Effect 3, I thought everything was rushed and should've happened in Mass Effect 2, so sue me .

 

[IgnisInCaelum]

Welp, Jim's digging. That intro was absolutely fantastic, but I feel like there's a fallacy or two involved in the argument itself. I'm not the only one to consider "loneliness" and "being alone" different things; the quote that set Jim off could've been based on an understanding of the word "loneliness" similar to my own. As I (and possibly Ocean Quigley) would define it, loneliness is by definition a bad thing and something one would only want from particular sorts of games, games designed to exploit players' lonely, discontented feelings. Feeling lonely (again, by my understanding of the term) occurs specifically because a person is unhappy about being alone or not being with trusted/familiar people and would not happen (barring disorders such as depression) to one who is completely fine with his or her aloneness, separation, etc. Maybe Jim had no idea that there was another definition floating around, but then again maybe he just intentionally ignored the point to have something to argue with.

As for singleplayer vs. multiplayer, I'd like to see more multiplayer and especially co-op, but only where it belongs. Fthreear's co-op pretty blatantly wrecked the atmosphere of the game, but in Magicka it's hilarious and useful. I'd love to be able to play Skyrim with a friend (if I had friends, at least) and don't see why that should be completely out of the question for such games. In that particular case there is a bit of loneliness which, though maybe intentional, limits it for me. I can have followers, but they're really not that interesting and definitely nothing like as interesting as having a friend along. I also don't see nearly as much of the co-op being crammed into everything as people like to complain about. Maybe I just don't play the right games, but I've got few that are capable of any sort of co-op and even fewer that have what I'd call "co-op" as opposed to something more like "playing on the same team."

 

[Olas]

Couldn't agree more with Jim on this, seeing as Metroid is my favourite game franchise, in which a feeling of loneliness and isolation is a core aspect of the games aesthetic. There's no way anyone would consider giving one of those a multiplayer mode.

oh....
Well, I'm sure they at least learned from that mistake

face-palms
Oh Jesus, what's wrong with you people.​

When you consider just how immeasurably different single-player and multiplayer gaming is, it's amazing how many games try to cram in both rather than just pick one run with it. There's nothing wrong with playing a game alone, just like there's nothing wrong with reading a book alone or doing anything else that's equally immersive.

However, if I may take issue with one aspect of this episode, it's the use of the word "lonely". I was always under the impression that "loneliness" was an inherently negative quality, or at least one that held a connotation of sadness. Just because you're alone doesn't necessarily mean you're lonely. I spend most of my time alone and I never get lonely, maybe bored, but not lonely. The two aren't synonymous.
I believe it was Sartre who said "If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company".

THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!​

 

[Vault101]

the fact that we even feel the need to point out this and "single player games are still valid" is fucking rediculous

when I play mass effect multiplayer I'm not playing mass effect...I'm playing hoarde mode or whatever it is

at least in Dead space 3's case they dont seem to be gutting the game to make co-op essential

 

[Krantos]

Hey, if it's okay for Jim Sterling to mass insult several million religious people and proclaim himself to be greater than their deity, why can't the other side do the same?

PS: I'm non-Christian.

You do realize Jim is only making a joke right? There's a pretty big line between insulting someone an meaning it and insulting them because it's you're show persona.

I thought it was pretty widely accepted that Jim's Ego on the Jimquisition is just done for a larf.