On Multiplayer

[TPiddy]

Amen..... amen to that! I have been known to take in some competitive multi-player every so often, but I absolutely love co-op multi-player. Firefight, horde, left 4 dead, all of that kind of stuff has been fantastic. I only wish I could find an experience like it in the RPG realm.

Two Worlds II has 8 player online co-op, and quite frankly, I think that's enough. I hate MMO's because too many people make you feel totally insignificant. A team with a max of 8 or so makes it so that you still get the multi-player aspect, but you're more of a team with specialized roles. Like Team Fortress, but with dragons.

 

[A Curious Fellow]

Well, that finally explains it.
Thanks, Yahtz. Hopefully the fanboys will leave you alone now.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA yeah right.

Still though, this is very introspective and enlightening. Thanks Mr. Croshaw.

 

[SilverUchiha]

I would just like to point out that I did mention the idea Yahtzee might not like competitive multiplayer but he does seem to like L4D and a few other mentionable titles in some obscure thread a while back when the topic came up.

OT: I'm in complete agreement with this one. I've played competitive multiplayer and co-op and I vastly prefer playing co-op while competitive gets really boring really fast.

 

[Loonerinoes]

That "half-competitive" streak...yep...I think I've got that too oftentimes. Just enough to make you care about losing, but not enough for you to really love winning - it can really be ugly and once identified the best thing to do is to not indulge in it at all.

And personal bests should indeed *always* be tracked. Nice article.

 

[Trogdor1138]

I'm mostly into Co-op when there's a game worth it. I love LittleBig Planet Multiplayer, when I played WoW I really enjoyed doing 5-mans etc.

Super Smash Bros. games were fun since you could co-op or beat the crap out of eachother and have a laugh.

The only real competitive multiplayer I loved was Goldeneye back in the day. It was always in good fun with friends, nowadays when I look at Multiplayer it seems most are in it for the competition and to be better than everybody else, long past the point where it's entertainment and being a good sport. Trash talking seems to be a norm now which I find sad.

Also, this article backed up some of my feelings on Yahtzee himself I've been saying to people, he seems like a nice guy to me and hopefully this helps ease the people who take every comment he says in his videos to heart.

 

[archvile93]

Yea, I can see why he feels that way. Personally I can enjoy both forms of multiplayer, though I lean more toward the co-op ones. I also tend not to be a dick online, or even say anything for that matter. This does not include if they're being a dick such a hacking, glitching, or nonstop trash talking. I remember when one of my team members in CoD was hacking in hardcore mode, so I shot him in the back of the head, got him to rage quit.

 

[Brainst0rm]

I have maybe 3/4 of a competitive streak? I really hate losing, and I like winning, but I never seek out the thrill of being better than an anonymous stranger. I only do global multiplayer with friends, and don't like it much then. It's like - my response to winning and losing is sad and happy respectively, but the sad is very sad, and the happy is like 'oh, cool, I found a one dollar bill in my pocket'; it's nice, but I don't really care.

 

[Kneel]

Pretty much why I went from Quake and Unreal, to WoW, L4D, Killing Floor and so on. Co-operative multiplay has a much more satisfying feel.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't hate multiplayer, I don't even hate competitive multiplayer. I hate ONLINE competitive multiplayer. If I'm going to be completing with someone in a video game, I don't want to compete against some dipshit who'll rub it in my face when I lose.

I also hate those global leader boards on Flash games. It sucks when you think you've done pretty awesome and achieved, what you think, is a decent score, only to find out you're number 25,842nd in the world and the number 1 guy's score is so monstrously higher than yours you might as well go hang yourself.

 

[squid5580]

I think I've got half a competitive streak as well.

Great article this week.

So do I. It is funny I never really considered it til I read it like that but yeah I don't care if I win. I just don't wanna be at the bottom lol.

 

[KDR_11k]

Competitive MP means you get to fight against enemies with more intelligence than your average AI. Just a thought for people who have been frustrated by bad AI in games.

 

[Plurralbles]

How is Okami obscure? Smug stupid hipsters that play videogames actually exist? I had no idea.

Anyway, it's so funny how my friend wants me to get on playstation network so I can play COD with him but you know what I bought so far? God of WarIII and Demon's Souls. That's what I got. Not COD. I like my single player. It's me vs. machine not me vs. you and I love that. I get too pissed when i can give a face to the thing beating me.

 

[ewhac]

I think I have the "useless competetive" streak. I enjoy winning, detest losing, and am completely incapable of the former.

I've been playing multiplayer FPSs for an uncomfortably long time, and used to fancy myself a competent, if unremarkable, player. My game was QuakeWorld (still is, when there are servers running), but lately I've been spending some time in QuakeLive (Quake III Arena with a Web-based lobby).

Over the past several years, I've had to watch my personal benchmark of acceptable performance slide further backward. I started out playing for first place. Then when it became apparent that I wasn't going to get that even half the time, I settled for second place. Then third place. Then ten frags within the winner... Today, it is a monstrous struggle for me to get [em]half[/em] of the leader's score. And this is on servers that, with a straight face, purport to be skill-balanced. There's no way I can blame my equipment (it's good stuff), and I'm quite convinced I haven't gotten any worse over the years -- it's just everyone except me inexplicably seems to have gotten better.

And on those increasingly rare occasions when I do manage to take first place, my reaction is less of "Woo-hoo!" and more of "About fscking time."

So in this respect I must extend my compliments to Yahtzee for his honest analysis and mature management of his own capabilities and reactions. If ever I find myself visiting Brisbane, Australia, I'll probably be glowering right alongside him.

 

[wasalp]

That's why I like local multiplayer a lot better than online multiplayer. If I'm going to beat someone or lose to someone, I want to know who they are so I can either a) ridicule them for sucking at the game or b) ridicule them for caring so much about winning and that they really need to get a life.

I'm also a fan of co-op, but getting a game for the co-op play usually just reminds me that I live an hour away from any of my friends that enjoy competitive video games and how little I'm actually going to get to enjoy the co-op aspect of my new game.

man that reminds me of a time when I was playing starcraft against this kid. I won the match even tough he was using a hack. Much gloating came of with that victory.


great video Yatzhee.

 

[Korolev]

Yes, this is the reason I do not play Starcraft II. However, "competitive" is really what you make of it. When I play COD:BO (or to say, when I did play it, since I've stopped), I never played it with the mindset that I had to come in first - I just played to the best of my abilities and had fun.

Many of these multiplayer games do not require you to be extremely skilled or to practice all the time. RTS games do, but RTS is a funny genre. With FPS games, TPS games, puzzle games, racing games, you can do reasonably well if you just play every now and then.

TF2 is a good example of this - if you practice a hell of a lot, you can rip up the competition in no time. But just playing casually on public servers can be fun and enjoyable. The trick is to find the right sort of people to play with. Usually, if you're a casual MP player, you don't really want to go up against Clans who spend their time practising (like blood BiF on TF2 Internode #14. DAMN THEM and their stacking of BLU. DAMN THEM).

 

[Tiewing]

Well done Yahtzee. I share the same view on multiplayer entirely. It's funny how this is just one of those things about gaming that actually relates to not only the type of gamer you are but also the type of person. While winning sometimes holds its own thrill for me, if only for a brief period of time, its losing that has the most effect on me. It seems as if the only reason I want to win anything is to relieve the anxiety of possibly losing.