On Multiplayer

[Unesh52]

This guy's opinion on multiplayer was about the only thing I totally disagreed with him on. Now that he's clarified it, and even seemingly retracted it a bit, we're back on the same page.

I have the opposite of what he has though. I don't mind loosing, but winning makes me feel like a pro. That's why I loved introducing people to Guitar Hero back in High School. They got their panties wet over completing a song on medium, and then I'd come in and ace a solo on Expert, leaving a crowd of slackened jaws in my wake. It was very rewarding.

The only thing that pisses me off in multiplayer is not being able to play. That's why COD gets on my tits so much. It's not getting owned (though sometimes it is when some idiot picks up the bomb and just sits there camping), it's going 24 and 2 in Free for All and then getting disconnected from the server. Instant ragequit. Must be my router.

Incidentally, I much prefer co-op to competitive play if I'm with people I know. With strangers, I'd rather just murder you.

 

[garagnoir]

I understand how you feel. I on the other hand am a very competitive sort, but I come from the days where when you won you gave the other guy a pat on the back and said good job, not teabagged him and proclaimed his mother to be a worthless whore. There's a difference between being competitive and being a total douche bag is what I'm trying to say, and unfortunately it seems to be lost on todays 'youth'. I don't mind losing, especially if it's a hard fought contest, but these 'kids' make me want to reach through my monitor and choke them until their eyeballs pop out of their skull. But, I'm trying to start a revolution of good sportsmanship, and even when faced with Captain I R Doucheington of the USS Total Knob Gobbler I remain calm and polite and simply say "Good Job".

Join the Revolution!

 

[Flauros]

Of course, noones sadder the Sadpants Mcgee....

 

[sketchesofpayne]

Yes, there needs to be a bigger push in the industry for cooperative multiplayer content. I want to play games WITH my friends not AGAINST me friends.

 

[samaugsch]

Listen, not wanting to hang out on xbox live doesn't make you a saddo. Its a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Here is a cool story: I dont like multiplayer with people I dont know because the jerk to normal person ratio is way too high. I dont like playing competitive multiplayer against my friends because I want to stay friends. So that leaves me with coop multiplayer with friends. And I have had some of my best and most memorable gaming experiences playing coop with friends. I dont think this is actually that uncommon.

Cool story, bro. (see what I did there?)

 

[DaHero]

Yahtzee, I'm officially a fan of yours now. I'll be adding this article to my bookmarks so I can send it to all those people in my "friends" list when they ask me to join a CoD game.

I'm tired of competitive multiplayer too, but I'm also good at it. With almost every FPS game I've played I generally have a 2.0 K/D ratio so you think I would enjoy games like BlackOps, but I hate them...every time I die it feels like another failure and I finally got sick of it.

On a side note: Does anyone here want to play some PC co-op stuff? I have a ton of games (mostly RPGs but a few FPS games as well) and would love someone that can think about what they're doing when they play and don't cuss up a storm for no random reason.

I understand how you feel. I on the other hand am a very competitive sort, but I come from the days where when you won you gave the other guy a pat on the back and said good job, not teabagged him and proclaimed his mother to be a worthless whore. There's a difference between being competitive and being a total douche bag is what I'm trying to say, and unfortunately it seems to be lost on todays 'youth'. I don't mind losing, especially if it's a hard fought contest, but these 'kids' make me want to reach through my monitor and choke them until their eyeballs pop out of their skull. But, I'm trying to start a revolution of good sportsmanship, and even when faced with Captain I R Doucheington of the USS Total Knob Gobbler I remain calm and polite and simply say "Good Job".

Join the Revolution!

This too, just saying...

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I think this is the first thing that i have read/seen from you that i completely agree with. i do not despise multiplayer, hell i love it, but i despice that annoying overly competitive part of it, to the point that i wont buy entire games that are based off of it.

good article though overall.

 

[Jumplion]

I'm the same way, really. I don't mind playing Co-op in games, and in certain games I love it, but I tend to stop playing competitive multiplayer games after a few weeks. I just get burned out from it and stop playing, waiting for the next game to try multiplayer at.

 

[mikespoff]

Good article. And my position is similar - I really enjoy co-op multiplayer (in RTS or shooters, etc), but competitive multiplayer just doesn't hold much appeal.

 

[Zero_ctrl]

This is why I love Extra Punctuation.
Because it gives more context for the wild things you say on the show.

 

[Tr3mbl3Tr3mbl3]

I actually find it hilarious how much hate mail you get from fans. The intent behind ZP is half video game reviews and half humor, if you don't get that, watch something more serious, like a Law and Order re-run or those cunts on Jersey Shore.

 

[MazzaTheFirst]

Well I would have to agree on this stance. I normally play games to have fun. That is why in WoW I have never joined a raid and I have never joined arena. Too much epeen flexing. And elitists. I just like messing around, doing the odd battle ground every now and then.

But I am fine when jumping into the fray of something like Team Fortress 2. Most servers that I tend to join are pretty good and have polite people so when a team is losing people still have a go or at least try to do something funny. All heavy rushes are always fun.

Starcraft is probable as close to competitive as I get, but I still do not join many melee modes. Mainly Used Game Settings where it changes the game completely.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I'm very similar. I rarely play competitive multiplayer games anymore except for Black Ops and MW2 on occasion. I also am much more co-op based. I loved playing L4D and still enjoy TF2 when I can and especially enjoy Horde mode in GoW2. I used to be very into the competitive games like Duke Nukem, Command and Conquer, etc, but when I quickly realized I wasn't one of the better players out there I decided that constantly losing wasn't so much fun, and being taunted during it didn't do much either.

 

[Scrythe]

I usually love competitive games. I play racing games, fighters, shooters, whatever online. I've had a blast with quite a lot of different online games over the years. Having said that, I loathe the competitive aspects of WoW.

But what Yahtzee said up there about being "half" competitive is sort of how I feel about Brotherhood's multiplayer. It's fun as hell, but every game mode is the same exact mechanic with different teams, causing me to enjoying only sparingly. It certainly does help me vent my frustrations on other people, though, but it really doesn't give me the drive to finish first, so I generally don't give a shit about my score.

Having said that, I'll be damned if I finish last, though.

 

[Savagezion]

I'm glad you think it's boring. I find it depressing when I don't find it teeth-grindingly aggravating.

I wouldn't say liking to win and hating to lose makes your a poor sport, because I doubt anyone really enjoys losing as much as they like winning.

I will agree that everyone would prefer to win, but that isn't the nature of the beast. It is competitive thus there will be those who have to lose. When I play CoD with my friend, I know one of us has to lose and I know going into it, it will probably be me. Even every online match I don't win most of them unlike my friend. I rarely see him lose and even then he places. However, I don't let it get under my skin - thus the term "hate". I can still enjoy playing just like if I win a whole bunch of matches, I don't think much of it. Yeah, I enjoy winning but I enjoy all the stuff that takes place between the countdown of the match to the last ticks of the clock more than the victory itself. If I have a successful camp going and someone pulls some sly crap and manages to kill my killstreak sometimes I applaud them for it. However, they usually don't hear me because I don't play with a mic.

OT: I'm one of those people that play competitive multiplayer a lot. I play to win and I enjoy the challenges of competitive multiplayer. A common stereotype against competitive players is that they are all smug bastards who want nothing more than to beat someone is less skilled than they are, but that is a severe misconception, it's practically saying anyone that plays single-player is a "skilless noob" and "too shit to compete". I mean, there are people like that, but saying everyone is like that is just generalizing.

My brother yelled a statement I found funny at my fighting nieces playing their Wii this very weekend that just passed. "Winning isn't important, but playing to win is important." Then me and him laughed right after it and discussed the paradox. The nature of a competitive game is to play to win as claiming a victor is what the game is the purpose of the game. However, it is a game at its roots thus most pleasure from it should be had by participating, not mostly being the victor. It's the whole basis of the statement that "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

 

[Le_Lisra]

Neatly summarized why I only play coop, if at all. Nice one.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I think I may have run into that **** from Illinois in, of all games, APB. I'd just lost a close mission which had ended up with me standing near a few members of the opposite team. Before I had a chance to run back to my car, this conversation occured:

Opposing player: "you mad, [my character name]?"
Me: "Naw, it was a close game, lots of fun."
Opposing player: " "

Which is the only type of person worse than the "my victories define me as a person" player- the player who only gets off on ruining the fun of others. If only we could lock those two types away on their own private servers and enjoy playing with normal people....

While I do sometimes play directly-competitive multiplayer, I much prefer co-op. I do very little PvP in WoW and prefer group or 10-man dungeon runs, and I'd really rather play L4D than MW. It's just more entertaining and engaging to me to work with others towards a goal than to mindlessly claw my way to the top of some scoreboard.

With a name like Sadpants, you really have to blame his parents. He never had a chance. The wildly innappropriate actions of his uncle and grandfather probably didn't help either.

His siblings- Emoskirt and Ragesocks- really didn't fare any better.

 

[Deacon Cole]

And this all paints a picture of one thing: that I don't hate multiplayer in itself, I just hate competitive multiplayer. I'm fine until I'm expected to pit my skills against those of another and then I just get edgy. And I think I have a good grasp on why. It's because I have half of a competitive streak. When I say "half" I mean that a full competitive streak means that you love winning and hate losing, whereas I just hate losing and aren't particularly fussed about winning. So on the whole, from an accounting standpoint, it makes more sense just to not play at all. I play games to escape from the misery of daily life, not to feel all pressured from having to prove I'm better at some small meaningless task than some **** in Illinois.

Are you my twin brother?

 

[Diadaladh]

Yeah no one is gonna read thread 110, but i agree to the sad bastadarity.


You know that people stop trying when they end their replies with MOO

 

[Kurt Horsting]

Hating losing doesn't even make you competitive at all. Actually it makes you look like a poor sport. And it keeps you from being objective, and blaming cheating/being cheap/ insert excuse here instead of analyzing why you lost. Understanding a hard fought loss is a much more meaningful then an empty win.