On Multiplayer

[daftalchemist]

If hating losing and not caring about winning is half a competitive streak, then I have a quarter of a competitive streak. I don't mind winning. It can be pretty cool. Doesn't get me in a tizzy. I also don't really care about losing either though. I don't particularly like it, certainly don't prefer it, but I would rather get my ass handed to me in a hurry so I can just move on with the rest of my day.

 

[cloudsurfer45]

If XBL was not populated by 12 year old cunts I would like multiplyaer much more. The only time I ever play FPS online is when its local or LAN games with people I know personally. When some douchebag 14 year old feels the need to proclaim vast superiority over me because he can camp in an area to get instant headshots when you round that corner is basically when I lose faith in humanity. Co-Op I just have much more fun with but even sometimes you come across total pricks in that also that gloat because they got more zombie headshots than you or a higher gamerscore. My extent of competitive games is getting drunk playing UNO or Texas Hol Em' on XBLA which I do often.

 

[Sovereignty]

This article saved my life.

No really. I will never break another controller, because it all finally makes sense.

AVOID competitive multi-player! It's so simple!

 

[thereverend7]

is he joking when he says it took him 56 hours? i hope so... it took me 2. and i have a shitty laptop.

 

[CoL0sS]

I love playing multiplayer, with or without my friends, local or online , but I agree with Yahtzee's "game must stand on singleplayer alone" policy. Multiplayer (or any kind of team activity) can be really enjoyable if you don't make it about winning every single time. I can tolerate 12 year old kids jabbering on in their native language, being harrased by characters 20 lvl higher than me, spawn campers, wall hackers, auto aimers as long as I have mute button, flying mount or thousand other servers to join There's always a way to deal with assholes. Also I agree with what he said about WoW. 5-mans are much more enjoyable for me cause I always know what I am and what's my role. In raids you'll always be sized up; measured by other people's sometimes unreasonable expectations. This is why I take long breaks from WoW, cause I get tired of people constantly pressuring me to play a certain role, hit a certain DPS number, know every single tactic off the top of my head, or just play for 50 hrs a week. For me it just stops being a game and becomes more of a full-time job. Except I have to pay for it.

 

[Deadcyde]

i remember the good old days of quake CTF

stabbing some bad guys so you could get enough blood to summon a shambler to stand next to you as you ran around with a quadded rocket launcher, screaming for death while grenade spamming your ass off. If you fragged yourself into gibblets, you giggled, clicked fire to respawn and went back at it. hell, you'd even play with a ping of 250.

now it's all guilds and upgrades and lag. no wonder i prefer single player. (unless it's a lan party)


in the words of liza minelli.

balls to you (multiplayer).

 

[kypsilon]

Yeah, I've been resurrected into body form in Demon's Souls enough only to have a black phantom invade my game and kill me from the cheap seats because he's trying to farm his dark points or whatever...yeah...not a fan.

I will say multiplayer with the right group is very cool though.

 

[KO4U]

This isn't a bad argument, but I feel you've stated this plainly before and are just giving into irritation.

 

[Ghengis John]

Well this explains your problem with fighters Yahtzee.

This might sound kind of sad, but I've been looking for somebody to play through dead rising 2 with on the 360. If anyone's interested feel free to let me know.

 

[John Horn]

I hold the same opinion as Yahtzee. I was once quite competitive, and pretty "deadly", as a 14 year old Half-Life player. Was in clans under various nicknames. We went as high up as the #3rd best HL clan at one point. Then to Unreal Tournament. But then I grew up, I guess. Competitiveness is partly OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). I know a Hi-Score freak, who for example has to collect every little feather in Assassin's Creed. Or be #1 at Civilization (which he was, and that is actually meritable). My point is, that you are only proving yourself better at something which is meant to be a fun experience. Some games are built on competitivesness. Starcraft 1 and 2, not changed a bit in 12 years, is a competition in how quickly you can press the mousebuttons in rapid succession in performing a number of simple tasks. You need good tactics, but also a high "APM" (Actions Per Minute). Competition is a never-ending game, where "there's always going to be a bigger fish" (as someone said in Star Wars Ep 1).

I have eventually learned about myself, that I enjoy a game for the immersive experience, of pretending to be in another world. That's what Red Dead Redemption did so well.
Or a game of Total War - where I immerse myself in my virtual family tree, plan for the grand strategies, and fight battles to my best ability.
Though I can still enjoy a team-based FPS, like Day of Defeat, Battlefield series, or Red Orchestra. I always find that there are imbeciles who teamkill for the smallest of reasons.
Let's say I'm a good tank-driver in RO, and if someone else wants the tank and doesn't get it, they may teamkill me for it. Now this is primarily a problem of humanity, but it's also a problem of game design. Multiplayer games needs to limit such human behavior. A class system helps keep teamkilling down. In Battlefield, anyone can use any vehicle - as a result, there are more TK'ing than in Red Orchestra where there are classes. Multiplayer game design need to take into account the frailty of touchy human emotions.

Another point I have to make is this: The greatest things humans have ever done, have been when we have cooperated. Look at real life human endeavours like architecture and science. Sure, there is competition, but the competition is purposeful.
Co-op is a lot of fun because of it.

Trion's "End of Nations" is going to be an MMO RTS where everyone is fighting a huge AI superstate.
Basically PVE - I have hopes for it.

 

[RyuuHakumei]

i have a very similar outlook, but i simply enjoy it for the challenge, who wins or looses dosen't bother me that much, and my friends don't realise this. i don't care who wins and as such i don't really try that hard... if someone makes me want to win by, say, pissing me off, i usually can, and will win.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

I enjoy competitive games that require a good balance of skill and teamwork to win. Light competition in games like Team Fortress 2 is good to me because you can have a heated battle against the other team and at the end everyone has a good laugh over it. It's the hardcore games like CoD where everyone yells at each other even though their on the same team that gives me the reflex to pause and mute everyone as fast as possible. Even when our team is winning there will always be THAT guy who feels the need to insult everyone for sucking at a game they're just trying to enjoy.

ZP is right, it's not the multiplayer, it's the people.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

I feel the same about multiplayer to a point.

To all the people saying that multiplayer is what you make of it... I would have to disagree and here's why.... People.

Voices can be muted, game join ups can be controlled, groups can be found, there are really a load of reasons that online multi-player can be, and is, an enjoyable experience. Which isn't to say there aren't tons of reasons they can be a pain, but most of the time it's far more likely to be in a good game than a bad one.

But I guess this disagreement can be chalked up to the same kind of smug ignorance like Yahtzee's "Whedon has no voice for characters". It's one thing to argue against something and another to be totally ignorant to options yet still attempt to maintain some kind of superiority on the case.

1) Voices can be muted - This only applies to Free for all death match. I say this not because team based games lack the mute button.. but because team based games can't be played how they were intended to be played if you have to mute people on your team. When you have to mute someone you effectively handicap your team. If you have to mute multiple teammates then you are pretty much fucked.

2) Game join-up's can be controlled - only if you have the exact number of friends on that would comprise an entire team. If you are playing death match the number grows from 8-10 to 8, 16, 20, 24, 36, etc. So in reality game join ups can not be controlled. Furthermore, the idiots that create new profiles so they can just mop the floor with noobs is another problem. This isn't so bad on PC as you have a plethora of servers to choose from, but on consoles you are just randomly matched with people that may or may not share your particular view on what constitutes an enjoyable voice experience. I have no problem with some heckling/gloating. I am even not opposed to some mild profanity, but when someone's talking about raping my mom or calling me a ****** ****** over and over I draw the line.

3) Groups can be found - they can but as point 2 states it's not an easy task at all for console players. PC gaming makes it fairly easy by giving the player the option to pick servers. You can change servers with no penalties. Console games are a bit different due to developers implementing consequences for leaving groups too often. In wow right now a HUGE problem with the amazing dungeon finder is that it matches you with people who don't care because it's Cross-realm and they don't know you. It's just as bad as multiplayer gaming on consoles. If you get in a group and get to the first boss just to find out that your healer isn't skilled enough to finish the encounter, but since he came in here with his buddy he can't be kicked, or better yet the timer on his cooldown isn't up so he cant be kicked for 15-30 minutes. If you leave the group you get a 30 minute lock out where you can't use the dungeon finder tool again. To top that all off, after your 30 minute cooldown runs out, if you aren't a tank or a healer you have ANOTHER 45 minute wait to get into a random dungeon again. That's 45 minutes of waisted time just to get paired with a fail group, 20 minutes or more in said fail group wiping on trash/bosses which costs you gold to repair, Possibly a lock out if you down one boss but cant get the others, then a 30 minute lock out for leaving the group before the dungeon was finished then ANOTHER 45 minutes to find a group after re-queing just to have a 50% chance to get ANOTHER fail ass group or a group where the people are abusive etc. To me this is not enjoyable.

In short it's not the competitive aspect of competitive multi-player I don't like... it's the ignorant people aspect. Until developers and online hosts find a way to effectively combat or filter it. I'll stick to coop or PC gaming where the competitive aspect is easier to filter.

 

[nortonweb]

I am gob smacked beyond the point of gob smacked (which I think is just before the 69 reaches Walthamstow) in reading this I just had my own feelings on multiplayer explained to me!!!
Thank you Yahtzee I shall now cancel my analyst appointment...

 

[Dansrage]

I completely understand Yahtzee's point of view on this one, although my own does differ.
I have been playing a LOT of multiplayer games over the past year, whereas before i avoided them, playing single-player games and sandbox games almost exclusively. I found the competition to be exhausting at times, you have to be on your toes and alert all the time, and that isn't why most people play videogames. If gaming is a form of relaxation, as it is to some people, then being thrust into a situation where you're stressed is the opposite of what you want. Recently i have been playing a lot of Halo Reach and a lot of EVE Online, in Reach i am often frustrated at the lack of coordination in my team, people who seemingly have no idea what our objective is, or that they are infact part of a team that they seem to be ignoring. What changed my mind was the rare moment where, together, in a perfectly orchestrated move, we pulled off something spectacular, in that sense the game ceases to be mindless competition, and becomes a "co-op" experience, with people working together as well as fighting eachother, if that makes sense...
I do prefer coop to competetive, i enjoyed Gears of War and Army of Two, the old Operation Flashpoint, games like Halo and Resident Evil 5 for that very reason, i like working with friends, or even strangers online, as long as we can work as a team.
In EVE there is a very tight sense of community that i really enjoy, it's very alien to me to actually enjoy the company of the people i'm playing with in any other context than that of the game, i often find myself just having conversations in the chat window while i'm docked. When you actually go out and fight alongside these people, the feeling is great, and if you succeed you can all celebrate together.

While we're on the subject, i'm kind of pissed that the games of our current gen RARELY have coop modes, in the PS1, Dreamcast and PS2 eras there was never an FPS without some kind of split screen mode.

 

[Dark Claw13]

I feel that Yahtzee missed the point that an Australians internet speed is lower than other countries, adding another headache to the Multiplayer experience.

 

[Arppis]

I hate the competive multiplayer too.

I just pefere working WITH people than against them. It's so much more fun. And yeah, I hate playing against other people.

 

[Arppis]

I hate the competive multiplayer too.

I just pefere working WITH people than against them. It's so much more fun. And yeah, I hate playing against other people.

 

[TheUnbeholden]

Wow, again I have to agree with Yahtzee (thats pretty much the 100th time I'm agreeing with him), I hate competitive multiplayer. I realized this recently.

It gets me stressed, my hands get sweaty and I don't particularly feel any real satisfaction for beating someone at something so small as pressing the fire button faster or aiming with the mouse better.
I understand how it would be gratifying to beat someone in real life. But I think this is one of the exceptions where doing something in a game doesn't make you feel like you would when doing it in real life.
I would say competitive multiplayer is more like a casual pass time for most people, but for me its just frustrating.

He did play TF2 (like I did), but he probably played medic mostly (or spy). For those classes its not really a contest of who's best, but one is about helping team mates and the other is about getting lucky and stabbing someone in the back.
Coop games like L4D2 and Killing Floor have captured my interest and now they are my game of choice.