You guys heard of MAG? This PS3 game with like 250 online players all playing a FPS at the same time in an almighty frag fest.
We all had this dream at some point "what if every NPC was a human character?" With human intelligence. How marvelous that would be right? Like we all thought how wonderful 1:1 motion would be until we realised we all sucked at real world sports and that for games to be fun you have to limit capability.
I dont know about you guys, but I'm fairly new to online gaming and not really a competitive guy. Stepping out onto the field of battle online I went fron a managable and enjoyable single player experience, to a confused battlfield where every enemy was a real person. All as skilled, or more skilled than me. It completely changed the dynamic of the game and wasn't fun at all. I was even killed within a fraction of a second respawning.
To me, games are about empowering you, to make you feel special, just that little bit better than the competition. Your lifebar is bigger, your gun does more damage, your intelligence is higher than NPCs. You want to be that ace pilot, that Arnie Commando style character that can defeat an army of 200 at once.
How you feel about a future of games where everything is interconnected? There is no multiplayer sectioned off, the game exists online and every character is a real person. Ambitious? Scary? Unfocused?
How would these things work and why are they preferable to a focused single player experience?
Aside from that, what kind of online interactions do you value the most? I like co-operative experiences, helping rather than hurting. And usually slower paced or easier I guess.
Well MAG looks crappy to begin with, thats before the 250 player thing. Also 250 players is WAY to much. R2 did 60 and that was chaotic but managable, I feel that is the limit before things get way out of hand.
I prefer single player over online any day for the reasons mentioned above. I feel co-op is a better way to do online than competitive as well. Yet I like a good online fight every once and a while. Its all up to the game, is it fun, is there a progression, do I feel like I am contributing, factors like that.
You know I've often thought that a online roleplaying game would be good if.... well this is radical.
If the game was always online right and all the story characters online were employed by the publisher to be actors in the game. So you could have real natural conversations and interactions with them. They obviously are drilled and trained in scripting and quests and have to bone up on info. Of course logistically it would never work so its completely useless. Actually its a stupid idea.
Do you guys think there is a limit on how many players you want to be competing against in a an online game?
I'm happy with smaller numbers.
like steel i also prefer the idea of a co-op based multiplayer. this is the reason i'd like to try left 4 dead but i don't have a good enough pc to do so.
i think connection wise i am not yet able to enjoy lag free online. even street fighter IV is not completely lag free for me.
How does lag work BTW.
I mean I've experienced it and I wonder how other games deal with the problem. Is there some sort of automation or prediction of moves, so that when data is slow or missing it sort of keeps the game going by pretending everything is fine?
I love online gaming. While it is competative and I do play to win it doesn't bother me to lose either. I have a pretty good connection so if I ever get lag it's mostly due to the game choosing a host with a poor connection. Thankfully the vast number of online games I play are of very high online quality. I've had sooooo many fantastic gaming experiences online from Halo 2 & 3 to Street Fighter IV to Gears of War 1 & 2. I especially love really big battles so for me it's the more the merrier that's why I'm really interested to see how MAG turns out. I also totally love cooperative online gaming like playing through a game's campaign mode with other players and MMORPG's such as World of Warcraft. To me playing a game with or against human players provides that game with a near infinite number of different possibilities that you simply can't experience playing a game solo.
So have you ever played an online game you weren't very good at? If so how did you feel about continuing playing the mode on that game? What is it that drives you to keep playing? You get gamerscores right? Do they matter to you?
How do you feel about people doing weird stuff for advantages like camp spawning. I was playing shooter and this guy started doing this weird circle move endlessly to avoid me killing him. In real life he would be dead in second, because of the way the aiming works, this bizaare chicken dance saved his ass.
Has there ever been a game made that I'm not good at?Most games these days have ways to counter camping at an opposing player's spawn point and repetatively killing them. Unless you mean finding a good location on map to hide and kill opposing players then there's nothing wrong with that. For that you simply find a way to kill the player who is camped there, beat them to that spot, or simply avoid going in that area.
You kind of lose me with your real-life reference because these are videogames after all and there are TONS of things that work in a game that don't work in real-life, that's a given. If someone is doing some 'weird chicken dance CIRCLE' then you should be able to anticipate and shoot/toss grenade where he might be next.