I finally threw in the towel on Starcraft this week. As a single player game, it’s amazing. Game of the year as far as I’m concerned. It’s multiplayer design is phenomenal as well. It’s the single best game purchase I made in 2010.
And yet, playing online, against humans, has demonstrated why I just cannot stand multiplayer games in general. At various times during the beta I was ranked between "bronze” and “diamond” leagues. In my experience, the difference between silver and gold is pretty small in terms of player quality. Above that, you are starting to deal with a much higher quality of player.
The problem is, at silver and gold levels of Starcraft, the players you’re up against are overwhelmingly “all in” starting strategists. That is, they expect to win or lose the game in the first 5 minutes, which, to me, as a father of 3 nearing 40 years of age, is an anathema. I want to play the damn game.
The key to Starcraft is “scouting”. You scout to try to figure out what strategy they’re going to employ. This works in theory -- if you’re willing to devote inordinate amounts of time to the meta game that is Starcraft multiplayer. The meta game consists of scouting YouTube and various other sites to see what the latest fad opening cheese tactic is.
Playing against Zerg? Check to see if they’re doing a Baneling rush. Mutablob? Or are they going to do the extra roach cheese rush? Or something entirely different.
Playing against Protos? Photon canon rush? remote base? Probe hiding in your base?
Playing against Terran? Mass marine + peon rush? Mass Reapers? Rush for cloaked banshees? Or any of the myriad of other all-in strategies.
Scout. Scout. Scout. That’s the alleged answer but it misses the point. If you want to play the game, counter or no counter you still lose. If you fail to counter, game is over in 5 minutes. If you successfully counter, they quit and game is over in 5 minutes.
I don’t even know what Blizzard could do about this because we are playing two different games. I am playing a game of Starcraft, they are playing the Meta game of Battle.net rankings.
I get more pissed off when I counter all-in strategy than when I fail because I don’t even get the satisfaction of taking the fight back to them. They quit immediately when their all-in attempt has failed and move on to the next game.
But that frustration is rivaled by the feeling that if I don’t want to be victim to the latest all-in strategy I have to keep up with it. The extra Roach trick, for instance, is really hard to spot from “scouting” and very hard to counter (and if you’re wrong about which strategy they’re going to employ – something the “scout” people ignore, you end up crippling yourself).
Probably the only realistic thing that Blizzard could do is have those at Bronze, Silver and Gold Leagues have a somewhat randomize set of start-up conditions so that players can’t literally play out a recipe strategy they read on the net. But I don’t see that happening.
I love Starcraft. I love it so much that I get frustrated that I can’t just get to play the actual game. I’ll have to stick with LAN parties for now I guess.
This isn’t necessarily true. What it allows for is players that must be constantly aware of what their opponent is doing. In SC2 for instance, there are several timings in a game where either player might quickly dominate the other, and it has the exact opposite impact that you allege. It requires constant awareness and the ability to evolve your strategy depending on the stage of the game, as well as the ability to think on your feet (we can't forget the RT in RTS). There’s less margin for error (at least at the start) which makes the game anything but simple. SC2 is not a simple game. Fool’s mate is avoided if you see it coming- that’s the same in SC2 (assuming adequate balance).
I think this points out a huge problem with gaming akin to when AOL got onto the Usenet.
The problem, without going into "What is usenet?" is that when you present pearls before swine, you have a well dressed pig.
The mentality of Generation Y (born before after 1982 or so) is to just go for rankings, not to enjoy the game. I have not played multiplayer starcraft because of this. I tried World of Warcraft, saw the "level me prease" mentality and quit. I played Eve and saw the same problem. I played CHESS on yahoo and well - guess what? Same problem. Players who want to win in under 5 minutes and who have somehow honed their chess skills to the point where they can play blitz and finish a game in under 3 minutes of clock time.
I asked a player on Eve if they felt that buying a character who was already "god like" was cheating. My mouth hit the floor when he defended the idea that it is not cheating at all.
Something happened between those of us who spent some time in childhood when only 1 kid on the block had an Atari 2600 and when everyone grew up with $5000 computer game systems. I got my $5k system when I got out of college. And promptly switched back down when i got married + had 4 kids.
What happened?
I don't know. Something about not wanting to listen to anything more than 140 characters in length. Maybe Rittalin was a VERY bad thing to give to 1/2 the population of high energy 8 year olds. Maybe sending litte Timmy to the contemplation corner instead of smacking his backside wasn't a good idea. The vast majority of online gamers today are power munchkins who level at all cost, see nothing wrong with buying their high level character, and well... generally they just aren't any fun to play with.
If these narcissists end up running the country in 20 years we are doomed.
What will fix it?
Carding people to get in to play?
Anyway, sorry to hear that online play has ruined things, but get used to it. Its exactly why I hate most online gaming, including simple games like chess or spades or bridge. The munchkins are horrible.
I don't play much RTS, but this, in a nutshell, is precisely why I don't play chess online. The exact same "recipe win" strategy is employed and players bail when the strategy is properly countered.
If you just want to challenge yourself, hold your breath."
You are my hero. I would like to buy you a beer. OMG did you hit the nail on the head.
Good example of games where losing can be fun:
Dragonrealms (I was a thief, its a text only, pay to play MUD that is just too expensive to play at $40/month). I got my behind handed to me regularly for stealing from people. Best fun in the world was a creative person hunting me down 2-3 days after the fact solely to put an arrow intentionally through my throat and watch me bleed to death.
Dwarf Fortress. Their game motto is, "Losing in fun". In their forms, some actions (such as unplugging a well) are said that they may "lead to fun". Which means well... death, burning, destruction (of you, not anyone else). You can't even save a game to try different things without end tasking the application. This is by design and those who do it are frowned upon.
Starcraft -- yea, had fun losing there.
Galactic Civilizations - yes, many hours (months?) of fun losing games here. I would say I lose ~80% of the games I play in this series. BUt thats b/c I play on a hard setting and because I want a challenge. WHen i do win, its glorious.
Chess. Yeap. Fun to lose sometimes when you see brilliance.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Aside from the idiocy with pirates, lots of fun to lose.
etc.
It is a sad synopsis of Online play today. Get in on the ground floor if playing MP and keep up or forget it. Become/ be considered Elite, get to always play on the winning side, or stay SP side.
Online MP Noob bashing is a Game and Sport, in and of itself today.
DoW1 was a blast, large masses and huge death battles. Just getting into one of those, win or lose, was FUN. Yes, it had its Cheese but the large scale BATTLES was the draw. Most seemed to be of the same mind.
DoW2. The new format never inspired me to go online after the Demo.
CoH was great. Balance ended the run on that on. Same MP play issues as noted above though. Get in on the ground floor if playing MP and keep up or forget it. I hadn't played in 8 months, fired it up the other night, went Auto 1v1. After 8 minutes I was getting cursed, called sour names and told how bad I sucked before they Quit. It was obvious they would not win. Things hadn't changed...
Now E:WoM. I foresee little MP play for me for the reason Frog mentions in the OP. Perhaps he can spearhead a new movement by making sure it does not happen under the E:WoM MP umbrella. I won't hold my breath though.
I have always seen it as much a Players problem as Games problem. Eliminating the possibility, will kill any game that attempts to provide MP based competition.
I am here, right now, because of the OP's complaint about current Online MP play stigma's. So hows about we help SD get E:WoMs SP portion up to snuff... pronto.... please....
Ahhhhh, the whole puzzling and yet thrilling joy of MP competition.
It's just as if our intellect is being driven to the tectonic undergrounds of brain hell. Where we suddenly realize gameplay isn't a fact but a mean of boosting personal pride. While the crowdy crews hit the chat button only to skip it at the perfectly right moment in order to blow up the opponents' head.
Don't get me wrong, MP has its own market or feasible potential... but when it comes to pure fun, i'd rather wreck havoc within & with an AI (wisely compiled, btw) algorithmic struggles.
Your mileage may differ.
PS; When's real GC3 plans start?
I've stopped trying to play anything online. There are too many players with vile attitudes and manners. Too many people hide behind their handles to be nasty in ways they wouldn't dare in the real world. Such behaviour sucks the fun out of online play for me before I even find out whether a particular game might be fun.
playing to win isn't necessarily related to caring about one's ranking. i will always play my hardest to win, and i only care about ranking in as much as i want to be ranked accurately to ensure tight, close games. i was born in 1978 too
i think too many people are creating artificial limits on themselves or others, as if "cheese" is bad or there's some un-spoken rule on when/how it is acceptable to play. the games where two equal combattants are trying their best to win, produce the best games (both to play and to watch).
PSourice
"If these narcissists end up running the country in 20 years we are doomed."
People like them already do run the country and have been for a very long time.
What's funny and sad is this is such a tired tit for tat between generation now and generation coming up. It's not even original.
If I didn't create artificial limits for myself, "fun" would never have existed for the Warlords:Battlecry series. They're too poorly balanced, and have some bum mechanics that make fun quite impossible at the level of bullshit I could pull off back then. These days arthritis would even the playing field since I'm out of practice, but when I was in top form I could be a real monster. It's really simple, in a perfect game world I could be a total asshole and still have fun doing it, anything less and I'll hamstring the setting to some degree. It's much like real life.
If you got into a fight with me, you could probably kick my ass all over the place. We could go at it for hours, take it back up another day, all kinds of crazy shit. Unfortunately I have lots and lots of guns, so the real world outcome of you picking a fight with me would be you bleeding on the ground about the time you took a swing at me. Guns make such a fight very, very boring. You have to have gun fights, which entail fatalities, or you have to limit yourself to reasonable methods of combat for a sustainable venture.
I'm an 82 myself. Personally I think my generation is filled with a bunch of fucking morons. No tit for tat needed here, just observation of the disconnect between brain and wallet. We can't even handle basic math, or the world economy wouldn't be going down the shitter because no one can grasp the concept of not spending wealth that doesn't exist.
Amen brother.
I'm a '74.
My observations with regard to strategy games are very much the same as yours Brad. People have come to very quickly focus on the metagame (this is made even worse thanks to built-in ladders and ranking systems) and create optimal "build-orders" which are followed in order to yield a win. Since wins/losses are what is being used to determine ladder rank etc. nothing else factors (least of all "fun") into gameplay anymore.
My observations with regard to first-person shooters are somewhat different in that a personal "win" for people playing FPS's is not so much winning the round or match but having above all a positive KDR (kill-death-ratio). Personally I blame the tracking of a player's KDR for ruining teamplay in public online FPS (unless of course you're playing organized clan-wars on TWL or something like that). Far Cry 2 did an interesting thing which was only showing KILLS at the end of a round and not deaths. I do think that helped somewhat. If a game wants to include game-modes other than team-deathmatch I believe KDR should NOT be shown or even tracked anywhere. I know that would upset the whole stat-whore crowd out there, but by god I'd bet teamplay would increase ten-fold!
the Monk
Believe it or not a lot of people get enjoyment out of a game by becoming better at it. I would argue that this is a universal trait shared by every gamer. Ladders and K/D ratios are one of the ways of communicating to the player of how well they play the game. If you look at chess, it also has "build orders", ladders and rankings, and a very rich metagame. With this in mind, would you say that fun is not a factor in chess anymore? No, of course you wouldn't say that.
The vast majority of humanity does not enjoy playing chess.
having computer strategy games be reduced to chess is not necessarily a good thing.
Actually YES I would argue exactly that. I would bet that for a large contingent of those who play Chess the fun is in the besting of a worthy opponent and no longer derived from "the game" of Chess anymore. Some video gamers don't want to play games at such a level, we just want to blow off some steam and ENJOY ourselves at the end of busy/stressful day/week, not immerse ourselves in yet another JOB of finding (or as Brad said "scouting" out) the best strats / build-orders so that we don't god forbid lose a game or worse get told (quite uncerimoniously I might add) to "...go fucking learn-to-play before you come back online nooooooob! "
Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an allowed/appreciated seperation of the "competitive" and "fun/casual" gamer anymore. It seems we've all been lumped into one large cesspool.......now those of us who would rather just "play for fun" (yes......dammit.....there is such a thing......FUN!) can't do so for fear of being harassed. Public online play is a cesspool of harassment and e-peen competition. Noob-stomping has become a sport all of its own and really shows off the worst in our society as a whole.
Games are made with LESS attention to actual gameplay but MORE attention to gimmicks and game-mechanics that can attract and addict players. Those same mechanics make the allure of cheating almost unbearable. I swear "cheating" in games has become it's own sport too. It's like cheaters ignore us non-cheaters now and look to play against other cheaters to see who's cheat is better? Look at COD with it's "perks" and "killstreaks". I've been playing FPS's since before the first COD even existed and I have to say COD4 and the introduction of those "perks" and "killstreaks" ruined the franchise for me. I haven't bought a COD-game since and I never will. The interesting thing is.......their sales figures are the best they've ever been. So where is the disconnect then? The problem is me......the "for-fun-only" gamer is a dying/dead breed. You translate that into society as a whole. Nothing is done "for-fun-only" anymore.......everything MUST have a goal.
Thanks a lot COD-generation........you owe me my "casual-gaming-fun".......where can I go to collect?
You should never make a blanket statement like this. People play games for different reasons, and you certainly don't have a direct line to all their thoughts.
If you carefully reread what I wrote, you will see that I made no claims about reasons for playing. I will repeat what I wrote: Every gamer gets enjoyment out of getting better at a game. This is a universal trait shared by every gamer.
This truism is not, however, a reason for playing a game. I agree with you that everyone may have different reasons for playing and I can't speak for everyone in that regard. For example, a player may have fun getting better at Starcraft but nevertheless does not like to play Starcraft because he is bad at the game and does not like to lose.
It is NOT a truism. You have no clue what other gamers think, what traits they have, nothing. You don't get to decide what is true and what is false simply because you say so. You cannot possibly have anything backing up your statement about a universal trait about gamers. You think you have some sort of "in" and you do not. I don't need to carefully read your blanket statement to know that.
I don't agree with you.
You mentioned 'worthy'. What kind of reasons would push a person to seek a 'worthy' opponent? One reason is that worthy opponents provide a player with an opportunity to improve their play. I hardly believe that players would waste their time finding 'worthy' opponents just to beat them. Instead players seek worthy opponents because they love chess as a game and want to get better at it.
Why are you so concerned about your online record or what people say to you? If you enjoy playing the game "for fun" as you say, then these things shouldn't matter to you. I don't see any reason why you can't blow off steam while playing games like Starcraft or CoD. Just because a lot of gamers play competitively in those games doesn't mean you have to.
You raise several peripheral points here that don't quite touch on the topic at hand. All I will say is that if there is no goal then there is no purpose and if there is no purpose then there is no meaning.
So far you haven't backed up your argument with anything other than rhetoric and empty claims. Until you do, there is nothing to discuss.
The first game where I scouted was WOW... with scouting I went from losing to 3 levels below to beating 3 levels above. (thats for both other players and mobs btw) as well is vastly improving in other aspects of the game (wealth generation, xp generation rate, etc). I looked back to a lot of games and found how much "better" I was with that application... but I wasn't playing the game anymore. I would spend much more time on forums scouting then I would actually playing, it was a tedious chore but the alternatives were either not to play, or be curb stomped when I do (which is not fun). And curb stomping those that don't scout is a hollow and empty victory that brings me no satisfaction.
Chess isn't a fun game, chess is very much a build order game, scouting and meta-game is how you win, painstaking research is how you win. You study and study and then you go take a test on what you studied... If I am going to study, I might as well study something useful and get a degree and some scientific knowledge out of it. Games for me should be about blowing off steam, this means a relaxing romp that does not require you to study for it.
Throw in re-balancing patches into the mix (which requires that you restudy everything from scratch)
As for "enjoy getting better as you play more"... Playing more hours to gain more levels isn't getting better, its just doing work to avoid punishment (ganking), playing a game is not half as effective as scouting to getting "better" (simply because no one person can come up with all strategies and knowledge, I invent original and useful ones myself, but there are so many great tactics out there).
The best multiplayer game I played was unreal tournament gold edition. it is skill based, no levels, no vastly unbalanced classes which you have to research... you pick a purely cosmetic skin and after that you and your identical clones duke it out in fast paced action. For everything else, there is single player.
ummm.....taltamir....I think you're quoting the wrong dude there....I didn't say the above....marlowwe did.
I am not the one making the claim; you are. This means you need to back up your claim, not me.
I love it when someone gets Nesrie all aggressive, great drama! Also she's right if you make a claim like that you have to back it up. We all have opinions but no one can say anything is 'fact' without evidence, and then a lot of logic to show how that evidence means anything.
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