For many years my social gaming was just that, socialising and gaming at the same time. Often the boys would pile round our place drink beer, chat and play on my mates PS3 either working through a title like GTA or social games using the play station camera. This was often done before heading out for a few more sociable drinks and meet up with GFs etc. But for the last few months my gaming and socialising have changed…
I having been playing multi-player online games for a very long time, but in that time I have focused on playing them solo. Even Eve Online where I was a corporation director and run the Hi-sec POS, I mainly played the game solo, with the occasional group mission running and towards the end of my time playing Eve I played with groups in incursions and bombers bar. I played battlefield 2 and 3 but never played with people as a group it was all just random people.
Towards the end of last year that changed, I joined the Xbox Clan GUYS for World of Tanks and regularly played with a few ‘guys.’ I still enjoying playing with these guys but things have evolved and now I regularly play a variety of games with one of the team. At the moment we are playing through Borderlands 2 via Xbox compatibility (which is a shame as I have the game on xbox with all the DLC!) I’ve completed Borderlands 2 before but that was on a friends PS3 and he rushed through the game, this time we are going and doing all the missions and I am seeing a lot more of the easter eggs. Before christmas we where also hammering World of Warships, we both got a line up to tier V, I’m hoping to get him playing this again now I have a whole host of tier VI ships I need to be working through and only have 1 tier V I’m needing to finish off.
Playing within a group has been really cool, it’s someone to listen to you bitch when RNG is really un-kind to you. Someone to be there to celebrate your wins, if you work as a team it even increases your chance of winning as well! It also means there is someone there to tease/ridicule/’take the piss’ when you screw up spectacularly. For example if I am playing British medium or heavy tanks I am fairly certain that I wont embarrass myself (I am pretty good, even if i do say so myself!) but put me in a Russian/Soviet heavy and it’s a new ball game to me. I am learning a new play-style and trying to compensate for russian tanks having no gun depression and are highly in accurate. My fiends can be supportive and the next minute take the piss as i screw up… That is untill I acquired the IS-3A Fatherland and seem to have got a good bond with that tank, maybe I just don’t like low/mid-tier Russian tanks.
Another benefit from playing in a platoon in WoT or WoWS is it insulates you from assholes griefers, mainly I don’t have to listen to them if they are on voice chat. But it’s not all good, there are down-sides. Because it’s an open community there are people who I would prefer not to play with. Some of them it’s not their fault they are young and looking with these old eyes are immature. But they are kids, so you can’t judge harshly, but when they move from being immature to been an asshat that’s when they find themselves kicked from the platoon if I’m in charge. It can also make you feel old as well, explains CCCP as USSR and then having to explain USSR…
The benefits out weigh the negatives and getting invites to join a game as soon as you log on is nice. Or a message via Xbox live if im on my PC asking if I want to run a few Borderland missions is always a nice lift. (Have you seen the GDC borderlands tech demo, if not look it up on youtube!) The support while you are busy trying to beat the RNG of WoT ops to earn a tank is also appreciated…
I play a lot of Elite:Dangerous now this is a bit of an odd game in it multi-player but the galaxy is that big that you don’t often run into other players and when you do it seems that they want to kill you. I have had a few encounters where this was not the case and that happened on sunday morning where I am trying to complete one of the big missions that pays out 200 million if you complete. Papa wants a Python Multi-role ship on PC.
All mining ships should be red…
So I’m running this long mission and all the people who are running the same mission on the same planet are all having a nice pleasant chat. Makes a change from random encounters that involve been shot at by lazor beams.
See you on the other side…
tothebreach 