gaming in person VS online gaming

[MrPopo]

I'm a little different. I like playing with other people, but I'm rarely going to go through the hassel of trying to get a group of people together to play IRL. A friend throws a LAN party every few months that I go to, and a few other ones will have a game night, and it's all very fun. But I've always been a loner. I was hiding in my room playing Zelda and Final Fantasy back on the NES and SNES long before internet gaming was becoming common. If anything, online interaction has increased my human contact compared to what I used to do.

[(-_-)]

All throughout highschool my friends and I would only ever play local co op. No one was willing to pay to play online. We went over to eachothers houses every day to play Supersmash bros, Tekken 5, Timesplitters, Halo and goldeneye. But now we're all in university or college as well as working at least part time which makes it much more difficult to hang out and do that. Also, with free online play, we've become somewhat lazier when it comes to meeting up like that. People have outgrown playing games as much too. I really can't even think of too many fun co op split screen games anymore. Halo got old after the first game, there is no new timepslitters, no one touched street fighter 4 or tekken 6 after we all bought it (except me ) and playing any real co op games requires a lot of work. And even if we do manage to find time to play with eachother online, everyone has other things to distract them. When we're all together, we are entirely focused on just having fun and playing games. Playing online isn't even that great of an experience when compared to playing with real people in the same room. I walk down the street with my ps3 and a 24 inch moniter just to play Demon's Souls and borderlands with friends when we find the time.

[emwearz]

I dont play online at all, I just dont enjoy it and its not for me.

I play on the couch gaming heaps with my friends, nothing is better than trash talking someone right next to you, just the best experience. The best sessions are SFIII and a couple beers with a winner stays on situation. Mario Kart with three other people.

In Person for sure.

[AmishSamurai]

If I'm going to play online, I'll do it on my PC. Consoles are meant for local multiplayer in my own opinion.

[slowslow325]

Online is overrated. I might as well just play with an AI, if I can't talk to them. Even if I can talk to them, I don't know them, so there's nothing to talk about. All you talk about is the game.

And, I feel weird talking into a microphone with nobody around. I don't want people hearing me. When they're people around, I have an excuse to talk.

Also, any game with online needs to have local. Not just now, but what about in the future when there aren't any servers or it's extremely complicated to hook it up with your futuristic internet type. How will I play the multiplayer then?

[J T]

A+ topic!

For all this technology that is supposed to connect us, it distances us in some ways too. I was thinking earlier today about making a cell phone call, but I didn't want to spend the minutes. The cell phone has made it so the only friends I call are ones in my T-mobile "favorites" that won't cost me extra money. I try to use the minutes wisely so I don't go over.

I have yet to create a facebook account. Perhaps I'm stubborn. In the meantime, my friends have shifted most of their social dialogue to the world of facebook. I'm now effectively ostracized because I won't join, yet they don't have much real face-to-face contact anymore because they spend too much time on facebook.

It's weird to me. Both of these technologies are supposed to facilitate social communication, but they seem to get in the way somewhat. Likewise with the online multiplayer. It's nice for keeping in touch with friends in other states/countries or friends that are just online friends, but it is no substitute for hanging out on the couch, eating pizza, drinking mountain dew, and playing games side by side with real-life trash talking and arm punching.

Social technologies seem to be making us less social, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

[Lord_Santa]

once upon a time... I had a core-group of about 12 friends, who'd always have a LAN-party somewhere in town

't was a small-town, with us being the hard-core group of nerds
we'd drag our computers to whomever was hosting the LAN and play for days straight
then me and my best friend made an official LAN-group

we provided people with a place to play (we'd borrow locales wherever we could find them) and routers, etc.

this was before LAN-parties had internet

about a year or so later, I'd rent an apartment with my best friend and lo' it was good
there was basically a minimum of 8 computers in our apartment at all times, an eternal LAN you might say

then we all moved to student-dorms and along came internet...

it ruined everything for us

along came the ever accursed EverQuest...

needless to say it ruined more lives than mine

these 11 years later I've since moved abroad and lost contact with basically all my friends I had, as well as not having worked for all this time, I've not gained any new friends to speak off

I do have 3 friends, whom I regurarely hang out with and we'll sit by the PC, either taking turns playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (30 min. each) or playing oldskool RPG's like Knights of Legend, creating our own characters and having genuine fun

unfortunately they've little-to-no interest in my consoles, hence I play those with my X, but that's mainly Mario Kart or Animal Crossing (taking turns in AC)

the internet is one of my few contacts to the outside world, mainly due to me being very ill, hence I can't be around people as much as I'd like to

it's both a curse and a blessing

remembering even further back, when as a kid we'd sit and play the Games series (Summer Games/Winter Games/World Games/California Games, etc.) with plenty of kids around; these days are long gone

the internet gives me an opportunity to feel like a human being, in the way that I can actually keep contact with people, but at the same time I don't want to play on-line games, because I find it... not so interesting

I did get stuck with WoW for a while, but all the grinding and all the annoying kids got the better of me


I did try going to an Amiga-Club that is here in Stockholm and find other people with mutual interests, unfortunately they were to hard-core for me

I'll take local gaming over internet gaming any day of the week and if that's not available I'd rather play by myself and write on forums in order to share my interest with other people

:edit

now that I've gotten a Wii, I'm actually playing a little bit on-line, at least Mario Kart =)

[Pichu]

once upon a time... I had a core-group of about 12 friends, who'd always have a LAN-party somewhere in town

't was a small-town, with us being the hard-core group of nerds
we'd drag our computers to whomever was hosting the LAN and play for days straight
then me and my best friend made an official LAN-group

we provided people with a place to play (we'd borrow locales wherever we could find them) and routers, etc.

this was before LAN-parties had internet

about a year or so later, I'd rent an apartment with my best friend and lo' it was good
there was basically a minimum of 8 computers in our apartment at all times, an eternal LAN you might say

then we all moved to student-dorms and along came internet...

it ruined everything for us

along came the ever accursed EverQuest...

needless to say it ruined more lives than mine

these 11 years later I've since moved abroad and lost contact with basically all my friends I had, as well as not having worked for all this time, I've not gained any new friends to speak off

I do have 3 friends, whom I regurarely hang out with and we'll sit by the PC, either taking turns playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (30 min. each) or playing oldskool RPG's like Knights of Legend, creating our own characters and having genuine fun

unfortunately they've little-to-no interest in my consoles, hence I play those with my X, but that's mainly Mario Kart or Animal Crossing (taking turns in AC)

the internet is one of my few contacts to the outside world, mainly due to me being very ill, hence I can't be around people as much as I'd like to

it's both a curse and a blessing

remembering even further back, when as a kid we'd sit and play the Games series (Summer Games/Winter Games/World Games/California Games, etc.) with plenty of kids around; these days are long gone

the internet gives me an opportunity to feel like a human being, in the way that I can actually keep contact with people, but at the same time I don't want to play on-line games, because I find it... not so interesting

I did get stuck with WoW for a while, but all the grinding and all the annoying kids got the better of me


I did try going to an Amiga-Club that is here in Stockholm and find other people with mutual interests, unfortunately they were to hard-core for me

I'll take local gaming over internet gaming any day of the week and if that's not available I'd rather play by myself and write on forums in order to share my interest with other people

:edit

now that I've gotten a Wii, I'm actually playing a little bit on-line, at least Mario Kart =)

That was a great read!

[J T]

regurarely

This is my new favorite word.

[J T]

Another reason I don't like online gaming as much as in person is that when my friends and I talk with each other, we don't sound like this: