PixlBit

I really don't like playing games online in general, even less so with random people. I miss  the old days where you'd hit the couch and play with a group of friends all in one room.

Funny enough, as gaming has become more and more socially acceptable, it's become more and more solitary. At a point it was much more social (like in person social) than it is now. We all are really the lone gamers sitting in a darkened room, avoiding the sun and playing games all by ourselves.

As far as monitoring these online communities, I don't think it can be done. Nintendo tried to employ means of limiting the interactions, but the result was a really sanitary experience. Once you let people on the Internet talk and communicate freely, you have to expect the worst. Combine this with the lack of acceptance of any degree of failure and you have a really toxic environment.  

Agreed. I totally miss the days where I'd get together to play games w/ my friends that aren't fighting games. Sure thats still fun, but back when there were many local co-op games like X-Men Legends and stuff, I had a blast playing w/ four buddies at once. Perhaps they will try to bring that back in the future.

I'll have to disagree with you there Nick. I'm not saying that complete control over these gaming communties is possible, but they can foster their communties to offer better experiences for those involved. Self regulation is a perfect example of this, with the implementation of private servers and montering many games have harbored clean, safe gaming enviroments (such as TF2 mentioned in the podcast). Additonally game admins and other administrative forces have done admirable job in assuring better enviroments in many mmo's.

Again we are still no where near the point where playing online will meet you with the civlity and basic human decency that should be expected. However, things are getting better, and the games that are putting in the effort to foster these communties generally have much more enjoyable experiences.

I think as we conintue to instrument new ideas and menas of forging better gaming communites, we will continue to see progress. Of course theres still a long way to go, and it is sad that we have lost the lan parties and late night multiplayer sessions of old. But I think that there is alot to be offered and shared with the growing implementation of today's multiplayer experiences.

I miss that too. Local multiplayer is fastly fading and since I don't play games online (for the most part), I usually just play games on my own.

Team Fortress 2 is one of the games I do play online and its because the community is really good and inviting. I actually wrote a blog post about how good it was.

What I would like to see honestly is more of a balance between local and online multiplayer games. I think theres an audience for both and id like to see what can happen if they find a medium.

JD to be honest, I think if a developer made a game that centered around in house mutliplayer they would get slammed for it. Not saying that I wouldn't want to see it, I'm just not sure if it would be well recieved.

Loved the show. This was your best episode so far. Like Nick, I don't really play online. It's not so much the communities, although that's a big part of it. I typically don't spend the time to get good enough on a game to have any fun online. My games are usually single player, story-driven affairs, and when I finish one I'm on to the next. I dabbled in Modern Warfare 3, BioShock 2, and Transformers War for Cybertron after I was done with single player, but the combination of quick deaths and lame people got me to quit.

That being said, I'm against companies "policing" their gaming communities. It's a great idea in principal, but what happens is things get out of hand really fast, like Nintendo's insipid friend codes and EA's forum ban hammer causing people to be unable to play even single player games like Dragon Age II through Origin. My girlfriend does customer service for Blizzard, and so many of her calls could be answered with "It's the internet. People suck. Toughen up.". But of course she can't say that.

Now, there's one big exception to this for me, and that would be Final Fantasy XI. That is a very hardcore MMO known for its steep learning curve and punishing gameplay, but even so, the community has been by and large amazing. I have many friends that I've talked to for years that I met in FF XI. People have always been eager to help new players, and the sense of family and closeness in a strong Linkshell (guild) is incredible. Maybe it's because the game is so hard that players cling together to triumph over adversity. I couldn't say for sure, but the best time I've ever had with strangers from the internet has been there.

I think it was Joaquim that was talking about Oblivion gates and questing through the Oblivion areas once you're through the gates. I hate Oblivion (as in the area) and I avoid Oblivion gates as much I can whenever I would play the game. I just don't like it. It's very unique...ish, with all the red, black, bodies hanging from towers, lava, dangerous plants, boob traps, and ascending the towers. It sounds cool in theory but I grew to hate going to Oblivion and I don't like the aesthetics or the level designs once you go through a gate into the realm. There's only 4 or 5 different level designs and layouts for Oblivion areas and they keep getting recycled as there are like dozens of gates to close I think (I always kept running into them and never figured out if they stop). I love the rest of the game mostly, and so I avoid the gates as much as I can.

I thought the conversation around gaming communities was great and a lot of the variables were revealed when it comes to how tough it would be to police online experiences and communities. I think it was Jesse that brought up the realization that online gaming is still very new and it wasn't long ago that multiplayer gaming meant sitting on the couch with your friends.

Online gaming had been around for a while and in some ways it was slowly building momentum, but for the most part it was a niche community for PC gamers it seems. Online gaming finally exploded and hit mass appeal when Xbox LIVE went.......live lol, and Halo 2 in 2004 was the first game to use it to full advantage and invent the matchmaking system it used. Suddenly playing Halo started replacing poker nights and everybody of all ages was playing this new online gaming experience they most likely never had before on any platform or with any game. Before Halo 2 when most people wanted to play co-op or competitively they would come hang out on the couch and play split screen in a small tight knit community that very well could've only consisted of 2 people even. The online features and experiences became a sensation pretty much overnight, players wanted more of it, and developers & publishers wanted to give more of it, and so it happened. Online gaming was officially a trend/craze, everybody around the world was connected and playing together, but one thing people don't often realize is that even with all this popularity and use, the online infrastructures and systems themselves were practically brand spanking new. It wasn't a fleshed out, well polished system, and there wasn't handbook for developers to flip through to get tips or guidance from past mistakes or experience. They created and added as they went, basically rolling with it all.

Pretty much online console gaming and the craze we have going on right now was created, in its infancy, and from day one it hit the ground running with millions of people using it and clamouring for more. It's still so new and it's been such an intense ride that most people haven't taken the time to ask questions about the infrastructure, about policing issues, responsibilities, etc. Another thing we have to take into account is the fact that when online services like XBL went active, the number one goals for the system were to A: be stable and simply work, and B: get players into matches as quickly as possible with as little hassle as possible. Engineers and designers spent more time trying to get the service stable, framerates stable, gameplay balanced, matchmaking times reduced, and bugs removed, and so they weren't able to care as much about gamers that complained of being harassed.

I think Julian was pretty accurate with his statement that it's a bad idea for companies to try and police their consumers when it comes to online play. You would have to pay groups of people to most likely run forums/phonelines where players would go to complain and air their issues. It would be flooded with a bunch of, "I played this guy and he was racist, sexist, and I hate him!". It would be subjective, inefficient, one guys word against another, and a lot of time and money would be spent getting nowhere fast. You can't police an online user base the way a policeman would mediate a fight or sort out two people on the streets. It inevitably ends up with banhammers and other tactics that don't exactly work.

There are things a company can do to try and give players more options. For example with each new Halo release Bungie would add new things to the online infrastructure to address problems people were having with the community and system. I think it was in Halo 3, among many other things, Bungie added the ability for players to mute other players (first time I saw the feature in any game, and other companies started using it after the fact). Another feature Bungie added was the filtering in Halo Reach. In Reach you can start being picky about the people the system searchs for. The game asks you how you play and what kind of people you would like to be matched with. I can tell the game I am a quiet, team-player, that is in it for a good time. Or I can tell the game I'm a loud and mouthy, lone-wolf, in it to win and act aggressively. There are 3 filters I think and you can choose a couple options in each filter to try and personalize a search. Early in my comment I stated that at the founding of online services like XBL, the goal was to make matches quickly and reduce filters. Nowadays we can start adding filters, likely at the expense of matchmaking turnover time, in order to let players choose the kind of people they want to play with and see if they are out there.

For me personally, I would be willing to add filters to a search and wait a few extra minutes to find a good match, as opposed to hurling myself into random matches and using a system of "Get into as many matches as possible and as quickly as possible". I guess what I'm trying to get at is that it's not practical or realistic to "police" an online community or "change" and online community. There are plenty of douches out there and people I don't want to play with, and so once I realize that I come to the conclusion that: If there are douches out there... programming, HR reps, forums, and rules of conduct texts won't necessarily fix that. Instead of trying to make the douches more nice, the infrastructure itself should allow me to choose who I want to play with, who I don't want to play with, and see if there are matches out there for me that prioritize criteria on my terms.

Back when XBL launched, the biggest selling point to it that was a part of all the advertisements were taglines like, "Play with your friends!". I should choose what kind of friends I would like to make, what kind of people I want to play, etc. Because of the quick birth of the infrastructure and the explosion of popularity online gaming had, the focus was on stability and speed. Now that we have had a while to experiment with stability and speed, we should explore ways to give players more control over the system, how they interact with it, and how to personalize it.

To talk about my own personal online experiences, the best online game I've ever played has been Team Fortress 2. I think Mike was giving shoutouts to TF2 in the episode. I like seing love for TF2, yay TF2! I met a lot of cool people and played dozens of hours of fascinating matches. Sometimes a capture the flag match, king of the hill, or something would go on for like an hour and it was amazing. Experimenting with classes is great, contributing to the team effort, and working together like a Medic/Heavy combo is exciting. I love all the classes, love the gameplay, and love the community for the most part. There was one match where I was with some strangers and we were protecting our base, working together, and killed like a half hour talking about gaming over our mic's. We protected the base, watched each other's backs, and talked about what we thought of Halo 3 all at once lol.

I think the worst and most insulting online experience I ever had was on Gears of War multiplayer. We ran into these couple guys that had more insults than you could believe and they were not only infamously disgusting and terrible human beings, but they were very consistent and imaginative with it. One of the most absurd dialogues during that match went as such. These guys were being sexist and racist with everybody in the lobby and at some point I sighed and went, "Oh god, is there a mute button in Gears?" and this guy said, "Boy you have a deep voice dog, you sound like a child molestor son" Lol and he went on to describe how I would molest a child in detail. It wasn't funny at the time but it's hilarious now, and that's about the only positive I could take from that whole match. It was miserable and some people are just awful. My team ended up winning the match but it didn't matter. The quality of people you play against is far more important than winning. I'd rather loose to honorable people than defeat a bunch of barbarians. I've never been interested in playing Gears of War online ever since, and that's probably a shame because I'm sure it's fun.

On a lighter note, I love RTS games like Command & Conquer, Battle for Middle Earth, and the Halo RTS, but for no reason at all I'm really really scared of the RTS community. I love strategy games but I suck at them. My goal isn't ever to dominate and win as you would think of it. In RTS games I love building things, planning bases, defenses, upgrading things, managing resources, and massing armor units and forces. But I do it all for show basically lol, when it comes to actual combat and strategy I don't have much experience and I'm terrified of going up against anybody online. When I play C&C 3 I just mine tiberium, build a huge base, amass Mammoth tanks, set up defenses, and I'm basically a turtle that is too scared to leave the home base. I have an irrational fear of RTS warfare and actually leaving base lol. I've never played an RTS online or competitively but I have a fear of it.

" I'd rather lose to honorable people than defeat a bunch of barbarians." - I really liked this quote Mike, lol. Anyways I don't think I'll be able to answer everything you mentioned in that response, but I'd like to address policing communities in online games.

I understand that completely policing communities or the internet in general is a crazy idea, and I don’t suggest that we do that. However, If I could go back to League of Legends again they have a great system (it’s not perfect by a longshot), but it helps create a better gaming atmosphere. It’s simple at the end of each match players have the ability to report someone for misconduct. If people are reported enough times, then the developers will look into and if the complaints are substantial then they will take action. Usually this results in players getting suspensions from the games, but sometimes it results in permanent bans.

Now I know this is a slippery slope, but used correctly and sparingly, in line with the other instructions that you mentioned Mike (categorizing players and such) this could help greatly to foster a better community. Since the system is far more dependent on player’s being responsible for taking action when someone is being abusive etc., it takes far less resources for the development team to keep an eye on what’s going on. If you’re worried that players will abuse these programs, you could even give out warnings and suspensions to players who vote without cause or reason.

@Mike Glad you like the quote Mike lol. I've had so many experience that exemplify that philosophy. I've won matches that made me feel terrible, and I've lost matches that made me feel amazing. The people you play with is paramount to any positive online experience.

I agree with you and I think people who run the community infrastructure, like developers, should take some proactive steps to get involved and aid the players in making the system more positive for everybody. I don't have a lot of respect for companies that take their hands off and say, "Not my responsibility, nothing I can do about anything, leave me out of this." I haven't played League of Legends but the system you described sound pretty nice. You have to give players a sense of democracy and ownership, but you also can't let players have complete control because than we end up where we started with certain people abusing the system and making other players suffer for it. I think a balance could be arranged that would make the system work better. It would never be perfect, perfectly fair, efficient, or make everybody happy, but I think using the kind of policies you and I mentioned could make a system that works at least better than what we have now in most games.

For years online gaming communities have often been like the wild west. I think we can take steps to make it more positive than the wild west while still allowing many freedoms, privacies, diversity, democracy, and choice.