It used to be good 4-5 years ago, but now it is terrible this last week I've filed complaints against 3 people because they have all been abusive for no reason. I said hello to someone and their mate gave me such terrible abuse calling me an f ing cow etc. it seems no one is very friendly anymore they are suspicious of people like they already have their guard up and you have to really be extra nice to make them realise you are okay. There are also a lot of really rude troll like 15 year olds who think talking about fingering your mum/sister/dad hilarious!
Its nowhere near as good as it used to be, for me the gold age of online play was around the days of TFC, Counter Strike and Day of Defeat. Wireplay Rats server was awesome, it had a great bunch of friendly players who just wanted to have fun and not take things too seriously. Blueyonder (Now Virgin Broadband) had their own gaming servers and community website, it was well managed, they would change server rotations and rules due to community feedback and it was easy to get an admin in game to deal with trouble makers. People played for fun, winning was a lot less important.
Than statistics arrived and all anybody cared about after that was their K/D ratio. P2P servers took the community away and just throw random players together, couple that with parties of people who grouped up to take on randoms who then bragged about how great they were because a mic up group of friends managed to beat a team of uncoordinated people who didn't know each other. Generic DLC map packs replaced custom maps (You will never see a map like Rats on a console game ).
Online can still be a lot of fun, but all too often it just feels like a chore these days
Use to play a lot I was a skilled Counter Strike player but now to many bots take over you don't know who cheats anymore I've not played this for years now, I'll do some chilled out casual multiplayer now and then like Animal Crossing them type of games.
I much prefer single player campaigns nowa days with a great story,
Shortly after buying my PS3, I came across a game called Warhawk. I played it for about 2 years and in that time I filled my friends list with a great bunch of like minded people.
Not only were we all new to online gaming but also fairly new to forums, the Official Playstation forum being a big part of the enjoyment where we could talk about our battles.
Sadly I cannot see it ever being that good again but we all keep in touch and hopefully a game will come along that will reunite us all.
So the cheating/abuse/aggressiveness online is getting worse rather than better you think?
Voice chat has increased abuse, statistics has increased aggression, cheating is about the same (It wasn't a proper round of Counter Strike without someone been accuse of using an aimbot or walkhack).
Call of duty, halo and fifa tend to attract the dregs of online gaming. It's very rare I play one of those games and do not get some sort of abuse.
I have to say most of the abuse is from silly teenage kids who are trying to impress their mates by acting like morons.
So the cheating/abuse/aggressiveness online is getting worse rather than better you think?
I've been playing online games since the days of text MUDs and there's always been morons. I don't think it's necessarily got worse, just that there's now a vast amount more people online than there ever was in the early days of gaming.
We used to have around 100 regular players in the text MUD I played, now there's at least that many people in the guild I'm a member of on EverQuest II.
It also depends on the genre of game, my OH is forever bitching about other people cheating when he plays an FPS or similar game like APB etc.
You're always at the mercy of other people with any online game unless you have enough friends to populate a game yourselves.
In the main I have no problems but whenever I play with randoms I usually mute everyone and play as normal. If people are messing about and glitching/cheating then I just leave and join another game. There's not much more I can do.
Not a fan of Multi player stuff to be honest. I have always preferred the single player stuff. I don't even play FIFA games online anymore, i just play the career mode and have the odd game nights with my brother.
I will say sometimes that the abusers can meet their match and the room turns on them. But mostly I would say that although you can sound like it doesn't bother you, after a while the "get back in the kitchen" line is quite hurtful, and its put up the guard of other girl gamers so if you say hello they all tell you to f ck off ....charming people.
online gaming is fun. I mean where else can u laugh at the sad tossers that fire out abuse because they're losing. Boosters, glitchers, cheaters, bad losers, abusers.......what's not to like lol
Good and bad. Back in the days of PSO it was incredible,a genuine sense of community and very little of the trash talking you get these days. I'm not a fan of mics, I don't even like talking on the phone to people I don't know so the idea of chatting to randoms in-game isn't appealing and I hate hearing them when playing online (last thing you want to break the immersion is some scouser nattering on in the background LOL no offense).
Left 4 Dead and Halo Reach have both been really fun co-op experiences but that's with people I know so I think that makes a fair bit of difference, I used to enjoy team deathmatch COD 4 back in the day but it's all the same thing and I grew bore of it years ago.
Bring back the K/B interface and I'd be happier, I realise I sound a bit anti-social but that's just how it is.
Good and bad. I prefer local multiplayer (splitscreen etc) though.
I used to enjoy playing CoD online however the hackers, glitchers and cheaters spoiled that fun, I also used to play GTA4 but the griefing, whilst fun at first just became tiresome, especially when I had to keep leaving lobbies because some nuggets were spoiling my fun. I eventually gave up on that because all the neg rep I was getting because I would beat people in races or "grief" the griefers back, the same used to happen in RDR too although those instances in RDR were very rare and was probably the better multiplayer experience.
Now I just don't bother with online MP whatsoever and it's not something I would recommend to people new to online gaming.
Always play with friends in a party now ... but TBH there was a time, it was playing the original Lost planet, when there was no party system just open lobbies and it had a really nice community!
Thing is if we ever do play in open lobbies you have just got to be savvy with your abuse if you get it. The women I play with more than hold their own
Even though nowadays I dont really have any friends to play online with, Ive been on xbox live 5 years and from what I miss the ggood old days of plsying left 4 dead/ gears of war 1 and 2, and Halo 3 online and working together whilst having a laugh, I miss them days :')
Other than when we're partied up, I never even have my mic on anymore. Just not worth it.
It used to be the case that you could go into random lobbies and have banter and a laugh with anyone. Now, it's just toxic. Don't get me wrong, it's still possible to come across decent lobbies, but they're a lot rarer than they used to be.
I think it's reflective of the changing nature of the general gaming community over the past five years - when I first got my 360, it was great. The cross-section of gamers appeared to be fairly well-balanced. Nowadays, 90% of the people you come across appear to be 15 year old (or younger!) tryhards who're only interesting in bigging themselves up, talking b*llocks and pretending to be gangsta.
On the bright side, when the new generation of consoles drop, the price may prevent many of them getting one straight away so we might get a few decent years, before the price drops sufficiently that they all jump on the bandwagon again.
When people are not held accountable for their actions, too many of them will behave like dorks.
When a game as the guts to do Dead-is-dead, I might get involved, otherwise, I cant be bothered with the grief
TBH, as far as CoD is concerned, they only need to improve the AI a bit around objective game modes and you wouldn't need online anyway. The bots in BlOps2 are a lot more intelligent than they were in BlOps1, at least in TDM and FFA. They're still not great in objective game modes though, even on the hardest difficulty.
I think the problem these days is you never know what you getting when you join a game, you could end up with a great bunch of people or a group of complete *******. The problem is that when you find a group of good players with the crappy nature of P2P servers the server goes down and you lose all those players and have to take a gamble on a new bunch.
With Dedicated servers once you find a server with a good like minded bunch of players you can return to that server again and again and again, this grows a community of players who know each other and regularly play together. It is just generally a much better way of doing online play. Back when I gamed online on PC friends list wasn't even important as you know what servers your friends played and where to find them regularly.
Console online really is poor in comparison to PC online because of how the servers work and how nobody really has any control over the servers or people playing on those servers. If an idiot joins a game of CoD there is nothing anyone can do about it, when an idiot joined a game of Counter Strike if you were in a well moderated server all you normally had to do was change your name to "Admin" and someone turned up to kick the trouble maker.
Sadly its been many years since I played online on PC so I don't know if its still as good, but whenever I play online on console it always feels like online gaming has taken a few steps backward.
I simply play co-op Borderlands/Borderlands 2 with my Bro. We laugh and chat and have fun. I am so not interested in playing with any strangers at anytime ever on anything. Solo play comes first by a long, long way, with occasional co-op with my Bro a distant second. Random play with strangers, never under any circumstances.
Comments
About 1000 hours over a few games
Than statistics arrived and all anybody cared about after that was their K/D ratio. P2P servers took the community away and just throw random players together, couple that with parties of people who grouped up to take on randoms who then bragged about how great they were because a mic up group of friends managed to beat a team of uncoordinated people who didn't know each other. Generic DLC map packs replaced custom maps (You will never see a map like Rats on a console game ).
Online can still be a lot of fun, but all too often it just feels like a chore these days
I much prefer single player campaigns nowa days with a great story,
Not only were we all new to online gaming but also fairly new to forums, the Official Playstation forum being a big part of the enjoyment where we could talk about our battles.
Sadly I cannot see it ever being that good again but we all keep in touch and hopefully a game will come along that will reunite us all.
Voice chat has increased abuse, statistics has increased aggression, cheating is about the same (It wasn't a proper round of Counter Strike without someone been accuse of using an aimbot or walkhack).
Text chat FTW
I have to say most of the abuse is from silly teenage kids who are trying to impress their mates by acting like morons.
My current favourite does have some glitchers but is generally friendly and helpfull.
I think I have had one person get so annoying I reported them and that was it!
I've been playing online games since the days of text MUDs and there's always been morons. I don't think it's necessarily got worse, just that there's now a vast amount more people online than there ever was in the early days of gaming.
We used to have around 100 regular players in the text MUD I played, now there's at least that many people in the guild I'm a member of on EverQuest II.
It also depends on the genre of game, my OH is forever bitching about other people cheating when he plays an FPS or similar game like APB etc.
In the main I have no problems but whenever I play with randoms I usually mute everyone and play as normal. If people are messing about and glitching/cheating then I just leave and join another game. There's not much more I can do.
Left 4 Dead and Halo Reach have both been really fun co-op experiences but that's with people I know so I think that makes a fair bit of difference, I used to enjoy team deathmatch COD 4 back in the day but it's all the same thing and I grew bore of it years ago.
Bring back the K/B interface and I'd be happier, I realise I sound a bit anti-social but that's just how it is.
I used to enjoy playing CoD online however the hackers, glitchers and cheaters spoiled that fun, I also used to play GTA4 but the griefing, whilst fun at first just became tiresome, especially when I had to keep leaving lobbies because some nuggets were spoiling my fun. I eventually gave up on that because all the neg rep I was getting because I would beat people in races or "grief" the griefers back, the same used to happen in RDR too although those instances in RDR were very rare and was probably the better multiplayer experience.
Now I just don't bother with online MP whatsoever and it's not something I would recommend to people new to online gaming.
I like to play objectives if I am in a team of randoms or PSN only friends.
If playing solely with people who I know from offline we tend to tit around a bit more though.
Thing is if we ever do play in open lobbies you have just got to be savvy with your abuse if you get it. The women I play with more than hold their own
It used to be the case that you could go into random lobbies and have banter and a laugh with anyone. Now, it's just toxic. Don't get me wrong, it's still possible to come across decent lobbies, but they're a lot rarer than they used to be.
I think it's reflective of the changing nature of the general gaming community over the past five years - when I first got my 360, it was great. The cross-section of gamers appeared to be fairly well-balanced. Nowadays, 90% of the people you come across appear to be 15 year old (or younger!) tryhards who're only interesting in bigging themselves up, talking b*llocks and pretending to be gangsta.
On the bright side, when the new generation of consoles drop, the price may prevent many of them getting one straight away so we might get a few decent years, before the price drops sufficiently that they all jump on the bandwagon again.
When a game as the guts to do Dead-is-dead, I might get involved, otherwise, I cant be bothered with the grief
Plus I think online is over rated anyway.
With Dedicated servers once you find a server with a good like minded bunch of players you can return to that server again and again and again, this grows a community of players who know each other and regularly play together. It is just generally a much better way of doing online play. Back when I gamed online on PC friends list wasn't even important as you know what servers your friends played and where to find them regularly.
Console online really is poor in comparison to PC online because of how the servers work and how nobody really has any control over the servers or people playing on those servers. If an idiot joins a game of CoD there is nothing anyone can do about it, when an idiot joined a game of Counter Strike if you were in a well moderated server all you normally had to do was change your name to "Admin" and someone turned up to kick the trouble maker.
Sadly its been many years since I played online on PC so I don't know if its still as good, but whenever I play online on console it always feels like online gaming has taken a few steps backward.
Regards
Mark