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While I don’t exactly have a state of the art gaming PC, I’m not too far behind either; I can run most new games (albeit with low detail in some cases). I’m telling you this so that you can truly appreciate the choice of game I’ve been enjoying recently; rather than playing around with Half-life 2’s physics, losing my social life to World of Warcraft or conquering Gaul in Rome : Total War I’ve been playing online Monopoly.
Yeah, you read that right. The astute among you will quickly realise this means that not only have I decided to utilise the not-inconsiderable power of my PC to run something as simple as Monopoly, but that I’m not alone in this (in fact, there are usually 5 or 6 of us playing, one of whom is Aelon’s own Mr Hardflip). Now, I could probably go into a deeply introspective exposition at this point - asking Why we’re playing Monopoly of all things - but the simple answer is (of course) “because it’s fun.”
That does still lead me onto further exposition (be a bit of a rubbish article if it didn’t, really) - all games are supposed to be fun, after all. Online gaming especially. The problem is that I (at least) am increasingly finding that playing online is a lot more hassle than it’s worth; especially if you’re trying to game with a group of friends - first you’ve got to find a game that you all can run, own and want to play, then you’ve got to find a server that not only can you all get a decent ping to, but isn’t also populated by idiots. Of course there’s always the option of hosting the game yourself, but not everyone’s PC/connection is up to that - and even if it seems to be, there’ll still be issues. In short, once you get all the conditions right, playing Counter-Strike (or whatever) online is brilliant. It’s just incredibly frustrating getting to that point.
Whereas playing Monopoly was as simple as downloading it (from Home of the Underdogs, so it’s nice and free), and one of us hosting. The game is so undemanding that pretty much anyone can run and/or host it, and we can swiftly get on with the ‘having fun’ part of gaming (which, with Monopoly, comes as much from insulting each other as it does from anything else). Basically, the ease of use seems to outweigh the lack of complexity pretty much everything else - after all, if the game is still fun, does it really matter whether it involves bankrupting your friends as opposed to headshooting them?
Then again, maybe I’m just a capitalist at heart.
11th January | Reply
Yeah, I was left out of the online gaming scene for years because of my nastily slow connection - something which I know many others have had to experience as well. Despite getting broadband though, I’ve never really taken to online gaming. I don’t play CS:Source much because my PC can’t run it quite smoothly enough to make it fair for me, and not too many people I’d like to play with can get anywhere decent pings to the same servers I use. Nor do many of them want to play what I want to play.
I suppose it’s why LAN events are still popular, despite the huge uptake of broadband in recent years. It makes game organisation so much easier, and without the technical hurdles, it’s just all about fun.
12th January | Reply
This is why I am constantly trying to pimp the program called Xfire (www.xfire.com). Aside from the ping issue Xfire takes out all of the frustration with trying to get in the game with your friends. The standard way to play a game with your friend now is you go find a server, get the IP (which often involves either joining the game and alt+tabbing or actually having to quit the game) then giving the IP to others and waiting to see if they connect. In this amount of time a lot of things happen, the server fills up, your friend(s) can’t find the server, the server gets empty/changes maps/dissappears.
I notice that frequently people will give me valid IP address to servers I would get good ping on but for some reason they just do not show up. Xfire is like a buddy list built specifically for games. The program monitors what games you play and when you go play an online game it flags you as playing that game as well as enabling “join” for anyone else. So anytime you want to game with friends all you have to do is go find a server and join, then they will follow. And even cooler is your friends start showing up in games you are playing even though they were not present when you launched the game.
There have been other programs that have tried this before, gamespy arcade, to a lesser extent steam friends and such. But most of them do not work (steam friends) or work very poorly (GSA). Xfire really doesn’t tax your system much at all, i have mine launch as soon as the PC starts and I am good to go. It also keeps track of all the games you play in a nifty profile so you can see that I have spent nearly 3 solid days worth of time playing WoW.
12th January | Reply
I guess I’ll pimp an update for a game here. It changes all the old discs to current storage methods, and replaces the old developers with current ones. For people who aren’t ‘old skool’, it’s a nice update, which Dave should use.
12th January | Reply
Thanks to my crappy PC I only really play one game online (Wolfenstein Enemy Territory), and I only play that because it’s free (and it also has a hell of a lot of servers running for it still).
12th January | Reply
I tend to avoid games like Monopoly (much to my wife’s annoyance) for the simple reason: I always lose. Seriously, I suck at all board games so while I’m not exactly great at any action games, I can generally make progress. This said, I’m back on my “not playing games” kick again as I haven’t touched one for months now…
14th January | Reply
Holl - I’d be way more concerned about you spending 31 hours playing WoW this week; that’s a full-time job’s worth…
‘Flip - I’d've been surprised and disappointed had you not pimped your hideous aberration of an update.
Kel - Now now, we all know it’s the taking part that counts. As I keep telling myself. Every time I lose.
14th February | Reply
I upgraded to ADSL around a year and a half ago. Played more BF1942 then would be deemed healthy. Then promptly gave it up.
Reason being was that I was having much more fun playing either SP games (even against UT2k4 bots) then I was pwning the 50,000th tard flying around the maps in a jeep.
From that time I have only really attempted to play games with [GSF]ers. Attempted being the operative word here, as the generic 400ping to the US and Europe is far to harsh to attempt any form of FPS.