This matches how I feel about multiplayer as well. I prefer a compelling and well-crafted single-player experience.
Overall, I think as I’ve gotten older and my time for actually playing games has lessened, my passion for them hasn’t. So while I play fewer games and am more selective about the games I spend my time on, I’m still something of a collector, and will buy games I have a passing interest in just to try them out, or snag their music, or read their manuals, or to complete a collection. I love reading about games, talking about games, listening to the music from games sometimes more than actually playing them, so I guess I’m 60-70% theory, 30-40% actual gameplay.
I barely look at pre-game footage and ads unless they’re well done, sell a narrative vision and don’t just show gameplay footage.
I prefer to discover a game by playing it. Once I’ve waded into the thick of things, clicking buttons and bumping heads, might I be motivated to read up a wiki to see what I’ve missing, but I like being surprised, challenged and presented the game as it is to present. Which is not to say I don’t like the theory. Once the game, as executed as grabbed me, I’ll try to strip it down to its base mechanics, see how they interact to create the dynamic that’s engaging me, and then try to understand the overall aesthetic it presents.
But like Rucker, once a game stops surprising me, once the mechanics gets predictable without a strong narrative foundation, I find myself bored. I suppose that means I’m leaning more towards the theory side of this spectrum, but I’m always considered it as my ability to form a strong narrative support for the game I’m playing. Is it a good story?
Story doesn’t mean a written plot with characters and all that. It means the unfolding narrative of how the game progresses. Will my civilization finally conquer the world? will I rule the shogunate? Will I save Kirkwall? Will i beat down this trashtalking griefer in Starcraft II? If the gameplay helps me build this narrative in my head, I’m all for it.
*For some reason, I can’t play MP shooters like this. Too many dicks and rote mechanics. The dynamics of running about and getting lucky every so often don’t interest me as much. I don’t feel like a badass sniper, or a agile shooter when playing those. I feel like a guy who should know how to work a keyboard better.
I have to say that I have really grown to appreciate multiplayer in games over the last few years. And you must consider the fact that the reason I broke my years of lurker-hood on Qt3 by creating this account solely to respond to Raph Koster’s thread about the death of single player games, this is a big step for me.
I had always thought of multiplayer games as kill or be killed, and I know that for lots of people that’s the end of the discussion – it suits them just fine. But the growing sophistication in games with cooperative modes, like Hordes in Gears of War or Firefight in Halo, or the ability to just cause havoc in GTAIV and Red Dead Redemption give me lots of other options besides having my head plinked off from a kilometer away by a hyperactive 12-year-old. I have grown to accept and even love multiplayer.
The key to MMOs for me is the community even if that means a particular server or an individual guild or just a few buddies. That’s what keeps it interesting and fresh to me both as a roleplayer and a generalist gamer. If folks are engaged I’ll learn new things from them and have a good time exploring content as it’s added in. When things aren’t as lively roleplaying (I prefer RP with a little structure to it, like a tabletop style experience with a DM/storyteller but social RP is fine too) can keep me engaged.
Even if the game mechanics or new additions aren’t alluring by themselves the right kind of people can keep me entertained. There’s a bit of a catch there of course. Folks I tend to like hanging out with look for certain kinds of things in MMOs and if an MMO doesn’t have those things my tribe probably isn’t camped out there.
I’ll buy P&P manuals just to read them. I find the idea of actually playing one quite disturbing, but they’re fun to read.
Computer/video games? I play to enjoy myself. When a game stops being enjoyable, I stop playing.
Granted, I still read the Dominions 3 manual from time to time despite the fact that I haven’t played it in years and even then barely did (the AI was DOA and the MP was too sluggish, but I still enjoyed my time with it though)!
I’m a UI snob. I can’t stand a game that has shitty UI. It’s kind of a problem as their are several european games whose gameplay sound really appealing, but I just have a hard time getting past the interface.
I do like game systems, and reading about them, tabletop games as well. It’s a shame alot of games hide their systems, JRPGs in general usually require a lot of guesswork.
P&P role playing games disturbing? How odd, I think its a little weird trying to find strangers to play with, it always struck me as a good excuse to get friends together and basically group-think a story together and/or drink beer and eat pizza.
Wow, I thought I was the only one who did that. I think things really got out of control when I bought “Wilderness Adventures”, designed a world and the considered the ecosystem necessary to support a substantial orc population. Yeah, that was a dark time. :)
I first got into PC gaming around the time of Falcon 4.0 and some of the Jane’s sims. I remember reading the spiral-bound manuals (or in Falcon’s case, the binder in which the game was packaged) any chance I got. I’d even take them to work with me. Then I’d get into the tutorial missions, crash a few times trying to land, and go read somebody else’s AAR. I just never got to the point where learning the game was preferable to reading about somebody else playing it.
I react in a similar way to stuff like Europa Universalis. I get crazy intimidated by a steep learning curve, and I’m such a min-maxer that I really hate to fail as much as is necessary to climb said curve. I’ve had Demon’s Souls and Valkyria Chronicles sitting on the shelf for months, because they frankly scare the heck out of me. Meanwhile I read everything I can about either game, and go trolling on youtube for LPs.
Having said that, I wouldn’t say that I prefer game theory over playing games. I’m just too lazy/intimidated to really dig in and put in the time to get to that sweet spot.
There is an old Tom Chick* article in which he argues:
[ol]
[li]All games are essentially about pushing the right button at the right time a la Dragon’s Lair (push a button to send your troops to the correct flank in a strategy game, push the button to frag the other player in a MP FPS, etc);
[/li]
[li]Where games vary is in how they dress up that basic task with different themes, stories, settings, and the like.
[/li][/ol]
Well, I primarily play games for (2). For me, the illusion created is far more important than the maths of min-maxing. And this, in turn, is why I seldom bother to become truly skilful at games.
Also, I broadly agree with guppy on page 1 of the thread: there are certain experiences that I am utterly burned out on, and games increasingly need a fresh hook to gain my attention.
This was the Sister Miriam article that I’m pretty sure was referenced on Flash of Steel; I can’t find the link, though.
If it’s the flaming nerdery of it all, but you’re actually curious, try starting with something like Blood Bowl. If that works, expand into a board game crawler like Decent, and then into RPGs if you’re still feeling like it.
I admit I probably spend more time on game forums, reading game previews, checking out videos, going through manuals, thinking about theories and talking about games than I do actually playing games. I guess we’re all in Plato’s cave to a greater or lesser degree, obsessed with the ‘idea’ of a game more than the shadows in front of us.
