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Why Online Gaming Isn't As Fun As It Should Be
Thanks to GameSpot for their 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing why online gaming can often be more frustrating than fun. The columnist finds two main reasons for frustration - firstly: "I don't like getting trounced by someone who is either flat-out, hands-down better at a game than I am or has simply invested many more hours in getting good at the game than I have." He also has issues with impolite players: "I think online gaming brings out some really despicable behavior in people, which I don't particularly mind but that I certainly don't like." Some possible solutions are mentioned, such as "effective player-matching services", but what can and should be done to make playing online a delight?
That's ok I like them too and always read all the Gamespotting columns. Check out Alex Navaro's column this week...he is just learning the ways of Microsoft it seems.
But I trendily digress, the article is very true. I picked up Unreal Tournament back in early 2000 and it was my first foray in the online world. It was fun being a newbie playing on Heat.net but soon that went belly up and I had to switch to the in-game server browser. Boy was I in for a surprise with the raw talent at playing UT those guys had! You would think playing everyday for hours on end for many years and you might be able to compete.
Nope. After playing for 3 years I finally gave the game up because I still couldn't compete with the 'elite' guys. Those guys are so insane and rightly called freaks.
You don't even need to have any kind of stats or calculations to do skill matching.
You know on single player games, where you choose your difficulty? Why not just look for "newbie", "intermediate", or "pro" games?
If someone joins a newbie server and is whupping ass on everyone, have the game prompt the newbies on whether or not they want to kick the person who is kicking ass. If he's beating on them that bad he should be on a different server or skill level anyway.
Server admins could set their servers to whatever level they want to cater to, or let the server advertise itself everywhere and the first player to join causes it to settle on that player's skill level until it's empty again.
Of course it's not perfect, but it would be an easy implementation and should help. Finding games of people about your skill level should be convenient and easy, and why have to wait for X number of games for the ranking system to figure out where you should be, or spend your time playing hardcore players who started new accounts to clear their records? Just tell the game what you want...
The first online game I played was Doom (with a hack called, I think, Doomgate). It was amazing to us at the time. Can you imagine - playing online with people in other countries!
It was a special experience, and those that played treated it with respect. Some of the first custom maps people made for Doom online play had built-in "typing rooms". If you wanted to talk to your opponents, you popped in there. The walls had a custom texture that said something like "TYPING ROOM - NO KILL ZONE", and it was considered cheating if you hurt anyone in there.
I picture the first propeller-driven biplane aircraft pilots waving at each other in a gentlemanly fashion - when they only dropped bombs on enemy troops, before they strapped a machinegun on the front and started shooting at each other.
For me, online play has gone horribly wrong since then. The floodgates opened, the masses want a jet-fighter with guided nuclear missiles to smash into the bleeding skulls of their enemies. Death-In-A-Box, internet play assumed. Sign Up And Kill Shit. If you're not typing to taunt, go play on IRC. I hate it. I can't play Quake3, Unreal Tournament or Battlefield 1942 online anymore.
Planetside is the closest yet in getting back to that early sensation of getting to know the people I was playing with. Unfortunately it's also a complete failure due to the masses of bugs, faction inbalance (should have 2 sides, not 3), broken rewards system (there's no incentive to defend). There's also a tremendous difficulty in finding other players due to Star Wars Galaxies sucking out the population (and I'm not following them because I prefer my games to not be turn-based, thanks).
Here's hoping that someone at id Software has played Planetside, finds inspiration, can see the problems - and decides they want to blow them out of the water.
I often do too, but what killed the idea of ranking-based matchmaking for me is Warcraft 3. To put it plainly, I suck at it. Which is to say I had about a 30% win ratio. But every other match I played was some guy who was starting over to clear his record, or starting a "for fun" account, or some other variant of a very skilled player being identified incorrectly. When you've played five games of something and you're faced with UBERDOOD13 with hundreds of battles behind him, it's not a lot of fun. I could have kept playing and improved, but I just wasn't having fun, so I played about twenty matches (i really tried to like it) and gave up.
:D
Stats and Rankings are wonderful.. rankings got me hooked on Unreal Tournament and made me play it for ungodly hours a week for six months trying to stay in the top ten of the gametype Domination.. and I've been a hardcore fan of the series for years since then. But I think both of these ideas could exist side by side, it's not an either or proposition. Newbie servers: no ranking (maybe stats for fun). Seperate Intermediate and Pro stats/rankings so there is no benefit to dropping below your skill level to whore points which, yes, still happens in ELO based systems.
The hardest part of the idea is deciding what level of gameplay performance would trigger the "do you wanna boot this slumming lamer" message
The problem with letting players handle the skill matching is that a lot of people would deliberately understate their playing skill in order to play games that they can easily win. They're not interested in a competitive match... they want to beat someone and run their smack and talk about how pathetic the other player is, and how great they are.
Take a look at the Starcraft games on BNet sometime. Starcraft has been out for quite a few years now. You'd think that there aren't that many new players trying it out, but it seems like every third game on BNet is "n00bs ONLY!!" or some crap like that. Not because there are that many new players, but because people want an easy win against another human. Same thing with the supposed Free-For-All games where two or 3 guys will team up right away because they made an agreement before the game started. They don't want competition, they want an easy win and the feeling of smug superiority that comes with it.
From my perspective, the solution is simple. Give me a way to positively ID players, no matter what nick or account they use. BNet could use each players CD key to generate a unique "Player ID" which would be displayed beside the players name. The ID number would stay the same no matter what names the player used or what accounts he played under.
Then give me a way to easily make notations about players, or put them in categories while I'm playing. If I've got someone in the "Don't play with" category, I should get some kind of warning every time I see them, or every time they join a game I'm playing in. If I feel that someone is very skilled and a fun person to play with, I should be able to see them easily as well. In short, take away some of the anonymity, and force players to experience some repercussions for their negative actions.
I am NOT a man!
I am a free number!