Slashdot Mirror
Online Gaming for Couples?
psuedo_samurai asks: "My longtime girlfriend recently had to move to complete her studies at a University, which is nowhere near where I live. Talking on the phone is quickly becoming old, as I'm a typical guy and hate being on the phone longer than 3 minutes, but I try. So I was thinking - I like games, she likes to talk, why not combine the two? So are there any online games suggested for couples using a headset? I can't see Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six working, but I was thinking maybe DDR Ultramix on Xbox Live? How about PC titles with headset support? Any suggestions?"
you can try cybersex
...Gibbin' the ole' GF to show her your true affection.
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
Cyber online using Good ol' Netmeeting and Notepad.
And why did you staple the trout to the RAM?
Duke Nukem, he loves the ladies so I would suggest, Duke Nukem 3D. Oh wait . . .
...but my wife and I both play neverwinter nights- great multiplayer game that can provide good laughs if you have a good module. I highly suggest the nordock module.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
I really don't see how gaming would help. The idea is communication and gaming would just cloud that with alterior motives. Not only that but you would also both have to choose "avatars" in the gaming world presenting more complications.
How about writing letters, sending nice postcards, and an occasional phone call. Or even if you must go the technological route a communal blog?
.... how you suggest that one. Or your character may lose all his nookie points. What!?!? So talking to me is so hard...... You may not wanna go there.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Unless she likes games too, this doesn't stand a chance in hell of working out well for you. You are trying to use logic -- guy logic -- to deal with women. The sooner you learn how futile this is, the better it is for you.
I'm a typical guy and hate being on the phone longer than 3 minutes, but I try. So I was thinking - I like games, she likes to talk, why not combine the two?
Not knowing the full situation I have to ask: Have you asked her if she'd like to be in an online game for longer than 3 minutes? If she's like many (most?) women she would want to have your full attention during a conversation (the 4 other
It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too; make sure this is what she wants before you send her all sorts of geek gear. She may just twist your intentions into thinking you're pushing her away.
Trolling is a art,
My girlfriend and I were in a similar situation. We played Civ:CTP (via email). This had several advantages:
1) Being that it was via email, we could do it "asynchronously" as needed.
2) While we were chatting online (which we both prefer to the phone), we could still play, and it was easy enough to do since it was still email based.
3) It was a fun game!
4) We could "show off" to each other based on our Civilisation building skills. (Hers were always better.)
5) I played it on Linux, and she played on Windows, and there were no problems!
All in all, it was a good experience, and allowed us to game together while far apart.
libertarianswag.com
"So I was thinking - I like games, she likes to talk, why not combine the two?"
The question is does *she* like games. I'm not going to try to give relationship advice here, but you'd probably be better off asking *her* what game she'd like to play (if any) rather than asking Slashdot.
...you're asking for couples' advice on /. ? ;-)
http://www.teamspeak.org/
:-P
Team speak can be used for any game, but you can use it just by yourself to have voice chats over your own running server/client. Quality is great and it's free.
Oh and you have a girlfriend who's into GAMES?! You're not fooling anyone, bub!
----------
Check out my blackbox styles
Her: "I sometimes wonder whether we were really meant for each other"
You: "Ok, get ready, the troll king is going to pop up any moment. Blast him with your fire bolt!"
Her: "I worry that we don't communicate enough"
You: "Huh? I don't think...look! There's the troll king! Attack!"
Nice try, but from my experience, she'll probably want you to focus on the conversation, not on getting a high score.
How come this guy has a girlfriend and I don't?
Don't worry; with thinking like that, he won't have a girlfriend for too much longer.
~jeff
The question posed by the author is irrelevant. The mere fact that he's contemplating DDR or CS as viable communication options has already doomed the relationship.
There is nothing more we can do for him,
I've been beta testing an MMOG called There for several months and it is a much more sociable experience than almost any other MMOG out there. All the "leveling up" is performed by talking, organizing events, and riding vehicles. No killing, no NPCs. Really it's just glorified IRC but with one fewer degree of separation because you and your friends have a lifelike customizeable avatar. Sexist stereotyping is beneath us all so I'll just say that the game has paintball guns, a variety of wheeled, flying, and riding vehicles, and lots and lots of shopping and outfits for whomever might enjoy such activities.
when you rather FRAG then SHAG your girlfriend.
You don't like to TALK to your girlfriend? Why are you going out with her then? You're honestly going to tell her that you prefer videogames to talking to her? Are you insane??
If you think my reaction is a poor one, wait until you hear hers.
Here's the thing, if the goal here is to have a conversation, then, no, this probably isn't a good solution. If the goal, on the other hand, is to create a sense of being together, then this would work well.
I mean, when you are in a relationship long enough, you tend to have less conversations, and it's more time just spent being around the other person. Doing things together, or sometimes just being in the same place but doing your own things.
If you have a long distance relationship, it's easy to stay in communication these days. The trick is creating that sense of physical proximity, that the other person is somehow there. This may be possible, to a degree, through a gaming environment.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
What could be more romantic than to meet your loved one on de_dust under the tunnel with knives only...only to be betrayed by someone pulling a deagle.
If that's not love...then...um...it's something unlike love.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Get some boom/headset mics for you and your SO and fire up one of the free voice engines, like TeamSpeak or Roger Wilco for voice chat (in or out of games). I've used TeamSpeak with excellent results while playing Unreal Tournament and other games, as well as just for conversing with distant family members on a semi-regular basis. (Free is good!)
For gaming, you have a chuckwagon full of choices. Unreal Tournament, Star Wars: Jedi Knight - Jedi Academy and Need for Speed: Underground top my recent list of multi-player games for raw fun and enjoyment with minimal commitment level (and I sense a commitment issue from the OP anyway!). Then of course, there's the obligatory mentions of The Sims, Everquest, Age of Mythology and Civilization III (find your own URLs for those), if you're into that kind of gaming (these require a higher commitment level).
If you two are more cerebral in your gaming, go hunt down a board game called Settlers of Catan and its offspring (Seafarers of Catan, et. al.) and play that with some friends next time you two are together. Once you get hooked on the board game -- and you will -- start playing it online. There's a nefarious, somewhat-underground (not after /. gets wind of it!) online client called
Sea3D that works pretty darn well
(Win32 only, sorry -- but if this is a problem, use the
Java client instead), and is terribly enjoyable for raw strategy and board game
fun, although it can sometimes be difficult to get players to join hosted games
(there doesn't seem to be a LARGE community of Sea3D users yet). If you
host your own games and have people you know join in, this is a non-issue.
If you're side-stepping the guy-girl conversation thing, your best bet is probably one of the action games, like Unreal and its similar-engine spawn (anything based off the Quake2 or Quake3 engines). There's usually so much going on in a DeathMatch or Team DeathMatch, there isn't much time for deep chit-chat, but you can both probably come out feeling like you had a onversation.
[Note to Guys: this probably isn't going to lead to a long-term, deep relationship, mind you, but will suffice for temporary distance relationships. Chicks don't generally like games, and especially don't like the KINDS of games we guys like, so YMMV. Board games and strategy type stuff, though, are generally universally enjoyable, which is why I mentioned Catan (this is the original German site).]
Good luck!!
I wouldn't call this a success story, especially since you both lived in the same house.
It's not easy to maintain a relationship like that. It took me years to get the woman I married interested in email. Moving to a different state was tough. All she would do is mail, even though she was a draftsman and her dad maintained a computer with email on it and gave her an account with her ISP. It was very frustrating to read week old letters when we had much faster mailing set up. I put up with it and simply snail mailed her back or phoned if anything was urgent. She did not like that her dad could read her mail and considered my email nagging a drag and a put off. Don't go there with games.
If she was interested in a particular game, that could be a common interest and great. Of course, if that were the case, he would be asking her not Slashdot.
My wife now likes email and IM. She's root on her own machine in her own house and that works for her. We keep up a lively conversation when I go to work. One day, I'm going to find a game that we might like to play together.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Most of my female friends if you suggested they play tennis or golf games, they'd just as rather whack you over the head with a racket or club. Girls can be just as bloodthirsty in gaming as guys, and it really does boil down to personal preference. Tetris is great from time to time, but it gets old. MMORPGs can be good (I'm eagerly awaiting the release of World of Warcraft so my bf and I can play, and yes we signed up for the beta). I'm not as rabid a gamer as he, I'd rather just spend my computer time sometimes working on my personal programming/networking projects. But I adore the exploratory aspects of MMORPGs and games such as Morrowind (wide expansive landscapes), some killing or even a lot (I have a few female friends who are rapid GTAers, me, I do "GTA: Morrowind" at times to alleviate stress, working on my goal of strategically eradicating the 3k+ named NPCs in the game), and some people prefer to focus on the RP aspects of MMORPGs. Everyone looks for different things in a game, both guys and girls, and I think the guy who originally asked the question should probably get to know his girl better and her preferences and maybe suggest games she could play to occupy some of the time he won't be around. Not try to get her to play just to say they are doing something "together" and "communicating." Girls are people too, k?
Invest in webcams.
My girlfriend lives a bit under 2 hours from me. We see each other on weekends and sometimes during the week, but not as often as we'd like.
I was always getting in trouble by misinterpreting things said on IM, so I got us two webcams for Christmas. The visual interaction beats anything you'll get in an online game.
Now, if I can just figure out how to best conform to Valentine's day....
paintball
In addition to other modes of communication, playing a game together would really help create that shared experience, but do not think that you can REPLACE the phone conversations. I would suggest that if she is not a gamer, you should find a long list of different types of games to suggest. There are sites for board games to be played online too if she's not keen on FPS or RPG styles.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
>> ...maybe because 60% of the players are
...maybe because 60% of players claim to be women
>> women!!
Correction: