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Good Online FPS Games/Servers For Beginners?
An anonymous reader writes "I have been playing videogames for years, but only recently got a DSL line in my house and so have never played any online games before now, as dial up was always too slow. Now that I have a fast connection, I want to get into online gaming, FPS gaming in particular. My problem is that Unreal Tournament, Counter-Strike, Quake and all the other popular games seem to be dominated by people using cheats, and by established clans of players who are a lot better than me. Are there any online FPS games or servers whose barriers to entry are not too high for the average player? I am looking for something that I can just connect to for a half an hour now and then when I am bored and can have fun with."
Honestly, just get some friends together on a LAN and play. It's more entertaining than playing with a mass of immature idiots online anyhow. ;-)
It'll also give you the opportunity to build up those skills to get good enough to compete with the losers^wpros who spend all their time playing FPS games.
Why don't you try playing single player, or perhaps set up a LAN game filled with some bots while you bring yourself up to speed with the games?
I know that the question specified "online", but if you consider yourself a beginner, then you probably need to practice some before you get online and swim with the sharks. Many of the current FPS games allow for single-player with bots, and the bots are often good enough to mimic real players, with the useful difference that you can adjust their difficulty. I know that my officemates and I practiced with Tribes 2 that way for several hours when we bought the game before we logged into the online servers, and it made a world of difference in our enjoyment.
If you think there aren't any cheats that circumvent PunkBuster/Steam then you are't looking very hard.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
Find the newest game on the market. Most are all pretty much the same now-a-days, and if you want to get on a game that has no established game gurus, and no cheats, you need to get the bleeding edge game that no one has had a chance to master and/or crack.
:-)
Honestly, any game someone mentions thats a bit older (like Enemy Territory) is a bit too complex for a 'fps newbie'. A fps newbie should get used to playing a standard deathmatch, and learning things like circle strafing... THEN get into a game that requires complex strategies and team play.... that's when things get really fun
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I would suggest battlefield 1942. You can hop in to a game quickly, and it uses punkbuster, so there is little to no cheating. BF1942 is not one of those games where people get insanely good and know every little inch of the map. Plus, if WW2 isn't your bag, you can always download destert combat for some modern action. I personaly like DC better than the original, but thats just me.
SIGFAULT
There is a heirarchy of difficulty for a given game.
1) The hardest servers will be fully patched to the newest version.
2) Much easier servers are servers that were never patched. Many noobs here, young kids, etc that didn't play enough to want to patch, or don't know that a patch exists.
3) Easier still is the demo version. Almost entirely newbs here, everyone at all serious layed out the $40 long ago.
So, using Return to Castle Wolfenstien as an example,
- The 1.4 servers are tough. Clans live here.
- The 1.33 servers are much easier
- The Wolf MP test beta is easier still.
BTW Wolf has punkbuster. Just because someone gets constant headshots does not mean they are cheating. I can regularly dominate a match, but I also routinely get owned by peole who are simply phenominal.
-- If you actually say LOL instead of laughing, maybe it's time to go outside! --
If you are referring to UT2003, try GibGames.com port 2206 or 2225 for the more "skilled" players, or just connect to one of the countless deathmatch servers. Cheaters are rarely a problem; I encounter a cheater once in every twenty matches on UT2003. With Quake 3 your best bet is to only join servers with punkbuster enabled (this should have been obvious already) as it seems to stop cheating to some degree.
Some inexperienced FPS players automatically assume that someone's cheating when they get smacked down, often repeatedly. 99% of the time it's just skill, in my experience. I often thought the same way when people would have 20 frags and no deaths. However, I now realize that it's just talent. I am not in any way saying that you are one of these people, it's just that cheating is a lot rarer on online FPS games than one might expect from reading this post.
I have no experience with Half-Life: Counterstrike. This only applies to Q3 and UT2003.
I love RTCW:ET, but I wouldn't recommend it for the casual player.
The maps are very large and there's a complex set of objectives which have to be accomplished. Basically, you have to know where to be and where to go or else you are largely going to be useless.
I tried it with some friends of mine -- while in standard RTCW you could just bumrush the Map Room or whatever, these guys never really got the hang of ET and were always wandering around the wrong side of the map.
The good thing about the games is that if you aren't the best FPS shooter, you can be a Medic or Engineer and just play defense.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Terracorps is an online armored combat game that does not have huge hardware requirements. This is a very simple shooter type game, anyone can play, but the strategy behind it can become incredibly complex. This game pulled me away from Quake III and C&C Generals.
Natural Selection is quite good. It's a Half-Life mod that has an excellent player community - very few nubs, and almost zero hackers. Relatively complicated gameplay, but once you learn it, it is very fun.
This is a half-life mod similar to Counter Strike, only 1000 X's better. It does not have the cheating issue's that CS has. I have been playing it since the release of Half Life, and it is amazing. Everyone that plays it with me is instantly hooked. I can't say enough good about this game. I have been a gamer since Sierra's earliest days (yes, I still have my original copy of Police Quest 1.).
Mod +5 Drunk
> seem to be dominated by people using cheats, and by established clans of players who are a lot better than me.
With any game this is going to happen. Its like playing football with other people, sometimes the other team is going to have big bulky guys and sometimes you are going to lose.
Play and have fun. Its no fun losing 0-10 but thats why you have rotating maps and teams get mixed up. And you will get better.
My suggestions:
1. Learn the maps. Learn the guns.
2. Follow another player. Do what they do. Talk in game to them. (use team talk)
3. Try and play as a team. Say thank you. Joke around (Sexual jokes are welcomed. Homosexual jokes more so.)
4. Enjoy the excitement with playing with pretty guns and the thrill of shooting them off.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Because you never get up to speed playing maybe a couple hours per week, like the guy in question does. You play that infrequently, and you still get your ass kicked.
Bottom line is he (and many of us!) want servers where one can be capabibility-matched, so as to have a fun and competitive game regardless of skill level. Basically the idea is to vent some real-life frustration without making the game a full-time job.
That brings to mind the biggest problem with playing games online. People are weenies. That's why I've given up on the Internet and gone back to LAN parties.
bance.net
Although cheating is a serious problem on some servers, the fact is most claims of cheating are false. It's the beginners who see cheating when it's not there. They come from newbies who don't realize that although they think they are good, there are people much, much better than them. There's a hierarchy of tiers of player skill in FPS games, just like there is in life. Even people in the top tiers will get trounced by people on the even higher tiers.
All the problems that come with people cheating can be eliminated simply by playing on a good, reliable, well-administrated server that you've come to trust. It can take time to find one, but it's worth the investment. In short, don't sell out Quake, Counter-Strike, and its progeny just yet.