GearWERKZ TechBlog

This decline has occurred recently, as I can remember being able to easily find such experiences during the early days of the XBox 360. Finding a group of honorable racers in Project Gotham Racing 3 was bound to occur more frequently than not. Hosts were reasonably well-respected. And you had some level of control over your game lobby with the ability to boot players who failed to conform to the norms of the other lobby members.

The designs that the Call of Duty series has instituted,  done predominantly in a response to player requests, and the immense popularity of that series is leading to other developers following suit. Lobbies in most games being released today permit little or no control over the lobby membership. The only modes offered that allow that level of control do not permit any scoring that goes towards your levelling and unlocking content that is not inititally available to players. By definition, this system basically says that you can go play with the riff-raff, but if you want to play in an environment with some degree of gentlemanly behavior, you can only do so in a crippled version of the environment.

I am sure that this is done so that such powers would not be used for evil. So that no one can lock themselves into a room that permits no minorities, or people who choose alternate lifestyles. So that people can not go into private rooms and allow their buddy to shoot them for an hour so that they can level up. Fine. How about allowing a Private Lobby ranking system where the awards you earned in private matches were only useable in private matches? The current system is just as permitting of other forms of degenerate behavior, becasue it forces people of all stripes out into public rooms where they are subjected ot behavior that they would rather not be exposed to. And that is not just socially unaccetptable behavior; well, at least behavior that is not accepted socially in the real world. It is also the gaming behavior of poor sportsmanship displayed and employed by the glitch-goats and griefers.

In a recent podcast I particpated in, many of us questioned what we were paying for in our subscription to XBox Live. During the podcast, I was the odd-person out, believeing that I was still receiving a good service for my $50 a year. But as I reconsidered the topic today, and looked over what games I have been playing on my 360, and how I spend so much more time in single-player today than I did 5 years ago, it occurs to me as to the reasons why.

Sometimes things are cool until everyone else starts doing them, and this is where the FPS genre has gone, and most online gaming seems to be headed as well, at least on consoles. The most valuable experiences I find in shooters today are in the small squad-based tactical games where teams are more intimate and cohesive. Larger games, like MAG, present the almost insurmountable task of finding a large enough population of gamers who want the same enriching team-play experience as some of us. How in the world will you find 255 other people who have some sense of sportsmanship and honor who are willing to play at the same time? Granted, this case is at the extreme. There are smaller modes available in MAG. For me, it is tough to gather more than a group of 4 to 8 who are like-minded gamers who can play at the same time. Mostly because the demographic of that group are predominantly adults who also have jobs, houses, and families to take care of.

XBox Live and the general community of that group was an awesome experience for the first couple of years. But the more consoles that Microsoft sells, and the more peolpe that subscribe to XBox Live, the more I see the community degenerating. Combined with the incentive that the Call of Duty franchise is giving to other devs in removing levels of lobby control leaves me with a disheartening outlook on the future of my online participation. I abandoned the bulk of my effort to game online on the PC platform before this generation of consoles because of all of the cheats that were employed. I took refuge in this console generation because I thought it would provide a locked platform where such cheating and overall poor behavior was near impossible. Games are supposed to be fun, not frustrating. Team activities are supposed to encourage participation, not isolate the event to the morally abject.

Some of this is harsh, and I have probably been commenting only on the most extreme cases. I focus on Call of Duty as it takes this extreme case and brings it to the mainstream. Titles like Borderlands and the Rainbow Six Vegas series still provide modes that offer the small team venues where it is more reasonable to expect to find a good gaming experience, or rather the type of experience that I am looking for (not to label my limted perspective as the one that defines what is "good" for everyone else). I guess that is where I will confine myself to for the time being.

- Vr/Zeux..>>