Online vs Offline gaming...

[DudeistBelieve]

Some games just feel as though they would be better if you could play with others. Bethesda does this rather well with the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games giving you that feeling.

Though, their Elder Scrolls MMO didn't do as well. Now, if they tried co-op games in a Fallout universe (like borderlands), I would be on that like a fat kid on a cupcake.

I'm still wondering if Fallout 4 might not get some sort of Co-Op gameplay in future DLC. There's that weird menu item that pops up from time to time called 'Squads' or 'Groups' or something that does nothing and I never fully understood.

 

[Trunkage]

I couldn't care less about Prestige or any of the other markers that multiplayer game use to make you feel better about the time you spend (i.e. club marker and poker cards in Payday 2 or prestige number in Diablo 3). What's worse is that people treat different based on that marker, usually negatively. But then, maybe its just when I'm in that spot, I try to help people.

Is there any reason you need to gain Coin/XP/Money/Prestige? Does it give you anything?

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I'm kinda the opposite as well. Prefer single-player games by a very large majority, but I guess I never got into the whole yelling into a headset thing. If I play coop games like Killing Floor, or team games like counter strike, or deathmatches, I generally stay quiet. Comes a point you really need to do some coordination, I just can't be arsed talking to people I don't know all too well.

But then, I attribute it to my gaming history. All my multiplayer in the past was done on LAN - Counter-strik, Warcraft 3, Diablo II, Quake 3, etc. So playing with people I don't know never grabbed me. The rest is also quite possibly geographical, as I moved to Indonesia where it's not my first language, servers were quite laggy, and cheating was rampant in racing games. I have had a few games of Payday and CS in more recent times, but after work where I've had to deal with people a whole lot, I prefer to just chill out in an open-world single player game, doing things at my own pace. I even finished the last 2 Borderlands games and Dead Island in single player, at least the 1st time round.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

This is lately an issue I've been struggling with lately, maybe some of yo can help me out brah.

Basically I use to be a big offline single player guy. However somewhere... I'm not sure when, but I feel like it was around the time I kinda lost my real life social circle, that I stopped digging the alone time so much.

Now adays, when I play Fallout 4? I feel quite alone in my little wasteland. I also sit there and kinda think, i'm wasting my time on this single player game, when I could be massing Coins/XP/Money/Prestige in my online games like GTAV or Splatoon.

It's enough to the point that I actually have a quite large backlog of single player games I don't know when I'll get to. Perhaps I need to start being more selective with my purchases. Anyone have this problem and a solution to getting back into singleplayer games again?

Yes, I think all of us have had this problem, or it's polar opposite, at some point in our gaming lives. I personally don't see it as anything weird, it's just a natural cycle, like a pendulum. We sometimes enjoy and desire the social nature of online/social games. And then, after oversaturation of that type of game, we decide to separate from it, and enjoy something more narrative and story driven in single player. I've had this flip at least half a dozen times over the decades. I'm currently in a "single player" mode, and have forgone any of the multiple multiplayer games I could be playing. Though I'm starting to swing back the other direction, or at least I've noticed an increase in my thought process towards online games. So in another 6 months or so, I'll probably dust off one of my online games, and start playing it again.

Since you specifically mentioned your loss of a RL social circle, as the driving factor in your going back to online games, and then asked for a solution. I'd say try and establish a new RL social circle? I mean, if your main reason to play multiplayers is to have social interaction, and not, you know, because you want to play those games so much, then I'd say the social element is what you really need, and should work to make some new friends. Then you might not have the urge to play online games for the social element. *shrugs*

Probably but my current situation in life hinders that. I'm a night shift workers these days, I don't really get to talk to people much. And maybe this is made worse by the isolation, I have a real tough time initiating it until I'm comfortable.

But it is this weird sense like, I don't want to be alone but I don't want to really directly interact either. So when I do play Single Player I'll end up leaving Twitch Stream running, but then people that do pop in get annoyed that I don't interact much... I'll just have a podcast playing or something.

Tonight however, is my night off, so well see if I can't get into something... I got Far Cry 4, Fallout 4, that Zombie game, Shadow Or Mordor to play... I also keep trying to play Megaman but then I get too frustrated.

 

[kenu12345]

Some games just feel as though they would be better if you could play with others. Bethesda does this rather well with the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games giving you that feeling.

Though, their Elder Scrolls MMO didn't do as well. Now, if they tried co-op games in a Fallout universe (like borderlands), I would be on that like a fat kid on a cupcake.

I fear it'd feel as watered-down as ESO is. They've progressively been taking more and more of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls out of the games they make in those series. I can hardly bring myself to venture into the Commonwealth a second or third time, because after just one run you've pretty much seen and done it all and it all unfolds the way you expect. By trying to force the radiant quest system on players, they've sadly managed to take a lot of the fun and creativity out of it.

"Here, let me mark the settlement on your map. Go find out what they need."
"Uhhh, no" *Opens console, completes quest*.
"Good job, general!"
"Whatever, dumbass, fork over the caps."

A well-written and well-designed but familiar quest is ironically almost infinitely more memorable and replayable for me. I still look forward to things like the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves' Guild missions from Oblivion over the tedious walking-pace escort missions and generic shopkeeper rescues from the more recent games. I don't know what they're trying to do over at Bethesda, but their games are feeling less homely, personalized and cluttered as I'd expect them to be given the supposedly fantastic nature of the worlds they're trying to portray.

OT: Offline all the way. It's a simple one for me after my experiences with internet loss on the west coast of Scotland. I'd rather be able to wander about the Ascadian Isles, swatting at derpy-eyed, tongue-flicking guar, then be staring at the wallpaper. :I

Yeah thats my general issue with all of it. It all just seems more simple and less memorable

 

[FalloutJack]

Even when I play an online game, I tend to do my own thing. Such is life.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

I've gone in the opposite direction over the years. Started out playing mostly multiplayer shooters online, and I always wondered how people could spend so much time on campaign mode / single player games without getting bored. It just seemed like multiplayer was the only thing that provided any replay value.

More recently, I tend to play single player games in offline mode almost exclusively. I guess this is partly a result of some of my friends moving away from gaming due to real life commitments, but I also find fun in replaying story mode on higher difficulties or with different character builds.

 

[Buckets]

Only game I really enjoyed playing online was World of Warcraft, had a great guild of likeminded people who played for fun, not prestige, but unfortunately as people got busier in life the guild faded away. I played for a while longer when the expansions were released but found the players I grouped with had no patience for the stories and just steamrolled instances/raids, with little to no interaction, so inevitably I quit.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

I prefer Single player by far

 

[happyninja42]

Probably but my current situation in life hinders that. I'm a night shift workers these days, I don't really get to talk to people much. And maybe this is made worse by the isolation, I have a real tough time initiating it until I'm comfortable.

But it is this weird sense like, I don't want to be alone but I don't want to really directly interact either. So when I do play Single Player I'll end up leaving Twitch Stream running, but then people that do pop in get annoyed that I don't interact much... I'll just have a podcast playing or something.

Tonight however, is my night off, so well see if I can't get into something... I got Far Cry 4, Fallout 4, that Zombie game, Shadow Or Mordor to play... I also keep trying to play Megaman but then I get too frustrated.

Well, can't really give much advice on the social insecurities you have. I've thankfully never really suffered from that, despite my geekness. My old roommate does though. *shrugs* All I can suggest is to just go out there and try. Find some place that is nerdcentric, like a gaming shop or something. Odds are the people there will be able to speak the same language as you on a few topics, and you can strike up some conversations.

Or just keep playing games and streaming, whatever works.

 

[PartyUpLive]

I love both. I love a good offline game, but I LOVE an online game that is about teamwork and working together. Like Gears Oof War Horde mode, or Left 4 Dead. I do enjoy a good PvP online experience too, but I have more fun when I am playing with a group of people. I also love a single player game like God Of War and Strider that was released on PSN and XBL a while back.

 

[Lightspeaker]

To be honest I PREFER long, single-player games. But lately I've found myself playing a lot of bitesize multiplayer things. Like World of Tanks or the odd game of DOTA2.

I dunno why. I just can't settle very well to playing stuff lately.

 

[happyninja42]

To be honest I PREFER long, single-player games. But lately I've found myself playing a lot of bitesize multiplayer things. Like World of Tanks or the odd game of DOTA2.

I dunno why. I just can't settle very well to playing stuff lately.

I'm kind of the same way right now. I've been enjoying little forays into Guns of Icarus, which is actually really damn fun. I dip my toe back into Old Republic now and then, but not for very long. I'm currently waiting for Crowfall to release, as I feel that one will likely hold my interest for a while when it comes to MMO's. In the meantime, I play a bunch of little single player games I picked up on steam sales years ago, and enjoy them.

 

[3asytarg3t]

I like MP, I just find the possibility of running into toxic personalities too high to bother with it these days.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

I'd rather have a nice, long or at least, fulfilling single-player experience than a good multiplayer experience. I mean, multiplayer is fun and all, but it can't really be anything more than that. Sure, I had some good times with Team Fortress 2, but they pale in comparison to my playthroughs of Portal.

 

[Dalisclock]

Pretty much single-player/offline all the way. I've tried multi-player and MMO's but I either get annoyed by all the jerks running around or bored by the grind(for MMO's). It also doesn't help that companies like Ubisoft are trying to shoehorn their stupid "service" into all their games, which is why all my Ubisoft games are played with Uplay in Offline mode(no matter how much it tries to tell me how much more fun it would be if I were online).