Would folks be interested in trying to get weekly video gaming hangouts going on the board? I know a bunch of isolated sets that are playing regularly, but just reaching out to see about making some event of it.
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Known Successes so far:
Left 4 Dead - This worked pretty well, but no surprises there.
What exactly do you mean by that? Could you elaborate a little bit?
Assuming he means same deal as CaH, but with video games instead.
I'd be up for it, if I have access to whatever games people want to play.
I'd be interested for that.
I might be. What games being considered?
For oldschool, it could be capture the flag UT :P For ease it could be original Left for Dead.
I'm sure the image is around somewhere.
First was feeling out how many were interested though. What would folks like to play? :)
I'm always down for UT of whatever version. I remember #SR FPS nights from years ago. :) If we're still going with the original, I no longer have a copy, but I think it's on GOG $10 so that's no problem.
I've never played L4D. IIRC, that was a game on Steam and I viciously dislike DRM. I won't insist that other people avoid playing any of those (that would be a completely unreasonable position to take in this day and age) but just FYI I won't be able to join in those particular games.
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If we are not FPS only and everyone would be willing to try a space-themed 4X RTS, might I suggest Star Ruler? I've reviewed it in the "What are you playing" thread before, and thought it was quite fun, but I've only played against the computer. It's Sins of a Solar Empire without ceilings (no shipcap, no limit to research, procedurally generate as many solar systems as you want at game creation, as long as you can fit it all in memory) + MOO2 ship design + sandbox (yes, with enough tech and time, you can build a gun that can blow up planets across the galaxy, strap engines to planets, and build a ship that is larger than a solar system).
The dev website has a demo so people can muck around with it before buying. I'll also warn that it has the old-school 4x learning curve - doesn't hit the Eve learning curve (http://www.flickr.com/photos/23579228@N04/2335016192/) but not blowing up your economy make take a few retries to figure out.
EVE! I play EVE, so I'm down for that! =D
More seriously, I'd be down for this, but I use Steam. It's got some good group games, but a lot of them are either RTS or FPS. While FPS can hold a lot of people, we'd likely need someone to host, and RTS tends to have a fairly low player cap.
Hopefully, I have a solid hosting environment these days as an option.
I'm down for FPS (UT, LFD, Borderlands either flavor). I also am up for a fair variety of RTS as well. I'm...not really up for 4X but maybe that's because I've never encountered a non-slooooow one. Ideal game length really for a hangout is something that can be grabbed in 30-60 minute chunks.
Hmm, I'll try and get things started, and we can toss out games that we'd like. I'm gonna also see if I have the old UT image hanging around. Unless we all want to pay ten bucks to get it off GoG?
I'll pass on FPS games.
What are ye up for, merc? :)
I would be willing to do some weekly gaming, depending on which games we decide on and which ones I have installed. Though I love L4D, I pretty much exclusively played it with Brian and I may pass on that. I'm not entirely sure I ever want to play the game again, to be perfectly honest. It's just a little too painful for me right now.
What about L4D2? I know Brian didn't care for it and the game is different enough that it wouldn't bother me to play.
I dunno. From steam, the only games that I -think- I have with multiplayer are Dungeon Defenders and Terraria. I might have others, but I've not done multiplayer in those others.
Outside of steam? Well, I'm open as long it isn't a first-person perspective game, which is what knocks out FPS games.
Installing dungeon defenders. I have terraria. It didn't click much at all single player...maybe it might multiplayer.
So, some ideas:
Terraria
Dungeon Defender
I've got the Dawn of War series, I've yet to try :) RTS.
Torchlight 2? Think that supports 4 players.
Shoot Many Robots (Never played but see it supports 4 player multiplayer)
Got both Orc Must Die, but those are 2 player things. Same as the saint's row setup.
Monaco is 4 player, but also terrible to my recollection.
I do have both L4Ds, but they're FPSes. 4 players.
huh, Just Cause 2 has a multiplayer mod. Weird. It's 3rdperson, I think. Not even investigated.
I do have dead island, but I've never seen that hold together beyond a 2 player session. THe network code is just not up to snuff and they've never fixed it.
I have AC2 and AC4...and I think they both have multiplayer 3rdperson versus modes? I've not checked?
I have civilization, but that's less a half hour play and more a SOUL EATING THING.
I got warframe for playing with another friend, but I had no idea what I was doing in it. and FPS.
I think ME3 had a multiplayer bit, and is 3rd person shooter.
And got both borderlands, which we could make a campaign out of, in small chunks, but that's FPS too.
And somewhere I got some piratey old games and other things I could dig up. We could also be all retro and get SNES network multiplayer going.
Or say...
http://bombermine.com/#/ we could play some crazy bomberman thing :)
Without FPS we're pretty blocked on player count usually, but it all depends if more than four usually want in
Anyhow, put down some ideas. Trying to exxxxpand the hangout box. Hey merc, you had some ideas on board games, mind making a post on ideas there?
We could arrange some RTS tournaments. Anyone else like the Command and Conquer series?
I have Shoot many Robots. 2D side-scrolling action. It's pretty fun. Sessions don't last long usually.
If you want to arrange a Borderlands campaign, sign me up. I have both of em and I haven't beaten either, though I seem to recall having to do some pretty arcane stuff in order to get connected to other people in the first game.
Another suggestion would be the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Editions. We can have up to six people at one person per character and it's really easy to set up. However, whatever they did to the game has NOT improved stability all that much. Crashes are somewhat frequent.
Last but not least, you all could consider rejoining the SR minecraft server. I mean, seriously. For the last two years it's been pretty much just Hal, Brian, and myself. It's currently running Horizons under the Feed the Beast launcher. You can ask Hal for the IP address.
Heh, I've done a lot of runs of Borderlands 1, but I find it mostly a more accessible game without cheating. Even though I think they patched it to try and reduce drop rates (Assholes). The thing with BL1 is that Siren is way better than every other class, and post level 50, things are more scaled against that.
I've beaten Borderlands 2 both solo and in a campaign, but had less draw on it. It has serious drop rate problems without screwing with it, though most of the characters are pretty good (Even if Mechromancer trumps). I suppose I wouldn't mind a regular campaign run :) We can do a half hour or hour a week.
Quote from: Dracos on February 18, 2014, 07:26:37 PM
I'm...not really up for 4X but maybe that's because I've never encountered a non-slooooow one. Ideal game length really for a hangout is something that can be grabbed in 30-60 minute chunks.
Is it necessarily the timespan, or is it that multiplayer 4x games tend to have one player who takes an hour to micromanage his empire?
If the later is the issue, then SR doesn't have that problem since it's an RTS multiplayer. Sure, everyone has the
option to micromanage each planet, but it's not really a good idea.
If it's the former, SR is a bit less appealing. My general time to beat 3 medium AI non-cheating computer players in a 150 system map (default setting) is about 3 hours. I'm not actually good at the game, and I've been given to understand that the usual average time is much less, but it's still not something that's done in 1/2 hour.
One could speed up the simulation speed up to 10x, but that's not really going to shorten any time while people are still figuring out playstyles.
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I've got the Dawn of War series, I've yet to try :) RTS.
I have the original Dawn of War + the two expansions (not the last Battle Sisters one). I didn't mention it because I didn't think anyone else would still want to play it. :) IIRC, that permits up to 8 players, depending on the map.
Well, occassional runs of 2-4 hour play is fine, but I think those would have to be weekend bits. Planning on 3 hours either pushes it real early or cuts the east coasters completely out. I'm thinking of trying to get a few that can fit for sort of short pick up and play sessions.
Old games seem like a good choice to bring up for ideas, I mean the goal is hangout :P And it means if someone doesn't own it, they can get it for 5-10 bucks.
Quote from: Dracos on February 20, 2014, 12:52:09 PMInstalling dungeon defenders. I have terraria. It didn't click much at all single player...maybe it might multiplayer.
Unless we also have something we can speak over and just chat while we do stuff, multiplayer Terrarria probably won't click either.
QuoteI've got the Dawn of War series, I've yet to try :) RTS.
Torchlight 2? Think that supports 4 players.
Monaco is 4 player, but also terrible to my recollection.
I have these, though not tried aaaaany of them, so I'd have no clue what I'm doing even with multiplayer. I'd still be up for them if others were.
QuoteAnd somewhere I got some piratey old games and other things I could dig up. We could also be all retro and get SNES network multiplayer going.
Or say... http://bombermine.com/#/ we could play some crazy bomberman thing :)
These would be awesome =)
QuoteWithout FPS we're pretty blocked on player count usually, but it all depends if more than four usually want in
Nothing wrong with any weekly gaming selection being FPS, just that I wouldn't participate because I get nauseous playing first person games, or even just watching them.
QuoteAnyhow, put down some ideas. Trying to exxxxpand the hangout box. Hey merc, you had some ideas on board games, mind making a post on ideas there?
Quote from: Merc on February 13, 2014, 09:35:41 PM
Was referring to places like www.boardgamearena.com which I mentioned a while back in the Online Gaming thread.
Also some others:
http://www.boiteajeux.net/
http://isotropic.org/
http://www.yucata.de/en
Can just pick a game and play a while. :p
Some game suggestions that might be fun to try as a group:
- Libertalia (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/125618/libertalia) - Pirate themed deduction game, 2-6 players. Players select a card per round, depending on the card ranking you get your pick of treasure or leave junk for others.
- Dixit (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/39856/dixit) - Also a deduction game, but more whimsical flavored, for 3 to 6 players. A 'czar' type person plays a card with some keyword/phrase, everyone else plays cards that try to evoke same keyword/phrase. People get points based on guesses of what card belonged to the czar at end of round.
- Race for the Galaxy (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/28143/race-for-the-galaxy) - Build space empires from cards, get points depending on what cards your board consists of, interaction between players depends on being able to use actions taken from other players. 2-4 players.
- Can't Stop (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41/cant-stop) - Iddy would love this (probably not). It's a game about pushing your luck, where rolling dice you try to advance on a grid and reach the top before other players do. It's a pretty quick game. 2-4 players.
- Takenoko (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/70919/takenoko) - Panda eats garden, gardener grows garden. Players try to direct the two and build garden to get points off garden layout, panda's eating, or gardening done. 2-4 players.
There are tons of other games, but those are some of the simpler/quicker games I can think of with online free counterparts. There's some others like Ticket to Ride on Steam as well.
Lastly, there's some virtual tabletops with modules of games, like Vassal Engine (http://www.vassalengine.org/index.php) or Zun Tzu (http://www.zuntzu.com/). I don't have any experience with either of these, but you can do some other games there if someone finds something they'd be interested in from their module list. I'd love to play games of Chaos in the Old World, Pandemic, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Dominion (I'll be honest, I -hate- the official online version of this game, so if the virtual tabletop is any good...), Endeavor, etc.
Okay, I think I've done enough of an info dump on board games online. =p
Hmm...I *think* SR also had the feature where people could leave ongoing matches and the AI would take over, or join in and take control of an AI-controlled empire. If so, you could just have ongoing games where SR members swap in and out as schedule permits, which could be interesting in itself. I'll check around to see how that actually works.
DoW has the interesting multiplayer feature that the player only needs the expansion with the race one wants to play. So, if you only want to play the the brave-and-highly-killable Imperial Guard, you only need Winter Assault and don't need the main DoW game. The flexibility of not having to make sure every client has the same expansion setup is nice if people need to get copies since they're not constrained to buy every related product.
However, IIRC, the game was setup so that multiplayer must go through gamespy, and to my knowledge, that has shut down. I don't know if any workarounds are available.
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Found the answer to both:
SR does have drop-in/drop-out capability for multiplayer, which means that people can leave early and join late without messing up games. When players aren't around, the AI takes over.
http://forums.blind-mind.com/index.php?topic=2005.msg13785#msg13785
Multiplayer games are also saveable (http://forums.blind-mind.com/index.php?topic=3263.msg24917#msg24917) but honestly, seems to have much less potential for fun than just hot-swapping random Soulriders members into random empires. It gets rid of elaborate scheduling complications - if you need to leave in an hour minutes, or you're going to be 20 minutes late, no worries; it won't hold up the game.
Since the original DOW supports LAN play, people have used Hamachi to get it working. I read somewhere that this requires that everyone have a fast internet connection, so it doesn't lag horribly.
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/29770/direct-ip-multiplayer
Does anyone else have Star Ruler?
Looked it up on Steam and it's 15, not quite sure I'm up for buying that at the moment, unless several people would want to rock.
Hmm, we'll have to experiment with DoW at some point. might be a couple of weeks before that's ready to get proposed as something we know can work :)
Gonna suggest Bombermine for this coming week. Folks, group behind something so we can focus on trying to get something specific going? :3 This includes SNES/Emulation stuff. I'm down with it, just need to know what to try out and make sure works before the gameday :P