Talk about reading between the lines. For me, it depends on the game. When playing Halo, I like to play with people I know (for the most part). When playing Call f Duty, it doesn’t matter if I play with pubbies. I like playing with people I know because, well, I know them. I’ve got some rapport with them, they’re good people, and, chances are, we’re not going to lose very often.
You’re a touch defensive, I think.
I still play Battlefield 2 on occasion and there is no shortage of cheaters, I’m not talking about spawn killers, cartillery or 'nade spamming, I’m talking about bullet proof Aim-bot glitching motherfuckers.
I’m probably “that guy”. No team consisting of solely snipers, spies, and engineers has probably ever won a match in the history of TF2, and yet that is what most public servers seem to devolve to. I understand everyone’s playing to have fun, but it’s competely frustrating (for everyone) to get slaughtered because no one wants to switch from their “favorite” class. Especially when they’re terrible at that class to begin with. I’ll take a terrible heavy/soldier/medic over a terrible sniper/spy/engineer anyday.
But yes, some of the “serious business” people annoy me too.
So just to get this straight, to not play with pick-up groups I have to play with pick-up groups. How you can not see the contradiction in your statements I have no idea.
The real-life friends is the only true solution but there it assumes that my friends are gamers with the exact same tastes as myself which over the years has been far from true.
Nope. Pick-up groups are different from a group of people that you know beforehand. It’s no different than, say, playing with people from the Dope.
You’ve lost me. Pick-up groups are groups of random folks that happen to be looking for a game. Groups like LOUNE is talking about are more-or-less permanent rosters (as he just said while I was composing this post, the SDMB is an example), so when you want to play Left 4 Dead or something you know you’ll be playing with a sampling from this consistent group of people. It’s like MMO guilds.
It’s not necessary to locate these gaming groups during the course of gameplay; most groups who have their stuff together have webpages or are at least listed on certain sites. (Sorry for being vague, but I don’t have details for your specific situation.)
If you consider anything but playing with the same 3 or 4 people every time you play to be a pick-up group, though, then there’s little we can do to help.
That’s only useful if you’re already part of the group. So according to Least people who have bad experiences online shouldn’t play in pick-up groups and to do this they need to join a group. This ignores the fact that for someone not already part of the group playing with an unknown group to them is the exact same thing as playing with a pick-up group.
Relationships between human beings do not spring full formed from the ground; people do not automatically know people they’ve never encountered before. There are insiders and outsiders to a group of people and crossing the threshhold between the two requires playing with people who you’ve never played with before.
How this is a difficult concept to grasp is beyond me.
Yeeeeah, I think you’re asking for a little much, then. Of course you’ll be playing with strangers the first couple of times, but the point is that it’ll always be the same people there on out, whom you can then get to know. If your current friends have no interest in playing the game, then your next best solution is to make more friends who do have an interest in playing the game, or at the very least hook up with a stable group.
I’m not going to turn around and snark how difficult this concept is to grasp, because I think you do understand. Your requirements are narrower than typical, though, and there’s little anyone can do to help with that.
The problem that you’re having to grasp the concept is your own and, apparently, native to only you.
I’ll have you know that I also fully understood what Just Some Guy is saying and agree with him. So that makes two of us.
You can go back to being insufferably annoying now.
Fair enough. Then the point is whizzing over two heads.
I think the point that’s whizzing over everyone’s heads is that the OP was not looking for people to swoop in and save us with their favorite suggestions on how to not play with PUGs. The OP’s point, if we can all think back, was an invitation:
There was no invitation anyone to solve the problem. There was no begging anyone to magically make it so one’s coworkers or friends play the same games as them.
It was a thread about sharing one’s experiences. Not a FixMe! thread. There is a type of personality who can never tell the difference.
I have never played online in my life, in any shape or form, but even I can see what LOUNE is saying.
You can
A) Play with real life friends
B) Play a pick-up game with random anybodies (not desireable here)
or the magic third option
C) Search online for established groups with DEFINED characteristics and tendancies that suit your own goals.
Voila, you just found a group without playing the “Pubbies”.
(The magic of the WWW. I know stuff about games I have never even seen played)
Oh, I fully understand what he is saying. I also understand Just Some Guy’s point and can sympathise with him. It appears that I am about the only other person who can do so.
So can I, to a certain extent. I love MMOs, but I have trouble making friends on them without another friend to ease the process, and I refuse to PUG it. It’s much easier if I start playing with friends I already know.
That doesn’t mean established groups/guilds/clans = pick-up groups. There’s a distinct difference and it’s odd that Just Some Guy seems to be equating the two.
I’m sure they’ll tell you that they’re nice guys who are good with children but that doesn’t mean you want NAMBLA babysitting your kids. Until you play with a bunch of strangers to you (the definition of a pick-up group) you don’t know a thing about how they really are; how they present themselves and the reality are typically two completely different things.
I don’t know if this is where it started, but the Wizards of the Coast guys have popularized it. Mark Rosewater claims to be the source.
The split is Timmy/Johnny/Spike. Simply, Timmy wants to play around and have fun, Johnny wants to break the game, ie, find a bizarre or non-standard strategy that works (even if it isn’t the best), and Spike wants to win.
Even before that, it was used in the 2old2play forums. Ah, here’sits birth.
The version I heard is that the term comes from the character of Timmy on South Park.
I don’t want to step on your toes, here, but just for the sake of fighting ignorance, the “Timmy” quote from WoTC came about during the development of the Tempest set, which puts it pre-1997.
They’re basically different terms, anyway, but in that case it’s probably better that no one mixes their origins and thus their meanings. 