Just finished Far Cry 2 so I wanted to continue my single-player computer game storyline playing time wasting excercise. I went to Amazon and saw ‘Left 4 Dead’ advertised.
Stupidly I didn’t read up on it. I just checked it was highly rated and then bought it.
So it’s an online game. No real ‘story’ as far as I can tell - just go from place to place killing dead people.
A little disappointed I quit the game and started playing quake 4 for a one-player fix.
I don’t like online games because I feel obligated to be ‘good’ at them and to automatically know the etiquete of the game (every game seems to have it’s own group ettiquete that’s different from the others) I feel like I am trespassing upon the established dynamic of other people’s fun (even though I paid for the game). If it’s a co-op game I feel obligated to go at the pace of the people I’m with. It’s more like a chore than a game. I like one-player games because for the most part I can take them at my own pace - and more importantly I can pause them to go do something like get a drink from the fridge
It’s feels a bit like arriving at a new Forum and feeling scared to post without reading a four million page FAQ (exept in the game there’s no ‘FAQ’)
So how do I overcome these fears? Is there a way to enjoy L4D in one player?
Don’t know about this one specifically, but most games have a match-maker feature of some sort, precisely so you can play with people of a similar level without “intruding” (or having to intentionally suck).
As for pausing, well most multiplayer games are designed to be quick and played often, so you can have breaks in between. Most games have a pause option too, though your opponents need to agree to it.
Dude, seriously, play with us dopers. We know who is a noob and who isn’t and we’re all as patient as saints.
At least give it a shot with a group of dopers and see if it could be your thing or not.
There’s an extensive SDMB Steam group. Join it and see if anyone is playing the game. Feel free to IM me tonight if you’re up for a round my handle is Kinthalis.
Even amongst those of us who play regularly there is a wide range of skill. For example: I suck, Senor Beef Is some sort of human machine cyborg entity so he owns. But that’s cool. even in versus games all we do is try and balance out the team. this is the kind of game where the experience of playing with others and seeing the funny, unexpected, weird stuff that happens in a sessions is what’s fun. Winning or not doesn’t matter as much.
Don’t get me wrong L4D is a really fun game. I particularly like how occasionally you get rushed by 20 or so dead people. I’ve never seen that many NPCs in one go before and it’s quite funny to suddenly have a s**tload of baddies all come running at you at once.
Are many dopers playing L4D? I’ll look out for the steam group and join.
If I’m over here in the Isle of Man will Lag be an issue (most dopers being American and on the other side of the pond)
I’ll look out for you Kinthalis. Does steam have IM? I’m at work at the moment so I can’t check these things out yet. When I get home I will.
Yeah just go into the friend’s list and star adding people. you can also go to the community tab and join the official SDMB steam group. We;re pretty active with atleast 1 game going almost every night.
Timing might be an issue as I know at least three of us are on Eastern standard time.
Yes. You can enjoy Left 4 Dead with single player. You can play through the campaign mode, which is the same as playing against other people, but the other team is human and trying to kill you.
Listen to Kinthalis. They’l take good care of you.
We’ve got a couple Euro players and they don’t seem to have too big of problems with lag (hell, they’re probably some of the best players we have). If you are having a problem, though, we can try looking for a server that works better.
Here’s a link to the SDMB community. Just join it and keep an eye out for us playing. We usually start a game around 7 or 8pm CST (1 or 2pm GMT) and then another one gets going about an hour later or so when we finish the first game. There’s almost always one or two people on and playing, though, so keep your eyes peeled.
Playing with Dopers is definitely a much better experience than when you’re playing with a pick up group.
And I fail at observation. I’m usually pretty good at converting Eastern/central/mountain/pacfic into GMT/BST (It’s part of my living) I saw your post and thought “Hm, not really convenient for me those times”
1am/2am are more convenient since I finish work at midnight and don’t go to bed until around 3/4am
Weird how this hasn’t been mentioned yet; Left 4 Dead has a feature where if you go AFK and don’t press any keys for a minute or so, a bot will cover for you until you get back. But yeah, some of the people on the internet take the game rather seriously, so you’re better off playing with UK Dopers after you finish the single-player campaign.
