I used to be a big fan of Battlefield 1942. The computer I had played it slowly, and combined with a poor internet connection meant I had to go to a LAN cafe just to play the game online without any issues. I recently bought a new computer and out of curiosity installed it and saw if anyone still played it.
Much to my surprise, they did! Keep in mind, Battlefield 2 has been out for a year, and they’re already hyping a new sequel, Battlefield 2142. I figured everyone would be playing the more recent versions. So I started playing Old-school Battlefield 1942, and got a very big shock-
The people who played it were incredibly good. Maybe I’m just out of practice, or still the only idiot on the planet that pilots planes with a mouse and keyboard, but man some people are lethal at this game! Playing the game now feels like I’m walking/driving/flying around with a great big SHOOT ME sign on my rear end; I’m lucky to break even on kill/death ratios. This is too bad; what made the game fun to me is when there were many novices in games, and a lot of unpredictable things could happen (you could be trying to shoot down a plane, then have the enemy pilot accidentally stall himself out and save you the trouble of killing him yourself, for example).
I had heard that a similar occurrence happened in World War II Online- later in the game’s online history, most of the people who flew planes were so good that it really raised the bar, and novice players would have such a difficult time dealing with people that could kill them so easily it discouraged many new players from joining.
I hear that tends to happen with old multiplayer games - everyone leaves except the really hardcore players. Ever tried playing Quake these days? shudder
One of the main BF2 servers I play on has some really harsh arbitrary rules on not bombing the enemy’s airfield, because once the US planes start doing their thing, there’s not much the MEC side can do except respawn, watch their planes get blown up on the ground, and then they die. The only pack I play on those servers is anti-tank, because the game keeps devolving down to vehicle-vs-vehicle, and there aren’t enough to go around, so the groundpounder’s only choice of weapons is something that’ll hurt a vehicle.
I tried jumping into a Doom3 server and got schooled big time…
I read in a BF2142 forum that the new game will have no jets, just gunships, for a balance standpoint. People mentioned the single most broken thing about BF2 was jets; because a person could get good with anything else but still have to deal with a weakness (you could be a great sniper but still have someone sneak up and knife you to death, or a great tank driver but drive over a mine/get blindsided, etc) however a great jet pilot will be unopposed, shooting down enemy jets that try to stop him, and easily evading ground-to-air defenses.
Diablo II and Half Life, which are seven and nine years old respectively, still have a large number of online players.
They both seem to still have a good mix of players ability-wise as well. I second the shudder at the thought of trying to get into playing Quake online at this point.
Does anybody know how me and a couple of my buddies could play Quake III online without resorting to an open server? I never had broadband back in the day, but I re-installed QIII after I got a fast rig and am way better now than I ever was before. Last time I looked, there were very few servers and they were populated by the shudder players. We all have broadband now, can one of us be the server?
If it can be done, just say so and I’ll start a different thread for the particulars.
Maybe that’s why my boyfriend is having such a hard time on World War II Online. He enjoys playing it, but dies all the freaking time. I see a lot of recruits running around, though, when I look over his shoulder. And the old guys are really nice to the recruits. I was thinking of playing a bit myself, even though that’s totally not the sort of thing I’m good at and I’m sure it would be an exercise in frustration.
Diablo II still has thousands of players on the realms. Most seem to have been playing it for a long time, but there are a lot of newbie-types as well.
Go for it! The funny thing about some online games is that they seem really frustrating at first, but sometimes you don’t notice your own improvement. This happened to me in Planetside- My friend and I got mad that our bomber was shot down, only a moment later realizing that we had been unloading havoc on enemies for hours without dying, constantly rearming/repairing during the whole time. Quite fun!
Eh, I played three times last night and neither got shot at or got to shoot anybody, except my own side by mistake. I’d hear a lot of gunfire, but never find any action. It was really frustrating, and when I got to the target it was all over but the shouting. I think I’d rather have my boyfriend’s problem, where he keeps getting shot. I can’t even find anybody to shoot me!
Entirely too much like real warfare, if you ask me.
I’d like to add my favorite online multi-player game, which is Allegiance. Allegiance is a space fighting sim with capships, bases, and er, fighters, plus strong strategic and teamwork themes. It’s free now, after Microsoft uncharacteristically released the source code. There are of course lots of experts who have played it for years, but to help newer players along the learning curve, the community has established a (free) cadet program to learn the game.
Fans have written and entire new multiplayer online game for Jedi Knight III, which is really excellent. Not really all that old, but the oldest of the online games I currently play.
Actually, thinking on it, the oldest I play is Mechwarrior 4. Not sure how I forgot about that one, it was just mentioned the other day. :smack:
I’d still play MechCommander 1 and 2 if most of the leagues hadn’t died and MPlayer hadn’t been sold to Gamespy. God, MPlayer! Now there was a gaming system… This is bringing up a lot of memories for me.
Yeah, but with a few notable exceptions (most of whom seem to be Dopers), “good” in Diablo II seems mostly to mean “rich”, which often seems to mean “has connections with the folks cheating and duping items”, or possibly “buys items online with US$”.
Isn’t that to be expected? I mean, for every kill, there’s one person who makes it, and one person who snuffs it. So on average, folks should die as often as they kill. Or to put it another way, you’re apparently about average. Or yet another way, the other folks who still play it are about as good as you are.
Subspace still seems to have a small following, long after VIE dropped the servers. Damn it was addictive but it was too hard for new people to get into the game with so many veterans flying around. In the end, the players killed the game.
Holy crap, I found the fighting yesterday. I got shot immediately after spawning, respawned, made it about four steps before death, respawned, made it to the corner of the building and then got blown up, respawned, made it maybe 50 feet, got shot, gave up. Never saw another “living” soul. War is scary, guys.
Day of Defeat (the 1.3 version based on the Half-Life engine) is still played by a lot of people. It’s the online game that I play the most, the combination of WW2, action, look & feel, and flag-capping strategy never gets old to me. Valve released Day of Defeat:Source last year after a looong wait. It’s based on the Half Life 2 engine and looks great graphically, and has physics. However, myself and many other players were disappointed by it, they sped up the gameplay, the Source engine resulted in a lower frame rate, and just the general feel of the game was different, in a bad way.
Other Half-Life 1 based games continue to be played online, TFC, Counterstrike, etc.
Also, UT2004 continues to be much played online. It has so many out-of-the-box game modes and adjustments, plus tons of user-created content.
