That’s funny, I never knew what NCG actually stood for before. You know, all the NCG people I’ve played recently have kinda sucked. But maybe they were faking anyway. Maybe you should come back, CRorex. 
Sterra, you still play? I’ve been trying to get a game with some SDMB people for months.
Somebody start an SDMB online gaming thread, and I’m there!
I’ll suck, but I’ll be there. 
I think NCG has disbanded…
Because I know Draeger (the guy running us) didn’t allow people to join who couldn’t beat him.
Anyway, there were two other NCG’s floating around B-net by the time I left
Granted if you run into Draeger, tell him I say Hi
Hrrm…
ya know… We should set up a doper online game one evening…
(a friday or saturday would be nice)
I vote for some HL mod.
I’m all for that! But I only have Starcraft and Diablo2, Would anyone wnat to play these games?
Yes.
But my D2 is expansion-free, so that might be problematic. If there’s enough interest in a running game of D2, I’d buy it. That’d be wicked fun, to play it through with a SDMB group.
SC, or BW, any time. My email is below, AIM is whitelightninggg and I’m on a lot. I’m always down for a game of Starcraft.
Anyone else?
CRorex, Draeger is still pretty active on the forums, last I knew. Although now that I think of it, I might not have looked at any forums in quite a while. And I know it’s been a while since I played him. Let’s play sometime.
My son plays Starcraft- he’d like to do something Friday or Saturday night, if we can find the game! My email is below, too.
We also have:
Baldur’s Gate
Quake 2
Starfleet Command
Half-Life
Counter-strike
Opposing Force
Team Fortress Classic
Age of Empires
…willing to play any of these, available most evenings (afternoons after track practice, we both get home at 5.)
Back on topic:
Most of my online game experiences have been “spawn and die” fests. Sometimes I start my own game- like on the MSN Zone server- and no one will join the game. The only good experiences were when I joined a friend in a private game.
I’m hoping for something different…
If anyone is up for Baldur’s Gate or Baldur’s Gate 2, please, please, please contact me. I am a hopeless addict and I love these games. I don’t have the expansion for BG 2, but I’d be happy to pick it up to play. So, Steelerphan, count me in if you get a group together. I am also a hopeless Age of Empires and Age of Empires II fan, though, as I said, I can’t get the multiplayer to work for the latter. Do you have the Rise of Rome expansion? (If not, you should try it. I picked it up for $2, including shipping, on Half.com – you should be able to pick it up cheaply.)
AIM name is nytforest. Feel free to IM me. I am generally free evenings except Mondays and Fridays (I do table-top role playing those days).
Osip wrote:
I was on bbs.paul.com once upon a time, but mostly what I remember was a guy named Galactic Overlord, who was into crushing people. All I wanted to do was run around robbing ports, build my little homeworld, get my little corporate flagship. I never messed with anybody. But this Galactic Overlord insisted in squeezing all the fun out of the game for everybody. My planet would get destroyed for no reason. One time he heavily mined every sector into StarDock so that no one could use it but him. He wasn’t the only one who destroyed my homeworld without provocation, of course. A guy like me who just wanted to build a little and stay out of everybody’s way had no place in the game.
Hey, fluiddruid, I’d be into a BG2 online game too. I also don’t have the expansion. The main problem with this for me would be that I totally suck at that game. I could barely get through the whole thing at the normal setting in single player. So if we were to play online I’d need extensive coaching.
So, for our potential Starcraft group, we have:
Hosayf
KKBattousai (?)
Steelerphan and/or Steelerphan Jr.
White Lightning
Maybe CRorex. We should get Number Six in on this too.
We should do some recruiting in another forum, too, to get everyone. I just did a search on threads with ‘Starcraft’ in the title, and there seem to be a lot of people on here that play it. You guys into it?
Hrrm, I’m definatly up for online gaming and stuff…
I’m really active in Counter-Strike and Firearms…
I haven’t tried the multiplayer for D2… or Baulder’s Gate 2
As for SC. Hehe I’ve got a problem
My SC cd is gone, my roomies spawned a copy and it went away so all I’ve got is BW… now I can’t remember if you can play both SC and BW multiplayer with just the BW disk…
Also, my only active copy of SC is on my laptop… which I may be able to hook up to my mininetwork here.
Let me screw around and see whats up. But definatly, keep me posted (Rorexc@hotmail.com) Depending on what we can do, I can offer to run the server (1.9ghz machine on a pretty steady cable link)
Oh yeah, for SC I’m gonna be rusty as all shit Hrrm as for CS/FA… isn’t there a new league season starting up in Europe soon? They have better prizes there
Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a good introductory game for people looking to play online FPSs. Even if you have a horrible ping and are a bad shot, you can be an asset to your team by playing a medic or lieutenant and keeping your teammates alive/stocked with ammo. There are a number of aspects that make it easy to learn…
You usually spawn at the same time as other players - when you are killed you have to wait until the next time reinforcements are scheduled to come in - usually around 30 second intervals. Since usually at least a few of your teammates will have been killed during that 30 seconds you won’t be alone when you show up again.
Most maps are fairly simple to learn. There’s usually a fairly straightforward path from where you spawn to your objective and finding your way around is fairly easy. There are usually multiple alternate routes to learn, and you will have to learn them eventually, but you will usually have a grasp on the layout of the level within a couple of minutes of joining if you follow your teammates around. There are certain exceptions, like the Castle and Sub maps, and many of the user-made maps.
It’s a really popular game and it’s still selling well, so there is a constant influx of new players. There are hardcore players who will seem godlike to new players, but they are the minority except on certain servers.
The community seems a little more helpful and less elitist than most online games I’ve played. I think this is due to it being a STRICTLY team-based game - no deathmatch modes are available. It always helps to make sure your teammates know what’s going on and how to play.
You know, BG2 is probably one of my 5 favorite games ever, but I don’t know if I could make it through again. (If anything, I’d be way too tempted to go kensai/magic-user again.) I don’t know how its multi works, but I’d be glad to whore myself out as a contract killer when the SDMB party runs into something hairy.
As for SC, can we please, pretty please, have brackets of some sort? Not only was I never hardcore good at the game (I barely graduated from n00b classification, if anything), but I’m also out of practice. Going up against people who were up there on the ladders… :shudder:
As far as FPS goes, I’m always down for a quick game of Q3 or UT, but I’m willing to pick up a “Game of the Year” copy of Half-Life if there’s enough clamoring for CS.
A couple of years ago, Pyroto Mountain (www.pyroto.com) advertised here at the SDMB. In an effort to help support our advertisers, a whole crew from here became players – I think I’m the only active one left.
Pyroto is an online game, but unlike any of the ones mentioned here. It seems at first glance to be a fantasy RPG, with “wizard” characters casting “spells”. For me, the initial attraction was the chance to show off trivia knowledge; you gain levels and power by answering incresingly difficult trivia questions.
It also forces players to post messages before permitting to advance too far. Initially that was a turn-off; as I played more, I came to understand that this was the true subtlety to master, since real power came not only from your own levels and spells, but from building alliances.
Since we had a whole crew of SDMB players over there, we became known as the Teeming Millions clan, and, while we lasted, wereotentially the most powerful clan in the game - we had awesome research skills to bring to bear on our shared question list, thanks to Cecil’s examples and being from a board dedicated to discovering the Straight Dope on any topic, we had the numbers, and the ability to blather on at length about any topic!
I mention all this because the game itself is still going strong, and I now serve as a trivia question editor and administrator. (Shameless plug, in other words). The game is relatively newbie-friendly, although, like any game, those that have played for a while have an advantage over those that have not.
But check it out. I can certainly promise you that unless you really ask for it, you won’t be blasted into nothingness as a newbie.
Yeah the game play style of RtCW multiplayer is nice. Its the reason why I switched over to counter-strike and firearms from the Unreal and Quake leagues.
FYI Counter-strike is a two team mod… terrorists vs counter terrorists working as a team to accomplish goals (rescue hostages, escort a vip or plant/defuse bombs). No respawning, each round when you die, you don’t come back until the next round. While that makes learning the game hard if you are a newbie (since you tend to lose more firefights than you win) if you stick with more experienced teammates you help them out by adding firepower and they help you out by keeping you alive
Firearms is a small squad military mod. Two different forces with nice customability in weapons and skills and you fight over objectives. Generally you fight over objective points and whoever captures them all gets more points. Respawning is done by reinforcements. Your whole team can only respawn x number of times.
What I like about it is its really newbie friendly. When everyone is shooting around you, morters are dropping and all you can hear are the screams of wounded soliders you’ll never see that guy hunkered down next in that trench until he opens up with his machine gun
Ok, done plugging my favorites!
As far as what to play…
I can join in on
Diablo 1 or 2
BG2
Any Half life mod (hint master sword the rpg mod if really fun)
Brood War
(After chidope and I have a better idea of finances I’m picking up AvP 2 and RtCW)
Does someone want to try to organize things?
If we do a FPS we should try to pick one where we can try to equalize the playing field… (Limit the most experienced plays to weaker guns, make sure the skill is spread out more and various other things to keep the effects of different pings more even)
I suspose I should dig out my laptop and get it set up again
Regarding D2, people with the expansion can still play games with people who don’t have it. You just have to make a non-expansion character and check that option when the game is created.
I’m fine coaching someone through BG2. I’ve played through it a lot. I tend to favor rangers and druids (really) – totemic druid with mad fire elementals and ranger / archer kit are my favorites. Seriously – at low levels, you get fire elemental and can clear whole maps with 1 of them. I always cleared a lot of nasty vampires with energy drain with fire elementals / spirit animals who are immune to that. I like summoning stuff. That’s my personal schtick. Totemic druids are, IMHO, the best summoners in the game for ease and frequency of summoning powerful creatures. Plus, they’re druids! You get a healer and insect swarm, too! How can you lose!
If you’re a novice, you could take the ranger archer. Those things are just MAD! Boing, boing, boing, boing, everything’s dead before the melee fighters can even reach the enemy. And for enemy spellcasters? Fuggedahboudit! Just shoot anything that twitches. Or you could be a paladin / undead hunter. Having a paladin in the party is pretty much required if you don’t want to pass up a Holy Avenger +5, and there’s enough bloody undead to make that kit worthwhile, IMHO. (Immune to energy drain? drool)
Any other Dopers into BG2? Or, heck, BG 1? I am playing through Tales of the Sword Coast right now, and I still haven’t done any of the Ulgoth’s Beard new quests, so it’d be new to me. I prefer BG2, though.
I just got Starcraft myself, and I’d love to play, but I’m not intensely experienced with it. However, it’s pretty similar to Warcraft II / Age of Empires / Age of Empires II / Seven Kingdoms, and I have all of those too, so if you’re looking for players, I’d be up for that.
I’m on a cable modem too, so my ping should be good.
My son is up for a game… he’s not registered here yet, so I’ll let him talk to you:
I’m really up for Starcraft online because I have played that game through the whole way with every race. Age of Empires I was into heavy also. As far as gaming I’m up for it in the evenings. I want to get a new copy of Starcraft and Starcraft:Brood War. I would be willing to coach people with that and play them.
My email is rocker889@yahoo.com. I have MSN messenger, Yahoo, and aol messenger my names are [EMAIL=punky5000@hotmail.com]punky5000@hotmail.com for msn, rocker889@yahoo.com for yahoo and AlxWise for Aol. Message me and we’ll set something up.
I’ll be there, too, looking over his shoulder at first.
We should start a thread in MPSIMS or IMHO for this
Number Six - your best bet is to do what everyone above is doing. Play with people you “know”. (Of course, you don’t know anyone on here at all, but it beats finding random people in a game somewhere)
Try smaller gaming or technical sites like Ars Technica (where I am a certified lurker) or even my site. Hop on the messageboards and find out where people are playing. I had about 10 posts there (so I could have easily been considered a n00b) when I joined a group of people at Ars who were playing “Toontown Online” - and we all teamed up and had a blast. On my site there’s DiabloII, Counterstrike, and Jedi Outcast games going every night. (btw - for Counterstrike you pretty much HAVE to play with people you “know” - the cheating is rampant.
If you get bored of the typical games, grab Gamespy Arcade (which I hate btw, but it has some good games) and play Yarn or a card game.
There’s lots of fun to be had online if you look around for it.
I’m one. I’m usually the party thief (swashbuckler if single-classed) or mage-thief. I’m still ticked at BG for making the first NPC a thief - now two of us couldn’t hit a thing:p
I gave away all my BG stuff, but still have BG2 and Throne of Bhaal.