Tumbling Down.

So I've decided to pick up gaming again. It's the winter time and I usually end up staying inside a lot. It's not that I had "quit" gaming. I more or less just focused my attention on other things, in hopes that by the time I was ready to dive in again a new game would be ready for me to take on and devour *ahem* starcraft 2. Well that isn't the case, it's the same old same old, and this time it's worse.

Whenever I would take a hiatus I would always have friends around still playing something, WoW, Quake, whatever. Now I have to beg friends to play. It's not that they are burned out, or not interested. Not at all actually. They are just bored of playing the same crap that has been around for the past 5-8 years with no new games around that are worth playing.

So I fire up WoW's 7 day free time they gave me for being a 5 year account. To my surprise I didn't know a single person on my server. Everyone I knew is no longer there, I don't even know if they play anymore. Let me tell you, WoW is rather boring playing by yourself. Looking over to Quake Live the servers are rather dead with the occasional CTF and Clan Arena server located in New York. Yeah that works great for a Texan like myself. My friends list is dead as well. Sigh.

Definitely a sign of the times. I've tried to get friends into games such as WoW, Quake Live, HoN, TF2, COD 4, SF 4. I'm not saying that these games are by any means amazing but it seems a lot of people forget the key feature to playing them, and that is to have a good time with friends.

There was a game back in the day called Soldier of Fortune 2. I couldn't stand it. It was a poorly done multiplayer game. It felt like it was slapped together in two weeks. To my prediction it actually was slapped together in two weeks, a complete after thought to the years they spent developing the single player. However my friends raved about it, wanted to play ever day. While I hated the game from a technical aspect and how budget it felt I also had some of the best online gaming experiences of my entire life, simply because of the people I took the epic journey with. Nothing can replace those memories and at times when I look back on it, those fun moments even made the game look good. I could go on about a few other games that fit this but I think one example is enough.

As I said while the game may not be the best game ever, or the exact style you're looking for, it's often the people you take the adventure with that makes the game. It's pretty much impossible to get a group of people to agree on the same thing, never mind a video game.

As I roll on through the online game world bored and nostalgic in my lone wolf style, I'll remember the great times I've had. Those gems are usually enough to keep on gaming.

Thanks for reading.