Our latest gaming session revealed several interesting things to consider when playing in a multiplayer game.

1. Friends can suddenly back out on you.
2. The quietest person on the opposing team may actually be the silent killer.
3. It’s better to be prepared in case technology fails you suddenly.

We played CoH in the Annihilation mode. I think that most of you RTS fans already know what this game is, but for the benefit of those who don’t,  this game requires one to work with your team and try to get the most resources while trying to destroy the other team’s headquarters and men. The LAN mode allows for 2 teams of 4 players each. I’ll start this post with:

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
― William Blake

This quote probably reflected Travis’s feelings when J0n disconnected. This made him the target of everyone else from the opposing team. Amazingly, with some of his team members dropping off, the Axis still managed to survive for a long time.
The pictures show you the start of the game, with the second picture reflecting the game’s progress halfway through. Can you guess the members of the two different teams?

Often, there is this person in a game who likes giving directions and attempting to sway the strategies of other players. However, our gaming session proved to us that that one should actually be suspicious of the person that constantly remains quiet.  Have you heard of the phrase “the silent killer”? We witnessed Mal’s troops/characters remaining unnoticeable in the earlier part of the game. He emerged when there was few competition left, and quickly killed everyone off. It was shocking and painful.
My message to you is that everyone in your team is important. You’ll never know when he can become the most deadly player in your team. Be respectful and wary of fellow players when you are playing in a multiplayer game.

Finally, it’s better to be prepared when technology fails you. I’m not only referring to the incident of Jon disconnecting from the game. Rather, the delay to the start of our game because of a windows update. Picture this: the entire team is waiting for you to join the game but windows is stuck at updating part 1 of 3. Whoa. I’m sure most of us have experienced the dreadful waiting times required when windows does its update. For the love of fellow players, please update your software/ restart your computer before starting a multiplayer game.

But this also means that sometimes, players are not at fault for  becoming unresponsive in the midst of a game. Hey, their modem could be down! Some trends I’ve noticed that causes disconnections from games:

• Laptop shutting down due to lack of battery.

• Windows update must restart…

•Internet routers failing.

When playing multiplayer games, we have all faced the backstabbers, silent ones and even the unresponsive fellas. However, we should try to be patient. Let’s just tell ourselves that our fellow players may be scheming something or encountering technological difficulties.

The sky is dark,

The thunder is loud. With the sound leaving its mark.

Hand gestures

are

WILD

and the developers are discussing a Game.

-Anon

“No, I understand your point”, “No that was not my point”, “Please repeat”. These are just some of the common phrases that are flying around the right side of the office. We, the people at the left side, are trying to stay out of the fire.

This is the intensity that the devs go through when discussing gameplay. Economies in a gameplay specifically. Would you like your in-game gold compounded? Thanks, for the finance lesson. Occasionally, poor Travis gets drawn into the conversation.

Just another day in game development.