How could GPGNet be a little more social?
One of my major complaints with GPGNet is it doesn’t really encourage interaction between players. You might chat a little with the host while you wait for more players to arrive for a Custom match. Perhaps you offer you opponent good luck during the start of a ranked match. But after the match is over people rarely chat or discuss what happened. I never see most of my opponents ever again.
In the multiplayer clients I’ve used for Total Annihilation over the years there have always been pre-launch game rooms. You could go into the room with a few buddies. Entry was instant and once you clicked a room with free spaces you were in for sure. With GPG’s reliance on an in-engine game room you often click to join a game, and by the time you arrive your place is taken. It’s very irritating.
There are a lot of benefits to the client game room. You can check out each others’ pings to see if they’re complimentary. You can explain further rules you might want. You can offer players links to maps and mods that might be necessary or just chat. There used to be “No Game, Just Chat” rooms on TA Zone all the time. People would arrive for a match and just get caught up in conversation.
When the game finishes it chucks you back into your game room. From there you can have a discussion about how things went. And you’re all ready to go if you feel like a rematch. Mplayer/GameSpy Arcade was notable for having voice chat in their rooms. I always enjoyed the heckling and trash talking that went on during the post match analysis.
Which brings me to another point. How come we don’t have in game voice chat? In a 3vs3 match there’s no time to be typing out essential information, never mind anything just for entertainment. You’ve got 5 minute tech 2 rushes and ghetto gunships to worry about. 10 seconds of inattention could be your last. For any sort of teamwork we’re really going to need a simple voice chat system like Steam.
There’s always the risk that you’ll end up against a high pitched 12 year old who repeatedly questions your sexuality and and suggests that he’s had relations with your mother, but that’s what the mute button is for. At least in an RTS you’ll only have to mute one or two people rather than five or six like you often have to in an FPS. At any rate, I think we’ve got a fairly old player base so it’s not that likely we’ll have the extent of anti-social behavior you get on something like XBox Live.
I’m not one of those people who thinks that online interaction is a replacement for the kind of socializing you get outside. But being able to laugh at your opponent’s mistakes, and congratulate him on his successes is just the sort of human element that makes a game last. Anything you can do to strengthen the interaction between the players will really help retain people and keep the player base healthy. I’m happy to see Gas Powered Games are continuing to develop the GPGNet client but I’d considering certain things to be much higher priority than the likes of Tournaments and World Maps which either benefit a minority of people or seem to have little merit whatsoever.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:26 am
I’ve played a couple of games teamed with my brother over Google Talk, and it has been very invaluable just to be able to share plans and strategies as if we were in the same room.
I don’t know how prevalent usage of Speak Freely is online, but I know it’s a popular solution for games. Maybe that’s the solution.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:02 am
You’re all probably aware of this, but in the online FPS (and I hear MMORPG) world Teamspeak and Ventrilo are extremely common, even when the games have built in voice capability.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:14 am
5 minute tech 2 rushes? try 3:40.
June 8th, 2007 at 4:28 am
I frequently hear people saying that GPGNet should be a part of supreme commander, but I’ve always held the same opinion as you; the in-game lobby should be a part of GPGNet instead. Having the players stay in the same channel (room, if you insist) after the game is also very clever. Post-game chats do happen but are certainly not the norm.
Another thing I think GPGNet really needs is the ability to join multiple channels at the same time. I always want to stay tuned to the main chat (Halcyon) but I’d also like to have a separate channel for our clan, maybe one for ranked players or any number of arbitrary channels. Anyone who’s used IRC will find the restriction to one channel at a time to be silly at the best. Fortunately it’s on their [GPG] todo list.
Social networking is one of the most important aspects of modern game design and I don’t think any game can expect longevity if the designers ignore it.
June 8th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Multiple channels/rooms at the same time was a point I meant to bring up and forgot. Well said grizzmo.
I know there are other options like Teamspeak and Ventrillo but those are always going to be used among people who know each other already. You need to go swapping ip addresses. You can’t just get into a game and expect it to have you be able to talk to all your team mates. I’m suggesting that they have a system that could work in those random start, random race custom 3vs3’s the likes of Unconquorable and TheBigOne have been playing on Open Palms lately.
June 8th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Oh, and Cydeweys, quit AmericaniZing my spelling! ;)
June 8th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Signed. I HATE the current interface. It gets the job done, but it reeks of lack of forethought and way too much time spent trying to join games. If they fixed this, my SupCom online experience would be greatly improved.