transmission eight - on interesting multiplayer experiences
musings on how we can connect with people on-line
it was in either 2012 or 2013 when one of my closest friends and at-the-time neighbor introduced me to this game he had pirated onto his computer. it had an eerie vibe, minimal music, and a simple artstyle. he showed me how to install the game onto my computer, and we started to play together, using the power of LAN play. we would go mining together, and build houses. that's right, you guessed it: I was a teenage cracked “minecraft" player. this went on for years and years. we'd host our own singleplayer-LAN sessions with another friend, and we'd play for several hours. and then we discovered online multiplayer servers.
minecraft
if you're unaware, there are cracked “minecraft” servers that one can use to play online multiplayer even if you don't own the game legally. my friend and I joined one such server. it was big, broad, and had a fair amount of people in it. we walked and walked, exploring and talking to people online. mostly people who also did not own the game legally, though there was also the odd player who clearly owned the full version of “minecraft” but was hanging out in a pirate server for some forever-unknown reason. as we kept playing, we noticed a huge structure in the sky. it was a man-made island, floating among the clouds. you could enter it via a waterfall that could be turned on and off, and you just swap upwards till you were at the hub. this was, it turned out, a sort of player-made guild named “Dark”. though we were fourteen at the time, i'd hazard the guess that the other players in said guild were similar ages.
we befriended the people at the guild, and joined them, we played with them for weeks. we had our own living spaces, there was a man-made lake to fish, a farm to get crops, it was all very neatly designed and self-sustaining. until one day, eventually, all the players had left. we were left with admin powers for the guild, we were attacked by players from other guilds, and though we tried rebuilding “Dark”, we could never get it to be as impactful as it had been when we had joined. reliving this experience in my memory reveals how quaint it all was, how my early teenager mind blew up small things into parts of an epic story. to this day, this is one of the most memorable multiplayer experiences i've ever had in an online videogame. this week on the infinite turnpike, we're talking online games, baby.
lethal company
“lethal company” blew up seemingly overnight, and for good reason. everyone by this point knows what the appeal is: you and some of your friends get to roleplay as a team of employees for an evil space company, going into old factories and mysterious... libraries? in order to secure as much money as you can to meet the quota that the titular company needs you to meet (otherwise, consequences are pretty dire for your disposable bunch).
the reason why “lethal company”'s multiplayer is special is fairly simple. first, it's an online PvE game. I think generally I tend to enjoy this type of multiplayer game over competitive fare. i'm reasonably meta-averse, and in a lot of competitive games it feels like if you're not choosing a few specific options from the dozens that the game gives you, then you may as well no compete at all, since you face little chance of succeeding. in “lethal company”, you're just hanging out with buddies, trying to explore as quickly as possible and avoid getting owned by spiders, dogs, or any sort of alien creature that's out there. there's unarguable pressure to succeed, and ideally not be the reason your team ends up failing at their mission completely, but at the same time, the game is designed so that your failures will often just be really, really funny. this means that the sting of failing is vastly lessened by this comedic factor, making any run, successful or not, into one that you'll look back on fondly with your buddies.
monster hunter
if you're playing monster hunter: rise, the latest entry in the impeccable monster hunter series, and you're really struggling fighting against a monster, there are several options on the table for you. first, you can keep fighting him over and over again, memorizing the monster's patterns, attacks, and mastering the fight itself. this is the first thing that monster hunter is about: pattern recognition, but it's not all that you can do. you can also buy better armor, improve your weapons, maybe use a potion or two. the second thing that monster hunter is about: preparation. there is, however, a third thing you can do. if you're struggling during a fight, you can send out a call for help, and open your game up to multiplayer. this way, you may be joined by a random player who might be able to help you beat the fight. odds are, this player will be japanese. that's the third thing monster hunter is about: cooperation.
don't get me wrong, you can definitely beat the latest monster hunters completely single-player. but the way the multiplayer is designed, and elegantly considered, makes it so that you can very much argue the game is meant to be beaten in groups. this does come with some caveats: the game becomes easier with each person you add. by the time you have four total players fighting a monster, that fight will be considerably easier than if you were fighting it on your own. but ultimately, the multiplayer elements are not some tacked-on layer to the game itself. there's something really special about invoking the help of random players who may be looking to join a game, and seeing someone with better gear, and more experience, help you out in progressing. monster hunter: world, the second to last main entry in the series, is almost designed like a single-player mmo of sorts, automatically placing you in multiplayer lobbies no matter if you're planning on executing the hunts on your own. to be a hunter, the game argues, is to be surrounded by hunters. this is compounded by the fact that, as much as I love this franchise, the monster hunter games are really bad at explaining themselves, and learning the systems is infinitely easier with the help of both youtube and general online content, and the help of friends who might be willing to teach you.
that's it for the turnpike this week. sort of a late entry, I know, I know. but we got it out day-of. there was also going to be a section about “Final Fantasy XIV Online” here too, but that one didn't quite coalesce. i'll revisit that topic for a different issue of this here online magazine at some point. for now, happy trans day of visibility, and happy easter. take care of yourselves.
Dude you have to try sea of thieves