The Future of Online Gaming...

I'm relatively new to the whole online gaming phenom'... For years, I was happy with my SP campaign mode... I was determined to get along without online multiplayer forever... Until...

I went to my brother's house one night with my kids and he was playing Warhawk... my kids insisted in the car on the way home that we get Warhawk and get online. 'No', I said, 'we don't do the online gaming thing kids'. End of discussion...

Then, Halo 3 was released and the hype surrounding it, coupled with my boys' relentless requests to get Warhawk,inspired me to give in... and get online...

Now, we've been having some great fun... I can see that I've really been missing out on some good times over the last few years...

HOWEVER...

I really hope that there is more to this online multiplayer craze than yet another round of 'Team Deathmatch' or 'Capture-the-flag'... It seems that nearly every game that offers online multiplayer is just re-hashing tired ideas that a bazillion other games are doing... Sure, some games obviously do it better than others, but c'mon people... where's the originality?

I know, some games offer online coop and that's definately cool... and then there are MMORPG's...

But what do you think that the future of online gaming will bring? When everyone is bored and burned-out on 'Team Slayer' what's going to be the next big thing?

Sorry if I should have blogged this, but I'm interested in everyone's opinion(s) on this matter... Thanks for reading...

Try playing something online that's not a shooter?

Also, I don't know how old your kids are, but there are lots of people on XBox Live who simply delight in being as vulgar as possible (well, just like the internet, natch.)

Edit: If I knew what the next big thing in online gaming was going to be, I'd probably have a hell of a lot more money. :lol:

Edit: If I knew what the next big thing in online gaming was going to be, I'd probably have a hell of a lot more money. :lol:

SpaceMoose

Too true. Personally I think it is Massivly multiplayer Co op Campain modes.

....Why am i not being hired yet?

There are some games that don't even use Deathmatch, like Team Fortress 2, and it's amazing. Deathmatch in general will be around for a long time, if not forever. Huxley is an MMOFPS with is a change from normal MMOs and FPSs. XBOX Live Arcade is headed in a good direction by bringing classic games back and giving them online multiplayer.

As far as the future... I'm sure devs have a few tricks up their sleeves.

I've actually talked about this very subject NUMEROUS times, and I'm glad to see it come up again.

I agree with pretty much everything the TC stated, but the problem I've noticed is that the online gaming community is a big part of the problem. Let me explain:

Take Halo 3 for instance. You get on Halo 3 and if any game type comes up that is a little 'different', it gets vetoed. Every. Time. You see, the online gaming community is pretty much full of individuals that latch on to one thing and want to get VERYgood at it and anything that can damage their precious stats they don't want to try.

With that its hard to rip devs for not taking chances by taking other genres or ideas online because the community seems to categorically reject such attempts. And this is easy for a dev to track because they just view the online stats and there it is.

Personally, I have no idea how to solve this, because the only way online gaming works is by having a community. If its not there, then the idea won't work. And, sadly, the current mindset in the majority of the online community is not one of accepting new ideas.

I would like to see more co-operation. Take Portal for instance.....that would make for an incredible multiplayer experience if redesigned accordingly, especially with a bunch of two man teams trying to get to the exit the fastest, all the while using their portals to impede the progress of the other teams. THAT would be a ton of frantic, quick paced fun.

I would really like to see what Miyamoto can do with MP as well.

I would like to see more co-operation. Take Portal for instance.....that would make for an incredible multiplayer experience if redesigned accordingly, especially with a bunch of two man teams trying to get to the exit the fastest, all the while using their portals to impede the progress of the other teams. THAT would be a ton of frantic, quick paced fun.

I would really like to see what Miyamoto can do with MP as well.

Rekunta

That's a really clever idea...though I hate to see a guy make a mistake on a team, causing his team to lose and get flamed to ashes.

And to topic creator. These days we are seeing MODS take over. That's where the originality will end up.

Half life-

I mean we have Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress (?) all start off as Mods

I think Portal will become a multiplayer game.

Warcraft 3- DOTA mod is huge.

I know UT 2004 has a huge MOD community, which I have to check out since I am actually getting the Antholgy sometimes this week.

Half life 2 has some interesting mods being tweaked as well. (I am currently playing one Called Hidden:Source)

I hope Crysis has some sick mods. =)

I would like if Hack n Slash games could be modded and played on Different servers.

But Titan's Quest did release Modding tools, to help build new quests. This could be played on LAN.