The XBL casual player "wall"

[cobble75]

Xbox live is a wonderful thing. It allows gamers all over the world to meet up, play games and have a great time at the touch of a few buttons. There are many games with ranking systems for competitive play, cooperative play, and good stuff in between.

Much of its success stems from the fact that its so easy to get into the community. Once you have your game its pretty much just a matter of loading it up, connecting online and off you go. Easy Easy Easy


Yeah, well thats what I hear anyway. My experience with multiplayer on XLA is a whole other beast. You see Xbox assumes you have an already established group of people to meet up and play with.

Here is my situation. I am 32 years old with a family. My wife games a little bit but really just to be doing something with me. (not including her puzzle quest addiction). Most of my friends and coworkers also do not game so I am left with trying to get into an already existing online community.

I have had my 360 a few years now and its never been a big problem. I am not a big multiplayer gamer really (I do play mmorpgs but I don't find the experience that similiar... and I solo alot). Over the past 6 months or so I have wanted to get into an online community to game with outside of my social circle. There have also been some multiplayer games that I have been interested in playing so I made a few attempts at breaking into the "scene"

I dont want to go into specifics as to what games I tried and when. Lets just say i tried online fps, rts, puzzle, racing, and various misc XBLA games. My experience consisted of mainly getting my ass kicked off the bat and then being called some horrible things. Not my idea of a welcome really.

This didnt always happen. Sometimes I would get in a good game with some decent seeming folks. I had some surpisingly decent conversations. However the 3 or 4 people I though were pretty cool I never really had the oppertunity to play with again. So this made me wonder if there is a community really. Or maybe its just a mashup of folks made up of kids insulting each other or decent people who move on to the next game and the next random person.

This is also compounded by the fact that I am a very casual gamer. So even if I do game a bit by the time I get a chance to play again the people I played with have no idea who i am.

So to me if you don't have a bunch of friends in real life who game and are not a member of some sort of online clan XLA is a very intimidating thing to get involved in and enjoy.

Have any other casual gamers experienced this kind of "wall" when trying to get involved? Or should I not be so concerned with playing with random people and just always take the good with the bad.

What do you think?

[potatohead]

Cobble that is generally the experience you get when you try to do the random match making on xbox live. You are faced with that whole anonymity = reason to be a jerk equation. The mute functionality is your friend. Like you mentioned the true experience is when you can find that subset of people who are just like you, share the same interest, and play at the same level; that is where the true Xbox Live experience shines. Unfortunetly Xbox Live doesn't really have the interface or functionality right now, unlike most social networks, to really find that subset of people. One of the best places to start are places like here on the TRS forums.

Send me a friend request at Potato Galactic. I'm on there just to have fun minus the trash talking.

[patch]

I really wouldn't say XBL is a community as much as say, Washington state is a community.

Once XBL brings about clan systems, for XBL its self and not something specific to games, (like CoD4) you'll start to see the ability to actually find a group of people that you can click with, and you'll be able to filter out the 12 year olds that scream "****ot" at you for beating them, or losing to them.

For now tho, look up the XBL gamer tag thread, and also add trs360 to your friends list, and when you're accepted view the friends of the trs360 account and you can find TRS fans. Its a rag-tag way of keeping a clan list for the moment.

[siraim]

Patch speaks the gospel here.. TRS folk are on XBL all the time and normally we don't bite.

[svgamer]

On the dash board you should have a tab showing the last group of people you played with. Find the tags for the people you enjoyed playing with and send them a friends request.

[captds9e]

And the people you do like playing with leave good feedback, or bad for the annoying ones. It helps when matchmaking.

[cobble75]

Thanks for the advice and tips. next time I play online I will add some of you. I really appreciate it.

I would like to see a clan/guild thing setup though. How cool would that be. Maybe even a percentage of each members gamerscore can go to the guild and it can have a score as well.

MMO guilds would be a pretty good model I think.

[michael-spencer]

I ran into the same problems at first, but I didn't give up. At first I only had a few random friends I added only because they sent me friend requests.

Later I got into the Penny Arcade forums and added a bunch of people from there. People were always sending game invites, and it became much easier to find games with good people.

I think it's important to develop a thick skin and not take insults personally. Don't criticize the people who insult you, just ignore them. Act like you can't hear them, and continue to say "good game", congratulate people who beat you, and maybe ask for advice. People will notice your good-neighbor behavior and the right people will react well to it.

Forums seem to be a great place to fill up your friend list with Good People. I'm new to this particular forum but I thought I saw a gamertag thread up above. Go "maek poast" and see if you can get 80 or 90 active players added.

[assjacket]

I hear you Cobble75, I have the same issues.
After about 4 years of Live usage I have 20 people on my friends list. I have a hard time finding people that I want to regularly play with. If I play a game with someone and they are helpful to the team, friendly, and fun to play with I'll sent them a friend invite.

[joedubbs]

Yeah I only have a few people on my friends list. Some guys from my Fraternity and some from a gaming forum that I've frequented since 1999.

I personally just hop right into games. I have been fortunate enough where I don't run into too many kids or foolishness. I don't hesitate to file complaints if someone is using racial slurs or being over the top. You can also go into the tab of people you've recently played with and make them preferred gamers and you have a likely chance to meet them again.

Feel free to add me. I love COD 4 team death match.