Comments on: Dangerous Mistakes In The Company Of Friends

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:38:03 +0000

I find the mistakes are always the part of the game that lasts. Nine years later, friends and I still talk about the raids in EverQuest that failed, or nearly failed. We never talk about the flawlessly executed raids.

When playing Left 4 Dead with friends, the best thing to hear is for someone to say, “Hold on guys, I want to try something…” It usually is a bad idea, but bad ideas are often the most fun ideas.

By: Martin F

Martin F — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:45:37 +0000

Great post!

@ Tom, I´d rather say that the goal in all games is to make gaming experience enjoyable.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:05:05 +0000

Well, to be clear: no-one I’ve played with is anywhere near useless! After all, the only goal in the game is survival, and as long as you’re acheiveing that, it doesn’t matter how you go about it.

So perhaps my use of “competence” is a slight understatement; the opposite of the thing I dislike is not “incompetence” by any stretch of the imagination; it’s more just a way of finding the edges of the experience, finding what the boundaries for fun are without compromising success or progress.

That’s far more interesting than either total, pedal-to-the-floor determination, or (on the other side) total disregard for the mechanics and dicking around. Making Dangerous Mistakes, sure, but dangerous mistakes that we recover from – it’s not like we make the mistakes on purpose…

By: The Roach

The Roach — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:27:18 +0000

Excellent – makes me want to play! And sounds like I won’t be the only one who is totally useless.

Me: ‘*extreme laughter* You’re getting slaughtered by the horde. Wait… why is my screen wobbling?’
Paul: Behiiiind you…
Me: DEAD

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:58:17 +0000

As the “Mike” in the above I just want to add that it was actually my first run in l4d and I was pissing myself all the way around. The dangerous mistakes made the whole thing hilarious and watching the general chaos unfold was one of my favourite experiences so far in a MOG. Consensual Theatre is a nice term but what I really love is the sense of live immerse slap stick. Like being in the young ones with zombies…that would make Jones, Ric to my Mike if you follow ;-)

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:28:25 +0000

Just to add a little something from my perspective – it was even more of Hudson-like folly. There was a hunter right by the car with the car-alarm, who was doing that annoying ‘haven’t quite triggered the AI proximity to make him attack but he’s hanging around thing’. He was annoying me. So I shot. and activated the car alarm. What. A. Dick.

It was magnificent fun, and thank you for lauding my mistake so wonderfully…

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:30:09 +0000

Man, you really tempt me to get an XBox every time you talk about L4D. I just don’t know enough PC gamers…

By: iain

iain — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:01:39 +0000

So so true.

If only more players realized this when playing. While the new Gauntlet mode will be a much needed step in the right direction, I hope valve goes even further in promoting this way of playing.

Here’s hoping anyway.

By: Jazmeister

Jazmeister — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:13:35 +0000

YES. Couldn’t agree more. Valve seem to know how to throw a little chaos into all of their games (throwing sawblades in HL2, the hilarious mix of characters in TF2, the… neon… disc battles… well, okay, excluding ricochet), but L4D takes the cake with this; I don’t know how many times my brother shot that fucking car, and it’s that “oh shit!” moment that at once crystalises the severity of the situation and reminds you that it’s just a game. Now he always lands a shot near it, just enough to make me panic. He does the same with fuel cans; I’m like “I’ll put this down /here/, remember to set it off if you need it.” “This here?” (bullets dance around the fuel can). “Fuuuuuuuuuu-”

Conversely, my least fun times in games of late have been super-serious L4D servers, where your team just abandons you without hilarity for messing up. TF2 is better suited to mixing player types; the 1337 commandos can own the people actually having fun, and everybody wins.

I still love a bit of lighting-everybody-on-fire-by-accident, even if it does cost us the game. Two words sum up everything you need to know about playing this game: oh shit!

By: Tom Taylor

Tom Taylor — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:48:01 +0000

Fuckin’ A.