elanya

I do a lot of gaming online. Probably more than I should, if I'm being honest. I should clarify - I mean roleplaying, not video games (in the traditional sense... I'll clarify further in a moment).

I have used a lot of different programs to help - Open RPG (balls!), gametable (simple but effective), Maptool (really great but a fair amount of work for gms to set up), even a home made grid that one of my programming GMs concocted. (Okay, that was exis, I don't have any other programmer gms.) We have used teamspeak and other voice programs to help things along - they can be hit and miss. Voice is a nice complement to traditional internet text media, but it doesn't work as well as a stand-alone gaming format, because there aren't any other cues to work with.

Today, however, one of my groups tried something different. We used a free program called ooVoo, which allows up to six people for video chat conferencing. It's got some issues - people who don't have really great connections can find it a little choppy, and you have the same problems as you always do getting people's set up optimized for chat. You need to minimize feedback, and so forth. But overall, I think this worked out really well. I am in Texas, three of my cohorts are in South Korea, and the other two players were in England (which is why game started early on a Sunday morning, at least for me. Stupid timezones). But I could see them all, and watch them, and talk. The program also has a text chat application as well, so you can supplement that way. It was as close as you can get to face to face tabletop, I think, and the experience pleased me.

Now, there are some disadvantages. Only six people (for now, and for free - they might allow more on the paid version), you probably should get dressed for game, where traditional internet media are more clothing optional (hey, this is a legit issue for some people!). You need to pay closer attention - it is harder to get away with side browsing when you're not directly involved - much like in face to face gaming. You aren't going to get the same kind of useful chat log that you can refer to down the road, which is something that I've personally come to rely on heavily for internet games. You can't take a little longer to work out what you are doing or exactly what you are going to say the way you might in a text based chat. You're still going to need a supplementary program to run any dice scripts you have and to facilitate board based combat. In these ways, you're losing out some of the big advantages over chat based media, and keeping some of the problems.

Some of the problems are the same ones you get in f-t-f gaming though - people not paying attention, no easily kept records, etc. I don't know if you can fairly count those against the *concept*, at least, of this kind of 'video gaming'. It's faster than chat. You can still play with people who are scattered around the globe. You get the useful visual cues of face to face gaming (though mediated some what by the fact that you can't look directly at people) as well as vocal ones (accents are fun!). it is easier to keep focused attention, I find, when I am talking to faces.

Although there are still kinds and it isn't really quite he same as f-t-f play, I really enjoyed this first little experiment. I just thought I would write it up for other people to think about, and discuss, if interested...

(cross posted between my journal and chickswithdice

Argh, argh.

I do this a lot. I go as long as possible without real social human contact, and then when i do reach out for it (instead of burying myself in my computer and clinging desperately to internet interactions of various sorts, or work, or various creative outlets, or some combination thereof), it isn't always there.

This weekend I'd made plane, but they fell through because I prioritized a game. Tonight I watched some TV with a friend online, and (I suspect) missed my window for trying to contact some people. Now it is too late, really, and I'm still home alone, the same way I have been every day since, um, Wednesday when I got back. I saw Megan and Aaron briefly when I took Jola to the Vet, and I saw Cemal and some of the department secretaries when I went in to school on Friday, but none of that counts as meaningful human interaction. Now I'm feeling shut in and cranky, and trying not to take it out on Jola, who only wants to play alllll the time, and go outside every two minutes.

Argh, Argh.

I think I am supposed to go to Buttermilk by this time next weekend also - I've lost track a little there, and I need to confirm whether or not Jola is taken care of (cheez_ball - should I call?). I have follow up stuff form my trip I really should jump on, and other work as well. Instead, i've been staying up too late, sleeping too much during the day, and indulging some of my geekiest whims - nothing wrong with that on the face of things, but it isn't contributing to me feeling like a productive adult right now. Also now I am feeling more blah and it is killing my creativity regardless.

Bleh.

I need people :/