The internet is both the greatest and worst invention ever. It’s absolutely brilliant when you’re online; it has everything you need and you’re always connected to people. It’s the worst idea ever when it’s taken away from you, you’re left alone and you don’t have everything you need at your fingertips. It’s the same with online gaming; you’re connected to people, you have everything you need and it’s really great.
So, what would anyone do if this was to be taken away? You’d be disconnected from everyone, your trophies and achievements would soon become worthless, all those games that you spent sleepless nights playing online will cease to exist, it’s the worst. Unfortunately, after moving into my student accommodation, I seem to have found myself in this situation; I’m stuck without online gaming.
Sure, I can go home some weekends, but that’s an eighty mile journey with a PS3 just to download some stuff, sync my trophies and perhaps get a few hours of online play. Even though I may be going home next weekend, I’m still disconnected and I know that I’ll only have the luxury of PSN and Steam for a few days at most (and I’ll be downloading constantly during that time).
I’ve seen grown men cry at the fact there is going to be some PSN maintenance, or their new game needs a patch before the online will work; I’ve seen the internet explode with rage as the Store Update is delayed by a few hours; I’ve seen people in both of these situations complain about how badly supported their console of choice is. That’s nothing compared to being completely disconnected.
Well, here I am, stuck with near permanent PSN maintenance, only the single-player and local multiplayer portions of games, no store updates on time and no up to date online support for my consoles. The fact that Steam doesn’t even work, so I can’t download PC games or get the latest deals is horrible. However, I’m not just going to sit here and complain about how bad the internet at my student accommodation is, I’m adjusting to it.
What I am going to do is write a series of articles about my experiences and how to survive whilst disconnected. So that if you ever find yourself disconnected from the gaming world for a week or 20, you’ll know where to start in order to have fun without sticking to the latest trends. I’ve only been disconnected for over a month and I think I’ve adapted quite well so far.
Each article will tackle a different area; I’ll take a look at the benefits of local multiplayer and how I (re)discovered it, how single player can be so much better than multiplayer, why RPGs are actually the best genre and of course I’ll write something about the downsides of being disconnected – there always has to be downsides. You can expect them every weekend until, well, I get bored. Sound good?
Where do we start, then? How about right at the beginning? The first thing that I did when I found myself PSN-less was to get rid of the games that I only played online and to keep my local multiplayer games close. Modern Warfare 2 went straight into some trade-in credit along with a few other games to buy Move. There’s not really much online functionality with Move yet and I’ll find a way to patch the games that I need patched. I was all set… or so I thought.
Then I realised that I still miss online gaming. I’ve just got Black Ops from Lovefilm and I’m at that point in the story where you think “Hey, I should try out some online”. Sadly, I won’t be able to test it out at my leisure, so this is a big downside to being disconnected. Anyway, enough about the downsides and on with the writing! This time next week, we’ll be discussing why local multiplayer is awesome and I might even talk about Rock Band some more (wait… where are you going?!).
Serebii.Net
…Did you just say.. No internet?
Such a thing exists? :O
cam the man
It’s just a vicious rumour.
ProjectJAY
This is the exact same situation I find myself in just now. Bought an Xbox of a friend soon after I moved in, haven’t been able to try Halo Reach online at all :(
I was even thinking of submitting a guest article about it. Guess you beat me to it :P
Cadabena
Are you sure there’s no way for you to do it? At my uni I thought it was futile at first, and it might have taken me 5 weeks to do it, but I finally got round the Draconian firewall here and with a mixture of Internet Connection Sharing from my laptop and opening the right firewall ports on the network, I’m happily kicking ass on Bad Company 2. Ah how amazing it was to finally get online again :D
jayjay119
You do know that most uni IT departments will come and sort out your console for online gaming don’t you? Last year my flatmate bought a 360 and had it hooked up for online gaming in halls all in the same day.
Raen
That’s not most unis, you were lucky. Most unis actively discourage anything that isn’t a computer and dislike supporting even those.
Peco
I had this very same problem when I went away to university, and now I’m having it all over again now I’m living in Saudi Arabia! Having no online can be a blessing though, makes you concentrate on the offline aspects or perhaps the games that don’t even have much online play!
kevmd
Have to say that I never experienced this as a first year living in halls- the PS3 wasnt even out yet(showing my age!) but i feel for you. I’m really looking forward to the articles though, so no pressure! :)
Darth Newdar
I have to say, I don’t do much online gaming. I bought the PS3 ’cause I didn’t have to pay for the online, which I considered a waste of money as I wouldn’t be using it a lot of the time. I disagree with you about the Trophies – I get them for my benefit, not to show off to my “friends”.
Having said that, playing FIFA online is great fun…
CCasey123
I thought this would be a problem when I moved to halls, but I find that gaming has been pushed right to the bottom of my list of prioritys.
I don’t have the time to sink hours into online gaming anymore.
cc_star
The best point on here…
DrNate86
It’s only for a year, you will find you are so busy socializing anyway that you probably won’t get much singleplayer stuff done either! DVDs and drinking and late breakfasts will dominate most of your time.
jayjay119
What would you do if you were cut off from the internet? Well you, like I would just buy games and other from shops and make some real physical friends to play with instead of some random from Geneva. I’m in a dying crowd, I know, but losing internet gaming is not a big loss for me, sure it’s less convenient but local mutliplay will always be the best option, I get no joy from trashing some random username, now the look on my best friend’s face (who was the self proclaimed king of CoD) when I whiped him in a death match, that is priceless.
UKZ-N3M1515
Agreed, nothing beats a bit of local multiplayer, but its not always there at your disposal, where as online is. Now if the internet shut off (can it do that?!) i would only have great multiplayer experiances once or twice a week, and the rest would be basic gaming.
When i think about it in my head, i know i can have fun without online, as i did it with all my consoles previous to my xbox, which i only got live 6 months down the line. But i dont have a clue how, what games did i play?! i had about 7 games, for 6 months, i cant even remember what games they were… oh yes Viva Pinata, perfecting my garden, finding new cross breeds, and getting the dragon!
I spent most of my days playing that. If i was to do that now, i would just be thinking how boring it is in comparison to kicking *ss online. So i think it would be dreadful for the first month or two, but i would adapt, and focus on buying games such as fallout, oblivion and other huge games, and my ‘gaming year’ would fly past, and i would be back at home online in no time.
Cant wait to see more on your experiance, and see if its similar to how i think mine is. great article.
bigdon23
I have been without online play for 2 years since i moved, the up side is that i still do get online about once a week dragging my ps3 to my mums, the problem is that i cant take my tv so its back to sdtv gaming online.
The biggest problem is that its hard to sit down and get into ANY online game when your in this situation, and in this time i have lost my best psn buddies because of the “last logged in” thing.
As for my laptop and TSA, its easier to get around with, so more time is spent browsing rather than playing