Approaches To Teamwork In Online Games Surveyed

Thanks to GamersWithJobs for their piece discussing a new study about teamwork in online games. The study homepage has a PDF download of the student-authored paper, which is based on a survey interviewing "a total of 4,712 people" about their team-based gaming experiences online. In terms of improving and evolving teamwork, a variety of options are discussed: "A central commander role like in [Half-Life mod] Natural Selection supports the team aspect... and received positive feedback. However, an unskilled commander might destroy the team experience, as indicated by the votes for S2's Savage."

Teamwork idea

[calebtucker]

I like Battlefield 1942 for the most part.. however, most of the time it feels like I'm playing by myself.

Rarely when I get on a team with some people who actually have some teamwork skills, it's great -- like all of the tanks actually working together to take over bases, or having the chopper hover over a group of tanks protecting them.

I think a neat idea for games like this would be to have a single "commander" play the game in more of an RTS overhead fashion. He can tell the units playing in the 3D environment where they should go and who they should group with. At the very least, this mechanism would just give each unit a way point. This alone would make the game have much more of a feeling of teamwork.

Maybe I should look for a clan or something.. I'm just too used to the crappy public servers :)

Re:Teamwork idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You mentioned choppers so I take it you're playing Desert Combat. It's a pretty fun mod, but I've found less teamplay on DC servers than regular old BattleField. I don't know why, just an observation I've had. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to do their own thing. (which is rush head first into the enemy & die, respawn, repeat) Hitching a ride with someone in a vehicle is extremely rare in DC. My cries for "Requesting a pickup!" or "Wait!" go unheard almost constantly. It's very frustrating sometimes, enough to drive me back to vanilla BF1942...which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Teamwork!

[CashCarSTAR]

I play online games, almost solely for the teamwork. I don't like Deathmatches, I like feeling as part of a team.

My favs:

Subspace/Continuum:Highlevel play, especially when flagging. The attaching dynamic (You can warp to any spot where one of your teammates are), encourage team play.

Day of Defeat/Counter-Strike:Both, I feel offer impeccable team play, in a bit different style. I prefer Day of Defeat, as there is nothing better than hopping around ruins, laying down covering fire and slowly moving forward. As well, I think that one-kill rounds kinda suck for teamplay. It encourages conservatism which ruins it.

Diablo/Diablo II:Made for co-op.

I'm looking forward to playing FFXI, for some good team play as well.

But mostly, I play Day of Defeat now.

Soldat

[focitrixilous P]

http://www.soldat.pl
Play capture the flag. Be a true leader, or a true follower, or just a stupid sniper camper. Someone's gotta defend the flag, after all.