from gamers to sociocunts

[Zweq]

The other day a friend said to me "how to enjoy games on single player, offline", well I said "If you don't enjoy a single player game then you're not a gamer, you're a sociocunt".

That leads to the question, how do you feel about elma being just a sociocunt game? Just tell me how much would you be playing the game if there were no recordtables, online mode, battles and so on. Based on that simple analysis, there are a ton of better games than elasto mania. Maybe for someone this all is just a "you don't say?", but I'm sure many haven't even realized being sociocunts.

[Igge]

I had a rather long period in between being introduced to the game by a friend and playing with him, and actually joining the scene. My friend quit after a couple of months, but I still kept playing just because I loved the game.

I've had many small games I've hoyled by myself for months and even years, games way less "popular" than elma, and never mentioned to anyone else. If I find a game I like, I'll play it irregardless of what other people think or do.

[Lee]

Honestly, I enjoyed Elma a lot more when there was no online capability.
But I'm like Igge. If I find a game I like I'll play it regardless of what others think or do.

[jonsykkel]

i guess im a sociocunt, for me the comunity really is the bigest part although it was the opposite in the beginning of my elma career. i very rarly paly offline or when theres noone on and im think i would quit fairly quickly without the scene. )

[ville_j]

I faded away from elma because it got really boring just to play by myself, I had no friends who played it and there weren't good levels that much to play. So I forgot about it for years. When I first heard about the online version (belma) I wasn't that excited, didn't try it out until maybe ½-1 year after. Surprisingly, it was quite fun and I was back at the scene in a blink of an eye.

Record tables have always existed, I don't think I care about those that much, not even WRs. Replays are the shit. In eol the important things for me are probably the possibility to spy and chat, and ofc the battle system. I don't care about the online records in other than the lev that is currently battled.

Dunno if sociocunt is a good word. I don't play any other games, even though there are many that execute these online and socialization functions much better.

[Zweq]

Nice to see nice people doing nice posts. I guess the point was something like have we even realized how many aspects in elma is based on social aspects. (99.99% of elma is sharing lev/rec/time) And comparison to other games. "Is elma even a good _game_" ? It's a damn good socialfuck (changed for VJ) game for sure. There are massively better _games_ out there. Games that have zero socializainginazingazniagzgainzxazigninazxg aspects.

[Chris]

I always preferred multiplayer. I played elma with my cousin for hours then many years later I found belma and I started playing it again. Now I only play multiplayer games anyway.

[Lousku]

Before I joined the scene, Elma was a game I played for a few days, forgot for a year and then started again. I don't think I've ever been hooked on a strictly single player game for longer than a matter of days. I wouldn't say record tables and other social elements make Elma less of a good game. They just bring out the best of it. But yeah, it does mostly attract the sociocunt in me.

[J-sim]

but the things you're talking about zweq could be determined as consisting of a variety of aspects that aren't purely social, but could be seen as game mechanics.
i see it as logical that it's more fun to play against others (live) than playing against yourself or playing against ai. the social ineteraction of battling, spying, adjusting your stylefinding to the times you see others are making, watching winning replays etc is surely all social, but i don't get why you have to call it 'sociocunts', 'sociofuck'. i see these things as something different from the chat interaction between players. the firstmentioned aspects and the elma game itself is for me still what is without a doubt the most powerful part of eol. the chat and community feeling or whatever you want to call it is something i like, but it's a byproduct as i see it.

watching other peoples elma replays is one of the most satisfying things i know, and it is of course elevated by the context of the player who made the ride, the battle, the level maker, the story behind it or whatever. but the real magic comes from the elma.

[John]

I guess I'm more of a gamer then. Sure, I like the fact that the option to play online against others exist, but only for others, I prefer to play offline.

I'm fairly sure that I wouldn't have stuck around if there wouldn't have been tables like WR-tables and even more so TT-tables. TT has always been more important to me. The community, like mIRC and Mopolauta, has also been really important.

If it wasn't for the fact that EOL times system is (still) flawed I might still have been around occasionaly, but I'll always prefer offline gaming. Still hoyling Skyrim which is another offline game (thank god).

Don't know if this post made any sense.

[Grace]

I am a gamer, which i know because of how much i play other offline single player games, but in the case of elma if there was no online community to be a part of, i wouldn't do it. I don't have the skill or inclination to challenge the boundaries of possibility within the game, so i doubt i would play if there was noone else i knew to play with.

[anpdad]

I'm so fed up with this game (and have been fed up for years) that i would stop playing it immediately had there not been any scene. I play very rarely offline, and it's more of an addiction-based playing, i don't get any fun from it. Elma was a game for 2-3 years, then it turned to a soulless, atmosphereless hoylafuck for me. Only numbers matter. Only styles matter. It's just like a math problem nowadays, no fun if you're not solving/researching it and finding something fresh. And it's a tedious process, which more and more rarely rewards with some positive feelings. Sociofucking makes it much less of a chore, but still doesn't change anything in the core itself.
So yeah, i've never considered elma (or any other purely hoylish game, or time-killing games like minesweeper etc) a "game". It's a hoylafuck, which doesn't sink down because its' friend sociofuck helps it stay afloat.

It's different for Doom, for example, which i've been playing for ~15 years. There is a relatively little community, and skills are quite high, so lots of levs are very technical nowadays (situation similar to elma, basically), but luckily not all of them are, and most still contain some theme and atmosphere anyway. And i often get fun just by playing them. Getting absorbed inside of them, feeling the atmosphere, exploring everything. Just good ol' experience from playing a good single player game. It's just the game and you, nothing else matters. Of course, you can turn your experience into hoylafuck if you want to, but it's not the main aspect of the game. Same goes with sociofuck and deathmatch online playing.

TLDR version: Elma - hoylafuck - sociofuck = 0 => not a good game for long-term sp playing.

[abruzzi]

well said jappe2!

[Chris]

I have to agree with Jappe. I remember myself hoyling tony hawk proskater 2 on pc. When thps3 on pc came I installed that game and finished it in about 2-3 with best hours. Almost 1st try. Then few days or weeks later I decided to try online mode. I thought I was good, I could score about 1-2 millions in 2 minutes with best combos around 500k. The reality was while I could beat many noobs, the best players (mostly with experience from playing thps3 online on ps2) could pull off much over 40-50 millions in one combo with their records around 100. They just care about making one big combo, while I was making many combos to score over 1 million. Compare 500k combo to 50 or 100 millions! This is how good you are when you play offline.

[Grace]

to me the only people who mostly play offline games are the casual players... ...but for example starcraft 2 which i play quite a lot i dont go online for a social experience, i go there to compete and face a challenge i would otherwise not get (campaign and bots are a joke).

And this is where i disagree with you. What about the whole genre's of games that require dedication and don't have online modes - or at least don't always make use of them. For instance, if you think you are more of a gamer for playing Elma online a bit than playing a whole lot of JRPGs, you are just being idiot Guitar Hero for me - i never play online. EVER. In fact, 95% of the best players don't, because there IS no challenge in playing online. People who want to challenge themselves play offline and play for score and try and 100% very difficult songs, which is impossible when hindered by lag and different systems when playing online.

I play 80% of my games offline, yet as an overall player i probably game more than most of the Elma scene. If to you a casual player is one who spends 5+ hours EVERY day playing different games, sure, but i think that's wrong.

I think that while, yes, social aspects are important to a lot of games, however to say that a gamer HAS to play online to be a gamer sounds like the view of either a 15 year old american CoD-fanboy or a Starcraft/Dota fanatic.

[Zweq]

I guess I have to admit that including lev/rec to social features was a mistake of mine, considering balazs created the internals, anyone could create int56. Still I like to think do I play a game because of its excellent game design or because of the nigger from Zimbabwe.

[analcactus]

as for elma, i dont play it too much anyway but i do play it preferably offline, riding through some old levs without even timer on.
ok, but freankly im sociocunt cause i buy steam games just for getting achievements

[A.K.B.]

I think everyone has made good points. Except for everyone but me.

[sleap]

regarding elma i am a totaly sociocunt. i wouldnt play a second if it wasnt for eol.
anyhow there are many games, like the recently oneofthebestgamesieverplayed finnished fallout3 which was SP only.
or mario galaxy and mario galaxy2.
i dont need people to play games, but for some it helps very much. same as q3a.
for me the term sociocunt is too strong or it cant be named for all SP/MP games. it is not as easy as that.
so to me i am a gamer, not a sociocunt. i like games, i dont seek them often but if you show me a good game i am for some time at least very much motivated to become good at it. and if thats over i sociocunt it..which is elma alone so far. (not saying i was ever good at elma :p)

and to jappe: if a gamer was a gamer then there would not be any pros.
i think we have to differ between the casual mongo gamer - plays by accident, the casual gamer-plays on purpose but still badly, the gamer (as plays games, seeks games, gets high on games and is good at games in general) and pro gam0rs.

[epp]

i mostly play games where i have direct opponents, like starcraft or dota. i dont know why that is, but things have just turned out that way.

[Tigro]

epp, have dota2? if yes, add me to friend on steam. id: dr_tigro.

[A.K.B.]

xratio: you might say that your social life is... ...brutal!

[Bismuth]

I've had many small games I've hoyled by myself for months and even years, games way less "popular" than elma, and never mentioned to anyone else. If I find a game I like, I'll play it irregardless of what other people think or do.

This. The reason why I've played RuneScape every once in a while for 8 years now. I don't give a fuck if people say I'm retarded for playing that game, if I feel like it, I'll play it. And I play it alone 98% of the time, even if it's online, I just mind my own business.

Same goes for elma, took me quite some time to join the scene, and I always preferred internals to battles, and usually I dislike integrating myself to the community of games I play. Elma is just special for that matter I guess.