Last November Xbox 360 owners around the world rejoiced as the New Xbox Experience was rolled out, full of new features to enhance our gaming. One such feature is the new party system. It lets you and your friends chat and play games together. This also has maybe some unintended side effects on my gaming habits.
Hit the jump to find out what they were…
In the days of old, long before the NXE, there was just Xbox. Not Xbox 360, just regular old Xbox. I remember when I joined XBL back in 2002, a fresh gamer looking out onto a big open internet trying to find someone to play games with. Like the internet, XBL was full of A-holes, racists and just plain morons. Finding good, cool people to play with was a big deal. In super-quick time, I found my friends list full.
It became a monthly ritual to take the time to go through my friends list and see who I still played with, and make room for the new people I would meet. Gaming on XBL can be very social, in my opinion. I would find friends often by playing on the same team and laughing at the demise of the other team in games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Mech Assault and Halo 2. Finding gamers to play with before I became part of Sarcastic Gamer was a welcomed task.
Before the NXE launch, I can recall many a time the SG crew would be playing COD4 as a big group, having to hear a group of idiots spew out racist nonsense and then putting them in their place. Sometimes it just got so unbearable that we would just mute entire teams. It became easy to just avoid the A-holes.
After NXE was released I noticed that more often than not, groups I would play in would party up and be completely removed from the game chat all together. Also it became easy to game with the same group of people every time. You might be saying “but TJ, then you don’t have to hear the idiots of Xbox Live.” Yup, you’re right, but you also don’t get to interact with new gamers that could be really cool. You also miss a possible opportunity to bring someone new to Sarcastic Gamer and show them that not everyone on XBL is a dufus. I know that I’m not alone in this thinking.
I want to issue a challenge to the 360 owners of the SGC. If you mainly party up to play games switch over to game chat and try to make XBL a better place and make some new friends.
What do you guys/gals think? Does the party system get in the way of you making new friends?
Special Thanks to Lillieskeeper for her insight.
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For me not really, but that’s maybe because I’m new to the whole 360 experience. I see your point though.
YES! there’s nothing better than when the other team comes out of party chat to argue with if they lose a game of cod4… it makes the next game so much better as everyone starts trying really hard to win so as not to be on the recieving end of taunts if they lose.
well i already have a full list so i couldnt add new friends if i wanted to lol
TJ I only have one guy on my friends list that I met on live and have not deleted what does that say about the majority of xbl people. I guess there could be some cool people and I have met a few recently but they still aren’t people that I know in real life or from SG so there is like nothing to relate to besides “That guy is a noob tubing son of a ***** !” “ya he is!” so I understand your point but I would not game as much without the party system.
Most of the time we switch to game chat anyway, putting assholes in their place is a civic duty we take seriously.
I thought of a better one “why is that guy being such an idiot” “yep” “lets go play peggle” “sounds good” lol.
So true! My friend’s list filled up so quickly back in the days when everyone played Halo 2 on the original Xbox. Now meeting new, cool people just seems a lot harder.
I hate to sound condescending or elitist, but does anyone else think Xbox Live felt a lot more fun when it was a little less mainstream?
There are still plenty of people who play games without a party. You’re not always going to have friends online who feel like playing the same stuff you do. I get the feeling that the party system is a nice feature that I’m glad I can take advantage of, but am not forced to use… I also feel like I don’t suffer in any way from other people using it. If a group of racists decides to take themselves out of gamechat so they can be in a party together, they’re more than welcome to do so.
umm i mainly use party chat to talk to multiple friends while they arent on the same game but i understand, but so far i have found all of the cool friends i need lol
I agree completely most of my xbox live friends list was full of people I had met before the NXE update and because the people who had mic’s and wanted to talk normally and not like an idiot partied up I found it less enjoyable as I normally had to play with people already on my friends list rather than making new friends…
I’ve also found the same thing with the PS3 just because people don’t have mics on it