The Return of GAME NIGHT

Alright so, figured I'd take the time to list out plenty of potential options, based on category with their pros and cons. Afterwards, I'll give some suggestions for how to proceed from here.


Survival Based Creative -

Examples: Minecraft, Terraria, Project Zomboid, ARK, 7 Days To Die, etc.

Pros: Typically have high player cap limits.
Ability to drop in and play without any prior experience or play.
Relatively inexpensive compared to other games.
Persistent Worlds, capable of being revisited each week.
Creating and surviving as a community.
Can be used to create additional 'games' inside the world.
Additional longevity due to mods, game paks, etc.

Cons: Requires host capabilities
If no capable host, may require dedicated servers, which may require monthly pay
Potential for serious lag based on player location
PC Use has greatest potential, but most difficulty to utilize for each person.
Troubleshooting may be required.

Comments: Overall, probably has the most potential for longevity and play together. These Survival games typically have the lowest 'learning curve' out of any games, and aside from the need for a server to play on, probably serve for the easiest game night result. That being said, these games are all pretty similar, and for the most part have been out for awhile. This exhausts most peoples desire to play, and some people don't like them to begin with. Of all the above options, minecraft clearly has the most replayability because of all the mods and gametypes available. A glance at youtuber videos show ways to keep such a 'gamenight' type world possible, though it would probably require extra effort by individuals to create something for everyone to play that week, if not doing straight survival. Lastly, if using a dedicated server, that means whoever is the host would need to be capable of playing that week, limiting it's possible play time to the hosts time only.

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Loot Based Games -

Examples: Borderlands, Torchlight, Diablo

Pros: Persitent Characters
Longevity and Replayability
Plenty of endgame content to keep players interested
No server requirements
Less potential for game breaking lag
Low learning curve

Cons: Typically 4 player maximum
No drop in capability.
Typically high cost
Requires the exact same four players

Comments: For a Nexus game night, these sound fun, but a probably bad in practice and should probably be played for other purposes. Its fine using nexus to search for gaming partners, but as I mentioned in the cons this is going to be limited to people in same group, staying at the same level (or higher, though that makes the game too easy for everyone else.)

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First Person Shooters (FPS) -

Examples: Halo, Battlefield, Arma, Call of Duty, Star Wars: Battlefront, etc.

Pros: No need for longetivity
Single session games
Typically at least 6 player capability.
Low time requirements
Easy drop in ability
No need for server capability.

Cons: Medium to High Cost
Steep Learning Curve
Low replayability
High System Requirements
Headset preferable.

Comments: Fun if you're good at shooters, but these typically cost a decent amount of money and require a lot of skill to be competitive at. If playing against other online players, there can be a high risk for defeat, and if playing against one another, this can also lead to definitive one sided fights (IE. When Zen had a high quality computer, he was a god at FPS, and still is on console.) This is perfectly fine of course if no one cares about winning or losing, but oftentimes repeated defeat can lead to frustration. The inherent nature of the game is made for competitiveness, so this definitely wouldn't be as 'friendly' as other choices. These require decent systems by everyone involved if on PC, and as an example I might not be able to run anything higher then Battlefront 2, if even that. Unlike the options before this one, and some to come, headsets are also pretty important to coordination and strategy, whereas many games the in-game text options are sufficient.

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Massively Multiplayer Online Games -

Examples: World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Elder Scrolls: Online, Destiny

Pros: High replayability
Weekly Content with incentive
Typically Free to Play
Massively Multiplayer
Clans for group activity

Cons: Groups can be limited to three-six people in some versions
Headset almost essential
Sometimes high cost or monthly pay
No drop in capability
High learning curve

Comments: Like the Loot based games, while these can be fun, they probably wouldn't be good in practice. For a game night, we probably want something with an easy drop in capability, and these are usually level based. While it would be nice to have a nexus clan on MMO's that many of us play, that would need to be something independent of game night. For example many of us have high level SW:ToR accounts, but this keeps anyone new from coming in, and still limits to groups of four.

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Racing -

Examples: The Crew, Need For Speed: Rivals, Driveclub

Pros: Easy drop in capability
No need for a server host

Cons: Low replayability
High learning curve
Some games require advancement for better cars, leaving new players behind
Good system required
They're racing games

Comments: Okay, I enjoy racing games myself from time to time, but these are often one off sessions that don't offer much replayability. Okay if you enjoy them, but aside from mario kart I can't think of any that have cult followings. On top of that, they're typically overpriced. Sorry, I'm bad at staying impartial on this. Unless you find some free-to-play online versions, probably not the best idea.

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MOBA -

Examples: League of Legends, Smite, Heroes of the Storm

Pros: Moderate Replayability
Typically free to play
Low-Medium system requirements
No server required.

Cons: Bad for drop in
High learning curve
Typically 5 player limit

Comments: Pretty fun, and might be good for some drop in play, though those with experience are going to fare far better then those without, potentially leading to imbalanced teams. The free to play is nice since this won't cost anyone anything. Though lag can be a problem, as well as location differences, system requirements aren't too high unless you're trying to reach top tier. If we're trying to keep this in custom games, then we can usually have up to 10 players, so plenty of space.

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Turn Based Strategy

Examples: Civilization 5, Age of Wonders 3, Beyond Earth

Pros: Longevity
8-12 player limit
Replayability
Low System Requirements
No Server requirements
Can be extended multiple weeks
Option for Co-op or VS

Cons: No drop in capability
High learning curve
Typically high cost
Requires all participating players

Comments: High on the list of good options, if enough people have the game, though it can lock out those who don't for multiple weeks. The low system requirements are great, allowing anyone to join if they have the game, and since its turn based even 5 fps isn't that big of a deal. That being said, if a game lasts longer then a single night – very likely – it can be saved and picked up the following week, or even the next day depending on availability. Games can last months depending on size/aggressiveness, and that's just on a single map. Probably best to play this on days when only the participating group is on so as not to exclude people that didn't join the first session – or if enough agree, start a new game entirely.

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Goddamn. I'm still at this? Moving on

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Real Time Strategy -

Examples: Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Sins of a Solar Empire. . . . . Starcraft.

Pros: Decently timed single sessions
Typically low cost
No server requirements
Drop in capability (sort of)
Custom Game type capability

Cons: Medium-High learning curve
Medium-high system requirements
Severe need for low lag

Comments: Another pretty good option here. Though it can be difficult to learn, this has options for co-op and vs, has games that are typically less long then the turn based, giving people the ability to come in each week. System requirements can be taxing even on the lowest settings, but sometimes still doable, especially with older RTS games. Furthermore, games like Starcraft 2, though high cost, do have a lot of custom game types. I got my start roleplaying on Warcraft 3's custom game types (though I believe Warcraft 3 is no longer supported by Blizzard.)

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Indie Games -

Examples: Uhh. . . .

Pros: Uhh. . . .

Cons: Uhh. . . .

Comments: Okay, this one is a bit harder to flesh out, because there are so many different types. Indie games have their own categories inside them, and they can range from roguelikes to tower defense to survival to completely random nonsense. They're typically low cost and low requirement, have single game sessions or like Dungeon Defenders, don't get too crazy with level advantages. They can be co-op or vs, and can be something completely new ( A big example right now is rocket league.) There's no telling what you'll get out of them, but they could sometimes be a good option for a few weeks.

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Free-to-play Online -

Examples: Uhh. . . .

Pros: Uhh. . .

Cons: Uhh. . .

Comments: Also a very tricky one. There are so many of these, that it's probably a great idea to have these for one night sessions. System requirements are almost laughable, drop and play is exceptionally good typically. I can't think of a lot that requires an excessive amount of play. That being said, interest is going to vary from person to person. Club Penguin is obviously popular, but I don't think I want to play that. The play time is very limited, no need for headsets as almost all of these have in game chat options. Because of the variation and what people have accomplished, this can probably bring in games that you'd usually only be able to play IRL, such as board games, cards against humanity, and card games such as mao, poker, etc. Basically anything with a specifically purposed browser application works here. Definitely the most cost effective option for everyone, though it does require someone hunting them down.

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Custom/ RP -

Examples: D&D, Neverwinter Nights 2, RISK, etc.

Pros: Super Longevity
Relevance

Cons: Super Longevity
Relevance

Comments: Basically the only things I can think of that don't fit into an above category, what I'm talking about here are games specifically crafted or maintained by one of us. We had a RISK example that fell apart, and a D&D one as well. These probably require more then one specific days worth of work, and requires someone more dedicated (read: “more free time”) then myself currently to run them and make sure everyones participating. Additonally, you can have an actual RP game such as Neverwinter Nights 2 or Baldur's Gate to run an Rping group. These games do have some potential for drop in drop out with custom characters, cityscapes to 'meet' people in, etc., though it can be very difficult to get sessions like this working even with the same versions of the games. In addition to that, really you can have these in ANY game as long as you have someone driving the story and figuring out how to work events. SW:ToR had RP Servers as an example of this, and as I mentioned earlier I learned to RP on Warcraft 3. Nexus is obviously focused on RP, so some of us will want the gaming to stay relevant to that and others for it not to. Either way, this is probably going to take the most effort out of all the options for whoever is in charge – Dmin' ain't easy.

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Conclusion: There's a ton of options. If Battlefront gained some traction, I say we start with that. Hell, I might even be able to run that, gonna go check soonish. So we should set up a day and time period for some point in the future across multiple days in a week for that.

While that's going on, I say we do two things. Let's get a listing of who has what system, maybe edited into the first post of an ongoing weekly/monthly poll. That way we're aware of who has what and can play where. From what I've heard so far, a lot people will have an Xbone in addition to their PC by the end of the year, and I think nearly everyone does have a PC, even if they can't run higher end options.

After we have that, I think we need to get a list of games people are interested that fit criteria we set based on the number of players each week, and figure out the best times to start playing that can fit, or have two different play times if the time zones are too dissimilar. My proposition is to have a poll for the timezones as to what works best for everyone interested.

The last step can be once we have the timezones and systems figured out, we can either A. have a poll each week/month for a few of the options, B. just pick a random one each week, or C. Fuck it, we'll do it live. Just pick something based on whatever everyone shows up for wants and can play.

Well that was a mouthful.

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Addendum: Didn't include something like Mount and Blade as it kind of fits in with both the creative/survival and FPS genres. In addition, games like Total War would fit under the RTS category.