Gaming Buddies (Meeting People w/ Similar Interests)

Crazyhowie

Crazyhowie

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Hopefully this is the right place for this kind of discussion, since this is only one of a couple times I've ventured away from the "deals" section =x.

I'll try and keep this short and sweet. I've grown apart from the friends I've known since Elementary School. We're older, working, and several of us are married (only 1 couple with a baby atm). It's to be expected, for sure. Though, while most of us still play games, we don't really share the same interests anymore, inside and outside of gaming. I've struggled for the past couple years now organizing console parties, LAN parties, online events through Steam, and such like that. There are a few hits, but a lot more misses.

We've communicated through private forums for years now, but we just don't quite mesh like we used to. I share deals from these boards with them, attempt to organize themed gaming nights, but there just seems to be little in the way of enthusiasm and effort on their part as a whole to game together. They are also all so particular about what they play, that it is frustrating to get them to ever try anything.

Games are my life. Other than playing with my wife and a couple long-distance friends online, I don't really have people to play with locally. My wife and I game together occasionally, but her interests in genres aren't quite as extensive as mine. With that said, I have tons of fantastic co-op or party games that I just never get to play.

Not as short and sweet as I hoping for >
 
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To be honest I still keep up with my friends from high school. Majority are single and sassy (for better or worse) and we still game here and there though obviously not as much as in High School. Besides that though, I have other friends just going to big gaming gathering's like competitions and such. I Met one of my friends about two years back at a Rock Band bar night and from there on we've formed a band and even went to Jersey for free to compete in the Harrah's Competition. Plus I've met other cool people, but really it's being social I guess.
 
[quote name='Crazyhowie']What I really want to ask though, is how do you guys meet people with similar interests, gaming and otherwise, IRL or online?[/QUOTE]

Find people playing the same game as you, whether it be in-game, on a forum, or whatever. Join a Vent or Teamspeak with them and converse.

Most of my RL friends don't play games, so I've got a group of like six or seven buddies I play online with (whom I've never met mind you, yet I've "known" them for years now). We all enjoy FPS games, so that's basically what we do on a nightly basis.
 
I appreciate the thoughts so far!

It definitely felt easier to consistently game with a solid group of people when I was just focusing on 1-2 games. Such as when I was playing the Starcraft or a Half-Life mod called Natural Selection... I had specific servers I'd frequent and my friends and I even ran a server of our own and built a small community from that. Then there are my MMO days of FFXI and WoW where I was a huge part of those guilds. Moving on from those games dissolved those connections I guess.

Nowadays, I play such a ridiculous variety of games that it's hard to keep up with so many forums or keep track of specific people I played certain games with. I at least have a consistent Halo: Reach group going for me, but otherwise I have so many untouched games that it'd be great to find some cool people to play with.
 
Hey, Howie, have you ever tried finding friends on forums like this one? What games do you like to play?

When I get more co-op games, I think I'll need some online friends too since my offline friends also have very limited gaming interests, lol. Think Wii.
 
@newb I've joined a couple CAG Steam groups I found on here and played once with one of them, but that's about it so far.

I play just about anything but sports games and simulators. I don't find myself getting into many military or realistic shooters these days either I guess.

I'll update my profile here with more info, so you can click my XBL and PSN tags under my avatar to see what I've played. Also here's my steam library: http://www.steamcalculator.com/id/crazyhowie
 
Find a group that has the same beliefs as you. I fall in the category with you and local friends. I joined a site for dad's and became friends with some of the gaming dads that live in a 2 hour radius. We usually have get togethers, especially for anniversaries, birthdays, whatever, and we game online together. In fact after leaving the original site we started at, one of my buddies and I started the site in my sig for dad's. Google things that you are interested in(groups) and you will be on your way.
 
Meetup.com is good.

Most of my friends I've known since college, although they live 1+ hour away.

Another of my friends I've known since elementary school.

Then there is another one I met on another forum. That forum (Neo-Geo.com) has gatherings 2x a year, so that's always fun. (I don't post there anymore though)
 
That Meetup.com site looks interesting enough, though I'm not sure it would work for me in my area. I live in Tri-Cities, WA and the area isn't all that large. Of the 25 group results I find, they are all pretty niche clubs for people outside my demographic (older, single, parents). Searching for games in say San Francisco, CA, you certainly get a far more abundant and relevant results for 'games'. I'm not sure creating one who reach an intended audience in my age group =/.

I'm currently pursuing a career in independent game development and I love studying game design theory. Perhaps I can google search some groups out there who are into gaming with those interests in mind.

I at least understand that I can't force the gaming back into my local friends and should just accept the fact that things are different. We just don't really have similar interests other than video games, so it's been hard to do so.
 
This is a tough one. 95% of the time I do like to play alone.

It would be nice to have 1 or 2 friends to play with sometime. But I don't want to get in an hour long discussion with some 35 year old who still lives at home about the merits of FF7 and whether Goku could take Vegeta.
 
[quote name='eldergamer']This is a tough one. 95% of the time I do like to play alone.

It would be nice to have 1 or 2 friends to play with sometime. But I don't want to get in an hour long discussion with some 35 year old who still lives at home about the merits of FF7 and whether Goku could take Vegeta.[/QUOTE]

:lol: :lol:

I'm in the same boat as you. I enjoy the single player element more so. I have a small group of friends who game but their interests differ from mine. I have a buddy who whines about how hard games are. Two buds who are diehard ps3 fans. I used to hop on live with a bunch of peeps I met at the G4 forums years ago but they got too weird for me; though I've met a couple of them IRL. I usually hop on live whenever I get an itch to play online though :)
 
[quote name='eldergamer']This is a tough one. 95% of the time I do like to play alone.

It would be nice to have 1 or 2 friends to play with sometime. But I don't want to get in an hour long discussion with some 35 year old who still lives at home about the merits of FF7 and whether Goku could take Vegeta.[/QUOTE]

I know there's a ton of people on here in the Twin Cities, but nobody ever seems interested in getting together.
 
Your location says 'Washington'... if that's Washington state, I'm honestly kind of surprised you'd have such trouble finding gamers. PAX, man. And to a lesser extent, Gameworks. (If you're in DC, then that doesn't help much. Sorry.)

I just get out and hit the 'geeky' cons 'round here. PAX, Sakura Con, Emerald City Comic Con- that's just some of what's in Seattle itself. There's a few others that turn up if you're willing to make a day trip out of it- especially if you hit Portland, which has Kumori Con and the Retro Gaming Expo. Get out there, talk to people, share gamertags. Or just browse the forums, there's usually someone organizing meetups of some kind.
 
I do live in Washington state. Frankly I've never actually looked for gaming buddies.

While it might be nice to have someone to talk with about these things or just give me tips on local deals, the type of person who would dress up and go to a con isn't quite someone I'd like to associate with. That's bringing weirdness a little too much into the public eye for my comfort level.
 
@DuelLadyS

Yup, I live in Washington State. I'm about 3.5 - 4 hours from Seattle and will make the trip there at least a couple times a year, once always for PAX. I've gone the past 3 years and got my wife hooked 2 years ago to get her into games. We mingle a bit, hit the panels, ravage the expo halls and the like, but I guess it's never resulted into anything other than a good time and a bunch of loots. I don't really get a chance to hit the gaming rooms though to mingle with people, since I'm busy with a lot of panels/expo hall activities, so that's perhaps where I'm missing out.

I'm confident I could find some good gaming groups for online play at this point if I just put a little more effort into searching for them. Locally though, it's a bit more of a challenge probably due to living in a smaller area and not quite having the gaming hotspots to meet those people with similar interests.
 
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