Problems with Online gaming

Now i'm sure as most of you have seen or guessed by now, online gaming does indeed seem to be the future of gaming. With the xbox live, sony finally introducing their online service over here (with a massive 2 launch games..) and gamecube of course with their sole online adventure, the port of phantasy star online episode 1+2. Combined with the PC its obvious this is the new big thing in the gaming world.

But with each new step theres new problems. The main one i can see is the newness factor. If you wanna enjoy a game online, you obviously need other people in the world to own the game and wanna play it at the time. So unlike normal games, for instance street fighter, capcom vs snk etc, Zelda. Games like these, though not all multiplayer, are pick up and playable any time, you can easily arrange to have people come over and stuff.

In an online game, for instance Tom Clancys Ghost Recon, is that its primarily online. Sure its possible to have an offline game with it, but it sucks unless you play it online. Now this is where the problem begins. If you do what I normally do, generally get a game once its been out for a while, cause its too expensive straight away, or buy second hand. Its been available for a while. However, when you do this with an online game, it doesnt quite work the same way.

Because people will generally fit into 3 categories. The first being the people who primarily buy the game on release or soon afterwards, they practice on the game often and will be playing it for a long while, for instance like a lot of people are with counter strike these days. They're fantastic at the game , experts and often dont like it when they get crappy people on their team, trust me, i know :-D.
Then you get the 2nd kinds of people, they get the game when its new, generally, play it for a little while and get bored and slowly drift away from the servers, and get rid of it or store it on the shelves.
The third being those who dont get the game for ages, really like it and struggle to get into it because of peoples 1 and 2.

Like i said, theres the problem. Those who dont get the game straight away have problems finding people to play with at their own skill level. The majority of people they find to play against will either be too good, and some of these wont even offer to help because they're so determined to win, and just kick you off. And people who are on your skill level will often just come and go and not regularly be there.

So in short, your only main shot at playing such games is to get them soon on release, or persevere and make sure not to be put off by all the experts already about. It comes down to a choice really, if you really want online games, is 1 new one, or a couple further on down the road, but with the afformentioned problems.

But that having said, remember, this isnt just console online games, the same is true for even web browser based games, so be advised. Keep your eyes out, your best chance is to hop on while its new, instead of playing catch up later on.