And would you like to run some games these weekend and/or Friday night?

- No text -

I'll be around. Not during the day, Saturday, but otherwise.

And would you like to run some games these weekend and/or Friday night?

I played 3 games last night, solo queue.

Game one lasted about 1 minute before another player one shot me. Then a bot killed that guy.

Game two, I was able to kill a few bots. At about 3 minutes another player shot me from behind. Never saw him.

Game three, actually made it to the objective but something instakilled me from above. It looked like some sort of red tether from the sky was stuck to me, but the camera wouldn't rotate high enough to see what it was.

Logged out. Bummer.

I played 3 games last night, solo queue.

I think that's your problem. This is not a game designed for playing alone.

I played 3 games last night, solo queue.

I think that's your problem. This is not a game designed for playing alone.

I wonder how that will play out. I played a bunch of Arc Raiders over the weekend, sometimes with randoms, some with Korny and Sammy, and a bunch of it solo, and it works well in all those modes. I had a lot of tense fights, but plenty of times where I used proximity chat to talk to other solos and team up or at least agree to move along without screwing with each other. It was neat.

They also do a cool thing with the matchmaking. There aren’t different matchmaking queues for solo or groups, but the game does attempt to fill lobbies with the same team sizes, and it seemed to work well. And I think it’s neat, because it’s not a guarantee so you’re never totally sure if another player is alone. But it works both directions, so if you’re solo and run up on a team, they’re probably going to assume you have teammates.

I came away from Arc Raiders pretty impressed, counter to everything I’ve seen of Marathon. Granted, I haven’t actually played that. Hopefully they’ll have an open test before release so I can try it.

I played 3 games last night, solo queue.

I think that's your problem. This is not a game designed for playing alone.

I wonder how that will play out. I played a bunch of Arc Raiders over the weekend, sometimes with randoms, some with Korny and Sammy, and a bunch of it solo, and it works well in all those modes. I had a lot of tense fights, but plenty of times where I used proximity chat to talk to other solos and team up or at least agree to move along without screwing with each other. It was neat.

They also do a cool thing with the matchmaking. There aren’t different matchmaking queues for solo or groups, but the game does attempt to fill lobbies with the same team sizes, and it seemed to work well. And I think it’s neat, because it’s not a guarantee so you’re never totally sure if another player is alone. But it works both directions, so if you’re solo and run up on a team, they’re probably going to assume you have teammates.

I came away from Arc Raiders pretty impressed, counter to everything I’ve seen of Marathon. Granted, I haven’t actually played that. Hopefully they’ll have an open test before release so I can try it.

Sorry I didn't catch up with you last weekend. I'd read that about the matchmaking. Seems like they've made a lot of smart choices. Maybe Bungie can learn from them the way they said they learned from the Marathon alpha. Love the proximity chat thing. Reminds me of the handful of times I made friends playing Halo 2 matchmaking. Mostly, people just made rude comments about Miss Piggy, though.

Mostly, people just made rude comments about Miss Piggy, though.

Dude, she is objectively the most violent, selfish, and unhinged muppet. You need to leave her ass.