I'll stick with 100% single player games... :P

AMEN

Word.

i bought & played the first dark souls when it came out back in like 2011, after like 40 deaths and not even reaching one of those fiddly semi-limited save point camp-fire things, i sighed, took out the disc, put skyrim back into my ps3, and never looked back.

this was before i got back into pc gaming following a 5-year hiatus (steam and it's on-liney-drm ruined it for me). yup.

I'll stick with offline mode in all games made by From Software.

It figures, all of us old gamers. :P

And yet new ones are born who walk right into the trap. Business` know this and most of them don`t care.

i feel like grandpa simpson shouting at a cloud, but here it goes.

these big companies sell games as being only about the experience; youre buying an experience, and the right have that experience as many times as agreed upon in the terms of service. in fact, when steam became a thing back in 2004, the first thing i thought was "hmmm can i burn the install file to a disc of some sort?" and when a friend of mine immediately verified that you couldn't, i immediately lost interest.

but you know, thinking about it now... gaming, for me anyway, has always been about more than simply experiencing the data on the medium. i've never been into collectables or gaming memorabilia or any of that plastic junk, but there's something intoxicating about having a nice collection of games all to ones self, not even necessarily in physical form (gog gives me juuuuust enough control of my games to satisfy that itch, and yet saves space). i feel that getting a somewhat tangible thing and curating those things over a period of years is part of the experience as well, and on steam that tangibility is just not there for me.

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Yeah, Dark Souls 2's PvP had a real problem with cheaters too. I've loved From Soft since the King's Field and Armored Core series on PS1, but they seem incompetent when it comes to multiplayer security.

I always had to deal with moderators in multiplayer games. In Ultima Online in 1998 they deleted my 2 horses I had lots of adventure with because someone complained about the noise. In Dark Age of Camelot they changed the names of my characters of level 50 and level 30 because they didn't like "Hell" being used.

Multiplayer games are like DRM and Steam. They have total control over you. They can shut you off at any moment, they can ruin your game with cheaters or moderators. They can do anything they want, and you can't do anything about it.

Multiplayer gaming is very much like sex. Sure you may spend 99% of your time doing it solo (especially people in this forum). But no matter how good you get with Mr. Hand or your 350ci V8 powered anal intruder kit, it's potentially far better with someone else. Sure, you get some nasty hackers in games, just like that lovely lady can give you something nasty as well, or a little future gamer to spend alimony on for the rest of your life. It shouldn't be an excuse not to do it though, the rewards are worth it.

So sure, 99% of my gaming is single player. BUT, that remaining 1% in multiplayer gaming is full of so many awesome experiences that nothing single player can ever compete with. Not much compares to the rush of being in the last 10 people of a PUBG match. Nothing single player was ever as much fun as running around with friends from work in the early days of WoW. You see all the people you look down upon playing COD and Battlefield are not stupid like you think. They're actually having a lot of fun, which is not stupid at all really.

Dark Souls is the same. It's a single player game with totally optional multiplayer that makes it the best action RPG bar none. Though yes, Bloodbourne does go close. If you don't want to be invaded in Dark Souls, stay hollow. It's that simple. It is then a single player only experience.

^this

I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when reading this post ;).Cheers