And neither has on site multiplayer. It still has superior latency and superior reliability. What Blizzard offers is a joke in comparison. Plus, it has a much superior kick where you can literally kick them in the balls for being a douche in game.

Sure, you now also have the option of playing huge games with thousands of people, but that's not necessarily an improvement, it brings with it a ton of things like griefers that wouldn't have existed on a LAN play multiplayer game.

If the original question was about LAN gaming, I can't say I miss it, because I don't recall ever using it with any game. But I don't mind having that option, of course.

It just always sounded quite odd to me hauling the whole desktop PC and monitor to some place, just in order to play multiplayer with others. Too much hassle, nowadays it would be more manageable with gaming laptops and such. More understandable in places like universities or offices where the machines are connected there already, but I never tried those either. I think I once caught a couple of people playing Quake in an office head to head.

Gaming online (through internet, or even calling trying to connect to another PC through a modem) was always much less hassle. I think the first time I tried that was with Doom, I think I connected to my big sister's husband's PC, and we played a bit of Doom head to head.

After that I don't recall playing much at all online, until Quake deathmatch became available. But Quake TeamFortress, and TeamFortress Classic, were the games that made me an actual online/multiplayer gamer, at least for awhile.

I had actually tried to set up such multiplayer already before, e.g. with Falcon 3.0 or some Amiga games (Fire Power, Falcon?), but for a reason or another I never got those to work. It could be the other participant I tried to connect to got fed up before we were able to get it to work.

I recently tried some newer online shooter, was it CoD: Modern Warfare 3 when it was a free weekend on Steam? I was somewhat disappointed with it, because at least the multiplayer modes I tried were more like team deathmatch games, than real teamwork. So even though we were in the same team, it felt everyone was still just running around doing his own stuff. For some reason I see more teamwork in TF servers, maybe it is more natural for its gameplay.

Maybe I missed some multiplayer mode in it, but I tried to look for one that would be closest to TF gameplay.

The problem is that you played one of the worst multiplayer games in existence. Call of Duty stopped being fun after Modern Warfare 1, as far as I'm concerned. Others may feel like it stopped being fun even before then. Either way, pretty much everyone agrees that Modern Warfare has sucked massive balls for years. So no, you didn't miss any mode that was actually fun. That game just sucks.

Maybe so, I can't really tell.

One thing in common that I've seen in a couple of more modern online FPS games, and which I don't necessarily like so much (at least in team games) is how the game underlines who killed who, showing it detailed how you died and by who. I think this is in both CoD: MW3 and TeamFortress2. It is a bit two-edged sword IMHO.

Plusses:

+ If you keep getting killed over and over again by someone, it is of course helpful to you that the game reveals who killed you and where he was when he killed you.

Minuses:

- It is kinda unfair the game does indeed reveal your position to the killed player. He should try to figure it out himself, and how to cope with it.

- Since the game keeps mocking the killed player like that, as if trying to raise rivalry between two players, that could be to the detriment of the teamwork, as the objectives of some teammates may shift from team objectives to retaliating to certain enemy player.

That's just how I feel about it.

Yes.

I've always found that to be pretty lame as well.

Battlefield 3 on Hardcore is for you than :)

I still play LAN games every so often... (not so long ago I played a VERY long game of Supreme Commander with a friend - after it finally ended we decided to watch the replay of the game and found a rather funny moment: I scored a direct hit on his commander with a nuke (right in the head :D ))

One thing I miss is splitscreen / same-screen multiplayer in PC games - it used to be included in many racing, fighting and side-scrolling shooter games.
If a multiplatform game has split-screen support on consoles, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be included in the PC version as well...

EDIT: I was quite annoyed that LAN wasn't included in StarCraft 2 (there are ways around that now~) or Diablo 3

Options are good, and local community is not bad. Big multiplayer is certainly entertaining as well.

Sucks that LAN is going away. Sometimes hanging out with friends and blowing things up together is fun.

What's the deal with the troll? (the "Me real man play multiplayer! All other puny girl!" clown)

Yeah, split-screen stuff never really made a big appearance on the PC. My guess would be that maybe developers were considering PC monitor size. With consoles, there's a much higher probability that the screen size will be substantially larger than on the PC. Even though larger, widescreen PC monitors are more common these days, it's still a fairly small screen compared to a larger LCD TV. Back in the day though, split screen gaming on a 13 - 17 inch CRT would have been pretty crummy. Even smaller TV's were usually 36 inches or so.

Edit: Oh, also probably had to do with the more limited peripheral device choice for the PC. The mouse / combo isn't really a good way to play two players on the same PC, though it can probably be done. They probably didn't want to limit their audience by requiring PC gamers buy controllers or some other kind of extra peripherals.

I don't think I ever participated in a LAN party. :(

But I did play some Age of Mythology at a friend's house a few years ago against him.

Yeah it's just not a necessity anymore, really. The only crowd of gamers who did LAN often have aged and mostly moved on from gaming (though a few of us are still around!). The younger crowd grew up with broadband internet, so online gaming is what they're used to and comfortable with. So, LAN'ing just isn't a big thing anymore. Heck, even LAN centers have gone by the wayside. There used to be a handful of good LAN centers around here that were fun to hang out at a decade ago. Literally every single one of them is gone. To my knowledge, there isn't a single LAN center left in my entire area.

There even used to be this badass retro arcade in one of the historic districts. It was all decorated out like an 80's arcade would have been. Felt like taking a step into the past when you went there. Even they closed =/ I thought it was a very unique place, and wish it would have stuck around.

For better or worse, things change. I would still attend a LAN every now and again if my friends were still interested, but they are not. Most of them have families and other such nonsense to worry about it these days.

Only every freaking day.

I love Serious Sam 3 for having split-screen co-op.