It's no secret that Friday Night Fights is getting bigger and bigger. We've got people playing on the 360, the PS3, and the PC. And yet, the DS, my favorite system right now, has been getting no love.
I personally have only played a handful of my DS games online. In
Mario Kart DS, I got frustrated because you either race against somebody much better than you, or you race against somebody who is going to quit because they're losing. In
Pokémon Pearl, I've traded Pokémon online, but never battled. In
Animal Crossing: Wild World, I've only gone and stomped on my girlfriend's flowers. And that's about the extent of my DS online experience, despite having several games which are capable of playing over the Internet.
It's pretty clear why the DS isn't popular for Friday Night Fights. With the 360, it's easy to jump on, see who's playing what, send out invites, and get into a game. If you want to play with some particular people on the DS, you really have to plan it. You have to set a time to meet, you have to trust that your friend/opponent will show up, and you have to exchange Friend Codes.
Oh, the Friend Codes. Awful. But I digress.
What the DS needs for online play is
organization. And I'm here to say that I just might maybe possibly sort of be the guy to organize it. I'm thinking that we would have to meet up in Ventrilo or IRC or Stickam to set up who plays what, and to exchange Friend Codes, and to get things going.
The question is, would this be worth my time? Is there any demand for DS FNF, or would you all just prefer playing on your 360s and PS3s? If enough people want to do this, I think we can give it a shot. Let me know in the comments.
And if we do end up going through with this, which games would you guys like to see featured? Personally, I wouldn't mind playing some
Tetris DS,
Pokémon Diamond/Pearl,
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (pre-deployed maps only), or
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass online. Am I forgetting any?
MARIO KART DS!!
What? I'm the only one that played that? Yeah I know c.c'
Whos in for tetris monday night?
Also, some Worms Open Warefare 2 would be great.
Dexter, talk to Snaileb about taking control of a DS-centric FNF posting if you're serious about it.
I think a DS FNF could be really fun. One option you might want to toy with is making it a late-night thing. (Sort of like when people used to turn to Bomberman Live after playing Halo.) I know that I would definitely play late at night because I'm always looking for something "quieter" to play while my girlfriend gets some sleep.
Also, FNF in general could use some more organization. People are always all over the place and weird shit is being played. I think we could futher divide up responsibilities too. For intance, while vexed alex has been doing a good job hosting Halo 3, I think it might be nice to have another Halo 3 host--some one who prefers more traditional gametypes. Sometimes there's just too much confusion when you have 16 people playing a game of "fusion cores all over epitaph with random weapon start." At that point I would just prefer "CTF with a reasonable number of mature people."
Sorry for ranting on your blog. I <3 you. DS FNF FTW!
-Panda