[Warning: By the end of this, you may think I sound like a spoiled brat or a whining toddler. Semi-rantish. You've been warned.]

This was one of the first images that popped up when I Googled "wants to play with you." The only thing this baby wants to do is sleep.

Which brings me to what I was talking about: Thanksgiving is a time of togetherness, right? We all make some journey or cook some turkey/turducken/tofurkey/turlemurken? to be together with family and friends on this holiday. It's also an epic time to catch up on some gaming, since most of us have the weekend off of school and work. And what better way to catch up with old friends during a time we all can than play whatever multiplayer hotness just came out?

Normally, I would be thankful that all my friends can play ONE game together, largely because none of us have the same gaming tastes and let's be honest - getting off of my tookus to switch disks every 20 mins is a pain. However, today I experienced something I wish I hadn't: a mass spamming of my dashboard with invites to play Modern Warfare 2 the second I hopped on my Xbox. Again, not a problem, since we can all play together in peace.....right?


"Tookus" produces some NSFW hits. Here's the first safe one. Relevant.

This turned out to be one of the worst ideas I've had in a while.

A party of 2 grew into a party of 4, which was fine. But then, the 2 friends who joined our party wanted to invite their own friends to play with us. OK fine, nothing wrong with crashing a party. Growing to a party of 6, we hopped on the matchmaking, ready to kill some durka durkas. We couldn't find a match for a few minutes because our party was a little big to create fair teams. Switch playlists. Everyone (all at once) chimes in on which game type we should play, creating a cacophony of 6 voices all wanting different things.

We finally settle on Ground War, a playlist that will accommodate our party's girth and satiate everyone's need to shoot people. Then, 12 more voices join the fray in my headset, which prompts a quick muting of everyone beyond Ocean's 6. The game starts and we begin the usual XBL shenanigans: asking how everyone's doing, calling out snipers, yelling obscenities and campers, etc. This makes for good times when the party is about 2-3 of your close friends and you don't mind the conversation, but when there's 5 other people, 2 of whom you don't know and 2 of whose voices over XBL are more grating than a Cher concert live, you want to slit your wrists.


Despite what you've heard lady, I DO NOT want to play with you.

After about 2 games, I called it quits and powered down. I like having friends and I like being able to play with them whenever, but I wish there was a way to play my 360 games in peace. Yes, I know you can make it so that you "appear offline," but I really just want the ability to tell my friends' list to wait their turn to play with me. I have 3 kinds of people on my friends list (btw, this includes only people I've met in real life): close friends who call me up to ask if I want to play before dinner/work/meeting, gaming friends who like to talk nerdy to me, and "griefers" who are people I enjoy playing with for fun and saying ridiculous/nonsensical things into the headset. I get along with everybody separately, but these groups do not get along with each other and it is pretty clear that lumping them all into one big party is a terrible idea.

This also struck me in that, if I appear online at any point from now on, I will be blasted with invites to play MW2 pretty much all this Turkey Day weekend and/or until the next Call of Duty game comes out, when all I really want to do is catch up on some Lost Odyssey or sing off-key in Rock Band (and stay online so I get the time stamp on my achievements, unlike when you play offline - a minor gripe).

Also, explaining to people you actually know in real life why you don't want to play with them when you are clearly a) joinable b) playing the same game c)online is an exercise in social diplomacy I do not want to have to go through 5 times a day. Maybe the solution is separate friend lists, kinda like AIM, except you can change your online status appropriately so the right friends can play with you at the time you feel like playing with them? Or maybe being less popular?

I decided the best solution to all of this was to just STFUAJPG on some other system that wasn't so online-friendly. This is where my Wii/DS/PSP come in. Nobody can bother me when I'm playing Punch-Out, Henry Hatsworth, or Persona.

And that is why, ladies and gentleman, I'm thankful this Thanksgiving for my gaming solace.