Do you guys have a consistent gaming group?

Yo, what's poppin?

Do you guys play with a consistent group of friends? I noticed recently that I don't really play much with other people, wondering if I was alone in doing so or if it's a common thing to not party up these days.

I used to be in a clan for an FPS and it was some of the best times I've had gaming.

Just play by myself these days. Kinda depressing but oh well, used to it now.

Nope, last time I had a group was from the 8-bit era to the PS2 era when we all lived a few minutes away. We rarely get together anymore purely for gaming, but some of those guys spend a bunch of time playing PC games together.

I find it so hard to make a scheduled night at this point so I prefer playing alone. And I'll sure as hell hit Mute All in an online game immediately, so games have become a pretty solitary thing these days. But I like it.

Nope.

Much of it comes down to time. I play games on an extremely erratic schedule (because of job things and sometimes life things) so it's very hard to find a consistent group. Sometimes I play with specific friends if our schedules line up.

This is something that many modern game designers seem not to understand. If you have a demanding job (or a baby) you cannot play unpausable games that require regularly running the same content with a group (This is especially true of Destiny which doesn't even include matchmaking for much of its content under the apparent assumption that you have a group of friends just ready to commit a bunch of time to a raid or nightfall at a moment's notice.)

Multiplayer games should be designed, as much as possible, with matchmaking and drop-in drop-out. The average age of a gamer is 35. There's a lot of people out there trying to squeeze some game time in after the kids go to bed or between getting home from work and taking a late night conference call, or whatever.

Nope, really would like to find a group in a few months though.

I play games to get away from people!

@dixavd: ^^ Life has taught me that most people are bad.

Got a great group here, kind of a sideways advantage of the military. Bunch of young dudes who all live on or near a base, have similar if not identical work schedules, usually shared interests

I started playing Project reality like half a year ago, found a group within a couple of weeks. I have been playing all kinds of games with them since then, and I pretty much talk with them every day on team-speak. Project reality is a pretty team orientated game, so as a result the group is pretty team orientated which is super cool

Nope. In the N64 days had a regular group of 4 of us that would go around to each others' houses to play. Also was briefly part of a Day of Defeat Clan. Nothing in the past decade or so though.

Not a single person in my social group plays video games. :(

I've been playing video games with the same 20 odd people in the same voice chat for the past 13 years. I've only met one of them in person yet I feel like I know them all more than I do my own family. It's even more than 20 people if you count the people that come and go and aren't frequenters.

Sucks that none of them like Street Fighter though.

Same situation I do miss the clan days I still keep in contact with some of them but those days playing MOHAA, CS:S and BF2 with always be golden.

I had a group of five for Dota for about a year. Haven't had that before or after.

I play with three close friends on a semi regular basis. Two of them work fifo two weeks away then are back for a week. The other one has kids but sets aside time when the other two are back.

So we usually spend at least a few nights every three weeks playing online and one day/ night boozing and playing co-op.

When I was younger, yeah. Then most of my friends sort of drifted away from games. They'd still occasionally play, but that wasn't really what we did while hanging out. Hungover Sunday mornings spent dicking around in GTAIV were mostly it. Eventually I got a job in the industry, and now I know a bunch of people who play games, but we still mostly don't when we're hanging out. That said, last month, or the month before, one of my coworkers/close friends and I started weekly game nights. It's crazy to have really serious adult conversations about video games. Talking analytically, the way I do about movies with most of my friends, but with video games, is rad.

I very rarely play multiplayer games at all. But if I do it's usually with the same group of people, sure.

Yup, for DOTA 2. There's like 8 of us. Before DOTA2 it was my BF3 guild. Before that it was my WoW guild.

In a way. I usually play and/or talk with two of my younger brothers while gaming. Sometimes multiplayer (mostly co-operative like Warframe and Dark Souls), but sometimes we just play separate games while talking. I really like that, as I at most get to see them every other month.

Don't really have anyone else though. I toyed with joining the GB Discord chat, but I am introverted as hell and have difficulties getting into a new group of people.

I have one that I play multiplayer games like Dota and Overwatch with. Unfortunately almost none of them are into other singleplayer games so I can't talk to them about those, which sucks.

Multiple. There's a group of friends I met by joining a fan-group of an old UK gaming mag. Sadly the mag closed down but the group is super active and we all still play together. I've got a whole bunch of great friends from there now who I talk to most days and play games with regularly.

Then I've got an extended group of friends from uni that I play with semi-regularly, they tend to be more my PC group. Also a couple of other people from uni who aren't necessarily part of that group but who I usually keep in touch with by playing some games online with them.

Also I have a group that was built up from 'friends of friends' that I rarely actually play with but we chat about games all the time - and do occasionally hop on something together.

Finally I sometimes play games with my local friend group. Most of them aren't quite as deep into it as I am (though some are) but they almost all play games to a greater or lesser extent. I find there aren't all that many people these days my age who don't play games at all. There's a few who only play FIFA and GTA, or just want to play Mario Kart, but I can't think of anyone who would refuse to play games and it's something that will almost always find its way into conversation, if not being an actual activity too, whenever we hang out together.

never had IRL friends who played the same games as me, though i started gaming with a constant group of friends that i met in FFXI, that's been going on for over 10 years now.

Me and some friends get together ever few weekends and play FIFA but that is about it.

Started playing Raven Shield with a clan back in ought four. Other people have come and gone, but those of us who're still around, we've now been playing together for over 12 years. Throughout, we've had meetups here and there, but since 2010, we started going over to Sweden every 2 years, to play paintball, drink, barbeque and lie eachother's ears off. We've gone from young'uns with opportunities and hopes, to old geezers with families and debts and limitations, but still, we're taking the time to game together. It's been a ride, and I hope we all stick around for a while yet.

I play almost entirely single-player games

Had a nice group for board games and couch coop going for a while, but two of the mainstays started managing restaurants, which means they're working 70ish hours a week. That killed any sort of regular thing.

Recently my girlfriend and roommate have been playing don't starve together with one another. That has been fun.