I was reading this article and it got me thinking about how I play video games, especially multiplayer games. These days its mostly Left4Dead/2 but my thoughts apply to World of Warcraft and other games as well.

The author was playing the game with his wife and found that it was frustrating when they were playing like they would when playing the game alone. This lead to some frustrating moments. However, when they filled roles that each of them were good at/enjoyed the most, they were playing much better.

When I played L4D(and now L4D2), I noticed that we went through a similar situation. Each of us would get frustrated when each of us were going off and doing what we wanted. However, in L4D, we learned what role we liked and were good at and stuck to it. Then the sessions got much easier and we got much better as players. MJ lagged behind in this area but now that I've read this article, it makes sense.

Now that we're playing L4D2, we're still figuring out the new items and weapons so we're still figuring out how we play and what we like. Already I can see the roles being filled.

Candi is the generalist- mass zombie death is her thing. Whether its a well-played pipe bomb or a chainsaw frenzy, she's really good at mowing down the zombies. At first I was jealous of the numbers she was putting up but now that I understand my role it's just fine.

MJ is the long-shot killer. He's great at killing witches from a distance, and clearing out the far-off shot. However, he has to get better at protecting his teammates.

I'm the protector of the group. I feel a need to knock that jockey off or hunt down the smoker to protect my teammates. I'm right behind Candi or MJ protecting their back. I think I fill this role pretty well. There's a new weapon in the game, the grenade launcher, which I really enjoy but if I'm going to be able to keep using it I have to get better at it- sometimes it explodes a little too close and if we go up to normal that would hurt.

I think once we learn the dynamics of the game more we'll fit into our roles better and become better players. For now, we follow Candi's trail of zombie corpses and try to keep the special zombies away.