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I overheared two teachers talking about team building excercises in the form of games for little kids, and I thought to myself if there are any good video games for this.

I would seperate the games into 2 categories:

1) The other players can only help you, or prove a minor nuisance at worse

2) The others can REALLY fuck you up.

Obviously the second type would work better cause it would teach kids responsibility. And the best example of that which I can think of was Minecraft. If everyone works together you get great results, and everyone learns the importance and value of teamwork. But a "bad" person can still fuck up what the others are doing is he wants to.

But this is kind of a black and white view of the ethics. What about video games where working together can solve problems, but also backstabbing the other player can net you rewards? Then not doing it would be a better excercise of building trust and teaching morals. But I can't think of any good examples of this. Perhaps some 4-player dungeon crawlers? But those games would take too much time to set up in a learning environment.

Any ideas for specific games that would also include that moral compass aspect?

And in general, do you think video games are a viable tool for team building activities?

I know running a guild in WoW can be a succesful tool for training in team management, but what you are really doing there is rulling with an iron fist, not building up trust.

Not to mention with all the guild drama you are probably creating more mistrust and tension between then members, than you are doing good.


Your thoughts? (btw I am asking for ideas for both kids and adults. with adults it's probably easier, but I don't want us to focus on only 3+ games)

I'll just leave it here

In PvE you need to have 25 or 40 players working in sync to kill a boss, each player has a role that they must follow.

Or if that's too large scale, then there's the arena combat where teams of 2, 3 or 5 players fight against another team of 2/3/5 players, and communication and team work is vital for success.

ZeroAX wrote:But this is kind of a black and white view of the ethics. What about video games where working together can solve problems, but also backstabbing the other player can net you rewards? Then not doing it would be a better excercise of building trust and teaching morals.

That would be true to real life. Kids must learn that the fairy tale morals they're being taught don't apply to real life, and it's up to them to do the right thing. What good are trust and morals if you've never actually been in an environment where you can see whether the kids actually trust each other or wont behave selfishly? I'd say there is no trust if you can't put them in an environment where actual trust is needed.
If the goal is to teach them in schools things that will prepare kids for the "real world", then sheltering kids from the facts of life is stupid.

But I really think that guilds are a very bad example for this.

I mean all you are recreating is a bad working environment:

The boss who doesn't win respect, he demands it, and everyone who doesn't fall in line gets fired.

The fellow "co-workers" who don't really like or trust each other, and most of the time talk shit behind each other's back, or even worse, try to backstab them (as I said, GUILD DRAMA)

The fact that the endgoal is more important than the team's relationship

and lastly

The fact that MMOs are just badly designed. PvE bosses are not about individual skill, tough decision making, sacrificing your personal gain for the good of the team. It's just you following a strategy guide which you will either succeed or fail at depending on your A) Gear, B) How well you've memorized the guide and C) How well everyone follows it

I'd say guild raiding is a better excercise at FOLLOWING instructions, than it is an excercise for team building.

A very good example of what I am thinking of is Team Fortress 2 imo. You can be selfish and score more points, or even win the game with a lot of luck. Or you can help the team and see your team win more often and more easily.

Have you ever actually raided? Guilds improvise strategies all the times. If something isn't working or there's an obstacle, you'll try to figure out ways to beat the goal. And if you're doing world first kills, you can't be following a guide, because there are none. There are multiples ways to beat every boss and it depends on the partys composition how you'll beat them, not by following a guide blindly (although naturally there are certain set of rules you'll always follow, don't stand in the fire etc)

Day of Defeat Source is a good example of a FPS game where it feels that you are rewarded for working as a team and helping your team, but yet never feels like you're forced to co-operate

To go along with Menegrothx, I'd say that FPS clans are a good basis for this. In a good clan, every player learns their role and how to accomodate the other players and their roles.

Here's an example: I played Battlefield 2142 as a Support class. My clanmates and I are holding a tower at one end of the map, and the rest of our side has been wiped and is waiting to respawn. The entire enemy team, 20+ players, are coming up at us. We're 6 people. What do we do?

As engineer, my friend Scorpion throws down mines to destroy small vehicles and uses his heavy rifle to annihilate mechs and tanks. I throw EMP grenades as these vehicles approach to disable them momentarily and give him a better shot.

As recon, my friend Phukface deploys claymore mines along the stairs leading up to our position. I deploy a sentry turret behind these at the top of the stairs to distract from the mines and provide further protection to our flank.

As assault, my friends Vandyl and Xentrix take up positions to maximize their field of view and hit targets that the other cannot see. I setup between them, because support uses a machinegun with which I can lay down suppressing fire as needed. Behind us, Phukface is in position with his sniper rifle to pick off stragglers or individuals attempting to flank us in small groups.

To ensure we can continue the fight, I deploy my ammo box to make sure everyone can rearm as needed. But because of our positions, Scorpion and I are more exposed overall, while Vandyl, Xentrix, and Phukface are partially exposed. Vandal and Xen both equip medkits and defibrillators, and they pull off to heal and revive the rest of the team as necessary, with specific instructions to revive each other first if necessary to enable them to quickly heal the rest of us. When this fails, Vandyl as squadleader enables us to respawn and drop pod in on his location. Meanwhile, Phukface as commander for our side drops in artillery strikes and EMP strikes when Scorpion and I are unable to fully supress with our heavy weapons.

Every man in the clan has a role and a job to do to support one another, and we know what everyone's job is. The end result of this particular match? We held off the assault and destroyed their vehicles, our team respawned and flanked en masse, and we as a coordinated unit swept down and caught them in a pincher maneuver. We won the match. And in fact, any time my clan was on one side, we always won the match. Because we always worked as a team. If anyone had to give orders, it was generally Phukface or Vandyl (both have military experience. Phukface is USAF. Vandyl is US Army) in their roles as commander and squad leader, though having played together for several years at that point, we generally knew the style of play everyone favored. And we had other members beyond the handful I mentioned here.

It also helped that yall were in the same room.

One of the best team building game exercises ever... Portal 2. The ability to really screw with people and halt progress is there, but in the end you can't get anywhere without your teammate communicating with you and problem solving.

fastbilly1 wrote:It also helped that yall were in the same room.

Yeah, sometimes. That night we were using Scorpion's Teamspeak server.

Menegrothx wrote:Have you ever actually raided? Guilds improvise strategies all the times. If something isn't working or there's an obstacle, you'll try to figure out ways to beat the goal. And if you're doing world first kills, you can't be following a guide, because there are none. There are multiples ways to beat every boss and it depends on the partys composition how you'll beat them, not by following a guide blindly (although naturally there are certain set of rules you'll always follow, don't stand in the fire etc)

Day of Defeat Source is a good example of a FPS game where it feels that you are rewarded for working as a team and helping your team, but yet never feels like you're forced to co-operate

@Menegrothx

Yeah I've raided mate. Too much drama, too mundane, too petty targets and goals (getting better numbers with your items. at least with FPS games you can see it as a sport and play for each individual win), I just think it creates more ugly feelings than it developes trust and friendship.

And how many guilds in the world are the firsts to fight a boss? 3? 6? 99% of WoW players just follow the Wiki instructions.

Mind you I haven't played in 3 years so maybe things have changed. I don't plan on ever checking it out though

Day of Defeat? I own it but never played it for more than 2 hours. Perhaps me not being a team player was the reason I kept getting my ass kicked


@Ack

.....wow man....can I join you guys?....or just watch? .....please? let a "childhood neighbor" join you guys


EDIT

So we seem to have come to the agreement that team based FPS games are probably the best ones.

So far I would have these games in the list:

Minecraft
Team Fortress 2
Day of Defeat Source
Battlefield Series


.....how about 4 player dungeon crawlers? I never played any of them so I don't know how important team work is, and how much you can get in the way of your team mates.

ZeroAX wrote:@Ack

.....wow man....can I join you guys?....or just watch? .....please? let a "childhood neighbor" join you guys

Haha, well, we don't get to play as much anymore, though a few of us hop into games on Steam for kicks occasionally. Of the guys I used to play a lot of games with...Vandyl and Coyote are married with children. Phukface is on his second marriage. Fastbilly is married, as is xero. My brother, Goji, is in grad school (and will likely get married next year). Scorpion works graveyard shift and rarely plays. PyroIke is about to get married in October. DIE I haven't spoken to in a while. Same with Twatbutter. No idea what happened to guys like CDplaya and CrazyJimmy. Kurtmax transitioned gender and now works for Microsoft up in Seattle. Most of us have fulltime jobs, though a few don't (Scorpion has two part time jobs while Xentrix works as family caretaker). My stepbrother D occasionally tries to join up, along with my youngest brother, Cthulhucism, and my roommate Inutterable (generally known as Fat Brian).

If you've got a copy of Killing Floor, feel free to join us, though we usually spend that time goofing off and cracking jokes. Most of us don't get to play as much anymore, so we're rusty. I need to get a new computer bad. I'd like to get my friends into a new game, if possible, and my piece of junk is partly responsible for holding us back at this point.