I’ve played a decent amount of games online with others, and I’ve been fortunate to have several helpful partners along the way. I could make this piece ridiculously long if I detailed all of them, so I decided on the first three that came to mind.

Here we go!

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First and foremost, my real life partner is my favorite online partner as well. We ended up getting a second PS4 and another television just so we could play Destiny together. We may not always be the definition of helpful while playing, but having the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company boosts the experience overall. If that’s not helpful, I don’t know what is.

The first game we spent a considerable amount of time playing together was the first Borderlands and I still think of that time with extreme fondness. We were always happily sharing loot (either from chests or the machines), and our playstyles are similar so encounters were rarely frustrating.

Any game we can play together makes me happy.

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The next person is someone who I (sadly) don’t get to play online with anymore (I am apparently like an acquired taste; I’m not for everyone), but who I historically played hundreds of hours of Destiny with.

We’ll call him Baggins.

He was terribly good at multiplayer. People used to send him actual hate messages, which would be sad if it weren’t sort of funny: he was one of the nicest guys out there.

I have never been a huge fan of the Crucible, but I used to play with him and his group of friends fairly often. I’d certainly try my best (and sometimes I was okay), but more often than not, I was getting trounced. If someone did something particularly gross to me (like tea bagged me or murked on me) and I made mention of it, he would quietly say “What was their name?” and proceed, for the rest of the match, to seek out that person and kill them. Repeatedly.

I have to say, I don’t need people to rush to my defense (and he did that for everyone we played with, not just me), but I did enjoy that tremendously. After he would first find them, he would simply say, “Got him.” and that was that. Then he would keep getting him to hammer the point home.

I miss that guy.

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And the third person, who also happens to be ridiculous at multiplayer, is helpful in his own right. We’ll call him Degan.

He has also been the recipient of hate messages due to his skill in multiplayer, and he is so polite, it’s almost funny that people think he is seeking them out on purpose or cheating. He’s just that good.

In any game we’ve played together, he is highly skilled. If we played Overwatch, he was often getting Play of the Game. In the Crucible in Destiny, he was often at the top of the leaderboard.

He’s very good at games.

He’s also a lore monger. Master? Aficionado. Whatever you call it, he loves it.

In certain games, I may not be paying the utmost attention to the lore (it can be buried), but he knows it backwards and forwards. I always enjoy hearing the bits I’d somehow missed which enrich the story.

So not only can I count on him to educate me on lore, but I can also count on him to revive me after I’ve gotten too greedy with a boss and fired more rounds instead of taking cover.

I’m only human.

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I’ve been grateful to everyone who has helped me and taught me things about games I didn’t know (e.g.: Josh, the Dead Island master), and the games have been enriched because of them.

Thank you friends. Games are all the better because of you.

With that I ask: what will you be playing this weekend? I’d love to hear since I am now closing in on no gaming for a month and am proverbially losing my mind.