Depends how you look at it. I've never percieved it as being synonymous with faggot. Broken down it'd essentially mean "one who steals arses". It's not meant to make any sense, like some of the stuff I do spout. Example: Cock-knocker. I don't associate that with anything homosexual, I associate it more with Mark Hammill's role in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back - I.E. Someone who punches people in the crotch, usually disabling them in one hit (wow that's a suprisingly technical explanation for an insult).
I was assuming he was referring to people as "unidentified, hostile butt aircraft."
On a serious note - I think it's just a change in online and gaming culture. Back in the early 90's when I first got on the Internet, I was a thin-skinned dorky kid and the online world (which, for me, was mostly MUDs back then) was my escape from this kind of thing. Now it's mainstream, with all that entails. Most of the juvenile shit you see online is the same sort of juvenile shit you see and hear in an area where there's no enforced standard of behaviour. I feel sorry for the outsider kids now who don't get to have the online world as a refuge from this kind of thing, but I don't think the problem is online or gaming culture per se. The problem is that gaming culture has become mainstream, and so the prevailing mainstream attitudes are on display there.
I didn't read all 15 pages. So here's my input. Hopefully I get my point across fully and don't leave any ambiguities.
First off, being a gamer can define in a number of ways. Do you play Magic the Gathering regularly? You're a gamer? What about your grandma and her friends and their weekly bridge games? Gamers. You play games you're a gamer. Face it. However, the can be grouped into sub groups. Video gamer. Online video gamer. MMO gamer. Board gamer. Card gamer. It goes on.
So (not reading the article as the OP suggests, but the post) I would assume that this thread is in relation to online gaming.
So here's my history for online game. First online game that I played heavily was Starcraft. I got very much into this game. I would regularly interact with friends from high school as well as the members of their clans (should any of them be in one) and hang out with them. This kept our online interaction at a fairly low minimum. So if there were any assholes, homophobes, racists, or whatever in this game, we would encounter them like they're the rarest of the rare Pokemon. They didn't really come up.
From Starcraft I moved on to Diablo 2 and then Quake 3. If Starcraft was an addiction, then Diablo 2 and Quake 3 was like crack, heroin, morphene, and any other fucking drug I could get in my system. I started each game around 2002 and played them pretty regularly for 7 years.
Diablo 2 was much in the same as Starcraft. Group of friends (much smaller than the Starcraft group) playing with familiar people. There were significantly more assholes in this game than there were in Starcraft. I don't know why, but this game seemed to breed them much more. But whatever. I enjoyed the game and there were a lot of cool people on there.
Quake 3 was the best. Quake 3 had servers. This was new to me. I join a server and play with people on that server. I'm not connecting to battle.net and looking for games. It was odd. Eventually when I figured out how it worked, I realized that you could meet some pretty cool people on this.
In my Quake 3 gaming, I found one type of mod. Insta-freeze. It was amazing. Basically insta-gib (1 shot rail kill) mixed with freeze tag. Team based game. If anyone was playing the same time I was and you played this mod, you initially played on 1 of 2 servers and they were both Dayentech servers. Owned an operated by one guy out of his home. He basically found the freeze mod and modified it to be insta-freeze. I loved it. I played on it whenever I got a chance and made a lot of friends. No one from my high school played this game, so I had to make friends online. Eventually Dayentech made his own mod after some official Quake 3 patch released in order to keep the game much like the original and these mods were called freeze-DT. The 2 servers eventually blew up to 4 owned and operated by Dayentech. Then some clans eventually got their own servers. I think at one point in time, this community got so big it had 14 separate servers.
So there's your history lesson on that. How does this pertain to this? Well if you guys have played on servers before or got apart of a community like this, you would be well aware that 95% of the players on XBox Live would be permabanned from these servers for having their shitty attitude. It's heavily moderated and it had the same amount of tolerance you find here on the Penny-Arcade forums. Take shit from no one. If you're being an obnoxious piece of shit, then you're gone. No one is going to deal with you.
From Quake 3, I moved on to a lot of online games. FFXI, WoW, Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Quake 4, and some others that I can't remember. FFXI was great, because the asshats that you encounter on most games, didn't care to play FFXI. It wasn't for them, so the majority of the community were pretty cool people. If you could understand them. But Japanese people are really cool, so there's that.
But with stuff like XBox Live and PSN, you don't get this same level of moderation that you got with communities like Quake 3 or even battle.net to an extent. In battle.net you could make your own channel and then ban people if you wanted. This kept things pretty much in check.
XBox live or PSN doesn't have things like this. You get in a game, it's completely public. You're going to encounter people that all they need is a console and an internet connection. No knowledge of how to connect to servers and stuff like that. No knowledge of joining channels and following rules. Just load the game, join the queue, and play. Since this is just so accessible and there's little to no policing, people are free to do what they want. Internet fuckwad theory takes effect.
If PSN and XBox live, would allow for private channels to be created, where people can join, idle, and meet up with friends and such, then gaming experiences could and would be a lot better.
Is the culture dead? No, but is sure as hell is dying. It's not what it used to be. The way it's regulated definitely needs to evolve into a different beast. I really do miss the days of logging on to my Quake 3 server and recognizing EVERYONE and feeling like I know them personally. You don't get that with online gaming these days, so I don't play it as much as I used to.
Also, when it comes to Xbox live, I know it's full of shitheads like my brother and his friends. They're the type of people that when they beat you in a game they rub it in. They do the standard Halo face humping. Pretty much the reason I can't play games like this is because of their douche bag attitude.
I don't know what kinda of Quake you were playing, but I've been playing Quake since Quake world and calling people cock smoking ass goblins is pretty damn normal in that game. o_O
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
Ryadic on
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I don't know what kinda of Quake you were playing, but I've been playing Quake since Quake world and calling people cock smoking ass goblins is pretty damn normal in that game. o_O
yeah, Quakeworld was a hive of scum and asshattery, rife with racism/sexism.
syndalis on
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
psychotix on
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syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
then that changes nothing; if you go to private rooms in xbox live, and play within your friends list and friends of friends list... then you are far less likely to be eaten by a grue, or called a fag.
Been that way since the early 90s and IPX tunneling.
syndalis on
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
You speak of the early 2000s and late 90s as a golden-age of online gaming?
It was a bleak and terrible wasteland in those days. Fishing for games of Dark Forces II and Mech-Warrior: Mercenaries on the MSZone.
Or playing CounterStrike, Day of Defeat and Call of Duty: Base Assault.
Oh the horrors I've witnessed... yes, there were those bastions in the desert. Those few golden shrines of dedi-servers that were regulated and moderated. But they weren't the norm.
Depends how you look at it. I've never percieved it as being synonymous with faggot. Broken down it'd essentially mean "one who steals arses". It's not meant to make any sense, like some of the stuff I do spout. Example: Cock-knocker. I don't associate that with anything homosexual, I associate it more with Mark Hammill's role in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back - I.E. Someone who punches people in the crotch, usually disabling them in one hit (wow that's a suprisingly technical explanation for an insult).
I was assuming he was referring to people as "unidentified, hostile butt aircraft."
We never go for the high brow meaning of words here but your interpretation is Bravo Echo Tango Tango Echo Romeo.
If you want to go absurd you call someone a duckbill platypus face.
Then you shoot them in the face while they are distracted.
Dman on
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
You just can't beat a 17 year old at the top of their game, and they say all sorts of vile stuff cause they haven't been properly socialized.
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
You just can't beat a 17 year old at the top of their game, and they say all sorts of vile stuff cause they haven't been properly socialized.
Most of these people are mid/late 20's at the youngest, these people have been playing quake for a long time. And yet "fucking american porch ape go chug grape soda" doesn't even scratch the surface of what you will hear.
psychotix on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
The only reason Fag is such a popular derogatory term is because it offends people. If saying 'Johnny Cash' widely offended people then I bet it would be just as popular to throw about.
Most of the time the person saying the word doesn't care what it inheritly means, they just want to get a rise out of you because there's a good chance the word will offend.
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
You just can't beat a 17 year old at the top of their game, and they say all sorts of vile stuff cause they haven't been properly socialized.
Most of these people are mid/late 20's at the youngest, these people have been playing quake for a long time. And yet "fucking american porch ape go chug grape soda" doesn't even scratch the surface of what you will hear.
Did you join random servers or were you going to one particular server that was moderated? Like I said, the more random you get, the more likely you are to encounter asshats. If you go to a server that is moderated by mods and shit, then those people will get banned.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
You just can't beat a 17 year old at the top of their game, and they say all sorts of vile stuff cause they haven't been properly socialized.
Most of these people are mid/late 20's at the youngest, these people have been playing quake for a long time. And yet "fucking american porch ape go chug grape soda" doesn't even scratch the surface of what you will hear.
Man that shit is just boring
On the PA TF2 servers we pride ourselves in creative and dramatic smack-talk.
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
SniperGuy on
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
edited January 2010
In certain games better players can't spend time being awful cause they use verbal communication to win games.
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
You do realize that for the most part, accountability would kill the internet.
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
You do realize that for the most part, accountability would kill the internet.
In certain games better players can't spend time being awful cause they use verbal communication to win games.
Pffft, l2p scrub. I've definitely insinuated I had detailed carnal knowledge of someone's mother while coordinating a good boomer/hunter/smoker strike. As in, I could draw an anatomically correct diagram of their vulva.
Robman on
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
In certain games better players can't spend time being awful cause they use verbal communication to win games.
Pffft, l2p scrub. I've definitely insinuated I had detailed carnal knowledge of someone's mother while coordinating a good boomer/hunter/smoker strike. As in, I could draw an anatomically correct diagram of their vulva.
Do TF2 comp teams play with mics and sound off? The Deaf Comp All Stars!
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
You do realize that for the most part, accountability would kill the internet.
What so because I couldn't say ( I stress this is hypotehtical) "I will rape and murder you" and be held accountable as I would in real life the internet would somehow be different?
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Why exactly would accountability kill the internet? It hasn't killed Google accounts. Or Xbox Live. Or anything else that uses accountability.
You have to balance accountability with anonymity because 95% of people are bigoted judgmental asshats.
Which is why account information, such as real name, address, etc. is blocked by a username. But if you're off telling people that, in fact, they are heathen bastards from yourmomlandia then people can report you and get you temp banned. Ta da.
Although you wouldn't even need to do that really. If everyone knew at all times who everyone else on the internet was, people might just be nicer. But we don't know, so hey.
After all, if you're sitting in a quiet waiting room, does one guy ever get up and call you a fag to your face? Probably not.
If you're on a board or a gaming community and spend the majority of time calling people "homofags" and they temp ban you from the board or service is one thing.
If you get into a heated discussion on a board and call someone a racial slur are are temp banned from "The Internet" that is insane. Want to check your e-mail? Too bad, should have thought about that before calling someone a stupid jew.
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
Competitive gaming forums are nest beds of the worst possible behavior on the internet, and it's always been that way.
Really, this isn't shocking. The internet itself is a rather offensive place and if you harken back to arcades those places were holes of abhorent behavior as well. This is the marriage of the two.
You can of course avoid this by carefully selecting who you play with. But in general it's part of the deal.
If you're on a board or a gaming community and spend the majority of time calling people "homofags" and they temp ban you from the board or service is one thing.
If you get into a heated discussion on a board and call someone a racial slur are are temp banned from "The Internet" that is insane. Want to check your e-mail? Too bad, should have thought about that before calling someone a stupid jew.
Well I think that's taking it to an extreme that nobody was even implying.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
If you're on a board or a gaming community and spend the majority of time calling people "homofags" and they temp ban you from the board or service is one thing.
If you get into a heated discussion on a board and call someone a racial slur are are temp banned from "The Internet" that is insane. Want to check your e-mail? Too bad, should have thought about that before calling someone a stupid jew.
Well I think that's taking it to an extreme that nobody was even implying.
The only reason Fag is such a popular derogatory term is because it offends people. If saying 'Johnny Cash' widely offended people then I bet it would be just as popular to throw about.
Most of the time the person saying the word doesn't care what it inheritly means, they just want to get a rise out of you because there's a good chance the word will offend.
You're right, it is the victim's fault.
Good show.
Way to take what I say out of context, just like a pro.
My point was that, most of the time, the word used shouldn't matter because the offender doesn't care what the word means, they just care that it gets the effect they desire.
So uh, Gaming Culture is nowhere near dead, is actually just now exploding out where more people are hearing about it.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
Competitive gaming forums are nest beds of the worst possible behavior on the internet, and it's always been that way.
Really, this isn't shocking. The internet itself is a rather offensive place and if you harken back to arcades those places were holes of abhorent behavior as well. This is the marriage of the two.
You can of course avoid this by carefully selecting who you play with. But in general it's part of the deal.
This is, again, another subset.
On the whole, encompassing ALL gamers, I doubt seriously that the higher level players are flat out assholes. Though that depends on genre, how you sort "high level" play, and a thousand other details that make this pointless to talk about anyway.
I question if people would even want a safe/sane internet.
It's kind of wonderful how you can call someone a shitmango robojew erectosaurus in one thread and discuss the intricacies of medical ethics in another
If you're on a board or a gaming community and spend the majority of time calling people "homofags" and they temp ban you from the board or service is one thing.
If you get into a heated discussion on a board and call someone a racial slur are are temp banned from "The Internet" that is insane. Want to check your e-mail? Too bad, should have thought about that before calling someone a stupid jew.
Well I think that's taking it to an extreme that nobody was even implying.
I hope so.
Then again, maybe you should keep a more civil tongue in that section of the internet? In my dream internet world, being reported for cursing on, say, Penny Arcade, will have absolutly nothing happen.
Being reported on, say, a jewish website for saying "stupid jew," would carry more weight.
Actually implementing that would be hard.
Unless you did it like Eve does sector space. 1.0 is policed hard, 0.0 is self policed by area. *shrug*
AGAIN, totally different from the gaming culture discussion.
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I was assuming he was referring to people as "unidentified, hostile butt aircraft."
Or a turd redistribution technician.
On a serious note - I think it's just a change in online and gaming culture. Back in the early 90's when I first got on the Internet, I was a thin-skinned dorky kid and the online world (which, for me, was mostly MUDs back then) was my escape from this kind of thing. Now it's mainstream, with all that entails. Most of the juvenile shit you see online is the same sort of juvenile shit you see and hear in an area where there's no enforced standard of behaviour. I feel sorry for the outsider kids now who don't get to have the online world as a refuge from this kind of thing, but I don't think the problem is online or gaming culture per se. The problem is that gaming culture has become mainstream, and so the prevailing mainstream attitudes are on display there.
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
First off, being a gamer can define in a number of ways. Do you play Magic the Gathering regularly? You're a gamer? What about your grandma and her friends and their weekly bridge games? Gamers. You play games you're a gamer. Face it. However, the can be grouped into sub groups. Video gamer. Online video gamer. MMO gamer. Board gamer. Card gamer. It goes on.
So (not reading the article as the OP suggests, but the post) I would assume that this thread is in relation to online gaming.
So here's my history for online game. First online game that I played heavily was Starcraft. I got very much into this game. I would regularly interact with friends from high school as well as the members of their clans (should any of them be in one) and hang out with them. This kept our online interaction at a fairly low minimum. So if there were any assholes, homophobes, racists, or whatever in this game, we would encounter them like they're the rarest of the rare Pokemon. They didn't really come up.
From Starcraft I moved on to Diablo 2 and then Quake 3. If Starcraft was an addiction, then Diablo 2 and Quake 3 was like crack, heroin, morphene, and any other fucking drug I could get in my system. I started each game around 2002 and played them pretty regularly for 7 years.
Diablo 2 was much in the same as Starcraft. Group of friends (much smaller than the Starcraft group) playing with familiar people. There were significantly more assholes in this game than there were in Starcraft. I don't know why, but this game seemed to breed them much more. But whatever. I enjoyed the game and there were a lot of cool people on there.
Quake 3 was the best. Quake 3 had servers. This was new to me. I join a server and play with people on that server. I'm not connecting to battle.net and looking for games. It was odd. Eventually when I figured out how it worked, I realized that you could meet some pretty cool people on this.
In my Quake 3 gaming, I found one type of mod. Insta-freeze. It was amazing. Basically insta-gib (1 shot rail kill) mixed with freeze tag. Team based game. If anyone was playing the same time I was and you played this mod, you initially played on 1 of 2 servers and they were both Dayentech servers. Owned an operated by one guy out of his home. He basically found the freeze mod and modified it to be insta-freeze. I loved it. I played on it whenever I got a chance and made a lot of friends. No one from my high school played this game, so I had to make friends online. Eventually Dayentech made his own mod after some official Quake 3 patch released in order to keep the game much like the original and these mods were called freeze-DT. The 2 servers eventually blew up to 4 owned and operated by Dayentech. Then some clans eventually got their own servers. I think at one point in time, this community got so big it had 14 separate servers.
So there's your history lesson on that. How does this pertain to this? Well if you guys have played on servers before or got apart of a community like this, you would be well aware that 95% of the players on XBox Live would be permabanned from these servers for having their shitty attitude. It's heavily moderated and it had the same amount of tolerance you find here on the Penny-Arcade forums. Take shit from no one. If you're being an obnoxious piece of shit, then you're gone. No one is going to deal with you.
From Quake 3, I moved on to a lot of online games. FFXI, WoW, Enemy Territory, Doom 3, Quake 4, and some others that I can't remember. FFXI was great, because the asshats that you encounter on most games, didn't care to play FFXI. It wasn't for them, so the majority of the community were pretty cool people. If you could understand them. But Japanese people are really cool, so there's that.
But with stuff like XBox Live and PSN, you don't get this same level of moderation that you got with communities like Quake 3 or even battle.net to an extent. In battle.net you could make your own channel and then ban people if you wanted. This kept things pretty much in check.
XBox live or PSN doesn't have things like this. You get in a game, it's completely public. You're going to encounter people that all they need is a console and an internet connection. No knowledge of how to connect to servers and stuff like that. No knowledge of joining channels and following rules. Just load the game, join the queue, and play. Since this is just so accessible and there's little to no policing, people are free to do what they want. Internet fuckwad theory takes effect.
If PSN and XBox live, would allow for private channels to be created, where people can join, idle, and meet up with friends and such, then gaming experiences could and would be a lot better.
Is the culture dead? No, but is sure as hell is dying. It's not what it used to be. The way it's regulated definitely needs to evolve into a different beast. I really do miss the days of logging on to my Quake 3 server and recognizing EVERYONE and feeling like I know them personally. You don't get that with online gaming these days, so I don't play it as much as I used to.
Also, when it comes to Xbox live, I know it's full of shitheads like my brother and his friends. They're the type of people that when they beat you in a game they rub it in. They do the standard Halo face humping. Pretty much the reason I can't play games like this is because of their douche bag attitude.
There were rules on the server I went to, much like the rules here on Penny Arcade.
yeah, Quakeworld was a hive of scum and asshattery, rife with racism/sexism.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I play only competitive servers league/ladder play. In general, the better the players, the more horrible jokes and behavior involved. Most of our IRC chat rooms are even worse.
then that changes nothing; if you go to private rooms in xbox live, and play within your friends list and friends of friends list... then you are far less likely to be eaten by a grue, or called a fag.
Been that way since the early 90s and IPX tunneling.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It was a bleak and terrible wasteland in those days. Fishing for games of Dark Forces II and Mech-Warrior: Mercenaries on the MSZone.
Or playing CounterStrike, Day of Defeat and Call of Duty: Base Assault.
Oh the horrors I've witnessed... yes, there were those bastions in the desert. Those few golden shrines of dedi-servers that were regulated and moderated. But they weren't the norm.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
It is luck. The Quake community as a whole is rather famous for sexism, racism, and all sorts of insanity. Dropping N bombs is rather common.
This is gaming as a whole though and it's not limited to online. Back in the day arcades were famous for this exact same behavior.
We never go for the high brow meaning of words here but your interpretation is Bravo Echo Tango Tango Echo Romeo.
If you want to go absurd you call someone a duckbill platypus face.
Then you shoot them in the face while they are distracted.
This seems to imply the person is a anal rapist, not gay. At least if looked at without any reference.
You just can't beat a 17 year old at the top of their game, and they say all sorts of vile stuff cause they haven't been properly socialized.
Most of these people are mid/late 20's at the youngest, these people have been playing quake for a long time. And yet "fucking american porch ape go chug grape soda" doesn't even scratch the surface of what you will hear.
You're right, it is the victim's fault.
Good show.
Whether it really is, I don't know. I think I am overly desensitized to the whole thing.
I have heard and read some pretty horrible things.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I was thinking of what I hear in TF2.
Man that shit is just boring
On the PA TF2 servers we pride ourselves in creative and dramatic smack-talk.
It's just a different culture than it used to be, and like anything, it has many many subsets of culture inside it.
Also, I would disagree with psychotix's assertion that "the better the players the more horrible jokes and behavior involved."
That might be true for a particular game, but that sounds like an outlier to me. From my experience, people that are actually experienced and good at games, with the exception of a few of course, are quite friendly and willing to help others.
But again, depends on the game. And of course, a huge portion of retards exist on the internet because we don't have concrete rules about it. In the future, when we revamp the internet to actually use it as a more sophisticated medium (Think one user account, whole internet, sort of like a google account) then there's accountability and the dumbasses stop being so dumb.
But the technology is still new, gaming culture is even newer, and everyone just needs to caaaalm down. Especially that retarded OP article.
You do realize that for the most part, accountability would kill the internet.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Selective accountability wouldn't. Voteban!
Pffft, l2p scrub. I've definitely insinuated I had detailed carnal knowledge of someone's mother while coordinating a good boomer/hunter/smoker strike. As in, I could draw an anatomically correct diagram of their vulva.
Do TF2 comp teams play with mics and sound off? The Deaf Comp All Stars!
You have to balance accountability with anonymity because 95% of people are bigoted judgmental asshats.
What so because I couldn't say ( I stress this is hypotehtical) "I will rape and murder you" and be held accountable as I would in real life the internet would somehow be different?
Which is why account information, such as real name, address, etc. is blocked by a username. But if you're off telling people that, in fact, they are heathen bastards from yourmomlandia then people can report you and get you temp banned. Ta da.
Although you wouldn't even need to do that really. If everyone knew at all times who everyone else on the internet was, people might just be nicer. But we don't know, so hey.
After all, if you're sitting in a quiet waiting room, does one guy ever get up and call you a fag to your face? Probably not.
If you're on a board or a gaming community and spend the majority of time calling people "homofags" and they temp ban you from the board or service is one thing.
If you get into a heated discussion on a board and call someone a racial slur are are temp banned from "The Internet" that is insane. Want to check your e-mail? Too bad, should have thought about that before calling someone a stupid jew.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Not in competitive games. Go to say www.prounreal.com or www.shoryuken.com and read through some of the forums.
Competitive gaming forums are nest beds of the worst possible behavior on the internet, and it's always been that way.
Really, this isn't shocking. The internet itself is a rather offensive place and if you harken back to arcades those places were holes of abhorent behavior as well. This is the marriage of the two.
You can of course avoid this by carefully selecting who you play with. But in general it's part of the deal.
Well I think that's taking it to an extreme that nobody was even implying.
I hope so.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Way to take what I say out of context, just like a pro.
My point was that, most of the time, the word used shouldn't matter because the offender doesn't care what the word means, they just care that it gets the effect they desire.
This is, again, another subset.
On the whole, encompassing ALL gamers, I doubt seriously that the higher level players are flat out assholes. Though that depends on genre, how you sort "high level" play, and a thousand other details that make this pointless to talk about anyway.
It's kind of wonderful how you can call someone a shitmango robojew erectosaurus in one thread and discuss the intricacies of medical ethics in another
Then again, maybe you should keep a more civil tongue in that section of the internet? In my dream internet world, being reported for cursing on, say, Penny Arcade, will have absolutly nothing happen.
Being reported on, say, a jewish website for saying "stupid jew," would carry more weight.
Actually implementing that would be hard.
AGAIN, totally different from the gaming culture discussion.