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Multiplayer: What is "sportsmanship?"
Zombiemambo
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I don't consider myself to be a sore loser, though I do show an ugly side at times. A well-played game is a well-played game, and if I lose then I lose, no question. But when I hop online to play my (current) favorite game, I become frustrated and I stop having fun. Why? Many reasons, but the main one is the lack of sportmanship. It seems as if, if I'm the winner I'm a hacker and a son of a bitch, and if I'm the loser I'm a total newb that got raped (and my mom probably did as well). It's rather unfortunate, because player-to-player interaction is certainly my favorite. Computer opponents will never match the skill and unpredictability of a human, and nobody will discuss awesome games they had against the AI. The answer to this problem is obvious: play with friends and with the folks from G&T. But still, I find myself frustrated and angry. Being the worst (or one of the worst) players in the game just isn't fun for me, whether I'm on the winning team or not. This brings me to my next problem.
I'm usually not the first to adopt a game and play it online a lot, and I don't play consistantly over a long period of time. So when I decide to play against the rest of the world, I get destroyed. Beaten to a bloody pulp. "I'll just practice," I say to myself, "and I'll be able to hold my own." However, I don't live long enough to learn anything besides that I seemingly got a B.B. gun and a sweatshirt to fight against Master Chief and his bazooka. My latest realization of this situation is Gears of War, and is the focus of this post. People are killing me in ways that were never seen in the beginning. And as soon as I took a break, the community flew right past me. I returned, eager to check out the Annex game type, and I've been stepped all over. What makes these people so good? What do they do? How do they learn to do these things?
I wouldn't care if I sucked if it didn't have such a large impact on the enjoyment of an online game. I can play a board game and lose pretty badly, but I have fun doing it. I don't understand why it's any different here, but it has made itself obvious and I'm losing interest in online gaming, which can potentially be one of the most fun experiences to have. It's disappointing that the future of gaming is more often miserable than not.
Is this the situation you guys find yourself in? Have you found ways to have fun online, even when you aren't doing well at all?
I'm usually not the first to adopt a game and play it online a lot, and I don't play consistantly over a long period of time. So when I decide to play against the rest of the world, I get destroyed. Beaten to a bloody pulp. "I'll just practice," I say to myself, "and I'll be able to hold my own." However, I don't live long enough to learn anything besides that I seemingly got a B.B. gun and a sweatshirt to fight against Master Chief and his bazooka. My latest realization of this situation is Gears of War, and is the focus of this post. People are killing me in ways that were never seen in the beginning. And as soon as I took a break, the community flew right past me. I returned, eager to check out the Annex game type, and I've been stepped all over. What makes these people so good? What do they do? How do they learn to do these things?
I wouldn't care if I sucked if it didn't have such a large impact on the enjoyment of an online game. I can play a board game and lose pretty badly, but I have fun doing it. I don't understand why it's any different here, but it has made itself obvious and I'm losing interest in online gaming, which can potentially be one of the most fun experiences to have. It's disappointing that the future of gaming is more often miserable than not.
Is this the situation you guys find yourself in? Have you found ways to have fun online, even when you aren't doing well at all?
Zombiemambo on
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Now I only play multiplayer games if I can host my own servers. But the motherboard of the computer I was using as the server blew up. Now i'm just a sad panda.
I hate to say it, but age (or, more accurately, maturity level) has a lot to do with good behavior. And there are a lot of young and/or immature people who spend a lot of time playing games, becoming self-appointed experts and judges of everyone else's skills. And they don't have the social skills to hold their virtual tongues.
Also, anonymity. Like alcohol, it brings out the worst in many people.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
I've seen people who sound like they're in their 20's argueing with 9 year olds over the voice chat. It's times like that where I hate the internet the most.
Yeah, I definitely agree. With age my FPS skills are declining, and they were never that good to begin wtih. But I still want to enjoy hopping into MP games. Hence I post here, and know I can usually play with PAers and avoid most of the idiots.
And sometimes the 9-year-olds are more mature.
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
But yeah your post does seem to be of two parts. People being wankers on Live and you not having the skills to back yourself up.
Me I'm ok with Gears, I'll boot it up and wont be anyone's meat shield. I'll get a few kills and occasionally I'll hold up the entire end of the team by wiping out the opposition by myself (it's happened three times and was epic every single time) but I know I'm not the best. It's a time commitment thing, I'm happy to jump online once or twice a week, some people I see every time I'm there. They are better than me, it doesn't bother me cause I get exactly what I put into the game.
Wankers online, the only real option you have is to keep jumping round the rooms until you find a group of people who aren't dicks or play in your friends list.
Satans..... hints.....
Instead I'll just say that the one rule that's pretty much dominated my online gaming has been: Don't be a dick and if someone is being a dick? Ignore them. Or kill them. Either way.
Unless I miss my guess (and am transferring my own feelings onto Zombiemambo), he'd say that he shouldn't HAVE to have great skills to avoid trash talk.
Skill shouldn't have anything to do with behavior, but it often does.
I don't have a 360, but didn't they introduce "zones" or something where you would supposedly get matched with like-minded players? How did that work out?
> turn on light
Good start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.
The last few weeks I've been playing on an awesome set of CSS servers. Admins on a lot, no swearin, no porn sprays, no mic spammers, etc.. Nice place to play IMO. (and they have several servers too) Till I got banned yesturday for hacking.... and I don't hack. Now at least by the rules in their banned forum you have to agree to be scanned by that cheat-scanner thing to get unbanned. Um sounds like a trojan to me. :x
To make matters worse I'm not that great a player. I just did well for a couple of maps and bam the ban hammer comes down.
I've played iSketch with you freaks a few times. It's no great step up, let me assure you. ;-)
That said, I agree with playing games with people you know, or, failing that since I don't actually have a dozen friends who play PC games regularly, playing with people in your own social network (i.e., these forums). I've played some really great rounds of MGS3, UT2k4, and Counter-Strike through this place.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Haven't had the opportunity yet but even in spite of that I'm going to say: Amen.
At least I can just bitch at them in whatever game on thread I'm participating in
A good example for you to try out yourself is with that there BF2 you have bought: Of all the smart-ass tough guys who type out all that trash-talk in-game? Get in to their squad and try to get them to talk in VOIP - most won't - cause they realize they don't sound quite so tough when it's apparent their balls haven't dropped.
Gears is especially bad. A lot of the things you need to know aren't simple techniques or maneuvers. Plenty of things critical to playing the game online, like shotgunning, you aren't going to figure out unless you put in the time and adapting to bullet lag becomes second nature. But the people on Live don't make it easy to put in the time to get better. It's actually kind of sad. VOIP is the worst invention ever.
But I would recommend playing with forum members. They tend to be a fairly good bunch and fun to play with. They might call you a shit fucking asshat too, but they mean it in jest.
Have to agree just on the idea alone. Back in the days of Tribes 2 some of the best nights were just six or seven other guys and myself hoping on a pub after practice and working together. Using only the most rudimentary of tactics you can accomplish an almost freakishly large amount.
See, this is the exact reason I updated my PC, and bought BF2.
I used to participate in national Gears of War leagues and do well, so I'd say I'm not bad at all (which really, compared to the rest of the world, must be horrible) in my country. To get better, you have to practice; almost everyday, to the extent you get tired of being able to cartograph (such a word?) every map. I know what you mean by jumping into the game late and not being able to catch up. The solution is to play with friends that you like to hang out with, then even when you lose, you guys can still laugh it off, then everything's cool.
When I play on Xbox Live, I usually stick to a group of about ten friends, I may have about a filled friends list, but I only really like playing with these friends. And that's the trick to enjoying games, imo, to play what you like with the people you like. That way, no matter what happens, you guys get to have fun together, because among friends, I doubt there'll be a real competitive edge to it all, it'll all just be for kicks.
That's my opinion at least.
I have to agree that the age of the player really is an indicator of sportsmanship. There are plenty of trash talking dickwads in their 20's, but there are a ton of dickwads in the world. The kids younger than the ESRB rating are the worst. There are some good ones, but the majority think they are God's gift to the gaming world. I have started arguing with a 9 year old a few times, but then I say to myself, "he's f-in 9 years old," and just leave or drop it altogether.
It's come to the point where I hardly ever to any adversarial matches in any online game unless I'm with people I know. Playing co-op games with strangers is usually fine since the whole premise of the game is to work together not piss everyone off. I have met several cool people though the co-op modes of R6:Vegas and have played with them in several other games.
p.s. saying "good game," afterwards does not make up for all the asshattery
Generally speaking most European servers will have people playing polite, they don't swear, they don't get pissed off and they tend to make up a set of un-spoken rules in their games... that is until they fight American or Russian clans, who have the exact opposite approach to on-line gaming. I still remember reading the lines of racial slurs as I spawn camped them... I feel kind of bad about it, but it's the only way they'll learn.
I was very good at Day of Defeat:Source for a long while, until I took a two-month break and came back after having switched to a wireless mouse. It's absolutely aggravating, because I still have all of the team strategies in my head, and yet I can barely hold my own in a firefight, so I can't implement them all that well. I can't keep up against people I used to keep up with.
Essentially, then, if I get pissed off enough I'll just choose a class or a weapon I don't normally use nor like, and just run around, not caring so much about winning anymore. It actually helps my skill as well as my enjoyment, because then I start getting better at that class/weapon.
Now if only I could get those dumbass noobs to move up... :P
As for sportsmanship, I just play in more mature servers. Go go PC and games that aren't CounterStrike!
Typing during a game, such as Warcraft III, I can just overlook that, but actual VoIP... nah, screw that. I bought a vent server for my close friends to talk to, I bought it, so I can kick out any whiney bitch. :P
Its good to be the admin.
Hmm... it seems I've lost my train of thought...
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
Also, because unranked games are (generally) less competetive, people don't feel so obliged to rub your face in it when you die and you can sometimes just chat while you're playing. There's also the fact that you come across a broader range of skill levels, and in any given game you'll probably come across one or two people who are better than you, one or two who are of an even skill level, and one or two who you can usually beat. Therefore, for a more friendly environment where you can actually score kills if you leave off playing for a few weeks, I recommend unranked matches online.
Speaking of voice, sometimes a team not speaking is just as bad as they talking trash, specially in team games such as Gears of Wars.
Theres two main problem with Gears. One, it is 4v4. With such small teams, more is heavily relied on you. When you are playing an 8v8 or 16v16 player game, theres more room for you to mess up.
Two, ranked games are often stacked. While it isn't easy to find a friends game and you can't send invites, people look at your achievements to see what you have. If you have the Seriously achievement, you are the team everybody wants to be on. Failing that, they will look to see who have the most 100 kill achievements.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
Of course, I've not always possessed enough skill to dole out the lessons...
Where a group of about 15 decent people, and maybe 1 or 2 dicks, would play all these awesome multiplayer games, and for the most part, when the game was over it was never, "We stomped you." or "you guys suck". It was always, "Man... did you guys see that time that Joe hit me with that grenade." or "Who the crap was it that picked me off from accross the map, that was crazy."
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
I can usually put up with it when it's only one person though. And I can normally dish out punishment if I have to, particularly later in the game; if one guy keeps killing me in a specific way and laughing about how I'm a noob then I will figure out a way to counter his/her strategy within two or three rounds. And kill them at least half a dozen times before they learn that what they're doing doesn't work. (My real strength in games is figuring out how other players act and how to counter what they do quickly. And I never insult people.)
Edit: Even though taking down assholes a peg or two can be fun, multiplayer games when everybody is friendly are really much more fun.
All players involved (though I prefer 1v1) play at the highest level that they can
Players that are excessively better than their opponents end the game quickly (in an RTS game or fighting game) and then find better competition
NO THROWING OF CONTROLLERS AND NO YELLING
Trash talk I don't really have a problem with. I almost never do it myself unless I do something awesome like land a Hi Counter Throw Ceiling Raijin for 50%+ damage for the win in DOA4 or something, which is freaking sweet.
See, I think that often the games themselves are a problem. Some genuinely cool dudes like to talk trash while they game, and that's cool-- the game should allow a different kind of player the ability to mute him without going through crazy menus and annoyances. If game balance becomes an issue, then everyone gets angry at each other.
Honestly though, the most important thing to be agreed upon mutually, for me, is that everyone will play their hardest. It's so much more fun that way.
By far the worst example of this sort of mentality is in fighting games. The entire concept of "tiers" and tournament level play just irritate me to no end. I personally just can't take games to that level of seriousness, which of course means I will (and do) lose against people who do play like that. Period. Smash Brothers in particular is a game that takes wacky, yet casual gameplay and breaks it down to an exact science with quantifiable levels of "win." Either you scour over the data and practice obscure moves for hours like everyone else, or you are so out of your league when playing that it's impossible to enjoy. Now, there are a couple neat and generally creative things to come out of this, but for the most part it just polarizes players into categories of how seriously you take your game. I'm actually not looking forward to SSBB online play because I simply don't have the time (or really want) to learn all the obscure and convoluted moves necessary in order to stay "competitive." I will get my ass kicked when I play online, and quite frankly all it makes me do is not want to play with those sorts of people.
But overall, I found that most of my games are pretty decent as long as you don't respond to idiots. I don't mind trash talk myself, as long as it's good-natured and most of the time it is unless someone is really a sore loser. And I've found this to be greatly attributed to the user's age.
Not to get stereotypical or anything, but really most of the older players are a lot more civil to each other. It's really the 16 and under crowd that tend to be really annoying. Especially the 12-13 year olds who just learned how to swear.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
I some times feel bad about it as it makes me look like a little bitch, but in my opinion it's better to bail without saying a word then to bitch about it.
But honestly, Battlenet = teh suck.
Oh...believe me...it can...it can...
"OMFG, could you stop cheapin' me out with Pikachu's fucking lightning bolt."
"Not my fault you keep running into it."
"The only reason you're winning is because you keep running away and using that damn move. If you come up here I bet I'll kick your ass."
"That's why I'm running away...duh."
"Fuckin' pussy. Next time we're playing at the Ice Mountain."
And that's one of the more civil ones.
Agree fully with this statement. Most offensive or annoying players are squeeky-voiced-teens. That's actually one reason I do my best to be polite and/or friendly online; it combats the stereotype (I am 16). It also means that people treat you as humans instead of annoying computer-generated images.
BTW; how can people tell that you are black while playing on live? It's not as though they can see you.