ON-Line gaming much like living in the ghetto.

[MrJ]

I am a big on-line gamer. I have been playing on-line games for 3 years now. Mostly "Rainbow Six", "Quake" and "UT." I spent 2 years as the Head Admin for the Clanladder.com and asa a sysop for the "MSN Gaming Zone." During this time I made a lot of freinds, played some GREAT matches and worked hard to make it to #1 numerous times on the clanladder. However, a few months ago, I quit doing it completely due to the STRESS level that I was experiencing.

Stress? You say? YES!! Stress from the following:

1. People that get a kick out of "cussing out" people just for the fun of it.
2. People who threaten to HACK you just because they are bored.
3. Kids who act like complete morons because they know there are no consequences for their actions.
4. People who cheat their butts off just to look good.
5. People who LIE their butts off about who and what they are.

I could go on and on but I think you get the idea. It is a VERY DARK environment and being part of it comes with a lot of negativity. I got sick of the Negativity and the total lack of respect for human goodness.

This is why I sya that on-line gaming is like living in the ghetto where one can't go without being threatened, cussed at, or cheated.

I'll just stick to the single player games where I know I'm not being cheated and I don't have to read the F word every 10 seconds.

 

[PalmettoTiger]

I understand what you're saying. Freshman year, I got sucked into QuakeII, and became that negative person. My sense of humor is generally cynical, and when I poke fun at people it's not to degrade them but to get us all to laugh at the absurdities of the situations we find ourselves in. But none of that lightheartedness comes across in plain text, and as I met more of my fellow gamers face to face, I was really surprised at the number of people who already thought I was a total jerk. (I'm not. I hope.) So I too left online gaming because of the negativity - but my own, not others.

Does anyone see a way to change the environment?

 

[MrJ]

So true, that is one thing many people fail to understand. When you type something, there is no body language to SEE. There is no VOICE inflection to HEAR. Many things are misinterpreted and negativity breeds negativity. Then the snow ball builds.

 

[OutHouse]

yip i agree. Remember the game warcraftII well i was pretty good at it and had the nick name of war2god. remember you had to type at the dos prompt war2? and since i was pretty good at it i added god to it. I had that name for a long time. Until one day some people took offense to it and said i was making war towards God. I tried to explain what it ment but they just didnt get it and accused me of hating God.

 

[neddog]

I couldn't agree with you more. I ran and still run multiple Quake servers on our local backbone. It started a few years ago with Quake 2 and now Quake 3. It takes a great amount of time to maintain the Linux servers, A Web site and keep abreast of the many updates related to Quake mods.


The service we run is for free, all of it. Yet, I have get so tired of the attitude of certain people, they act like they are ENTITLED to have access to the machines, rahter than appreciate the gesture.

I have had viruses emailed to me, cursing and swearing in games, hack attempts, you name it. On certain Forums on the Web my servers and ourselves have been the subject intense insult.

I must say that it isnt ALL of the players, just a few BAD apples but it sure makes it discouraging. I now dont even play quake on our own machines as I cant stand the belly aching. I think online gaming is great however the problem seems to be with the anonymity that it allows for people that abuse it.

I have on occasion met people who have played on the servers and found that they couldn't punch they way out of a wet paper bag, but playing on the servers gives them a sense of security and the Mr. Hyde comes out!

NeDDoG

 

[celeritas]

Don't get me wrong: I love playing HL and CS... But some people are a bit more psychologically balanced than others, and so IMHO they respond to the intense competition and virtual killing/dying better than others. Anyone remember Dungeons and Dragons? I've seen games where people who were friends otherwise would "go off the deep end" when members of the party ganged up on each other to kill off their high-level characters and steal their stuff. That happened when everyone was face-to-face; it only makes sense that it would get worse when online play was born...

There's nothing wrong with D&D, Doom, HL, CS, Quake, etc. per se; it's some of the immature, unbalanced people playing them that make it an emotionally draining experience for the rest of us. IMHO, most of these people probably wouldn't give you any trouble if you passed them on the street. In the virtual community, however, they feel they can act out any way they like without any consequences. I've seen a few ask something like "If the object is to stalk and kill your opponent, why should fair play and manners be important?" It's important because you're not really stalking and killing anyone. You might want to play against (and with) these people again, someday...

Just a couple pennies.

 

[Kappo]

you guys actually read what others are typing? Im the one that likes to sneak up when you are doing all that typing...

 

[MrJ]

I have played most of my on-line games on either the MSN Gaming Zone or Gamespy arcade where there are "Chat Rooms" for every game. Most of the stupid conversations and bashing is done there.

 

[PalmettoTiger]

Kappo - I just hide in a corner like I'm camping, except it's a corner without anything to camp.

 

[vexter]

I think that it's mostly ignorant teenagers. Every teen I know is so sure of their knowledge of the world, when they really dont have a clue whats going on. Ive never met a teen(worked in popular to teens retail buisness for 7 years)and ive meet many, that had any real world understanding. Their are teens now reading this and getting mad. And Im sorry but your the one im talking about. You think Im full of it or just a jerk. The best thing you can do for yourself is listen too me. If you dont you'll think back when your 30 and think "man I sure was stupid, thought I knew it all" So go easy on the kids out their the'll grow up soon enough and suffer the consequences of thinking they knew it all. BUT PLEASE, DONT STOP GAMING ONLINE, good, intellegent competition is hard too find

 

[BadBrain]

I don't think it helps that in Unreal Tournament the Bots are programmed to be offensive as well. Specifically the bots that kill female characters and say "Die Bitch."

 

[sandorski]

I've been gaming online for about 4 years and yes, the last couple of months have been rather stressfull. I'm almost to the point of quitting, but will probably stick it out for cable will be available for me in 2 weeks(so the cableguy says).

The Llamas and cheaters are hacker wannabes, IMO. They lack hacking skills, so they decide they'll raise havoc the only way their puny minds can find. I don't know which I hate most though, the idiots using the cheats, or the butts making them. Either way, it is apparent that things are going to change.

Some of those changes will probably include the following:

1) Many of the good public servers will go private.
2) Private servers will begin charging a fee.
3) Server side cheat protection software like CSHP and Punkbuster will continue to become more common.
4) Future online only games will also be only playable on a limited number of servers that charge a per month fee.
5) Free Internet gaming is near dead.

I must take this opportunity to kick someone while they're down/gone: PCXL burns in Hell now for their Llamma article on how to cheat and generally disrupt games online. The day they died was a great day for all gamers!

BadBrain: I agree that UT's bots are foul mouthed, but I must say that some HL bots are down right Llamas. Recently I joined a server in TFC and was accused of cheating. I responded back, then someone informed me that I was talking to a bot! I just shook my head and decided to ignore it. Kinda sucks that those involved in bringing us the game though seem to want to lower the maturity level.

While I'm ranting on: All this talk of regulating the gaming industry with age restrictions and what not, seems to be more and more attractive to me with all this crap going on. Certainly, many Llammas are 18+, but at least some would be removed.

 

[shadowfaX]

I agree with you guys. Playing UT online isn't exactly the way to get rid of stress. There was this one time when I was whooping everyone left and right, and I got my 30 frags pretty fast. I generally suck at UT. I'm absolutely not very good... just happened to be lucky that one day. Some kid began cussing me out. That was just plain stupid, just because he/she/it couldn't get a frag on me? Then there are the PKers in D2. They suck. Not the duelers, those are different. I mean the PKers. It's like, I spent all that time building my character and some freak who's two times my level chases me down and slaughters me. That isn't fun either.

And those "hackers" really don't know anything. I would love to tell them how much they suck, because hacking other people's computers for destructive purposes is not the way to hack. For all I care, they can screw Windows up for me, whatever. Does that really do anything for me? It's not like I have anything important on my HD anyway. I guess today's online communities are full of people (kids) who think they're cool because they can cuss you our or threaten you cheat their fricken lives away.

I don't know, but sometimes these teens can really get on the better-behaved gamers' nerves. I'm not for "monthly-fee" online games, simply because I have a tight budget. It's just too bad that the world is full of people who don't understand that their stupid actions make them stupid in the first place.

K, that was just my rant... proceed with your reading.

 

[MrJ]

I'm glad to see that there are others that feel the same way and see what I am talking about.

One of the previous post said that the "Makers" of the game are partly responsible for the "Immature" behavior because of the way they design the games. The chat messages that the BOTS say and such. I couldn't agree more. And if you think about it, many of the game designers are not much older than the teens playing the game.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

slightly off topic, but you know what i hate???

CLAN BOTS ON BROOD WAR

they are soooo annoying. i remember when i had the AZN clan tryouts for starcraft...i lost. but few even get to tryout. back when clans meant something. now, clans are a dime a dozen, the real people who would whup you if you got their clan name and werent a memeber...

no respect these days. im hope more games start going like diablo2 had a closed bnet option. it might not be fool proof, but the lamers are mostly excluded.