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So this discussion is born out of some apparent confusion in another thread. I made the claim that playing random strangers on the internet was an unpleasant experience most of the time. You can't play a multiplayer game with random strangers without tripping over one of these types of players. Ouze gave a decent characterization (though he may not have meant it seriously):

Ouze wrote:That's in addition to the inescapable lot of hooligans that are a fixture of multiplay, such as the squeaky voiced 10 year old, the guy who communicates only in homosexual slurs, and the guy who is so high right now, and wants everyone to know it.

However, I've had more than one user take issue with my assertion, possibly because they don't feel it is a common one (though it isn't clear if that is the case).

So rather than drive the thread I was in into complete off-topic land, I figured I'd pose the question to the Dakka community, as it's certainly possible my belief is not a common one on the internet.

Though I'm not sure it needs to be said, I'm obviously not talking about online gaming with just your friends.

The thread where this discussion started is here.

For the most part, most of them are simply quiet. Sometimes they'll be friendly, and occasionally you'll get one jackass who ruins the fun for everyone. I play a game of Team Fortress 2 and while there might be one guy on my team cussing me out for not being the best Heavy in the world, everyone else is ignoring him or not talking at all. Even so, most games have a mute function to get rid of the worst of it.

All the negative stereotypes about online gamers are true with the sole exception of how many of the bad ones there are. If I get a game with a bad sport 1/10 times, I still had 9 games that were probably fun. Even so, trolling these people is HILARIOUS and worth every second.

I totally agree with Brother SRM. That has been my experience with all online games I play including TF2.

When I do play online I make a point of muting everyone I don't know because more often than not there are young players that get quite excited and shout or make silly noises, things like that. If I can't mute people in a game I'm less likely to play it for as long as if I could, because it can be quite jarring. But the majority of people are fine.

As the majority of people tend to be quiet when they play or not have the ability to chat verbally I'm generally fine. Then there is the one nut in the bunch. Granted there are other games where the ratio seems to be 2:1 of normal people and nuts.

I don't even put on my headset unless I'm playing with people that I actually know.

XBL is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

It's like posting on a forum.

Most people are quiet.

A few talk, and are a pleasure to talk to.

And there are a few stinkers that can ruin everything for everyone.

And I'm not entirely sure why this is in Dakka Discussions?

infinite_array wrote:And I'm not entirely sure why this is in Dakka Discussions?

My apologies if this is in the wrong place. It is not directly 40K related, so didn't seem to fit in 40K General. This seems to be the right place for general, gaming related discussion. If it isn't, I'd be happy if a mod could move it to it's appropriate location.

Well, online gamers - video games subforum?

infinite_array wrote:Well, online gamers - video games subforum?

Wow, I completely missed that, thanks for pointing it out (I rarely delve down near the Off-Topic forum). Could a Mod please move this?

I feel that most online gamer in FPS games are annoying to play with or against. Hell I'd want to kick the gak out of my own son if I was playing in a room with him and didn't know who he was. It might be the difference in attitudes bought about by age, even an age gap of 4-5 years I notice a difference in "maturity level".

There's also this "talk gak over the phone mentality" that a majority of gamers have, especially in aggressive play games. Ahh interweb anomity....

I don't notice this behavor in MMO's as much as I do in non MMO games. All that being said, I'm pretty good at just ignoring the people that piss me off.

I avoid online play because of this exact issue. I hate people I wind up playing with online, and there is no way to hold them accountable for their jackassery. It's really obnoxious, and ends up ruining my good time. I solve the problem by just avoiding these games.

I seriously think that the issue stems from the competitive nature of online players. "Wanting to win" too easily melts into "wanting the other guy to lose" which fades into "wanting to ruin someone else's day." And dealing with snots nosed children like that is just something I don't have time for.

The prophet with the Duke Nuke'Em Avatar is spot on.

Most of the pick-up game DDO players I ran with were quiet and didn't talk much. Just did their jobs. Then a small percentage was dick-holes. I flagged their names with "Do Not Run With" in case I saw them again. Otherwise, people were pretty friendly.

My experience may also have been tempered by mainly running my cleric, since EVERYBODY loves healing.

Moving to a more appropriate location...

The only game I ever really play online is Resistance 2.... Not so much since the arrival of Resistance 3 admittedly. I've never really had a problem with that community, they mostly seem like ok dudes. I can simply mute the occasional donkey cave, so no issues there!

I believe this may have to be linked.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/online_gaming

Contains some swearing.

Whenever I leave TF2 and try to move onto the consoles for online play. I always get put in the server with people around 14-late 20's that dare not stop cursing, ranting, and throwing all kinds of chavish/fratty nonsence in my virtual face.

Depends on the game really.

I've found 99% of the time in MMOs, people are pleasant.

In about 80% of MOBA (Dota, HoN, LoL) People are unpleasant, and rude.

TF2 players are generally pleasant, most of them are comic geniuses like me.
CoD players, on the other hand, make me have the urge to break a living thing with my bare hands. Every single one of them is either the kid that runs around with AK74/shotgun/whatever and proclaims to the world the wonders of every kill had with the phrase 'U MAD OLOLOLOL I TROLL U" or 12 year olds that apparently have deaf parents and an affection for a synonym for cigarette.

Online gamer people are the worst people in the world...

Just saying, I once got into a fight with some guy over racism while playing starcraft.....he kept saying how terrible white people are and how black/latin people are never racist.....It was an interesting discussion err....argument

Sasori wrote:Depends on the game really.

I've found 99% of the time in MMOs, people are pleasant.

In about 80% of MOBA (Dota, HoN, LoL) People are unpleasant, and rude.

MOBA is the wrong term, made by the creators of LoL (the worst of the 3 you mentioned)

The genre has been simply Dota for years, and is now recently an ARTS (Action Real-Time Strategy) coined by Valve.



MOBA just sounds absolutely ridiculous anyways (Multi-Player Online Battle Arena? Please.)

Did I mention I got into the Dota 2 beta? Yes, I did.

To OP - You cannot generalize a vastly diverse audience under two extremely general options.

Very NSFW: Penny Arcade characterizes Online Gamers:

Karon wrote:The genre has been simply Dota for years

Yeah, that craptastic game has gotten a few too many clones. The genre itself looks interesting, but dota's just stinking mound of brown..

Certainly the people who play the games are hardly better on average. Really, it depends on the game. Combat Arms has a horrible playerbase, but TF2 is much better, for example.

I won't argue with you, Melissia.

As a simple Warcraft 3 custom map, it has enjoyed more success than most fully developed games without the engine restrictions of Warcraft 3.

Out of all 3 of those games, Dota is the best of the 3, and if you think Dota is bad, I don't think you will like the others unless you want to play the simplified, dumbed down version that is LoL.

Most online gamers are fine. I think the problem is that so many never say anything, so we only remember that one douche who shows up in a game and ruins all the fun.

Karon wrote:I won't argue with you, Melissia.

As a simple Warcraft 3 custom map, it has enjoyed more success than most fully developed games without the engine restrictions of Warcraft 3.

Out of all 3 of those games, Dota is the best of the 3, and if you think Dota is bad, I don't think you will like the others unless you want to play the simplified, dumbed down version that is LoL.

Being simpler doesn't make it worse I felt Dota had way too high of a learning curve and some of the changes in LoL really work well imo.

I think people's behavior is strongly related to the type of game.

TF2 and WoW are vibrant and cartoony, making it abit embarrassing to get hard core over it.

Of course there are exceptions since competition brings out the worst in humans.

TF2's players are typically better with the NON-competitive crowd, I think. Competitive players always want to restrict what you use and what maps you play and what modes you play and etc... "omg you can't use the cow mangler!" "but it's fun and hilarious..." "use liberty launcher or gtfo" "liberty launcher is boring" "gtfo *****" (for reference, the liberty launcher has a faster rocket but less ammo, while the cow mangler is a laser weapon which has a charge-up-- the latter is generally considered weaker than the former aside from it having infinite ammo)

Then again, that's my experience with most competitive players online anyway so...



Karon: Last Stand in DoW2 was several thousand times better than dota, and it's been put in the same rough category of ARTS (a different style of it, but definitely better). *shrug*

I recall this one time I got hopped up on soda. It's odd because caffeine rarely effects, but when it does, wow. Normally I think and talk really fast, and sometimes trip over myself. However, for some reason I when I was playing Halo...2 I believe one day at a friends place, I decided to down a mountain dew or two before I got around to playing. The dew hit me hard, and I somehow managed to talk even faster than normal, and not stumble once. That and the adrenaline rush I got from playing had me putting on quite the scene with my headset. I remember someone asking if there was something wrong with me.

Good times were had that day.

I would say that FPS attract the worst people, but then again the online gaming market is over saturated with FPS so knowing if it's truly because of the FPS element or not is a bit tricky.

I love Dota games...with a team. Playing with random people is soul grinding.

Cheesecat wrote:

Karon wrote:I won't argue with you, Melissia.

As a simple Warcraft 3 custom map, it has enjoyed more success than most fully developed games without the engine restrictions of Warcraft 3.

Out of all 3 of those games, Dota is the best of the 3, and if you think Dota is bad, I don't think you will like the others unless you want to play the simplified, dumbed down version that is LoL.

Being simpler doesn't make it worse I felt Dota had way too high of a learning curve and some of the changes in LoL really work well imo.

Its not really a matter of opinion, its fact. LoL isn't marketed to the competitive crowd, and it isn't balanced around them either. Its a game made for casual players that just want to sit down and have some fun for an hour, further emphasized by the F2P model they have going.

Summoner Spells, and, to a lesser extent, masteries and runes, unbalance the game to a huge extent. The fact you can have a 3 second disable on someone at any time (Exhaust) or immediately remove any of your positioning mistakes (Flash) are the reason why LoL and Dota are completely different games.

They both look the same, but are vastly different. Dota is balanced around the high-end players, its not simplified at all, and does have a higher learning curve that you have to play to get over. What you get in the end, however, is a very balanced, stable game. Icefrog (the developer of Dota) does not listen to every tom, dick, and joe on the forums crying about a FOTM OP like Riot does, he has a group of beta testers that test everything for him and give him feedback on what needs tweaking.

LoL is obviously going to attract the people who have never seen Dota before because its easier to understand, get into, and its F2P.

To top it off, the developers of LoL balance around two philosophies - "anti-fun" and "burden of knowledge", which basically translates into they don't want to make anything that makes people mad, or expect the player to do any work to understand the game. They want the game to be as simple and dumb-downed as possible so everyone will pay and buy their Riot Points because the IP gain is dead-slow, and every new hero is always 975/6300.

I'm going off on a tangent, but I think you get my point.

Melissia wrote:Karon: Last Stand in DoW2 was several thousand times better than dota, and it's been put in the same rough category of ARTS (a different style of it, but definitely better). *shrug*

Not the same thing, at all.