The "Screaming Children on Mics" Argument

[TheRealCJ]

That's the thing. I shouldn't have to mute anyone. Let's just put a couple of games side-by-side here. When I play TF2 I never mute anyone, everyone is polite (as far as gamers go), funny and interesting to talk to. When I play COD on the other-hand, I routinely have mute-all on purely because I don't want to deal with the immature bullshit that comes out of those kid's mouths. I shouldn't have to deal with that shit, and yet there seems to be a huge concentration of those sorts of people in that player-base.

Why should they have less right to play COD than you?

It's called the age rating.
On your way! You've been dealt with.

My brother is like those screaming kids, he just doesn't use a mic.
But when he plays COD, i want to murder him.

As your brother, you're legally allowed to inflict non-bruising beatdowns without any consequences beyond what your parents can dish out.

So go ahead, make him subconciously check the room for phonebooks every time he turns on his Xbox.

 

[Versuvius]

Why aren't these screaming dipsticks just banned? Surely there are ops or what have you capable of just banning their console ID or...something.

 

[HigherTomorrow]

ITT: PC Gamers denying the fact that little screaming children run all over their servers as well.

Admittedly, most servers I've seen have a "No Mic if Your Balls Haven't Dropped Yet" rule, but kids don't read these days.

Also, this is one of the reasons I generally only play fighting games online. No one uses a microphone on SSF4, and no children play fighting games because they're hard. Of course, that doesn't stop my friends learning to play being as annoying if not more than the kids...

 

[soulasylum85]

It's hard with the age rating. If a 13 year old wants alcohol (6 pack for instance) their parents don't make the decision as to wether he/she is responsible enough. It's the law. Annoying as it is, games are the same . It's illegal for a 13 year old to play a R18.
On topic, sure you could mute kids like that, and some might argue freedom of speech and all that, but you shouldn't have to. My advice is to tell them calmly how annoying they are, then shoot them in the back. That will shut them up.

EDIT: Ignore the 'shut them up' part, it will probably intensify the annoyance and therefore make things more enjoyable for you.

it isnt illegal for a 13 year old to play an r18 or m rated game its only illegal for them to buy it. just like cigarettes, porn, and r rated movies... not illegal to use just illegal to buy.

 

[Gromril]

Hate to break up the party, but I get more abusive rage mail/bullshit during session from people who are at least 20+ than I do from younger gamers, especially in the us timezone for some reason.

By abusive I mean expletives/racial slurs/threats in rl. I maturity is not limited by age group folks.

 

[Bobbity]

It's just another thing on the list of "Things that pretentious wankers hate about CoD."

The game can be irritating as all fuck, but people on here seem to take their hatred to extremes.

 

[E.Blackadder]

Ok then, after doing some research I'll give you that one. Still, doesn't give anyone the excuse to act like a prick. Shoot them, I say!

 

[The_Grenglish]

Wow the elitism is really stinking this place up.
I personally don't have a problem with screaming children, they are hilarious to annoy, and if that fails just pretend you are attracted to them. They soon shut up.

My thoughts exactly.

Most of the actual abuse i get is from adults who are just sore losers, the "screaming children" are easily muted, either by physically hitting a mute button, or by making them a little bit uncomfortable, i once had a kid that, because i group of me and friends playing were laughing at him, he panicked and called us "homo sapiens", which i found quite amusing, if all else fails, usually they will ask you if you are gay, just say yes and they will be lost.

they annoy me too, do not get me wrong, but they are clearly young, and therefore can be schooled, and thus become less annoying!

 

[Vibhor]

The ratings are in place but that doesn't stop mommy from getting her child a game, especially considering how soft an M BlOps generally is. There are some disturbing moments but I don't think that most kids are in it for the story. Besides that point in other countries besides the United States rating are different, and are often just suggestions.

And your analogy really doesn't hold water. Maybe if the kid punched you in the nuts, called you a fag, then had sex with a stripper in front of you then it would make sense.

My analogy didn't meant that kids are horrible. My analogy was supposed to mean that kids are doing something they shouldn't and while doing so are ruining it for others.
Also, ratings SHOULD mean something. Any mother giving her child COD for gift is a bad(or misinformed) parent. Why doesn't she do every one a favor and make that gift a copy of Portal 2 instead?

 

[puff ball]

to me the big difference between the chat at call of duty and that in tf2, is that in tf2 it can actually be relevant to the actual game. things like window sniper, or dead ringer spy in base. im not saying that it doesn't happen in CoD or that that's the only thing spoken of in tf2 but it is imo more common in tf2.

 

[Artina89]

Black Ops is an 18 anyway here in the UK so theoretically there shouldn't be screaming 13 year olds playing anyway. But we shouldn't have to resort to muting every player we meet, its just courtesy. You wouldn't walk down the street screaming and swearing at strangers about how you "did their mum" last night (Well, most kids wouldn't I hope) So why is it accepted as part of online gaming. People who play for a good time shouldn't have to put up with immature behavior online

Anonymity does that to people. They feel that they can be as rude as they want, because unless you know them in real life, you are not going to show up at their door to punch them because they said "I did your mum" whereas in real life, you are able to confront them face to face and challenge them. It's cowardice, plain and simple.

I don't use the "screaming kids argument" as I very rarely play online multiplayer, and Call of duty just doesn't appeal to me. FPS's in general don't really appeal to me, with the exception of Killzone. The rare times I go online, I don't really encounter any "screaming children" but I have encountered the "screaming adult who really needs to grow up" once or twice. Adults can be just as childish as the 12-16 demographic.

 

[Suijen]

Consider the broader base that MW has and its greater accessibility, in contrast TF 2 is geared towards older players and it is cooperative in nature. There are plenty of mature players online, but you're bound to get a couple of bad eggs.

 

[pspman45]

This is Why I don't play multi-player. I usually only play multiplayer if i'm in a party with some of my friends.
Single player is where it's at!
The only game where I play the multiplayer myself is League of Legends, which is on PC. While there are dumbasses there, but they can only communicate via Text, and you can report players who were dicks. You can even report them for refusing to work together!

 

[BMA11995]

That's the thing. I shouldn't have to mute anyone. Let's just put a couple of games side-by-side here. When I play TF2 I never mute anyone, everyone is polite (as far as gamers go), funny and interesting to talk to. When I play COD on the other-hand, I routinely have mute-all on purely because I don't want to deal with the immature bullshit that comes out of those kid's mouths. I shouldn't have to deal with that shit, and yet there seems to be a huge concentration of those sorts of people in that player-base.

Why should they have less right to play COD than you?

Because they're kids?

You can throw out the argument of age ratings, but in many countries selling games to people under the recommended age is allowed.

The fact that people sell games to people under age is irrelevant, they still shouldn't be playing because they are under the required age. There are ratings for a reason, you dont let someone under age into an R rated movie because, more often than not, they arent mature enough for the content. Of course there are always exceptions, but the fact that this discussion is even happening is proof enough that they are few and far between.

 

[ruben6f]

I don't mind the screaming kids, I know how to mute people and it's fun to ear them scream after I kille them, but the thing is these kids have a certain way of playing games "it doesn't matter how dirty the way you are playing is, as long as you win it's ok", by this I mean all the kids think they can do whatever they want as long as they win, this ruins games because these kids can't be banned for taking advantage of glitches and bugs and this ruins the experience for other "legit" players, right now all that I play is singleplayer games because my only multiplayer games are Halo, Battlefield and CoD, and for some weird reason parents decided to buy these kind of games to their children.

 

[Sunrider]

All I get from this topic is "someone doesn't like what I like. I demand justification."

While I would use the mute if I actually played any CoD games online, I don't see it as a "right" to yell every curse word in ones vocabulary into a microphone to annoy everyone else. Flaming is not condoned in any other online game (not saying it doesn't exist here, don't get any ideas), but I have yet to hear about anyone getting banned for screaming profanity in CoD, and I think they should be. People never learn if there aren't consequences.
I know CoD isn't the only game with these problems, but that doesn't justify anything.

You should use a microphone responsibly. You don't just go screaming into some random persons ear would you?

This sums everything up quite nicely.

 

[ABLb0y]

I'm a console gamer, and I've never come across a screaming, homophobic, racist child. Everyone I've met on COD is really sweet.

 

[SammiYin]

Wow the elitism is really stinking this place up.
I personally don't have a problem with screaming children, they are hilarious to annoy, and if that fails just pretend you are attracted to them. They soon shut up.

I'd rather have screaming kids on my console than the nerd population polluting pc games, playing their shitty outdated memes down the mics constantly while their lackeys applaud like a collection of retarded chimps.

Oh sorry, did I just put console players in a better light than pcs? Somebody crucify me please.

Wait what?Since when did being a nerd and spouting memes go hand in hand?From my experience mostly kids are the meme spouting machines online.
And when did this become a "Pc is better the console" thread?

don't feed the trolls dude...

Wow the elitism is really stinking this place up.
I personally don't have a problem with screaming children, they are hilarious to annoy, and if that fails just pretend you are attracted to them. They soon shut up.

I'd rather have screaming kids on my console than the nerd population polluting pc games, playing their shitty outdated memes down the mics constantly while their lackeys applaud like a collection of retarded chimps.

Oh sorry, did I just put console players in a better light than pcs? Somebody crucify me please.

Wait what?Since when did being a nerd and spouting memes go hand in hand?From my experience mostly kids are the meme spouting machines online.
And when did this become a "Pc is better the console" thread?

That's the impression I got from reading some of these posts at what the thread was interpreted as. But to answer your question, I don't meet a lot of screaming children when I play pc games online, but the people who keep shouting "it's over 9000!" among other irritating things that only nerds would spout, so yea it's a pretty nerdy hobby. But to get this thread back on track
no screaming children don't effect my gameplay, in fact they improve it, as I said before it's hilarious to annoy them, same with any other chodey minority you come across.

Wait, in which player base have you seen that. I have been playing PC stuff online for probably 8 years now and never encountered "nerds polluting it with memes."
what player base do you play on? Because, this seems like a false statement.

Nom Nom Nom, tasty hypocrisy.
If I'm honest, it's mainly in Source mods that I see this behaviour, meme spouting and chodes playing their godawful music down their mics while I'm trying to fight off zombies [both zombie master and panic suffer from said chodes] there's also a disturbing ammount of furry porn flying around those servers too. Sure you get people who are polite and talk, but they are about as common as polite people on XBL.
My [admittedly brief] time spent on TF2 has just shown me that nobody on there talks at all.

More OT stuff so I don't break any rules: The screaming kid is just a stereotype used to put consoles in a bad light, sure we do get screaming kids, but that's only because Pc games* don't attract as many small children, because a decent pc is pricier and more hard work than a dedicated console.

*Please note that I don't give two rats testicles about which is better, it's just an observation, if anybody takes offence to that statement, then you are a massive baby.

 

[CJ1145]

So. We've all heard this before, the console fan-bases are shit because most of the people who play them are children who swear and shout inanely into their mics.

Ok, what does this have to do with anything? Yeah, sure, they're annoying, but there are mute buttons.

I just read a reason why (apparently) Black Ops was bad as being "screaming children and campers galore". This makes no sense. Sure, campers can be annoying, but screaming children do not affect the game or how it plays.

Seriously, learn what a mute button is and how it works.

What you're ignoring is that if someone is screechy and annoying, chances are there playstyle will be, in its own way, screechy and annoying. Is someone shouting like a hoarse hamster and spouting cuss words they just learned like a fountain more likely to take command of the team and lead a cautious, all-consuming assault to win the game? Or is he more likely to charge the same power weapon drop/area of the map over and over again, convinced that the other team is just "fucking HACKING" and that he'll eventually stop being instantly killed because he has no concept of the word "cover"?

But he won't stop dying. He'll die again, and again, and again, slowly giving the enemy team the edge over you through no fault of your own.

 

[Stall]

As other people have mentioned, you have to mute people with a much greater frequency on consoles. In most PC games, your mute/ignore list is kinda short, but it seems like you mute someone every other game when on a console.

Anyways, reading this thread has brought up something I've ALWAYS wondered about: why is "elitist" considered some sort of pejorative on the internet? I mean, wouldn't the kind of people who do consider PC gaming superior (which it is) consider being called an elitist a compliment because it reinforces their position that their platform is superior? I've never fucking understood why people throw around the term "elitist" like its a bad thing. Am I supposed to be insulted or swayed when someone calls me an elitist? Is it supposed to force some grand epiphany on me where I realize my transgressions of elitism, and immediately change my position? Or is it just like everything else on the internet, where someone assumes they "win" an argument just by referring to his opponent by the term? It just fucking baffles me man.