Valve Game Communities

[Soviet Heavy]

I've noticed that each of Valve's games seems to have a very different userbase. In a game like Team Fortress 2, I've almost never run into any assholes or unfriendly people, where in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, they seem to make up the majority of people I get stuck playing with.

Likewise, in Portal 2, most people are calm and controlled in multiplayer, but in Counterstrike or HL2 Deathmatch, they are misanthropic fuckheads.

Why is that? I'm wondering if it has to do with the overall content each game provides, and the tone. The jackasses are drawn to the military shooter and the dark, scary zombies, while the happy go lucky players go for the colorful, bouncy cartoony games.

Do you think that the tone of a game attracts certain demographics? Because I'm getting tired of playing L4D2 with assholes.

 

[DazZ.]

Any game with smaller amount of teammates will have more people being "assholes" because they rely on you more and some people get annoyed when there is someone clearly making the team lose, couple that with it happening game after game and then they tend to develop a short fuse for such people.

 

[Smooth Operator]

As competitive play gets turned up the total skill of the team decides the battle, so if anyone isn't keeping up their end they bring the entire team down with them, facing this disapointment match after match peoples patience slowly goes to shreads.
Sooner or later the really dedicated players start to hate everyone for even playing.

 

[Scrustle]

This will probably get me flamed for making huge generalisations, but I don't really give a damn. Here goes.

Different types of games appeal to different types of people (duh).

Team Fortress 2 is a game that requires a lot of teamwork and often very tactical thinking to be done on the spot. The type of people that appeals to are probably the type who are reasonably intelligent and good at getting on with other people. The game also has a very deliberate and unrealistic art style. That might push people away who don't want to play a game that isn't "serious", i.e. the type of people who think that because a game attains a "mature" rating that it is in fact mature and therefore better.

Left 4 Dead is a pretty simple game. You shoot the zombies. There is an element of co-operative play in it, but it's not exactly complicated. It's pretty violent and requires you to be very aggressive. It appeals to people who don't really want to think much about what they're doing and just murder hundreds and hundreds of green people.

Portal 2 is pretty slow paces compared to those other two, and requires very analytical thinking. You're never in serious danger and you don't have to attack anything, so there's no aggressive aspect to it. It appeals to people who like to think about things and work things out and aren't interested in shooting people.

I've never played CS so I can't really comment on that one.

Obviously it's not as simple as saying that these people only like these types of games. There's overlap, and people play different things while in different moods, but people will be more drawn to games that they think they will enjoy more. One that more fits their personality.

 

[CityofTreez]

Left 4 Dead is a pretty simple game. You shoot the zombies. There is an element of co-operative play in it, but it's not exactly complicated. It's pretty violent and requires you to be very aggressive. It appeals to people who don't really want to think much about what they're doing and just murder hundreds and hundreds of green people.

Someone has never played L4D2 MP. The L4D2 MP can be very tough to learn and it far from "easy". You can get utterly destroyed if you don't think about what you're doing.

 

[Scrustle]

Team Fortress 2 is a game that requires a lot of teamwork and often very tactical thinking to be done on the spot. The type of people that appeals to are probably the type who are reasonably intelligent and good at getting on with other people. The game also has a very deliberate and unrealistic art style. That might push people away who don't want to play a game that isn't "serious", i.e. the type of people who think that because a game attains a "mature" rating that it is in fact mature and therefore better.

There is nothing less serious than a machine that makes men pregnant... And the eternal fight about gravel! And all those dumb Australians who choose their leader by boxing matches with kangaroos! And a fish as a weapon...

I should stop now, should I?

I have no idea what you just said. Here's a cabbage:

 

[MBurdock]

... or HL2 Deathmatch, they are misanthropic fuckheads.

Why is that?

You kill people by launching fridges and saw-blades at them - seems to reward those characteristics...

 

[ResonanceSD]

Hah try getting into the Dota 2 beta. Meet a new class of psychopath XD

The TF2 community seems to be a little goofy at pub level, because it's that kind of game. then when you see competitive players and interview them, you realise they're just as bad at life as everyone else.