Worst Thing About Gaming is Other Gamers, Says NBA Jam Developer

[SelectivelyEvil13]

I must agree as I find that online experiences can be a tour of the cesspool of depravity and desperation amongst acrid, bigoted, juvenile, and intractably inane delinquents cloaked in anonymity. Those that ruin it for everyone do a disservice to all multiplayer features and, in my opinion, devalue a lot of games.

The potential for fun is undermined by just knowing that I will have to hear the vitriol some will scream and garble through their headsets. That alone supports my decision to refuse signing up for Xbox Live, as well as contributing to my choice to rent games or buy used more often than buy new when multiplayer is a major component. As a result, I laugh at movements such as the "Online Pass" because the publisher would have to pay me to subject myself further to a clusterf--- of these overcompensating sods.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Ahmen to that! Xbox Live especially is a cesspool. The only reason I still have an XBL account at all is for Netflix.

It is precisely this reason that makes me want to hit my head up against the wall when someone recommends to Nintendo to just copy Xbox Live. While Nintendo could certainly do with some significant improvements in their online department, creating an environment akin to the one on Xbox Live would be, from a business perspective, suicidal.

A great deal of Nintendo's audience are average people who have busy lives and don't have much time to dedicated for entertainment. They are not like us, core gamers, who have grown a thick skin due to the amount of time we spend playing or browsing online...they are unwilling to put up with crap like 14-year olds (I would say "13-year olds", but those get bashed all the time ) with foul mouths. The moment they experience something like that would be the moment they stop using the service or the console altogether.

However, I think M$ and Sony are largely to blame for these problems. Comparing the console online play to PC online play you are just randomly thrown in with whoever over and over when playing on a console. Where as on the PC you can find servers you enjoy that are largely free of idiot teenagers and return to those for your online play.

Agreed. However, the reason why this is possible on the PC is beacuse a great deal of PC games utilise player-owned dedicated servers, which allows the players themselves to police and administrate these servers. PC gaming communities would not be so friendly and long-lasting if the community was not empowered to make a united effort of keeping their servers civil and safe. Basically, the recipe to providing a good online experience is giving control to the user.

Of course, that is certain to never happen on consoles. Console manufacturers would never cede control of their online play to anyone, let alone the users themselves. This especially won't happen with Xbox....afterall, Microsoft wouldn't want to give their players any ideas that Xbox Live isn't worth paying for. Plus, they want to have the ability to terminate any game so they can force players to newer titles. Halo is a perfect example of this. Even though the franchise is far more popular on consoles, Halo 2 can no longer be played due to the termination of the original Xbox Live service. Meanwhile, thanks to dedicated servers, the game continues to be played on the PC. Oh, the irony...

 

[Dobrev]

I'm sick and tired of ignorant, monkey ball, ass whiped developers telling me how I should play their game and how I should behave online. This kind of hypokrite, elitist, bolshevik carp is what brings bad name to gamers. How can we expect to have respect from the outside when the people in the gaming biz treat us like dudu breathing manities.

 

[superbatranger]

This is why I stick to split screen multiplayer. At least, for now.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

Ahmen to that! Xbox Live especially is a cesspool. The only reason I still have an XBL account at all is for Netflix.

Only until now did I realize I was not the only one in this thread who referred to Xbox Live as a cesspool ha ha! Not that I'm surprised of course!

It is precisely this reason that makes me want to hit my head up against the wall when someone recommends to Nintendo to just copy Xbox Live. While Nintendo could certainly do with some significant improvements in their online department, creating an environment akin to the one on Xbox Live would be, from a business perspective, suicidal.

A great deal of Nintendo's audience are average people who have busy lives and don't have much time to dedicated for entertainment. They are not like us, core gamers, who have grown a thick skin due to the amount of time we spend playing or browsing online...they are unwilling to put up with crap like 14-year olds (I would say "13-year olds", but those get bashed all the time ) with foul mouths. The moment they experience something like that would be the moment they stop using the service or the console altogether.

However, I think M$ and Sony are largely to blame for these problems. Comparing the console online play to PC online play you are just randomly thrown in with whoever over and over when playing on a console. Where as on the PC you can find servers you enjoy that are largely free of idiot teenagers and return to those for your online play.

Agreed. However, the reason why this is possible on the PC is beacuse a great deal of PC games utilise player-owned dedicated servers, which allows the players themselves to police and administrate these servers. PC gaming communities would not be so friendly and long-lasting if the community was not empowered to make a united effort of keeping their servers civil and safe. Basically, the recipe to providing a good online experience is giving control to the user.

Of course, that is certain to never happen on consoles. Console manufacturers would never cede control of their online play to anyone, let alone the users themselves. This especially won't happen with Xbox....afterall, Microsoft wouldn't want to give their players any ideas that Xbox Live isn't worth paying for. Plus, they want to have the ability to terminate any game so they can force players to newer titles. Halo is a perfect example of this. Even though the franchise is far more popular on consoles, Halo 2 can no longer be played due to the termination of the original Xbox Live service. Meanwhile, thanks to dedicated servers, the game continues to be played on the PC. Oh, the irony...

I concur, as it would almost certainly be catastrophic for Microsoft to start really handing out punishments for poor behavior. Unless it's the exact same twelve year-old or two that are responsible horrendous experiences people have with online games, there must be a large chunk of paying customers that contribute to the N-word curse equivalent to Geldon the Demonic Dragon. Only Sony and Microsoft can control as Knights of the Mystical Order of Standards and Practices and stomp out these trolls. But that would effectively cut the money-drip to their veins.

That Nintendo audience that you mention is a group that I can relate to, even though I have a PS3/360, as I am averse to online play for that very reason. With Microsoft and Sony now trying to cater to that market as well now, I begin to wonder if more people would be drawn to their online services if they were better regulated.

 

[Something Amyss]

"Hell is Other Robots."

Too many people are jerks for the sake of being jerks. It really is a shame, but it has to be said.

 

[Nokterne]

Not everyone who plays online is so terrible. I've met plenty of cool people online.

I usually try to behave online as I do in everyday interactions, and that usually treats me just fine.

I will admit though, learning to use the mute feature also helps quite a bit

 

[kwagamon]

Well for the most part the Escapist is an example of a community like the one he proposes, just not attached to a specific game. Out of all the games I've played so far with online elements, I'd say the nicest community I've found is Lord of the Rings Online, followed closely by Team Fortress 2. The only reason it's not a tie is because of one hilarious incident with trolling I found in TF2. He was bad at it (going on a modded, Pyro-only server asking why he couldn't be a Scout), but a troll is points off. Haven't seen a single troll in LotRO.

 

[technophebe]

Trifixion's got it right, it's all about consequences - people have been doing just fine at thinking they're special and acting like douches long before the internet came along.

If you live in a small, subsistence farming community (like our ancestors did), you act like a douche and your neighbours can punch you in the face or refuse to help you next time your crops fail. If you're existing in a loose, temporary and anonymous online community, your neighbours can do precisely sweet f.a. if you behave like a douche. Queue millenia of frustrated animal impulses rising up in a tide of unmoderated hate, bile and douchebaggery.

At least that psychically scarred 17 year old who just destroyed you at Halo and then teabagged you mercilessly while mocking your father's sexual potency can't get together with his mates to give you a kicking like he could if you met him in the local pub!

 

[mattaui]

Well, as Sartre said, hell is other people.

Also, if it were only limited to age, or mental patients, it wouldn't be so endemic. But I know people who seem otherwise very well-adjusted and decent in the real world that think it's perfectly fine to be a raging jerkface online. It just goes to show that, with a lot of people, there's simply a thin veneer of civility over a mass of horrible and infantile behavior.

 

[poiuppx]

Well, duh. The thing folks have to realize is that the people you game with online are just that; people. Look around you next time you're in a crowd of folks; would you want to start a conversation with ANY of them? Would you trust any of them not to be dicks without knowing them at all?

Online is just frakked up. But it can also be damn fun, cause you never know what sort of folks you'll run into. Yeah, you get the 12-year-old cursing like a sailor with a stubbed toe, but you can also find the folks who enjoy playing the same game as you, folks who are more or less knowledgable, etc. It's all a matter of accepting that the folks on the other side of the game are part of the random sample of humanity gaming encompasses.

 

[strum4h]

Well I think the worst people are the people who think that the worst thing about gaming is other gamers.