We've all been playing games online for some time now, and I wanted to address something that has been hampering the experience of mature and serious gamers. How many times have you been forced to back out of sessions in response to annoying personalities, most often those of children imposing themselves as the leader of the pack. They issue orders, make vulgar offensive statements, or often times (and I do mean often) sing some silly song into the headset until your eardrums threaten to explode. I'm aware there is a system in place to weed out such nonsense, but at certain times in the day it seems unavoidable, and you end up calling it a day because you can't seem to find a respectable lot to team up against zombies or overthrow those nasty Nazis.
Its hard to feel like you hold some natural authority being the technical elder in these groups. I've had so many 10 year olds talk down to me I feel like walking into a middle school with a wooden paddle and going haywire. Why the hell are these fledglings even playing some of these games? With all the gore, violence and profanity, you'd think the parents would actually pay closer attention to the mature ratings for what they were intended... Oh wait that's right, parents don't give a shit these days. Anything to keep little Bobby from nagging them while they sip Martinis in the back yard and discuss the last episode of John and Kate plus eight.
One game in particular that I refuse to play online is GTA4. I swear to god everybody signs on to that game with their inner thug bursting at the seams. Is there anything more annoying than a prepubescent rascal making like they're honorary members of the crips? Its a sad, ongoing social commentary that I like in a documentary, not upping my blood pressure when I'm trying to complete a co-op mission. Trash talk is one thing, but I firmly believe certain age gaps shouldn't be bridged with unchecked hubris and swagger.
My proposal is for the the industry to find a way to identify the age of participants and place them in lobbies accordingly. In the long run, it would help to avoid us having to spend half the day attempting to team up with people who have the right to tell me how to play.
The good, the bossy, the obnoxious.
And by the way things were a lot different 20 some years ago. Parents generally gave a shit about how their kids were behaving and being an adult demanded respect. There is NO respect nowadays. You must be among those who would let their kids talk back to adults and maybe even encourage it.
Yeah, it can be annoying but I found I simply unplugged my headset and set team speak to mute so I wouldn't hear anything from the TV's speakers. It sucks because if you do power through the annoying kids and racist jerks you'll get into that occasional game with genuinely cool people who don't take the game mind numbingly serious or spout out offensive statements every time they die (I wasn't aware my race was synonymous with "I just got killed"). But some nights I just don't have the energy to suffer through the filth.
In some cases I do find them quite amusing when you hear everyone yell "Shut the Fuck Up!!!!!" or "Grow a pair of balls!!!" and stuff like that.
If the kids voice gets annoying I just simply mute them. Honestly I get so tired of people yelling at those annoying kids because lets face it, they are just feeding the flames and keeping the fight going on. I understand Sprizmo's pain but honestly you really have two options.
A) Just learn to focus on the game and deal with it.
B) Just do a few button presses and "Wha-Bam!" muted people.
I'm pretty sure every game with multiplayer at this point and age has a mute option so use it! Its your best friend!
" @Ineedaname: When you're working together and need to communicate, how does that help exactly? "Clearly, there's no need to communicate with some people. This is why I rarely play online games with strangers. It's not just the little ones either, there's plenty of bossy, annoying, rude, older folks online too. It sucks, but that's just the nature of the internet. Posting on a forum, for instance, allows for the chance that you will encounter an inconsiderate, and/or closed minded person, but we still do it.
Alright I think I was addressing 2 issues at once. Yes we can all agree the mute button comes in handy in blocking this stuff out, but lets go a little deeper than that. Should we be facilitating forums that encourage these children to disrespect adults and engage in unsavory banter? If anything it contributes to their sense of empowerment that is no doubt exercised on and off the console. This kind of social evaluation may be a bit deep for a gaming forum, but I'm sure all of us have better opinions than say... Dr. Phil.
I wish it was only an issue with the 'children' who play games online, but unfortunately there's 'adults' that act the same exact way. Either way it's annoying, but I've come to accept it as how gaming is on the net. If I can't mute them, I will just quit match and find a more suitable one.
@Out_On_Bail said:
I do like your idea, but then you'd get stuck with adults who act like kids. There's no way to win this battle.
You do come across juvenile behavior from many "adults" although the mojority of these voices that qualify as "matured" belong to teenagers who haven't aquired the wisdom to measure their words and impact on a gaming experience. I find it takes a good 23 - 25 years until most people realize how much of an ass they've been making out of themselves and tone it down. Certain things are misleading; for example it seems that the attitude of soldiers serving in the military can be crude and ignorant, but most people forget these are 18 year olds fresh out of boot camp who are easily impressionable and uncle Sam LOVES to cultivate and harness that bad ass attitude.
If you think about it, the military embraces and encourages these qualities that we find so annoying on home soil. They are the ultimate example of little gung ho gamers that refuse to grow up and be more diplomatic.
" @AgentJ: What the hell does that have to do with his age? Joker has been around for 30+ years, probably more. I don't know how old he is, so you could potentially be correct. But assuming from an avatar is just ignorant. "I guess you missed the smiley face, because I was joking. But since even jokes have some truth to them I'll explain the thinking.
" @AgentJ: Ok my mistake. I saw the smiley face but interpretted it as a smart ass smiley. I've also failed at sarcasm on the internet, it's not easy to accomplish. "No worries, i fail at detecting sarcasm all the time, even with people are always sarcastic (Jacob187) so it's all good
Wow, the OP was simply stating how he felt on an issue and the general response is "get over it"? Isn't that what forums are supposed to be used for? He wasn't disrespectful, vulgar, or whiny. Just presented his case and left it open for discussion. Instead what he got was "quit bitching" or "you must be 12" comments. I'm 35 and I fully agree with the guy. As much as some would say to just ignore the little shits, communication is a vital component to the multiplayer aspect. I don't want to play L4D with a bunch of 12 year olds who just want to run around screaming and shooting each other.
If you were talking solely about competitive games, or any aspect of halo, i'd be all "quit whining" or "this is why I only play single player games" etc.
Well yeah, it's not hard to put a fake date of birth, or their 'mommies' credit card details in, but like I say, report them, it's the only thing you can actually do about it. Unfortunately, and other kind of system would be even more abusable than the current one.
"Back in my day..."
You could punch the dude giving you hassle because he was more than likely 2 feet away from you behind a monitor playing Doom over LAN with you :P
" @Einherjan said:Well, that could be one way."Back in my day..."You could punch the dude giving you hassle because he was more than likely 2 feet away from you behind a monitor playing Doom over LAN with you :P "
I never have voice chat on. That way even if people make fun of me because I suck at FPS's, it won't know it. LOL.
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