44 replies to this topic

[Stuart Orland]

Dear Community Members,

This letter is coming from a fellow long time gamer, someone who's played video games for 22 years. I've been a part of a lot of communities and a lot of guilds in MANY, many games. I've seen everything from these communities (good and bad) that you can think of.

That being said, to date I have yet to experience a community as hostile, hateful, immature, violent and anonymity abusing as the MechWarrior Online community. Threats of violence, goring, killing and ****** people and their family members or just general vile insults for playing weapon loadouts or using strategies that some people don't like is a several-time-per-game event or more. Even the League of Legends community has guidelines over this that are actually enforced.

Frankly, I find this community's attitude and the fact that it seems to be endorsed by lack of punishment to be pathetic. Both as humans and as gamers, this community is a complete and total disgrace, little more than a cesspool of vile filth. I wonder, Piranha... Did you ever stop and think that perhaps community guidelines elsewhere tend to be rigidly enforced for a reason? No naming and shaming directly protects these people and I've seen how your 'mods' handle complaints. Most are outright ignored.

Were this anything but an online gaming community (a sports club, a gambling community, movie goers group, ANYTHING) most of the community would be booted out permanently for this, or if the group was lenient, warned once and then kicked out the next time. And yet, the attitude in game and on the forums has been allowed to breed and fester uncontrolled.

Then again, this community has shown that it doesn't care and all they want is to see public executions of anyone they don't like. I can forsee this community being used as an example of why internet anonymity should be completely stripped.

Either way, the only thing I expect the community and PGI to say in return to this letter would be something along the lines of: "Lol, shut the **** up no one cares what you think *******. If you hate it that much then **** off." I sincerely hope most of you wake up and learn how to show some etiquette and behave yourselves, especially in game. Either way, I should feel proud to be part of such a long standing, hardcore tradition as MechWarrior. Instead, I'm ashamed to say I've ever been associated with it.

Signed,

-A gamer.

[3Xtr3m3]

While I sympathize with your position on the attitude of the Forums, I think asking anyone to conform to a less extreme conduct on the forums is ultimately futile.

In a world where kids bully others to suicide, where wars are waged over books written millenia ago, balanced by this community showing support to buy a mech for a worthy cause, people laying their lives on the line every day for others (and often losing their lives. ex. the 19 firefighters in AZ). If the extremes did not exist I think the world would be a lot duller.

All I can say if think of the raging rudeness and whining as part of the "meta" of the game. And do not let them beat you, before you even set foot on the battlefield. good luck and hang tough.

[Edson Drake]

Indeed. In general, in the online gaming you need to have pretty thick skin, especially to insults.

Modern life seems to have this new symptom as well for some reason. You can't get fired up over a litlle fault on your part in traffic now, can you? You know the risks right? The person could be armed, and even if you can defend yourself, you could get shot... it's dangerous.

Same way here except that, exchange life for fun. You can't get worked up over insults, over the risk of not having fun. Sometimes it may be your fault, sometimes not.

I saw many bad players getting bullied for their poor skill, and even I had that at some point. I share your feelings, but I disagree with this being one of the worst, it's actually one of the best communities.

The worst I ever had was the Diablo II LoD community. Now that was a bad community, you only had fun playing with friends, otherwise it was just "wuw wug" trades, insults, n00b calling, PKs and whathaveyou.

[Unnatural Growth]

I have actually seen very little of the behavior you describe.

I am quite sure that it does happen. I just don't think it happens very often, at least not in my matches.

And trust me, my elo score must be below zero, so I would expect to see it more, not less.

I'm sure it will quiet down in a few weeks when all the little precious darlings have to go back to school.

EDIT--Bkuz I is a gud spelerr

Edited by OldOrgandonor, 17 July 2013 - 05:41 PM.

[RF Greywolf]

I have to agree with Drake. This is one of the best communities I have been in for an online game. The problem is that you have the rude individuals everywhere you go and unfortunately they happen to be the loudest. You just have to let it slide man. You have to because if you don't, it will ruin the game for you.

This community is full of very friendly and helpful people. Most of them haunt a specific part of the forums. New players help is full of friendly peeps, and the ones that linger in the Guides and Strategy are not afraid of giving you thier opinions and helping you make smart choices. Even though some of thier opinions vary greatly from mine, I value them for they give me better insight of what is out there.

PUGing can be rough at times. That is where I see most of this behavior and even then it is only every so often. You just gotta laugh it off. So you made a bad decision, learn from it. So your teammates are screaming at you because your Jag has 2x UAC/5's and 4x MG's instead of 2xAC/20's (always my favorite to get), play the game the way you want to play it with the builds that you like to run.

Now I am by no means a great pilot(ask around, others will tell you) but I have fun and that is what matters the most. As long as your having fun shooting big stompy robots with your big stompy robot then you have achieved what the game was ment to do!

Hope it helps,
Greywolf

[Skadi]

Go visit the Planetside 2 community, you'll soon learn of the greater evil.

Also the people who desire public executions of players they don't like, are the people performing the executions...

Edited by Skadi, 17 July 2013 - 07:09 PM.

[Navy Sixes]

I play MWO because deep down inside, I fantasize about being a heavily armed-and-armored soldier fighting an undending interstellar war in a dystopian future. MWO facilitates this escapism nicely.

Others are here because they fantasize about saying things to people that, in the real world, would earn them nothing but a fist full o' black eye. I imagine them as sad little repressed 'step n' fetches,' reveling in vulgarities they can't issue offline. Either that or they're 12.

Mr. Orland, I don't know how you play (I myself am terrible). Regardless, I hope you don't quit. We need as many good gamers around here as possible.

My advice is to ignore non-tactical comments in chat, and report the ones you can't.

Good hunting.

[Ivan Bloodguard]

In-game community is pretty good. The forum community is absolutely ridiculous. Blame the early players, they started it and everyone else just did as the Romans did.

[Booran]

People are usually great in the actual game but 95% of forum population feels lite entitled, basement-hoarding douchebags (sadly). A small but disheartening comfort is that this isn't unique among online games with a.. "passionate" fanbase, especially when it's quite small.

[Chavette]

Whaaaaaaaat? I dont know what hell happens on low elo currently but on mine I couldnt wish for better, and even before elo it was night and day compared to LoL in general (even at highest elo).

[Karpundir]

Trolling on forums is a commonplace event. Even in game, it often happens. How you respond makes the difference between reinforcing that behavior or letting them feel stupid when there is nothing to hear but silence.

[scJazz]

Look the only person I'm abusive to on these forums is Paul and he bloody well deserves it!

Everyone else gets extreme sarcasm at worst!

BTW: If you are leaving can I have your stuff?

[Kazly]

I have noticed some rudeness, but nothing to the extent of other places I visit.

I think a lot of it depends on what forum you're viewing too.

New player help? There are a heck of a lot of people there responding to every post of 'help me...'

Balance? Yeah, people disagree and it gets out of hand.


Either way, sorry you feel this way. Perhaps join a unit, and stick to their forums for MWO interaction?

[Kenyon Burguess]

Stuart Orland, on 17 July 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

"Lol, shut the **** up no one cares what you think *******. If you hate it that much then **** off."

you have been here for 1 month, and in that amount of time you decided that 1) no one cares 2) we are the worst community ever. did you add to the community to make it better? not really, you created 6 posts. one of which is you doing the Rofl and calling everyone in the WOT2 topic trolls. did you join a mercenary unit or house and join one of those communities? no. did you write up a list of suggestions the dev team can use to make the game better? no so what did you do for the past month Stuart? i'll remind you, you choose to spend a month not getting to know the community, then wrote a 6 paragraph letter condemning said community as being " hostile, hateful, immature, violent and anonymity abusing" then you signed your letter "-a gamer" if that is your ignorant view of this community, then you certainly don't need any sympathy from this community. don't let the mech hatch hit you on the arse on your way out.

[Kraven Kor]

I see plenty of insults tossed around, and have seen a few posters here and there with the mock threats of violence (mostly aimed at the developers, sadly) but...

It really isn't as bad as you make it out to be.

Perception is reality; I think you may need to check your lenses and see if they are filtering things to where you only see the bad.

[Morashtak]

Even the Founding Fathers were guilty of the same to a degree...

The Feuding Fathers (WSJ)

• "They inhabited a combative world in which the rabble-rousing Thomas Paine, an early admirer of George Washington, could denounce the first president in an open letter as "treacherous in private friendship…and a hypocrite in public life." Paine even wondered aloud whether Washington was "an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any."

Not that it makes any of the present petty insults right but it just puts a little perspective on what we see now all around us.

[Sir Roland MXIII]

Stuart Orland, on 17 July 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

Then again, this community has shown that it doesn't care and all they want is to see public executions of anyone they don't like. I can forsee this community being used as an example of why internet anonymity should be completely stripped.

Either way, the only thing I expect the community and PGI to say in return to this letter would be something along the lines of: "Lol, shut the **** up no one cares what you think *******. If you hate it that much then **** off." I sincerely hope most of you wake up and learn how to show some etiquette and behave yourselves, especially in game.

Ok two things - One, you haven't been here long enough to make this call. Two, I don't see you in my ELO tier so obviously whatever tier your at, is probably ELO-Hell in more ways than one. Three - If you ever make it out of that tier you'll see how completely wrong your accusations here are.

And Four - no matter how nicely you put it, your post is EXACTLY the same as the people you describe, IE finger-pointing, name-calling, and baseless accusations and that's before the fact you're just plain WRONG. Some homework for you: might want to go look up the word "hypocrisy"...

Edited by Sir Roland MXIII, 18 July 2013 - 12:29 PM.

[RapidFire7]

Yes there are going to be some people on here who are inconsiderate, and yes I've scrolled through some posts that place a lot of negativity on patch and game feedback topics, but you get those people wherever you go in life. The community here is quite good. As Drake suggested, you'll find those sorts of people wherever you go in life. This is the only multiplayer game forum I've ever been involved with and I think overall it is a great environment.

Besides, things can always be worse, so be thankful rather than miserable that's just my outlook on life anyway.

In-game is very good, nearly all games I drop in, people are wishing the others "good luck" and "have fun" as we are dropping. Everyone says "good game" afterwards. Sometimes we joke about in the "all" chat as we are playing and we have fun.

The MWO world is a neat world to get immersed in, but it's obvious that everyone knows that it's just a game and nothing obsessive. You can tell by the way that there is encouragement in the game - I see a lot of it in the "group" and "all" chat. The community is kind and courteous - it's just the minority of outspoken trolls that has been shaping your opinions.

Keep dropping Mr. Orland and you'll see what I mean - no need to give up on MWO just yet

[Navy Sixes]

Geist Null, on 18 July 2013 - 10:29 AM, said:

you have been here for 1 month

Geist Null goes on to imply that one month is not long enough to decide that this is a community with bad manners, and that Stewart Orland hasn't done enough here to earn the right to criticize the community. More or less an Ad Hominem attack, it implies that nothing is wrong with the quality of ingame conversation; the fault is with Stewart Orland. A new player comes in and tells you what he sees; you tell him if he wants to leave, then he should get out. Yeah, so lots of room for growth and self-development, there, Geist Null. Awesome business model, too: Tell new players who offer criticism to shut up and accept or leave.

To Geist Null and others who say that you have to play a long time and get good before you can appreciate what is right or wrong with the in-game behavior of MWO, I suggest that the opposite is true. If you've only been here a month, you're probably not very good at working the game yet, and are probably the brunt of a lot of acerbic commentary, commentary that people like Geist Null don't get. Because they're so. Damn. Good.

I don't know why people keep saying the OT has something to do with these forums...

Stuart Orland, on 17 July 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

Threats of violence, goring, killing and ****** people and their family members or just general vile insults for playing weapon loadouts or using strategies that some people don't like is a several-time-per-game event or more.

It is clear that Mr. Orland is talking about in-game behavior, which can be pretty gross. Mr. Orland is not the first to notice...

http://mwomercs.com/...meful-behavior/
http://mwomercs.com/...nguage-timothy/

Keep telling yourself it's not a problem.

[Tombstoner]

it can be a problem but everyone has different levels of acceptable behavior. i for one hate the use of profanity in game and people making comments when they dont have all the information.

i asked one player why he as using 2 lrm10's and he flipped out on me... telling me not to comment on his build unless i was willing to pay for his time.... why are you using that can be a good question or it can imply you don't know what your doing.
later i figured out it was probably due to the fire rate.