Bishop Steiner, on 22 May 2016 - 08:37 AM, said:
sounds familiar..... not unlike MWO? (Oh,and pretty much any other similar endeavor)
Well, there is a pretty big difference between magic and MWO culture.
First of all one is a physical game and the other is online, you don't actually have to meet the socially awkward in MWO. In Magic you sit down with them, again and again and again, just you and that weird person, so it's a pretty intimate situation and it's harder so simply ignore who that is and only see the game. The smug face, the often lacking hygiene, the tix, the compulsory shuffling of cards in certain patterns, the magic version of leetspeek delivered as insufferable little mannerisms at every turn...
Magic culture also goes way further beyond the game than MWO does, there is a magic way of talking, a magic way of dressing, a magic way of flirting and so on. For good and for bad it is a complete way of life for many people.
That is the bad part of the difference, the good part is that you don't actually get away with it beyond a certain threshold. The truly competitive in magic don't care for all that nonsense very much and you must actually have a well working team that is comfortable together sharing hotel rooms, partying, supporting each other as friends, helping each other to stay in good physical condition between games and so on, and that requires that you are somewhat socially functional and tolerable to hang out with.
Another good thing about magic type culture is exactly the fact that social awkwardness is accepted there. In one sense it may drive away some people, but on the other hand there are not many places for the socially awkward to be socially accepted. Unlike computer games getting out and actually meeting real people as weird as yourself can be a very good thing to prevent depression and further decay into misery for these people. If a person with those kinds of problems are to get stuck in a game I would certainly recommend a physical game like magic over a computer game because it will fill in more empty gaps in your life, just need to watch out for the money drain of course.
In MWO and other computer games on the other hand you only need to be functional during the actual matches and planning, you only need to be good enough technically. You CAN be a top tier player and still be super unpleasant as a person, if you are one of the top players the top teams will suffer you because of your skills alone. That is a big difference, you would never see a top magic team behave like the Lords sometimes used to do for example.
Of course there is still a limit to how insufferable a competitive player can get away with being even in computer games, but it is much higher than in real life.
I do agree with Blastman too though, it is important to be brutally honest about what players do wrong. (more importantly what you yourself do wrong of course) I don't see that as being rude or sociopathic though. You can't beat around the bush about the fact that someone refuses to see themselves and why they keep losing clearly. Competitive mindset is a good thing, but it can be combined with a nice attitude, there is no contradiction.
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