Wil McCullough, on 18 December 2016 - 12:20 AM, said:
Potatoes are potatoes because they act in a way that they knownis detrimental to the team because they find it fun.
Believe me Will, I, too, find it so FRUSTRATING when people make those kinds of decisions. I used to run mostly light mechs and on HPG conquest I used to communicate by by both VOIP and chat and say "I'll get ---- [whatever the closest capture point was to Charlie Lance] so that you Assaults can go directly into the main area and set up before the enemy". Then I'd run my little Locust legs off to get to --- and find 3/4 Charlie lance sitting in their pristine dire wolves on the capture point. To me, that's a group of people playing to the detriment of the team who are missing something so OBVIOUS. Did I swear? Call them names? Wish upon them a scourge of genital warts? YES!!! But only to myself, not to them, and not on the forums.
The problem is that everyone has different idea definitions. I know lots of people who use "pug" derogatorily even though it is actually an acronym and was never meant as a negative term. Even the developers use the term "pug" so you know it isn't meant as an insult but some people still use it as such.
If you read many of the posts here you will see the term "potato" refers to people who will not listen, and yet we have one poster who says this:
JadePanther, on 17 December 2016 - 05:20 PM, said:
Potatos .. What the hell are you doing way over there..
Me kills XXX, YYY, ZZZ
me to myself.. killin stuff what does it look like
Clearly to him the potatos are the ones asking him why he has run off on his own and doesn't refer to people who run off and do their own thing.
This idea that we all know deep down the "right way to play" and know when our behaviour is ruining other people's fun doesn't make sense to me. There are too many different views on what is right or wrong in the game for anyone to be so certain of their own that they start insulting others. I could list pages and pages of conflicting advice I've been given.
This is a team game and so if there are players who are intentionally ruining the game for others then that is an example of nonparticipation based on the CofC and should be reported. But if you read through the posts in this thread and many other threads you'll find people using "potato" for people who can't learn fast enough for their liking. I think the vast majority of people referred to as "potatoes" are not doing anything intentionally. They just make mistakes more often then other players. I think we need to take all the energy we spend on trying to make fun of them and use it for something constructive like forming groups and teams of like-minded players so we simply bypass playing with people who ruin our fun. It seems like the only solution where the outcome is 100% in our control (as opposed to trying to get a random player to play the way we think is right).
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