4 replies to this topic

[Wraith 1]

I'll admit, I'm a young'n. It has only been a few short trips around our closest star since I discovered 3 copies of "Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries - Techmedia 3D Zonemaster edition" in the basement and managed to get it running on the Pentium 2 Celeron computers that my Dad bought so I and my brother could experience some of the things from that era that he did.

None of my friends have ever heard of my favorite games, but those computers and their considerable compliment of software have since redefined the term "Gaming" in my mind. Descent, Mechwarrior 2 and Mercs, Star Wars X-Wing, MS FlightSim 98, even Hover! are more familiar to me than nearly any game developed recently (Portal might be an exception ).

Even today, I can join a netgame of Descent 3 using Vortex, Mechwarrior 4:Mercs using MekTek, I accidentally started my own Descent 2 server using D2X-Rebirth, I had several clients connected including one from overseas within the hour. They still play like a dream, which is exactly why I use them as my primary escape from reality when it is required for the survival of my sanity.

In direct opposition of this, I have seen more modern games being consistently filled with greifers, hackers, spawncampers, racism, and general outright profanity. Basically every sort of malevolent behavior that can be imagined, and then some, I downloaded Ace of Spades today, and it is a prime example of the inverse of my hopes for MWO.

What is it at the "heart", if you will, of a game that determines the degree of maturity and sportsmanship that is mantained in the atmosphere of a game? The online communities of Descent and Mechwarrior generally are polite and orderly, allowing the games (and their inherently unique elements and tactics) to be enjoyed to the fullest. is it a flaw in the game that causes greifing and such? Or is it just the gradual vitiation of society in general?

I dunno, prob'ly just my distorted, rambling mind . What do you guys think?

[Knt Maverick]

Personally...i'd have to say it's a degradation of society in general. I, too, what it is that you speak of, have noticed it years ago and despised it even now in my young adult life. Sadly, i feel that the decline will continue further down before it begins to rise again.

[Okie135]

Honestly I think the people have always been there. It is simply a measure of how accessible our medium (computer games) has become.

Years ago I used to play MechWarrior 3 on the internet. It, along with Janes WWII Fighters, was the first multiplayer computer experience I had. At the time we used Gamespy Arcade. Back then I came across an interesting paradigm of internet gaming. The community for MW3 was polite, helpful, and self moderating. If you came on and greifed others or cussed up a storm, you would be kicked. if you came on with a sense of humility and were willing to ask questions, it didn't matter that you were a newbie, they would teach you how to play better.

At the same time, the free internet backgammon and chess was filled with some of the most hateful and foulest interactions I have ever seen. Think about it... The game that consisted of blowing each other up, and had opportunities for stepping on people as they screamed and died, had a very helpful and polite community. Chess meanwhile was flame paradise.

Chess was browser run and free. It was easily accessible, so more people were on it. MW3 required a purchase and some tech savy to get it working properly with the community made multiplayer maps. The difference between the two was accessibility. With more people comes more jerks, and the jerks are the loudest.

As a side note, I noticed the same thing happen to Xbox live a few months after Halo 2 was released. The 10 year old cuss fest with zero teamwork that it is now had nothing to do with the community and coordination that it had before then.

As for MWO?

It's a free to play game. We need this to be easily accessible and widely spread. There WILL be greifers and jerks. The key is to find a community in it now, and remember that when the general public comes in, the trolls aren't the majority.

They are only the loudest. (Hopefully there's an ignore/mute feature. )

Edited by Clark, 07 January 2012 - 07:02 PM.

[Glory in the Highest]

MechWarrior has always had the same percentage of blowhards, dickheads and cheaters as any other game. MechWarrior is actually one of the most controversial communities when it comes to what counts as cheating - which means not only does it have the same amount of jerks, but it also has historically contained more whiners per square inch than any other title I've played. I have no doubt MWO will be the same. Our preferred game tends to have an extremely high learning curve - this leads to a lot of frustrated players, and alternately to egomaniacs.

[Wraith 1]

All of these are good points, I especially enjoyed the bit about

Clark, on 07 January 2012 - 07:00 PM, said:

The game that consisted of blowing each other up, and had opportunities for stepping on people as they screamed and died, had a very helpful and polite community. Chess meanwhile was flame paradise.

I never actually got to play my copy of Jane's on the internet...

Pertaining to Mechwarrior Online, I can only hope that we have a nice, shiny, Banhammer IIC...