I don't have a problem with ranked matches in Halo 3 as that requires a paid gold subscription.
It's the social matches that are crap, full of obnoxious kids with unlimited free 48hr trials.

Tyrannical

Damn this article hit so close to home. God knows how many times I've run into people like these that just piss me the F off. Unsurprisingly the worst people on the 'net is definetly the Halo 3 "community." Hell I even have a good friend who talks shit all over live just for the sake of doing so. He calls it "hilarious"...I call it stupidity. However yes, Bill Fulton is 110% correct. And nice use of PA there lol.

Mikey G

@Dits:

More than likely it'll shoot itself.

axiom

Swearing and stuff doesn't bother me on Live. I just takey off the headset or mute the perp and problem solved. What pisses me off more, and completely unrelated, is (in FPSes) playing vs. clans. All. The. Time. Or at least in COD4 or previously in RB6V.

Anyway, Nintendo has the right idea. Undiscriminating castration of communication. The non-gamer won't feel a thing.

Xiedo

Um yeah, that's kinda why I make a point of avoiding Xbox Live. And that equation up there isn't exactly accurate. You don't magically turn into a fuckwad when given anonymity. People like that are generally ignorant assholes every day of their lives, it just gets exacerbated to soul-crushing proportions on the internetz.

cheeses

I bought a house a year ago, and I'm selling it and moving, despite the economy and the real possibility that I'll lose money because I live next to gaping assholes from hell, and it makes my home life intolerable.

I moved here because I was living a condo with a homeowners association who were a bunch of gaping assholes from hell.

I'm moving to a new place where, I'm 90% sure there are more assholes, but it's my fervent hope that they are not so gaping.

Assholes are hurting every industry. As well as everything else. It's no excuse.

(and yes, I *havE* considered the possibility that I'm the common denominator in all these instances... after careful review, I don't think I'm the problem, though, since assholes never move away)

deathbunny

Give a monkey a gun and it will probably shoot someone

Dits

@nypad5:
How dare you point out the hypocrisy of hating both XBox's inclusion of voice chat and the Wii's exclusion of it.

elevenoverzero

@cheez: I regularly hear idiots on TF2, and to be honest, I enjoy a bit of it. If I hear some 15/16/17 year old whine-whine-whine and insult our engineers because they can't build fast enough and how the medics aren't backing him up, I chuckle. When a guy like that starts an argument with another guy that sounds to be about his mid 20s, it's even better. The one thing I cannot stand is hearing a 12 year old try to lead the team, but thankfully it seems most players of TF2 for PC are late teens to early thirties.

Also, alltalk servers are the best, especially if they permit you to play some music. Oh god, I love hearing Cotton-eye Joe during a good game of TF2.

Yeux de nouilles

Tragedy of The Commons is a b**ch
[en.wikipedia.org]

loeffe

I still remember swearing of GOW when my team started killing me, then accusing me of team killing and demanding that I rip off my own cock and fuck myself.

I remain safe in my orange box.

TrevWolf

This is the entire reason that I don't play CS anymore. I hate being told how to play the game by people lower on the kills list than I am. I also can't stand 12(just a figurative number)year-old children cussing...all the time. Now, I'm no saint, so I occasionally swear...but really, is saying "fuck" every other word necessary?

I generally like playing TF2, because it seems that the audience playing the game is more mature. Now, maybe that is just because I've been lucky...but it just doesn't seem to happen as often.

th3-1nf1d3l

I believe it. The assholes I've met online have certainly put me offline multiplayer gaming outside of a select group of friends and games that I really love (most of them really old). I just don't have the energy to deal with jerks online.

Hrist

The amount of inane babbling you hear on Warhawk is quite annoying. I'd rather hear someone getting shot in the face than some 15 year old sounding like he's shouting underwater. The only satisfaction I get out of it is finding the person gabbling away and shooting them. The cry of "Fuck head" is always good to hear even if its barely intelligible.

yobrenoops

@Asbestos_Underwear: There's a significantly larger connection in the latter case, simply because the two people, while strangers, are obviously playing the same game. It should instill a sense of kinship. But there will always be painfully obvious exceptions to this.

cheez

XBL needs the ability for people to tag people as potential racists or bigots. Enough tags of the same type on the same person equals a permanent ban on their Live account.

Freedom of Speech is great, but I don't believe everyone deserves their right to the first amendment, and bigots, fascists, etc fall into that grouping. They are scum, and the more they're allowed to spew their senseless hatred without any kind of stopgap mechanism to clamp it down the more they're simply going to do it. Microsoft is a private company, running a private service, and they can set whatever rules they want. It's not like they're going to be getting complaints from racists, anyway, since racists are generally cowards.

Atheist Jew

So nintendo did the right thing HHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

nypad5

While it is very prevalent in Xbox Live, and I have gotten into arguments with these exact douche bags at times putting me on their level. I personally can't imagine not having voice chat in my games as I've been using it on live for four years or so now.

I have a solid amount of people that are great, people I know in real life and just people I've known online for awhile that make the online voice worth it, regardless of how many bad experiences there are.

The simple fact that most games have an easily accessible mute button have fixed this issue for me. Not to mention you can and always have been able to mute these douche bags on Xbox Live, I just believe most people are to lazy to do it, thus they have no reason to be bitching about it in the end from my view.

VonDante

Ahh growth - something only suits care about.

Keeping gamers as the audience for games is fine by me. These arseholes just want to pander to non-gamers because they're more clueless & easier to rip off.

ErskinPig

You know, I can say that it all depends on what games you play online.

Personally I could never see myself playing any game with voice chat unless it was through a Ventrillo server or something like that because of the lack of respect that EVERYONE shows online with most games.

It really boils down to "age".
Now don't get me wrong, there are many older people who don't know how to conduct themselves online, but often when you hear one of those annoying voice chat video's uploaded on YouTube, its from younger people who simple have never been kicked around by their parents.

So, yeah, It doesn't surprise me that this sort of behavior is affecting the entire industry.

Brantis

Maybe that's one of the reasons why we are not all friends in real life! People can't stand random strangers on the street why would they stand random people online? Playing the same game isn't going to bridge that gap.

Asbestos_Underwear

Eh, I've never been bothered by all the shit-talk that goes on on Live. I actually find it has the reverse effect on me in that through the shit-talk, you can determine who's an idiot and who's just being funny. I've made plenty of great friends on XBL that I game with on a regular basis and we all just make fun of each other. I rarely have a session where I don't laugh myself to tears.

dunetiger : the mekuri master

I am a long time gamer and the way people act online drives me away.

Private voice chats for PC games are just about the only time I do use such things, as I can trust my friends.
Text boxes in things like Warcraft 3 aren't that bad and a lot easier to ignore when there is a bigot involved.

Though when showing things off to new gamers, or old gamers returning, nothing ruins the experience more when someone swears and throws out racial slurs at them in a simple game online.
Yes you can mute them or put them on ignore, but one can forget or get in the habit of not muting people until they act up. By which time, it already harms the fun and experience.

Yes there are those who enjoy talking like that and that is where some of their fun comes in, but I'm not one of them nor are many people. It's really just the few, not the majourity.

Perhaps someday Xbox Live and Xfire and all those other services will come up with a rating system that lowers people for such acts.
That way if they do it a lot, you can just look at their rating and say no to playing with them. Or if it gets low enough, have it automatically mute them while leaving everyone else alone.

Or I can find a genie and wish for such people to become mature enough. It's just as likely to come true and work.

Kenofthedead

Ah, Penny Arcade. I remember this old comic. And the sad part was how true it was. The addition of voice chat ruined the UT2004 experience for me. I remember thinking how great it would be to be able to speak to your teammates. Boy was I wrong. I can't count the number of matches that were ruined by some jack ass on my team with a microphone, bitching about how badly he was doing because of how much everyone else on his team sucked. And this was back before headsets were as prevelent as they are now. o well. emo moment over.

psycoking

I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for the past couple weeks on PC, and so far I'm happy to say that I've only had a couple unpleasant experiences with the voice chat.

I think there are several reasons for this. For one, you're talking to your teammates, which eliminates the opportunity for vocal trash talk. And for another, you have to buy the means of communication yourself, which generally means you only hear people who are interested in playing the game, not being assholes.

And without trying to stir the flame-pot up, I tend to believe that there are just more assholes on XBL, period.

cheez

I have never experienced this kind of behavior online... but I don't have a Live account and rarely play PC games.

The PSN is free of this kind of thing, but that's because barely anyone uses voice chat for some reason.

Astrofox

I love that picture, simply because it's true!

OtakuFille

@Asbestos_Underwear: Ah, but now you're changing the parameters. You were originally relating meeting complete strangers through a particular game to meeting complete strangers on the street. I'm saying that the comparison doesn't hold, because you already have a point of commonality in the former case.

This doesn't mean you're going to like everybody who plays that game. It means you simply have a potential bonding point.

cheez

I love Xbox Live and there are some nice people on there, but it is disappointing to see so many people with such a basic lack of civility, humility, manners, sportsmanship etc. It's primarily an age thing I think - playing with more grown-up gamers is often much more relaxed and good natured. This is one of the reasons I'd love an age filter for Xbox Live, above all other possible features.

Halo 3 particularly, despite being such a brilliant game online, seems to attract ignorant idiots. That said, the ability to quickly mute someone who is obnoxious, or to limit your voice comms to your own team and party only, really helps a lot.

Without wishing to cause offence, most of the nicer people I've played with on Xbox Live are from Europe - German, French, Dutch, Swedish etc. It's not because we're somehow magically nicer, it's just an age thing - it seems as though the average age of European Xbox 360 owners is higher than in the US. Of course it's not the case that American gamers are all appalling, obnoxious people - I've played with some really cool guys from the US - but it does seem as though the average age of Xbox 360 owners in the US is much much lower.

I know many people who are put off the idea of playing online because they'd have to play with a bunch of loud, stupid kids.

kiigan

I almost always only play with my friends on Live, we have a pseudo clan of mates who play for fun. We're not into this highly competitive crap, we just have a laugh and play games together. Without voice chat online gaming feels hollow, dead and might as well be playing against bots. That's the feeling I get when playing online on the PS3, I love Warhawk but it just feels a bit pointless with hardly any human interaction.

It's not like it's hard in CoD4 & Halo3 to mute people. Or if it really gets on your nerves then you just change your privacy options for voice to Friends only and never have to put up with assholes ever again.

When I play on my own, without my clan guys I usually won't even put my headset on. Simple solution.

NecronomiconUK

@Sunjammer:
So true. I dont care much for voice chat with strangers but why does Nintendo have to do everything so painful and difficult even with your friends you have in your console after already going through the initial hassle (and not the last of the hassles) of inputing 16 digit friend codes and anditional 12 digit FCs for each new online game?

Alex_Mexico

@cheeze:
Just because members of the KKK play Gears, does not make them any more sympathetic, nor do I feel an increase in kinship.

The other way around, those hating on gay people will also not rethink their stance.

Aside from these extreme examples, people will be much like the same on trivial subject matter.

Asbestos_Underwear

@Krackatoa: I guess that's the bonus of having SERVERS and not just random dudes that host games, eh?

That may explain why i've had such a good time with PC FPSes compared to consoles; communities build around servers, not people. You get a kind of collective ownership going, and then justice will kind of dispense itself.

Sunjammer

QQ.

Also, good job not giving credit to PA for that comic, Kotaku. Granted, most of us know where it's from, but you sure as shit didn't make it so you should at least post a link when you use it.

Dag

@Stefanten: Nobody's saying the Wii's lack of voice chat is good. Nintendo has always separated playing with randoms versus playing with friends by a fairly enormous margin. I think that when playing with friends there's no excuse for the exclusion of voice chat.

Sunjammer

If you dont want voice chat... plug in the headset and set it down. There you go.

pangbulle

@Sunjammer: Playing on a server in the Source engine (Counterstrike and whatnot) is always a treat, mostly because if you step out of line, server admins sometimes have their own programmed punishment codes in place to turn the malefactor into a chicken for the rest of the round. :3

Krackatoa

Oh and to the Nintendo fanboys desperately claiming that the Wii's lack of voice chat is a GOOD thing... Why not just have an option to turn off voice chat instead? That way, the few people who don't want it, can turn it off and the rest of us can enjoy the feature.

Stefanten

I LOVE when people talk trash online. It's hilarious to play CS:S with alltalk on (so the teams can hear eachother), and hear the universal warcry of online gaming: "YOU JUST GOT LUCKY, FAGET" right after i killed someone.

It just motivates me to do my best to annihilate those morons ^^

Stefanten

I have actually only had this problem on the 360, and i play a lot of TF2 on the PC and previously Counterstrike, Starcraft and Dawn of war. I guess it's because they've gone to such amazing lengths to make online play and voice comms easy to hook up even the most worthless dregs of society manage to get it going.

I've been playing games for almost 20 years now, and there's something about online play that has always kind of freaked me out to be honest. I absolutely love multiplayer with friends, but playing random dudes just really pushes my wrong buttons. This goes for MMORPGs as well; WOW made me dislike people more than i thought was possible.

In that sense, i'm mostly pissed at Nintendo for not tying the system friend code into their online play because it's simply a really fucking stupid idea, but not being able to talk to randoms online on the Wii honestly doesn't bother me in the slightest, mostly because playing randoms is.. Well.. Shit.

The Wii's primary mistake for me is making it hard for me to keep in touch with people i have already done the awkward process of exchanging codes with. It's just a crap extra step.

The Wii's primary online boon is that there is exactly no online harassment, which is pretty cool honestly.

Sunjammer

I do like the occasional Eye of Judgment or Uno game though ;-)

El-Suave

He's sooo right. Plus I don't see developers doing anything to pull sceptics like myself into online gaming.
You rarely get bots to practice anymore or at least videos to get to know the maps and level the playing field a little.
Instead they're even rehashing their old successfull maps so that the gap between an experienced online player and a noob gets even bigger! They're not catering to newcomers at all.

Personally I think the popularity of online gaming is exaggerated quite a bit by the enthusiast press who have no doubt playing among themselves and with developers. That doesn't mirror my experience whenever I try to play online with strangers.

I consider myself a hardcore gamer but when it comes to online gaming I'm casual and I couldn't agree more with Mr. Fulton.

El-Suave

@Xiedo:

Totally just sick of all the clans. I stopped COD 4 all together because of it. You can't play with them because they do nothing, but berate you and when you play against them there is nothing, but a frothy spewing of insults at the end of the match. RB6V 2 is following suite, nothing but clans in verses now.

If companies would do better job with matchmaking, then I think there would be fewer problems or at least the over-competitive jerks woulds be matched against themselves. Any way, it seems that the more competitive gamers have a higher propensity towards being jerks. I really think better matchmaking would really help with all online games.

gogators88

I have never been this proud to be a PC gamer in my entire life. FINALLY, we have a COOLER reason why the industry is dying than "you suck". We are actually smack talking the industry to hell! VICTORY. :P

K-Squad! (Badass Edition)

I don't use voice chat at all when playing online. It really does spoil the experience.

Unfortunately, things are difficult without voice chat in some games, so I just avoid online multiplayer altogether in those cases.

I've actually found myself playing a lot more PC games online lately. Text chat has the benefits of being able to communicate without the most annoying aspects of voice chat. There are still racist, sexist or homophobic messages, but they are much easier to ignore in textual form.

Things used to be better when I would play with friends from University, but we rarely have time to get together on the same server (or XBL) and play these days. So I spend most of my time playing with "strangers", which really can be excruciating if voice chat is enabled.

Marlor

This is something I've actually been thinking about lately myself, and I think I've found a solution. It starts with an observation though. I have noticed that in many FPS games that I play, the most enjoyable online experience comes from the games which let players set up their own lobbies. In other words, I have found games of Ghost Recon to be more pleasant than Halo 3 or CoD4.

It is my belief that if game makers are serious about this issue, they will make sure that their games utilize the host lobby system. It works. If people come into your online game talking trash or spouting vulgarities, the host can take them out of the game at any time. For this reason alone, most people online tend not to act like jerks in these situations. The trash-talkers learn that if they act like a fool online, they run the risk of getting booted right then and there.

This doesn't always guarantee that you will find a lobby of nice people to play with, as there are some hosts who won't have a problem with bad behavior, but there is a flip-side to that also. If people come to know that this gamer is a jerk who plays with other jerks, then when searching for a game online, they can avoid joining rooms hosted by that person.

Either way, it works. I used to play a lot of Ghost Recon online and there were plenty of times that I would host a lobby and have people join in for 5+ hour long sessions. We were total strangers online who'd play for hours on end (we even allowed short breaks every so often) and just had fun playing the game we enjoyed without any punks, sore losers, racists, etc. spoiling the fun. You can't get that in a game that doesn't use the host lobby system.

thinkfreemind

If only the XBL feedback/rating system was not as broken as it is. Seriously, they should fix that and then come up with cool things you can do when you have a 5 star rating that you can't do when you have a smack-talker's 2-star rating. That would be a big step in the right direction.

I no longer use my headset. It's not that I'm easily offended, it's just that it gets tiresome to listen to the same old crap from everyone.

90%+ of the talk on xbox live is mindless drivel.

IronsUK

This is a true statement. During my brief time on XBL (Gears mostly) I endured a lot of kids (who shoudln't even be playing) talking smack, agressive older people being discourteous (not to me but I still heard it going on) and just general 'fun sapping' shennanigens.

Now in games like PGR3 it was different (a bit) because generally people got on well there and were more mature, however you still got smack talkers and braggers which frankly is not my idea of 'fun' especially when you have to PAY to go online.

On my PS3 now, on stuff like GT5p, Burnout Paradise, Motorstorm I've had far more enjoyment because TALKING is not a large part of it. People just PLAY and work around the lack of comms. COmms are great with friends when you want them but for a lot of games are not needed and just turn every damn race/match/game into an chatathon/bitching session...

I played for years on the PC online before consoles ever went near online multiplayer and we made do with TEXT input which is far better cos it's easier to ignore and harder to come over as agressive/annoying.

Text comms = good
voice vomms = for lan/friends only

I thank god that on PS3 online, not only don't I have to pay for it but I also get to actually play without getting hounded into turning on a headset and responding (when I don't want to - ie if my GF is asleep in the room) or because it's full of idiots i'd rather not talk to/waste time on/get dragged down to the level of.

In short - voice comms are for braggers, bossy fuckers and show offs (on public servers). In private games it's a very good thing to have.

Sharpfish

2 + 3 = cats

That's great.

Online idiots are one reason why I have no desire to play online.

Eltigro

@johnhummel: What are your kids doing on the potty to worry about such things?

thinkfreemind

I don't think this will ever/could ever come to an end, and here's why: The very premise and raison de etre of all games that pit one or more people against another or others (whether those people be real or otherwise); it is to give the player a sense of, or an opportunity to gain a sense of, superiority and excellence. Games like Call of Duty 4 allow a person to increase his feelings of self-esteem and express his dominance and superiority over those whom he has defeated. Acrimonious, derogatory, obloquious, angry, and domineering speech is simply another way to achieve the same the very same goal - the goal of taking one's place at the top of the human social hierarchy, where, in the terms of evolutionary psychologists, all the goodies lie (such as increased mating opportunities, increased availability of food, etc...)

In fact, almost all human action aims at this very same thing - whether writing a book, achieving something remarkable and noteworthy in some scientific field, composing a song, crafting poetry, working a clever joke, buying a shiny fast car or a huge McMansion.... :ahem: the writing of this post. And make no mistake, the principle reason why people dislike hearing those loud-mouthed jackasses spew their vacuous hateful bilge is that the design, largely apparent only to the subconscious, of their arrogant speech offends one's own instinct for domination and supremacy. "How dare he presume power and authority over me?!" or "How dare he have a willingness to threaten my position and my good thing?" is the thought that obtains in the subconscious mind, having imbibed the churl's rantings. Or another reason why it is offensive may be that upon hearing it, one can't help but conceive a bad opinion of the person, and one might wonder then whether his own participation in such a game that evidently attracts such wretched people will cause him to be viewed by the rest of society as being equally meritless and contemptible; certainly, no one wishes to compromise his standing in society - the very reason why no one who listened to the N'Sync et al. or watched the Teletubbies, if he had any sense or intelligence whatsoever, would choose to disclose this fact to others.

This is called competitiveness and, as I said, it underlies most human activity and especially human-to-human interaction. If you remove the competitiveness that drives this obnoxious behaviour, you necessarily remove a moiety or more of the drive to play the games in the first place. And competitiveness can be good or bad; obviously in this case, it is quite a bad thing, but not so insidious as when it found to be an impetus for bloody conflict or institutionalized discrimination.

shikaningen

Here on the internet, we have a culture. This culture is based of rules created on Usenet.

You can read the base here:
[www.dtcc.edu]

NETIQUETTE

Todays, most people don't know about the rules of conduct that govern the internet, and this is the root of the problem that cause the degradation of the Signal/Noise ratio.

Theres 3 type of players:
- Newbies
- Oldbyes
- Noobs

Oldbyes sould know and respect the netiquette.
Newbyes don't know the netiquette, but ask about it, and accept it.
Noobs are people that don't know the netiquette, or don't want to respect it.

If you are a oldbye, is your role to know the netiquette, respect it, and teach it to others. Theres always some dudes that will TeamKill, and never learn, but If mayority know the rules and respect it, the internet can be really a good social and fun area.

If you are old on the internet, and don't want to respect the netiquette, you are a n00b, and part of the problem.

Here is some guidance for netiquette on online games:
[www.atmaxplorer.com]

Don't be a noob, learn and teach internet netitquette. Make our Usenet grandparents proud

tei

Sadly, this statement is true for me. I have three kids, and the #1 reason why I haven't gotten Live is because I don't want to be playing, and have my six year old son ask what a N****** **** ***** ******* is while I'm playing.

I have a hard enough time answering about if Santa Claus watches you while you poop.

johnhummel

Yay for friend codes. Seriously.

Sabre_Justice: Okay, no more long name.

Ugh... I wanted to comment on Nintendo's online gaming (or lack thereof) after yesterday's post complaining about SSBB, but I figured I missed the boat on the heated discussion. Looks like another ship just came in, though.

The problem is that Nintendo has always strived to present itself as a family-friendly company. Current evidence strongly suggests that it's impossible to be family-friendly if you provide users with unregulated voice chat. It doesn't matter if you have the ability to turn it off or not. Nintendo doesn't want its name associated with vulgarity and bigotry, which is unfortunately something that many people think of when they think of Xbox Live.

Think about it. This is the company that took blood out of Mortal Kombat to protect their image. Unfortunately, hate speech isn't as harmless as pixelated gore. The solution, however, can be the same! Nintendo should take its cumbersome friend codes and turn them into the secret codes that users have to enter to turn unregulated chat ON for online games.

Just punch in your 12 digits, you hear Scorpion yell, "get over here, faggot!" and the internet fuckwads can breathe a sigh of relief.

exaggeration17a

@Astrofox:
The picture above is the reason why :D

Garo

I've played multiplayer and online games for as long as I've been able to set up even a rudimentary network. A Macintosh localtalk network was enough to play Marathon against friends for hours upon hours and it's still one of my fondest gaming memories.

I have a bunch of friend gathered in a sorts of community that has been playing everything from console and computer games online to playing pen and paper RPG over IRC.

Skipping ahead to today, I play almost every game possible together with my fiancée and cooperative modes is something that can make us game a game we would otherwise not even look at. So I would like to say that I'm a person that isvery interested in multiplayer...

...but I never ever enjoy random matches of any games online. Actually, that's a lie, I once had one great match of PGR3 where me and some guy from the UK managed to smash into each other, prevening both of us to even compete with the people still on track. And instead of starting a yelling fight over it, we started to laugh and make silly jokes as we drove side by side at low speeds. But that's one of the few exceptions I can think of during almost two decades of online gaming.

I wouldn't say that the "total fuckwads" (love that comic too, PA really got it right) ruin online gaming for me.... they just ruin the random games and that's why I only play with friends. What they on the other hand probably do is steering the market towards single-player games (since a majority of people still don't play online at all) with added online elements if at all rather than the other way around... and call me crazy, but I actually prefer it that way.

I just it would steer the developers towards more couch coop as well, sine that's what people (and with people I mean me and my fiancée) really want ;)

Seriously though (why stop now when I've already written a novel?), I think more (online) cooperative gaming would probably both boost online gaming and reduce the fuckwads, since such an attitude really hurts cooperation and they would not last as long as in a game where they can spew shit over their opponents.

The Whaleman

Microsoft need to make the complaint process easier, start banning people, and doing so publicly (like they're now doing with cheaters).

XbhaskarX

the stranger thing is that the game that has voice gaming almost from the beggining (Counter strike) is almost free of these AHoles, maybe implementing the vote kick/ban on all online games would improve this matter.

FelicioLostHorizonPT

@shikaningen: "I don't think this will ever/could ever come to an end, and here's why: The very premise and raison de etre of all games that pit one or more people against another or others (whether those people be real or otherwise); it is to give the player a sense of, or an opportunity to gain a sense of, superiority and excellence."

There's a difference between being cocky because you won and logging onto a match and immediately hurling racial epithets and obscenities at someone.

One you're entitled to do, the other makes you a great big dick.

PooPooKaKaBumBum

@cheez

Meeting people within the parameters of any activity does not decrease the perceived randomness of the encounter. Maybe that's missing in my first post. But in our daily life we are trained not to perceive others as people doing similar things. We do not recognize them for what they have in common with us, but we recognize them for their differences. In that regard we do not perceive the other people driving around in their cars. We do not perceive the individuals who dress "normal" (or what we define as normal). We sure know a lot of stories about bad drivers and weird dressers. How come? Are you blind to regular folks?

I never felt connected to anybody buying in the same mall than me, because that alone is not enough of an connector to feel related. I do not remember them buying there.

It takes many more attributes to socially connect. If those attributes are given room to display, then the social interaction might work better. Look at Facebook and/or MySpace. On those sites people can pre-filter their social interactions, thus eliminating (at least from their perspective) any unwanted people. The resulting encounters are perceived more to be personal and, above all, less random.

Ramdomly connecting to online matches will still be perceived as random. Any game is not enough of an unifier. It would be best if the PSN and XBL gamer tags had settings to reflect parts of your personality, such as "likes/hates smack-talk", plays for fun/victory, etc. The game has to bring together the right people, optimize the social connectivity itself. Talking trash should not lead to being banned but being marked, so that people, even if playing randomly, can avoid contact. In real life you sharpen ALL your senses. Games somehow seem to think that playing the same game will magically make people get along. Look at a football stadium, even there normal fans will shun the hardcore fans, will shun the fans of the other team. People don't like it too random.

Asbestos_Underwear

which is why I think voice chat is overrated. Sure, it can be useful for cooking up strategies and whatnot, but face it - people just DON'T do that in public servers. If you try to play CS, TF, or some other online games, all you get is whiny 12-year-olds with their squeaky little voices flinging insults around.. So while people whine about poor online or lack of voicechat on the Wii, I completely understand Nintendo's reasoning behind it, I'm just happy and satisfied by it. Besides, if I want a social experience, I'll just gather round a group of friends in my living room, maybe get some booze, and it's instantly infinitely better than hearing a stranger talk crap in my headphone.

Best use of voicechat I've ever experienced online? Well, Battlefield 2 is pretty damn good at that, since the transmission is restricted to your squad members. I do remember strategizing and even friendly random talk, instead of the crying and whining.

solar_tf

One possible solution to this that I can see is to go to more of a Facebook type model, whereby anybody can sign up, but a) you need to use your real name, and b) you're not going to have anybody to play with if you act like a jerk. There needs to be more of a reputation system.

There *are* ways to deal with this. MS's problem was that initially they were in a land grab, they just wanted as many people to sign up as quickly as possible to pump up their numbers. So they had no interest in imposing real restrictions on anybody. Now that they've apparently hit a wall, they're going to need to concentrate more on the user experience to entice people beyond the hardcore to sign up.

Ditto for Sony and Nintendo, but they're not under as much pressure both because there's a sense that you get what you pay for with them and because online play just isn't so much of a focus. But they will still have to deal with this eventually.

I know at the moment, I won't really play online much because of the idiots, though I usually have ok experiences with Resistance, mostly because it's easy to ignore people and not talk to anyone. (I don't even have a PS3 headset.)

badasscat

PSN voice chat usage depends on the game. Warhawk is hit or miss, which is weird since the disk version came with a mic. Some servers are full of people talking, others are completely silent.

Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, however, almost every server is full of people that can't shut up. Which is good, really, since it's a tactical game that kind of lends to talking a lot.

Through it all, though, it seems to be a much better experience than XBL. A lot less crap to deal with from assholes. I know that has to do with the initial price barrier keeping a lot of kids out and the current marketshare being less combined with less people actually using mics making the concentration of idiots a lot less, and that it's due to change as more people buy into the system.

But right now, anyway, a lot more civil.

PapaBear434

@Poison:
Lol. I just read your post after I typed mine.

Word. My exact same experience.

heretrix

I was totally loving Rainbow Six:Vegas 2 until I ran into a group of racist fucks online one day and then after that, it seemed like everytime I tried to get into a game I kept running into people who's vocabulary consisted mainly of "fag, Homo and motherfucker".. It completely sapped any interest I had in playing it online anymore.

While this type of language really doesn't bother me all that much, if it turns out to be the only thing you are saying during the match, it tends to be a complete annoyance.

One of the best experiences I've had online is playing Burnout:Paradise. While you do run into the occasional idiot, generally the people have been great. I tripled my friends list playing just that game..

heretrix

Very true. Only yesterday did I get insulted and badmouthed in R6 Vegas 2 for no obvious reason. To a point where I just turned off the console and lost all interest in playing that game online again soon.

Poison

Onlie gaming worked fine before voice chat and personally I don't think it's worth having in, because people just suck generally. Let's go back to text.

Yin

This totally depends on the types of game you play. Anything agressive, combative or very competitive usually brings out the worse in people. Some of my worst experiences come from Halo and Fight Night, expecially when I was delivery a beat-down with Hollyfield!
However, i never had that problem with Tiger Woods online. Everybody you play seems really nice - I've often had games where my opponent will help me with strategy, or just shoot the breeze and talk about anything.

meleeblub

Even a "real" gamer can grow tired of the trashtalk. Nintendo's online policy isn't THAT off after all.

Even text can get fairly offensive for no real reason, and it's easier to filter that.

Nirual

Absolutely.
But any online space that is open to all will be infected by idiots.

Maybe the future is Xbox Live style service but with the option of a Wii style anonymous service.

RobTheBuilder

One of the things I say that my roommate often quotes me on, "MMO's would be great if it wasn't for the people."

psychobaka

Haven't had good experiences either with online gaming. I have Xbox Live, but actually don't really use it for multiplayer (only very rarely with friends of mine). Only games i like to play online are racing games as there (besides the people that just pick a car that doesnt match the rest of the group) lots of people act quite normal. Good thing with for example with Test drive Unlimited was that you can actually quite easily transport yourself to another part of the map in case someone is being annoying. But i won't even try shooters online...i game to relax, not to being called names...

dreamc

My first proper Live chat (no-sexual) was with a group of guys one of my mates gamed with, played halo 3 for 4 hours. Had some random peeps too but was great fun, no trash talking just some funny banter in the lobby.

Played Halo 2 on the first xbox, that was kinda crappy due to the fuds on there.

GingerMohawk

Man, I must be lucky. On PS3 I've never had an incident with someone being inappropriate on voice chat. Not even once. It could be because I tend to join games with less people in them than the maxed out 60 player rooms that are in an all out war. Perhaps the small group social setting has an effect on attitudes within that group, as the article states.

This article also made me think of Hot Shots Golf 5. There is an entire section in the instruction book about online behavior and how to act correctly when you are playing online games. This is probably why they don't have voice chat on that game as of now.

kyosuke9999

Voice chat is in most cases all that makes a difference between playing bots. Halo is bad, but there is no other way to communicate. I would have no interest in playing it without voice as I could instead fight bots I have a chance of beating.

I don't think that voice chat is in the slightest the only way for assholes to ruin fun. If a game has no alternative well yeah, no conflict, but no extra fun either. I've seen what people do with and without voice for a long time and it makes no difference in the end.

Someone said that online games made them think worse of people, and I get their point, but I understand that the phenomenon goes beyond games so I don't point my finger at any one thing. I can go anywhere and find an equally depressing level of immaturity. I was naive enough to think Kotaku itself was immune, but I've found that the elitist "idiots" penetrate every level of the online world, and the guy complaining about being made fun of via voice chat for sucking at Halo 3 inevitably ends up being the guy harassing someone for sucking at something they are good at.

It is your classic vicious cycle, so I've long since stopped expecting anything better. Trying to silence things is inherently silly, as the people who get off yelling fuck at you will get off just as much when they are silenced and resort to spelling fuck out with bullet holes. There's always gonna be a way to cause grief. All you can do is allow anyone to turn off any feature as such.

Bobby McPresscott

Love that image - want more!

I honestly feel these n00bs who behave anti-socially towards everyone will eventually be the death of online gaming, or at the very least stagnant its market. Dealing with 'troublemakers' though is too big of problem for Microsoft to tackle - they're everywhere!

humongous_mouse

just my two cents...generally speaking my experiences have been good. although not even an hour ago i was testing the warhawk update and some jerk off kid wouldn't shut up. he kept dropping f-bombs every third word. i left the game because of it. my sister's boyfriend was on the same server and he dipped out too. usually my warhawk voice chat experiences have been good. met some great people with great skills. guys that usually frequent the same server so its almost like a hangout spot.

resistance was the best though. i would play TDM with a lot of my clanmates. we wouldn't talk to the rest of the team, clan members would go to a specific frequency and co-ordinate among ourselves. we dominated a lot of matches that way. i wish more ps3 games used the resistance setup. it's still the best on the console and is feature rich. my only other bad experience was on Live when some asshole got pissed when my lei fei beat the hell out of his cheesy vanessa. wasn't even close. he sent some pretty nasty messages afterward. i had to block him. but not without beating his ass again and with two perfects to boot. i know it wasn't voice chat but it was annoying all the same. it's a shame though, voice chat is a necessity for many games but all it takes is one idiot to ruin it.

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Only voicechat I've experienced that is pleasent with random people a majority of the time is either in BF2/2142 or an mmo.

belo

I've only played two games for any extended period of time on XBL: Team Fortress 2 and College Hoops 2k7. My time with the latter ended after the third "ur mom" message response from some random prepubescent. My patience for TF2 wore thin after hearing the word "faggot" more times in a few hours of play than I probably had in 28 years of previous existence.

I've refused to ever use the headset for these reasons. None of my friends are gamers, so I'm not really interested in striking up a conversation with some 12-year-old in Arkansas whose "daddy" has a Confederate flag on the back of his pickup.

Or, even more to the point of the post, the 17-year-old in suburban Pennsylvania who's only allowed to be the raging racist that his is under the sublime cover of online anonymity. If MS has any intentions of combating the "underdeveloped manchild" image of gaming, it's got to put its energies into eliminating every one of these turds.

Come on, we know it's a big, fascist, omnipotent organization. It's got the power to do that.

bluetom00

I find I spend more time muting, kicking, blocking and avoiding trash-racist-teens then time playing. Then after the 3rd RRoD, I left the LIVE crowd for PS3. Let me tell you, 360r's, you got it way better with controlling/muting those idiots.
That said, I agree that (even though I am guilty of potty mouth, its more release than hatred) its becoming less enjoyable and I use my mic less unless with friends (which is ironic 'cuz how do you make friends if you don't play or talk?)

SigmundTheSeaMonster

I just bought the 360 and COD4. I love to play, but I just started, what I find interesting is peoples ability to bad mouth a player that is at level 5 because they literally just started that night and dont have the GOD like ability to play the game to those other individuals liking. I will get better as I play, just like they did. Of course, the voice on the other end doing the bad mouthing is still squeaky because his balls havent dropped yet. I heard this one kid getting yelled at by his mom for cussing, dude you just got pwned by your mom.HAHAHA

It would definitely be better if you could put players into age demographics for matches.

tikibomb

I agree with the man. I enjoy playing online, but rarely use my headset unless I'm with friends. Games seem to be like night clubs, they all tend to attract their own clientèle. Less popular games like PGR4 I find to be populated with quite a relaxed bunch, typically laid back German racing fans. The really popular games, COD4 and Halo 3, tend to find their revilers infected with all the assholes who are really only here because everyone else is and they heard it was a good place to pick up chicks.

gaggle64

Competitive online gaming sucks. Its worse when you are playing with strangers but there is something about it which makes my friends act like asshats too.

Atrius

I can't really disagree with his assessment. I'm often turned off by the ignorance and inappropriateness of gamers during online gaming. The mute function gets a pretty big workout on my 360.

One of the things I like about Frontline is that voice is only for your squad, not your whole team. That cuts out a lot of crap ... and your side isn't really penalized for people who don't want to voice chat.

jayntampa

I casually play hardcore games. I really don't put up with trash talk so I normally just play with friends or disable voice chat.

Done.

Tuxy79

Hey, I'm WITHIN the hardcore demographic, and I HATE playing online because of the general bad attitude gamers have. It's the reason I never got into Gears of War. Call of Duty 4 seems slighty more civilized, but I can still suck.

Pinhead

I would have to agree with one sentiment in particular: Halo brings out the dormant douchebag in everyone. I don't even play it online anymore because getting sworn at by 12 year olds makes me stabby.

I also recently picked up a PS3 (girlfriend got it for me for my birthday), and I have to say I have noticed a much smaller douchebag constituency on PSN than on XBL. From what I've seen, deathmatches bring out the worst in people. Team games and co-op games tend to bring down the level of overall douchebaggery. Still, given my experience, I would have to go with PSN over XBL.

Sasquatch

I've been playing games for 20 years and the idiots who play online are the main reason I stay away from it. I don't think putting up with that crap really has anything to do with being "hardcore"

Roto13

There are horrible people on XBL. Horrible. I wish natural selection would start really thinning the herd and quickly.

This is not a new phenomenon nor limited to online gaming. Just look at comments on youtube, digg, local newspapers sites, blogs, message boards etc. Save for Kotaku(seriously, the comments here are either well moderated and/or the contributors are mostly open minded, considerate, humorous and intelligent) the majority of online babble is just saddening.

I think if everyone was face to face rather than anonymously online things could be a little better. Of course, there are those certain special assholes who are rotten to the core but like I stated early, hopefully they'll be the next Darwin Award winner.

I'm going to get a little crazy now but we, as citizens of the world, have with the internet a wonderful means to bridge gaps and open minds like never before in history. It's made the planet a whole lot smaller and we're letting a few bad apples(more than a few, maybe a bushel) ruin it.

Don't let the bad apples win.

goody71

Online gaming will take the same route that email will eventually have to take: Only friends can talk to me, with maybe a voluntary "pool" that I can occasionally wade into if I want to find new friends.

MMO's are fairly well protected, relative to FPS games. MMO games have Gamemasters that help keep asshats under control, although you will still find it. An FPS may or may not have an admin online at the time.

You can pretty much expect new and creative ways to filter out the crap when joining a new online society. The ones that do it the best will get higher customer retention. The ones that do not will be known as a cess pool.

J449

I have my life and well being to thank for this type of behavior. It is these wonderful ****wads that were my greatest motivation to quit WOW.

I like to think of them as an essential part of gaming nature - like forest fires, or spiders; they somehow seem to help keep things in balance - even though they suck.

... Just think - if everyone who played WOW was a nice normal person, and this writer were correct - it might mean the end of console gaming as we know it.

So Thank You ****wads. Sincerely!

Teh Ytop

This is the type of behavior that makes Nintendo's online look better all the time. Yeah, friend codes are stupid, but not as stupid as being called a douchefag by a 12 year old when I'm trying to relax after a long day at work. LIVE is very cool, and while it is contributing to the marginal success that is the xbox360 it is also the very reason that console will never break into mainstream.

subnet6

@Schoolimangooli: Absolutely.

heretrix

Instead of MS putting "ur a cheeter" or whatever the hell they put on your gamertag when they bust you, they should put "I'm a dumbass" or "I bend over for racists" to certain offenders.. Now THAT would be awesome. But props anyway for the cheater thing too. I can'ts stand me a cheater.

heretrix

I think idiots in general bring everything down.

Schoolimangooli

Just play TF2. I never get any douchebags on that game.

TheEngineer: Hates the UE3

warm welcome from world of warcraft
this is the main reason why i dont play with people besides real life friends

MugenNoKaze

Just love that picture. Some people can be total asses online. I was playing CoD4, and this guy wouldn't shut up, and he was throwing profanities left and right. He left, before I can mute him.

zerokoolpsx

If MS wants to fix this they need to fix thier online rating system for users. I have never seen an craphole person on XBOX live with 1 star.

xibis

This stuff is more avoidable on PC than it is on Xbox Live. You get what you get with Live, mute away but you still have to play with the douchebag. I help admin a TF2 community where none of this is tolerated. 1 warning, no compliance? Ban. Great stuff.

Tetelestia

@ PooPooKaKaBumBum: awesome point. but i've always believed in having respect for your opponent regardless of whether they're better than you or not. some of the people on my friends list came from that idea. especially in ut3 (ps3) and Resistance. i have great respect for people that can beat me in games i like. for instance vf5 on 360 has a lot of gamers that rely on cheap tactics and lag exploits. i never dissed these people, but i never wanted to play them again. there are others that were truly skilled and in some cases i couldn't beat them at first. i had the greatest respect for them because they gave me a great fight and did something i hadn't seen before and won. i've had great conversations with many of these gamers and they made me better as i learned to improve my skills to finally beat them. that's says a lot about how good these guys are because like many of them i've been playing virtua fighter since the 90s.

too many gamers want to be the prodigy that can pick up a stick and be the best in record time regardless of what the game is. but these people can't accept the realty that there's always someone better. it doesn't mean they're not good, but we live in a world where losing is unacceptable. so people will get on voicechat and rip their team but they're in last place in the overall standings. it's always someone else's fault. it can't be they just had a bad game. even Michael Jordan lost. for me , it says a lot to be able to face good opponents online and talk about the great matches and tactics and such. ut3 comes to mind as i've made alot of friends from matches i've won. too bad some people have too much to prove from a simple hobby.

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

The same's true of all online interaction. Look at the goofballs on nice little sites like kotaku, for example. You try and have a nice mature conversation about something, and it regularly devolves into flame wars and the like.

lionkitten

Why the apparent need to make every game have some major online component? There are days where I'm stressed out or burned out and I just want to remove myself from any sort of social interaction, whether in a game or in the real world. Video games are a great way to do that, but if I HAVE to play online, that defeats the escapist appeal for me.

Kinda off-topic, but online behavior really can't stunt the growth of single player games, so to me, it's just a convenient excuse for developers who can't create a compelling single player element, and instead shovel out the same fragfest MP crap we've seen in a hundred different shooters.

seafisch

I'm a gamer, and i find that i simply don't love life enough to put up with the crap that i get when i go outside...

I think the problem here is not the personality disorders/complexes of people who reguarly play online, but the fact that any previously rational human being, given anonymity and a headset, will take the opportunity to act like a complete and utter ass.

Saying that, there are plenty of strong online communities with a reputation for intelligent and considerate interaction in online games.

qizarate

I don't think the problem is XBox live. I think the problem is certain games that for no apparent reason just fosters the disgusting and/or nasty talk.

I'm pointing my finger mostly at Halo in this case. And don't confuse that with FPS games in general because I just don't think that is the case. When I played the Frontlines demo I was hard pressed to find a person say boo, and while COD4 does have its own jerks it is still far less then anything I find on a Halo game.

PhaseDMA

Simple reason I hate voice chat when playing with people I don't know: I'm a girl.

If I hear one more 13 year old start trying to flirt with me and demanding pics, I'll scream.

strixus

Maybe an industry environment in which referring to your users as "fuckwads" is considered acceptable is a good place to start the social-standards clean-up. This guy lost all mainstream credibility at the title. I didn't even get past the first page of the article.

WMeredith

I could care less about their sales. Also good luck changing the behavior of people in every internet medium because.

peet

@ thinkfreemind: wow, another great point. i agree. it's funny because i always host games in UT3 but i never host games in Warhawk and Resistance. this sounds backwards but i've avoided CoD4 on 360 because my friends are on it and can be total assholes. random people can be brutal but when your friends are being jerks it really horrible. I bought UT3 on ps3 instead, because the people i tend to play with are UTfans and have a great time on the map rotations and kick ass mods. also UT3 is getting maps from CoD4 (just got Shipment last week) Halo (Wizard became available last night) and Quakell, UT99, UT2k4 maps. So I can enjoy these awesome maps with a great selection of people that are usually more level headed than some of those that frequent actual CoD4 and Halo servers.

Striderhayasa - Phillyyakk on PSN and Live.

Playing R6Vegas 2 on Live... wow I hate online gaming sometimes. I've never met such assholes in my life than on Vegas 2.

Kyle81

The feedback system on xbox live is worthless. The matchmaking is also a joke. When the 360 was being hyped and they talked about the "family group, recreation, underground, and pro" and how they would attempt to keep those groups playing in their own sandboxes that is not the case and most of the jerks I have found to be either underground or pro. If I could get away from those jerks it would cut down on 90% of the singing,cussing, and racist/homophobe remarks.

zeekle

@th3-1nf1d3l: TF2 has a pretty tolerable community - good thing, too, because using the chat can make your team a lot more effective.

CS is a cesspool, I mute everybody on pubs when I go in for a quick fix.

zibby

Good rule of thumb for talking on the internet:
"If what you are about to say would get you punched in the face if you said it in person, don't say it."

wirebrain

And I wonder why everyone is hampering for voice chat in Brawl.

KM91

I think there is usually a simple equation:

Popularity of a game x Amount people can show off if they are good at it = Number of stupid people who will play it online

RobTheBuilder

@strixus: And I'll bet they don't even offer to take you out to dinner first.

Hubert Humphrey Methadone

@Kyle81: The xbox live vegas online community is the most repugnant bunch of assholes i've ever had the displeasure of sharing game time with, which is such a huge shame because the game itself plays great.

That game is perhaps the best example i can think of of the industry being hamstrung by its audience.

Sunjammer

These problems aren't going away until it's possible to punch somebody in the face over the internet - fear of physical harm prevents about 97% of dickweed behavior in the real world.

zibby

@strixus:

UR A GIRL? Boobies! Pics pls.
jk.

Yeah, that's gotta suck big time. As a guy, it pisses me off because I'd like to play with more females, as it just seems more fun as the atmosphere is less charged with fake "macho" BS filled with "noob" or "ghey!"

It's why I love playing Burnout:Paradise. There are a lot of women playing it and the people seem to take it in stride, which is as it should be.

heretrix

XBox Live, and to a lesser extent PSN and whatever the fuck Nintendo has for an online "service", all need to dish out the banhammer justice much more swiftly and broadly. These services have a ToS for a reason. Make people adhere to them. Don't be a pansy-ass and change their gamertag, have some balls and kick them off the fucking system.

Me? If I had any kind of authority, XBox would have more roving "moderators" that could be summoned when some douchebag can't keep his word-hole from spouting racist, homophobic, and/or offensive dribble. The moderator would be able to listen in, and then swiftly swing the banhammer, ending the offenders time on XBox Live for some period of time.

People who play online should, A) not worry about having some 13 year old toilet mouth punk ruin their experience, and B) be able to have something DONE about these miscreants.

Oh, and parents, please take a bit more responsibility and raise your children right. Don't let them become douchebags. Manners, people. Fucking learn some.

PissedPS3Fan

This is one of the things about playing on Live that I noticed. I don't offend easily so I'm not bothered by this typical behavior, but I could see how it discourages new players from joining the online gaming scene. I haven't heard this kind of thing on PSN much, but I only own Warhawk and most people don't seem to talk at all.

Heyyou27

You can't blame the 360 for the ills of society. Face it, most of the people out there are ignorant, obnoxious douchebags. And it only gets worse the younger they are. So yeah, take a game that's sold 8 million copies (Halo 3) and make it easy to get online and play with others while having voice chat and you are going to run into about 7 million total dickwads. Thats a problem with society, not xbox live. The MS terms of service for XBL do not tell people to act like shitheads, they do that on their own.

Gray665

I haven't read all the responses, but in case anyone hasn't mentioned it yet, as far as XBL goes, I think the solution is fairly simple: Tie a player's reputation to their MAC address and crack down (no pun intended) on the offenders.

That way there can be no more free trail whoring to get around a ban when someone earns a bad rep. It will also prevent someone from getting another credit card to make an account from in the event that a particular credit card is blocked from making an account.

XBL implemented a reputation and player review system, and I happen to know from very trustworthy sources that they keep a close eye on those things. I think the main problem with why it isn't particularly effective, however, is that any jerkface can always get his(or her) buddies to rep them back up, effectively negating the bad feedback.

I don't think the current design of this system, essentially to push all the poor-rep people into the same matchmaking pool, is a very good one because their behavior won't change as a result. They'll only experience other players with similar poor sportsmanship and that will have a reinforcing effect.

XBL is a great service but the population is, in my experience, at the very least 70% jerks. If MS wants to grow a larger casual/non-gamer crowd, they need to take the gamer community and mainstream perceptions into account.

Right now it just seems like they will take money from everyone, regardless of how they conduct themselves. XBL is already a disreputable dive bar with a cover charge, despite selling great drinks. MS can do a lot to change the behavior of its patrons and draw in a larger and more well behaved crowd, but they need to take this way more seriously than they have so far.

Ma1agate

@Omatic: @jimb213: Yup, that's pretty much why I avoid XBL for the most part.

That, and I kinda suck at pretty much everything.

Hubert Humphrey Methadone

This is aimed at the several people who say that they shouldn't be annoymous.

You're killing the internet.

That's one of the benefits to it all. The fact that you do wear a mask. The fact that you are not who you are. You are someone else. You are not responcible for your actions. You are simply not you. you're on vacation from reality.

This is why I play games. to step into another skin.

You remove the mask of my new skin, you remove an aspect of the game. The talking shit is what happens. It happens in sports locker rooms, it happens with friends, it happens all over society. It is part of who we are as a species to try to promote who we are over another. Removing the anonymousness of it, removes this skin. It removes my mask and removes insertion.

I don't want this

huginn

yeah, I pretty much don't do online multiplayer because of racist homophobic 12 year olds on xbox live.

jimb213

I quit using the Xbox Live service 3 years ago mainly due to the assholery of people on it. I'm not going to pay 50 bucks a year so that I can get frustrated on a weekly basis, for reasons outside of gameplay, or have my little sister in tears when guys harass her (when she's 11 years old!) just because she has a female voice.

The same went for EVE Online - I'm not going to pay monthly for frustration. Being griefed by people who have years of experience on you, and then being told it's part of the game? Forget that.

Omatic

@pangbulle:

Or turn off the voice chat in your profile options.

@Dag:

Everyone and their mom has used that Penny Arcade comic at one point in time. We all know where it's from.

@NecronomiconUK: - "Or if it really gets on your nerves then you just change your privacy options for voice to Friends only and never have to put up with assholes ever again."

Well said!!!

@IronsUK: - "90%+ of the talk on xbox live is mindless drivel."

Indeed. It's a rarity when people actually want to communicate in a way that is geared towards the game (tactics and such).

@shikaningen:

Great post!

dead_red_eyes

@huginn: "That's one of the benefits to it all. The fact that you do wear a mask. The fact that you are not who you are. You are someone else. You are not responcible for your actions. You are simply not you. you're on vacation from reality."

That is the most dangerous, moraly bankrupt statement anyone could make. You are basicaly saying that when you go online and spew racist hate speach you are simply "On vacation and not responsible for your actions."

WOW! I can't wait for that argument to arise on the next episode of Dateline: To catch a Predator! " It's ok, I was on an online vacation. I didn't actualy do anything (yet)."

Let's all go on an "online vacation" and trade child pornography with eachother. You know becasue as you said, we shouldn't be held responsible for our actions online.

I am astounded by your level of retardation.....

Mr.SithNinja

Of the 11,855 hours of time I've had my PS3, I've had no "fuckwads".

Knight-Zero

That's odd when you consider a noticeable sum of those online gamers only recently "evolved" from non-gamer to casual.

kuraitenshikun

@cheez: Heard on Voice Chat, on a TF2 game: "HAY! IF THE MEDICS STOPPED SUCKING THE HEAVY'S COCK WE'D WIN!"

I don't completely buy your theory, good sir.

CommentatorHatman

@Mr.SithNinja: That brings up another point:
Parents, if you are going to be buying your children a $400 gaming machine where games cost $60, please monitor your children's activities. If you hear offensive language being used, then file a complaint against that gamer. If your child is using offensive language, please take away the 360 and all other electronic devices until they learn to act better.

Tepoz

Hey look! There is a dead horse! Let's beat it with a stick!

There have been so many articles on this on a bunch of different sites about this and the bottom line is there is nothing M$ will ever do about it. Say for the sake of argument that M$ actualy did what they should do and Banhammer all the douchebags Witzbold style.... They would literaly be killing off 75% of their business!

They could also very easily just disable a users voice-chat option. Let the douchbags play but not be heard. Oh, let me revel in that thought for a moment..... online gameplay without some 11 year old calling me an "F'ing Ni***r"........ oh how I yearn for the day.....

Damn it!Back to reality.... M$ will NEVER do anything that socialy responsible out of fear that it might cause a few douches to stop subscribing.

Oh look here come the ever so retarded " Just mute them and move on " comments. It shouldn't be up to me to filter out the socialy inept and racist hate-mongers when I go to play online. That would be like Kotaku saying " Just don't read the post that you may find offensive. " They know, as should M$, that ignoring a problem will not make it go away. It will only grow into the unstoppable force that is online douch-baggery.

Mr.SithNinja

I've gotten many people banned on Xbox Live for being douchebags in general in matches and in the Xbox Live forums. The trick is that everyone needs to report them. Most people are unwilling to report because of the time it takes to type in good information (chat-pad helps out alot) or don't want to feel like they're being a snitch.

I've come across quite a few people who try to abuse the system but it's not easy to do. The banning process takes into consideration how many complaints the person has filed, and how many complaints the person he/she is filing against has. If everyone is filing complaints against that one douchebag, those douchebags have a tendency to dissapear. The only way they can get back into the scene is by paying for a different Live Gold account. The monetary aspect keeps alot of people in the different gaming tournament scenes in check after they learn the first time.

On the PC, if there's no way to totally ban a user's account system-wide, then I don't use my mic unless it's in Ventrillo with my clanmates. One of the best things to happen to the Battlefield community was when user accounts were tied to their bought game. If you were banned, you basically had to buy another game and create another account and start from scratch. This is why STEAM has been gaining major ground on the PC because hackers/cheaters/griefers can be banned system wide. The exception of course is Call of Duty 4 which uses the old-school pre-patched Battlefield account management system in which you can create an infinite number of accounts to hack/cheat/grief. Concerning the PS3, my guess for the reason why PS3 owners don't user mic's because there is no system-wide banning.

Tepoz