Don’t Be That Guy: Don’t Be Such a Baby

Sitting down for a few online matches can be a fun way for us to relax after a hard day at work or school. But it’s hard to avoid getting even more frustrated when we have to share our games with idiotic players.

In this column, we’ll talk about some of the worst offenders and how they end up corrupting the hell out of our gaming experience, and we kindly invite you to…well, don’t be that guy.

We’ve all been there: Idiot gamers ruining our playtime thanks to their obnoxious behavior. This month, I’ll be addressing the kind of gamer that’s responsible for a great deal of the nasty behavior we see in online gaming—those darn kids.

Ah, kids…how a word that represents something so sweet and pure can also represent such a pain in the ass. If the book of Lord of the Flies taught us anything, it’s that kids are nothing but “small adults”, and their innocence and harmless behavior get lost the moment you set them loose.

Playing games with them online is a great way to demonstrate that.

Pay attention, politicians and parents: This is an accurate depiction of a common kid.

Most of us will gladly share this medium with our—or someone else’s—children as long as they behave and play like they aren’t a bunch of jerks. But that’s not something we get to see too often in online gaming. Kids know they can get away with anything, since there’s no way anyone can stop their douchebagginess. That’s something we didn’t have during the old days of the arcade; we wouldn’t dare to piss off the older stranger playing on our side (at least, not until he ran out of quarters).

Talk to the fist!

Maybe we’re doing it wrong; we’re looking for ways to exclude kids from our games, when we should be building a place especially for them to enjoy their games the way they like, without us—bitter adults—telling them how they are supposed to play. Halo: Reach had a great idea for dealing with obnoxious players, introducing a “psych profile” system that allows you to game with like-minded individuals. I think this idea can be further adapted to help us with child gamers.

So pay attention, developers! These are the psychological profiles we’ll need in future multiplayer games!

I just did, ma’am.

Quitters

We adults don’t get it, but kids have reasons for quitting games early.

They don’t like losing. They are the demographic that takes the ball home if their team is losing, and when they rage-quit an online game, their immature perspective doesn’t mind if they’re ruining the game for everyone else.

Leaving as soon as the fun’s over is actually part of a kid’s nature, like that forgotten trace of LEGO bricks their parents are happily going to step on while bare-footed. Losing is not fun for them; at their age, they don’t know any better than to rage-quit and look for another match.

The Quitters profile is a group specially designed for kids to enjoy leaving a match anytime they want. The average time of every match would be around two-and-a-half minutes, and the winning team gets extra points if they make the other team quit real fast.

The other day, two guys from the other team didn’t like the map we were going to play and quit.
Then, their whole team started quitting because they were in disadvantage.
We won a Bazillion points!!!
-Awesome!!!

Horny Pubescents

We know, kids, we know…sex is great.

You’re at that age where you have sex on the brain all the time. Your entire motivation for living is having sex (with a seriously hot model, that is). You think about sex, dream about sex, and you go absolutely nuts whenever you get your hands on anything targeted for adult audiences.

Yes, we know. We grown-ups have been there, and we’re well aware of everything you’re going through. You are full of curiosity, full of expectations, and practically dying to get laid some day in the near future.

But that doesn’t mean we want to hear about it.

I mean, we wouldn’t have any problem playing with these horny teenagers if they managed to keep their shit out of the game. But the fact is that every online game is crowded with hordes of these randy little rascals who know no better than spurt their sexual frustration all over the battlefield.

These people can’t keep sex out of their heads. And not having sex yet—or not having it for a long while—makes them even more desperate to get some. We can read their frustration in their sexually referenced Gamertags, and we can see it in their penis-shaped icons and emblems. (I’m still amazed by the fact that the later is not considered homosexual behavior by the same people who regularly use “gay” as an insult.) And, for God’s sake, we can hear their desperation through everything they yell, and every bit of nonsense they find actually funny.

So, a profile for Horny Pubescents is a must in any future multiplayer game: the perfect place for kids to brag about their wee wees. Teabagging would be kind of a rule over there.

I’ve always dreamed about gay-raping a corpse!

Epic Super Joe Commando: Army of One Extreme

This is the profile for those guys who like to fly solo in every team match.

I know there’s already a profile for Lone Wolfs, but I’m talking about a different kind of player. I don’t have much of a problem with the so-called Lone Wolfs. When they’re doing their job, they can make a difference in the battlefield (especially in objective-based games). They snipe the enemy out the way, offer suppressive fire when it is most needed, or even volunteer themselves to guard key positions while the rest of the team deals with the objective at hand.

A proper Lone Wolf helps the pack get the kill.

No, this profile is meant for an entirely different kind of player. The kind of player that considers himself a Lone Wolf, but ends up being just an egomaniacal, overconfident, lame excuse of a pathetic player bastard. These guys believe they are so good that they deserve to hold best weapons and to drive every vehicle, and they think they can assault the entire enemy team all by themselves.

We see these guys all the time, but the worst part is that they don’t only suck in the battlefield—their attitude ends up being poisonous for the whole team. They hoard and waste valuable weapons, they treat vehicles and equipment as if they were meant to be abused, and if a teammate manages to pick up something they wanted, they go as far as to betray their kind in order to snatch that item off of their corpse.

I just wonder why they don’t go play free-for-all games, instead. Why would they want to be part of a team if they’re not willing to work with other people? The only reason I can come up with is that they like the odds of their team winning a match; they have 50% probability of winning, no matter if they actually did something for the team or not.

That’s why we also need a profile for this kind of selfish bastard, and I’m willing to bet that this profile would be filled with a bunch of smart-assed teenagers who believe that they’re right about everything all the time.

Pretty much like every forum member on the damn Internet.

It’s just me against six of them…it’s not fair.
I’ll tie a hand behind my back to make things even.

There we are, then: we just need a few profiles meant for kids in order to keep them away from the game sessions meant for grownups.

Also, we need to be able to report and kick out any obnoxious kid we find roaming in the adults-only area, in order to send them to the infantile profile they belong to—even into a mixed profile, if they deserve it.

It could also be helpful to have a profile especially for complainers who rage-report teammates just to be annoying. Oh, you’re over 20 and were sent to the profile for selfish little bastards? It’s not a mistake; your age may say otherwise, but you were sent there for a reason.

Anyway, these are some of the profiles I just came up with. Is there any other profile you consider necessary for incoming multiplayer games? Speak out in the comments.