Gaming Fat, Ugly or Slutty?

+1

 

I think the problem is more than just on the internet. I left school/college 3 years ago and through the time that i was there the trash talk from the younger years got so much worse. When we were in year 8 we were pretty much fearful of the older years, as if you messed up they would come down on you. However when we were in the later years the year 8's were so cocky and arrogant thinking they were some big shot, and we couldn't do anything otherwise the teaches would pound us, so what happened? The year 8's get more and more cocky.

Whether online gaming has had an effect or not i don't know, generally everytime i've played on a 360 there are usually your "stereotypical" whiney 13year old boys are on there trying to insult you, but when you out smart them, they just get in a huff. Admittedly i don't play on a console all the time, so whenever i do get insulted i don't mind chewing their head off, but i feel for people that get a constant stream of abuse, and i applaud the ones that still act the same without changing their habbits as it must be hard.

I don't know how banning for consoles works, but maybe the reason why there is less trash on pc is because it will be linked to their account, if you've spent hours crawling from the depths up in WoW the last thing you'll want to do is to get ban hammered. I think where you find the worst chat, on CoD, is probably because if you lose your proflie it doesn't matter.

Either way it is a shame, as i usually only play games with a multiplayer element, as i feel it prolongs the longevity of the game, and for some games it is a large part. I'd hope that someone can figure out a way of actually getting through to the people that cause mischief and most likely the reason why they do it is because they're insecure about themselves, maybe as they just got pwned

 

It was actually in reference to who Joe was replying to. I buggered up the quoting.

 

i wonder what Hexywoo makes of this. there was a few screenshots of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood on PC she posted of the hate message she got.


to be fair, it's very easy to get hate message on the internet. a single person being different will get a large backslash.

just last night on CPC BFBC2 server, people on VOIP client was abusing a good BT forum member for asking an overpowered weapon to be used less. however, i am sure this won't happen if the said person was on VOIP client, since that removes anonymity feel when everyone is a regular and know eachother's voice.

 

A common sense hint to female gamers: playing with friends (RL if possible) is far better and less annoying on so many levels. Find a decent community/clan that has (somewhat) mature members. Get friendly with them, learn to take a joke, tell them to **** off when they cross the line and they'll start having some respect towards you = less stress for you. Don't add random people to your friends list. There's a ignore/block button for a reason.

In general, I agree with the article, its not nice at all. However, I've met some female gamers that were just asking for it. They're annoying, whiny, bitchy and overall a damn nuisance and I was never surprised when someone snapped and told them off. Personally I don't wanna add fuel to the flame, so I just ignore them and log off.

As for male gamer on male gamer action... well, suck it up. Newbies get the most abuse, so get good at what you play and the abuse will stop.



Xbox is a whole other territory. Its instant fun, easy to use, widespread and therefore will always attract uneducated retards/rednecks who've never seen a PC (and/or girl) in their lives.

 

There are a LOT of women playing campaign mode on L4D2, it's quite social and you aren't killing "people" or at least people who will hold it against you. There's no "OMG you were killed by a girl!" revenge acts.

There is supposedly quite a few playing TF2 as well.


I'm not into shooters but if I get in with a good group or clan like I did in COD4 or Battlefield Heroes I can enjoy them. However, miss that, and I'm done. That happened on BF2, Bad Company, and TF2. Battlefield Heroes had lots of women playing, but you may as well have worn a giant bullseye on your head for t-bagging. Half the enemy team would head out just to find you. Forget winning, just t-bag the women.

 

I like to play with women. They are tough players. I'd like to know some to play with some BF:BC2 matches.

 

What I don't get is why the companies running the online games don't do something about it. The players are "anonymous" vis-a-vis one another, but whoever is running the server (be it Steam, Xbox Live, etc.) knows who everyone is. It would be trivial for them to log all text chat so they can verify a complaint made by a victim against someone who has been abusive, then impose a sanction according to the severity of the abuse and whether that use has been reported previously for the same thing - anything from a warning to a temporary ban from that game, right through to being kicked from the network permanently and having their account cancelled with no refund for DLC associated with that account etc.

Logging all voice chat might be tougher, as it could consume a huge amount of bandwidth and storage - I don't know whether all voice chat is routed via the server or is it P2P? If it goes via the server anyway, then there would be no incremental bandwidth cost, and the storage requirement to keep logs of voice chat for say a week (long enough for a complaint to be registered, especially if there was a facility to instantly report abuse right in the game menu) would be manageable.

Alternatively, it would be relatively straightforward, I would have thought, to put a trace on a user against whom a complaint has been made, recording all their voice comms for say a month, then if another complaint is raised they can easily check it.

Yes it would be an effort for the moderators, but worth it in my opinion to make multiplayer gaming a more friendly place. It would certainly make me more likely to play online if I knew the profanity and general hostility would be kept to a minimum, and that in turn might make me more likely to spend money on multiplayer games and in-game purchases.

 

Mclean007 - The problem you've got there is you start breaking into data protection territory. It's all very well for logging, and generally that sort of thing does take place, but to log everything then pull it up later becomes something of a legal issue. In short, it's a legality nightmare. The idea is a minefield and puts the onus on administrators who aren't trained in dealing with that sort of thing.

 

I feel that people are overdramatising about this.
Idiots just happen to exist. In real life as much as in games.
Just /ignore these people and move on !

There ARE friendly gamer guys and girls out there.

 

the main problem with the foul mouthing comes from the younger generations that game online. the little kids who get everything they want because they rule there parents and when thney dont get there own way they just have a tantrum like the immature child they are.

this is then passed onto the online games. when the games dont go there way they just start swearing and being rude to people. i will admit when on mic and i die or the game doesn't go my way i will swear, but its not directed at anyone. i had it a few months ago when playing online with my cousin and a few of his mates who were round his house, we were all playing online (me being at my house, and him and his mates being at his) and when the game started i was put on the opposing team to them, so as you do i only made a b-line for them (to metaphorically bend them over the desk and decimate them) then when the game finished and we were all on mic's they just started talking a ton of **** about me calling me everyname under the sun.

so i calmly left the game, turned off my 360, grabbed my trainers and made my way round to his (i live about a 5 min walk from his house) knocked on the front door, my uncle answered, i explained the situation, then calmly walked upstairs and into my cousins room. now im not the biggest of guys but i do work out at the gym, so when my 15 year old cousin and his mates see 19 year old me walk into the room, they all pretty much **** themselves . i didn't hit them or anything because violence is never the answer the answer plus its abit harsh if a 15 year old kid gets beaten up by a 19 year old. so it just goes to show that the kids trash talking online are just little *****'s who are trying to make up for some of the, shall we say the.... smaller things in their life

 

+1

 

Tell you what, log onto a game as a girl, preferably at peak time. Do it for a week straight and try NOT to start anything.

Your game will be different.
See how often the game gets wrecked. Think that's all there is to it, wrong. Of those who don't abuse you, a lot will coddle you. Healing you after the slightest damage, following you like a puppy dog. Then you have the stalkers, the ones who make their sole point in the game to kill you and only you, or the teammates who just follow you for no reason. Have you ever tried being stealth with some idiot walking around behind you. It gets even more fun when you have someone on the other side stalking, while you have a shadow for a teammate giving away your position. Your ignore list is going to get very long, very fast.

It's amazing how many friend requests you will get, often from the same jerk who was harassing you or people you never even saw in the game, much less talked to.


See, it's not just the smack talk, it's the whole experience.
If it wasn't an issue, us women wouldn't hide, because trust me, there are a lot of us playing, you just don't know it.

 

The problem is mostly the xbox community, I have friends who play xbox and it was a little bit disturbing to find out that abusing anyone who stands out a bit (whether they be young, old, a different sex or race etc) was normal for them. There is a bit of it in CoD on the PC, and as a result I just turned of voice chat and use skype with my mates, but not so much I think.

 

That's true, but actually finding them in the masses of morons out there isn't exactly easy.

There's also the fact that it also changes the way people behave.

It's unfortunate now that IMO almost every female gamer i've met to date falls into one of two categories:

Casual - They no longer care about winning and it's just more about playing the game or hanging out with friends. It's a shame since unfortunately in a competitive environment it just doesn't cut it (some games are suited for it, some games aren't).

Hardcore - These seem to be the ones who have a barrier already put up, they'll throw out insults and trash-talk at the smallest of comments similar to many of the "kids" that we berate here all the time. Or they'll just bitch about anyone who's skills they consider subpar just to make it seem as if they're better.

Now obviously not every female gamer falls into these two categories, but currently i'd say that only one i know doesn't and she unfortunately has less and less time to play these days with College work piling up. I also used to know a few more, except over time they've all disappeared as well.

The problem is that those who normally would be happy in the middle ground are now generally silent, meaning most of the time you never even knew.

 

More to the point, simply ignoring something doesn't make it stop. Take a quick, cursory look at human history. Yes, it's online, but the principle is no different.

 

L4D and a few other games have a very nice feature that I hope most other games either have, or will incorporate ... the Vote to Kick. Most of the servers I've been on use this feature not only to get rid of the AFKs, TKs, and generally morons who are more interested in exploring maps than playing the game ... it's also a very effective policing tool to kick the offensive players online.

Here's a vote to add that capability everywhere, and for the voters to have the presence of mind to recognize when such a kick is necessary.

 

'Tis deeply disturbing what some people think they can get away with.

The fact that they also think it's acceptable is unbelieveable - I refuse to believe that people have been brought up in a way as to think behaviour like that is positive and correct.

I wonder, what would be the best way to fix it? How could a game be adapted to involve behavioural modification telling them, "No, that's naughty, don't do that."... game detects rude word, game instakills perpetrator and resets their score to a negative number, while also reseting their kills (not their deaths, though)...

 

Thank you for your reply leslie.

I'm not saying these things don't exist or that they are nice, I'm just saying that I don't see the point to waste energy focusing on it.

It's like people complaining about their jobs when they could work elsewhere.

No, ignoring things doesn't change them. But this is gaming not real life. if a community of gamers is so unpleasant that it becomes unbearable then look for another one, and if it's just a few buggers /ignore them and enjoy the time with the friendly ones. Join guilds that you get on with if you are into mmorpgs.

 

Obviously, it also helps to be on servers that have admins and moderators to keep an eye on things.