All things old are new again

[Feud]

Perhaps I am mistaken in this observation, but over the last few weeks I have noticed an annoying "new" development.

As those veterans of the early days can attest, the first two months after release was a wild time to be playing. There were tons of servers every where, and you could always find a game. Stratagies were still being developed, and you were never too sure of what you could expect.

However, there were many problems. Host dropping was rampant, name calling, cursing, insults, etc. flew for any trivial reason, and players would quit the moment tings didn't go thier way. In time these problems begain to fade, becoming almost rare. I believe this was due to the fact that so many of those players were only playing due to the cheap price, looking for a throw away game. Somethign they could play then discard when the winter batch of gmaes came out.

The community grew smaller, but the quality of the games and players increased.

Things seem to now be moving back to how they once were. Perhaps it is due to the receant retail release and the sudden influx of new players, or perhaps it's all in my head. But it seems that over the last two weeks or so that there has been a marked increase in several annoying catagories:

A) Server Disconnects
B) Abusive Players (cursing for no reason, insulting for no reason, causing problems, etc)
C) Cheaters- spectator hints (I had one openly announce at games end that he was telling another player over the phone what was going on, not that it helped), land exploits, etc.

In addition, from the games that I have been spectating lately I have noticed that most of these new players have the same tactics. They can't place their silos worth beans (for either offensive or defensive purposes), but they all seem to use similar naval tactics. They use small non mixed fleets, which is fine, but they don't seem to know quite what to do with them. They sail off small groups and get them sunk, or park them in obscure places where they do absolutely no good. It's as though they looked on the forum for tactics, but didn't bother to actually find out how the tactic actually works.

That being said, I have also met a number of newer players lately who I think will make a great addition to the community, and who show great talant for how little they've played.

So my question to the community is, am I alone in seeing these things (which means that they likely are not happening), or have others noticed it as well?

[Church]

No, Feud, you're not alone.

I'm a fairly recent player and when I started playing online there were not all that many folks playing, but everyone for the most part treated each other well. Lately though (I think it's over the last couple of weeks) I'm seeing an increase of the things that make multiplayer games annoying.

Mostly what I've been seeing are the annoying/abusive players and specs and server disconnections. I was away for a few days last weekend and one of the first games I played when I got back one player and a couple of moron specs got into a verbal battle that resulted in an exchange of name-calling and expletives and ultimately overloaded the chatbox (I ended up dropping out because the latency was only getting worse and it made the game unplayable). The one diplo game I played last night had some of that stuff (I think it involved the same player) but I was still able to finish out the game (and ultimately won ) I've also witnessed a few server disconnects when games don't go the host's way (not all cases I'm sure, but enough to mention). The abusive players I tend to ignore unless they try to drag me into their filth or I get sick of the garbage, then I just target them with nukes in the game (if any are playing).

Most of the cheating I've seen has had to do with the 1.42 exploit. I haven't seen any other cheating other than that. I saw one incident I was spec'ing a 1v1 between RC and another guy (can't remember his name) when this twit of a spec who went by the handle of D-Fence in that game, and that twit mentioned how RC had his naval forces set up south of Africa (three carriers and a sub all pinging away in a straight line in sort of a blockade) when the SA player obviously would not be able to see them. That D-Fence moron publicly commented about how stupid that was (I thought it was pretty ingenious myself). Then the D-Fence moron then started slinging insults mainly at RC (name-calling, saying that he sucks, and so forth) that ultimately made the poor guy RC was playing leave the game. It was rather entertaining at the time, and I was thinking "This guy doesn't know who he's messing with."

Well, just my two cents.

Take Care

-Church

[Erasmus J Homeowner]

It'll take some time for players to calm down, eventually the offensive types will either get bored of being rude or jsut stop playing. No change there then =]

As for silo and navy placing and utilising, it took me ages to know enough about the game to know what to look for when I spectated. that was the point at which i learned how to use my navy and silos to maximum effect. Am i right in saying most players developed their tactics with a healthy dose of spectating?

[hi there (name sux)]

Last game the player who got last place called everyone a cheater and kept it on 1x speed for the last ten minutes of the game. =(

[caranthir.pkk]

I couldn't agree more. I didn't think anyone felt similar about this trend but its certainly noticeable. The best solution for now is to play with people you know, insist on 1.43 and turn spec chat off. That's why I've gotten into 1vs1 and dropped the 6-player bonanza's for the most part. To be quite honest, its more fun to play against established players anyway, since you have similar skill sets.

[Rogviler]

I learned most of my foundation tactics from obsessively playing against the CPU. It's true that some things can't be used against human players, such as the fact that the CPU always launches at 1:30 and moves its fleets in straight lines, but the CPU can be quite relentless and "doesn't know any better" with a lot of things, so it's good practice for naval battles and silo placement.

However, tactics such as the Beam Attack can only be learned about by reading the forums and definitely from spectating a lot of games. Spectating is good because you learn what works and what doesn't on a larger scale than actually playing, since you can see everything.

On to the original question- I'm with everyone else, I do think the wave of bad sports is coming again. The good news that I have been noticing is that I might see a person once or twice behaving like a baby, but either they get bored with that and move on or nobody wants to play with them, so they're stuck with [CPU]s and [DEMO]s.

I know I keep a running tally of what players stick to playing for the fun of it, and which ones, for instance, leave it on 1X speed just to be annoying.

We have a such a closer community than most games that I think it sort of polices itself. It's not even about being new, I've played against quite a few new players lately and they've been nice and good sports, so I offer them some tips and tell them to visit the forums and to just ignore xander because he's always cranky...

I don't play the Battlefield games online anymore because unless you're in a clan it's every man for himself instead of everyone being on a team, because you don't level up because of your comrades. Which is a good argument against having some kind of award or ranking system for Defcon I guess. At the moment (aside from the tournaments), it seems to be more about the fun of it.

And maybe that's the problem with newer players. They don't realise that they should always be having fun, even if their cities have been reduced to the period at the end of this sentence, because it doesn't matter if you win or lose. I'd rather play against Ace who I know could beat me than play against some abusive young 'un that I know I can beat.

All of the veterans have fun with the game, and that's why they're veterans. Just look at RC "wasting" all of his nukes to spell "HANK"... It's games like that where nobody even notices who wins.

-Rog

[Feud]

<snip>

Excellent point.

[xander]

...so I offer them some tips and tell them to visit the forums and to just ignore xander because he's always cranky... :lol:

:P

To answer the initial question, I tend to only play with people that I have arranged games with via IRC or IM. I spectate other games, but generally only play when I know my opponent. I've found that this really cuts down on server shutdowns and abuse. :)

xander

[creator]

Last game the player who got last place called everyone a cheater and kept it on 1x speed for the last ten minutes of the game. =(

yeh that was annoying and it has been pretty bad recently but not unbearable, Had three servers close on me in a row which was kinda irratating. The best bet is to find a server which is good and around alot and stick to it...which is why demosthenes is sick to death of me.

[Sirthomasthegreat]

I couldn't agree more. I didn't think anyone felt similar about this trend but its certainly noticeable. The best solution for now is to play with people you know, insist on 1.43 and turn spec chat off. That's why I've gotten into 1vs1 and dropped the 6-player bonanza's for the most part. To be quite honest, its more fun to play against established players anyway, since you have similar skill sets.

Yeah, that was a fun 1v1 we had. I thought it was funny, I got called a noob for liking diplo. Since when am I a noob.

[PUNK]

To bring this back up, I think I had the worst time playing defcon since I started. Right from the start of the game, a guy named Orange Blur started ranting and left the game at 1x. The rest of the people playing decided to make a new game. Well, he came back under a new name, kept his mouth shut till the game started and then began ranting and leaving it at 1x again. I wish there were a way to stop morons like this.

[-Demosthenes-]

I am sick to death of you?

[Ace Rimmer]

To bring this back up, I think I had the worst time playing defcon since I started. Right from the start of the game, a guy named Orange Blur started ranting and left the game at 1x. The rest of the people playing decided to make a new game. Well, he came back under a new name, kept his mouth shut till the game started and then began ranting and leaving it at 1x again. I wish there were a way to stop morons like this.

There is, the host can just go look up his IP and not allow that person to join any more games.

[snwcrsh]

There is, the host can just go look up his IP and not allow that person to join any more games.

You would usually have to block the complete provider (if it's a smaller one) or at least the city gateway for that ISP as most players are on dialup connections. However, this does not work for ISPs like AOL -- they distribute their IPs more or less random so there can nothing be done short of blocking all of AOL.

[PsychicKid]

However, this does not work for ISPs like AOL -- they distribute their IPs more or less random so there can nothing be done short of blocking all of AOL.

And that's a bad thing?