Wow–this article somehow manages to capture all the wonder and horror of online FPS gaming. Great read.
Online gaming–particular gaming of the first-person shooter variety–is a fascinating and bizarre little world of its own, one that is just waiting to be the subject of somebody’s doctoral dissertation (if it hasn’t already been). It gives rise to a lot of interesting behavior of the sort referenced in the above article, ranging from racist taunting to player-enforced rules of “fair play” to extremely strong-held beliefs about what is and isn’t a “legitimate” strategy. UT2k4 is my poison of choice these days, and I’ve found that the quality of the online gaming experience depends rather heavily on the willingness of other players to abide by the unspoken rules of “fair gaming,” especially in team games.
I’d write more, but it’s dinnertime. Maybe more later.
(While you’re at it, the most recent episode–#39–of Red vs Blue contains a pretty hilarious parody of a typical online deathmatch, starting 5:45 minutes in.)
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I used to play online games a lot. Not a lot of games, mostly just Half Life and it’s various mods. Unfortuately, the game has largely been taken over by cheaters, and the answer of the cheaters is typically, ‘If you were really good, you’d still beat us’. Much like everything else, since the ‘bad guys’ are usually on the offense (with cheats, cheap playing, etc) no matter what game you play, you’ll be at the mercy of poor players.
I’ve since stopped playing Counter-strike altogether (I went on a Rant about Steam, how it was supposed to stop cheating, etc, and how it only made it easier), but have recently picked up playing Wolfenstein: Enemy territory. I’ve found that a few good servers have regulars that play well, and aren’t ‘selfish’ players.
In the end, getting to know the people on the servers, knowing how each person plays (or cheats) is simply the only way to play. Be a regular, suck up to admins, gain their respect, and usually you can get bad players kicked and banned…