The 7 Deadly Sins of Online Gaming
The only person who loves lists more than Cracked is the Lord of Hosts: You've got The Ten Commandments, The Seven Deadly Sins and if I'm not mistaken, The Six Moderately Detrimental Sins (my favorite is lying about flatulence). Heck, the Vatican has even released a list of 7 New Deadly Sins for the Modern Age, paving the way for a new Morgan Freeman/Brad Pitt vehicle wherein Kevin Spacey performs abortions, pollutes the environment and uses cloning technology to horde excessive wealth.
Of course, those vices went out with flannel and Pearl Jam. Todays tech savvy populace has a much more important set of problems. And, unless everything I learned at the Cracked.com School For Writing Funny was a lie, those problems need listing. So put down the headset, log out of the lobby and witness the word of Cracked, presented as always in a numerically decreasing fashion. Lo, I give unto thee: THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF ONLINE GAMING
#7.
Item Poaching (Avarice)
Youve just single-handedly fought your way through the front lines and into the German base. Your heart tightens when you hear a shout of Mach Scnhell! and the sharp clack of bootsteps echoing down a stone corridor ahead of you. More victims? You go to reload, realizing with horror that your M1 Garand is completely empty.
Fumbling for a grenade, you find your belt bare. Damn it, you think, I shouldnt have chucked all those grenades at that train car to see if it would explode. The bootsteps are deafening now, and the smell of sauerkraut hangs thick in the air. Thats when you spot it: a crate of M1 ammo has been inexplicably placed in the center of the room by the game designers. Salvation!
But before you can lunge for it, Pvt_Hugecock glides into the room backwards and snatches the ammo, despite carrying only a 9mm and some grenades. He types Dnt Wrory, I got this, and then his head immediately explodes as hes killed by the invading Nazis. You are killed seconds later, while you beat the corpse of Pvt_Hugecock mercilessly with the butt of your rifle.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
Items are often the lifeblood of a multiplayer game. Without those bullets, that armor or that glowing green dot that gives some random gauge a momentary boost, youre basically fucked. A key item-grab can turn the tide of battle in your favor, give you those few extra seconds of life, even revive your dead grandparents so you can tell them you love them one last time.
Thats why its so excruciatingly painful to watch the item you just earned through cold-blooded murder get snapped up by some jerk who couldnt score a headshot if he were fighting an enemy made entirely of heads. It was you who caused that roasted leg of lamb to pop out of that orc by shooting it with an arrow, and by God, it should be you who walks over it, instantly absorbing it into your being as health.
Appropriate Punishment:
Getting your collision detection stripped, so that from now on you pass through all items like a tortured wraith, unable to pick up or interact with anything, wandering through player-created maps for all eternity.
#6.
Quitting Out (Envy)
When you booted up Mario Strikers that evening, you never imagined youd be in for the fight of your life. But when the lobby computer decided to pit you against a player with a 156 and 0 record, you knew there was no turning back. Let the Bagel Bites burn, you said. Its go time.
After a scoreless first game spent slogging through quicksand, evading Thwomps, and running shrieking from a 50-foot Luigi, you cram some blackened Bagel Bites down your gullet and its back to the slaughter. Early in the second game, you tragically let a mega-strike by when the Wiimote slips out of your bagel-greased hands, leaving you down by two.
Thats when you catch your second wind. Suddenly youre unstoppable, making two goals in rapid succession by leaping the goalie with Toadstool. Finally, with ten seconds on the clock, you make your move, blasting your opponents goalie with a shock-shell. Totally paralyzed, the goalie can only watch in mute horror as Birdo nudges the ball past him. Your victory assured, you sit back and congratulate yourself on a job well done.
Thats when youre booted out to the lobby. A screen informs you that your opponent quit the game one fifth of a second before your victory could be counted. And you suddenly realize, you didnt beat a great player after all. You beat a flaming asshole.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
No one likes a sore loser, and theres not a lot sorer than quitting the game when you know youre going to lose. Except maybe tracking your opponent down and killing them, which at least takes some determination. All quitting takes is a button press and total lack of courtesy.
Yes, youre doing it digitally and with a bunch of technology, but that doesnt change the fact that youre now the guy who flips the chessboard over when he loses his queen. Or, to put it in more gamer-friendly terms, the guy who uses Donkey Kong to grab the winning player and walk off the edge of the level.
Thinking you can play an online game and not lose occasionally is bullshit, your perfect win-loss record is bullshit, and you make the people who actually have impressive records look like filthy liars. Stop crying, pick the controller up, and take your beating like the rest of us.
Appropriate Punishment:
Having your system infected with a bug that causes all your global stats to read 0-999; im a n00b.
#5.
Humpophilia (Lust)
The worst possible thing that can happen to anyone has just happened to you. Youve been killed. In a game.
You were manning the rear gun of a Warthog when the driver pulled hard right to avoid a group of Covenant Hunters and slammed your head right into errant sniper fire. Your whole lifeall ninety seconds of itflashes instantly before your visor. Then your head is snapped cleanly off like a breaking celery stalk, and tumbles down a grassy hillside.
Yet, you live. For a few precious moments, your consciousness remains, and through fading vision, you watch the Warthog driver stop, leap from the vehicle, and run to your body, which has fallen belly-down over a rocky outcropping. Whats he doing? Is he trying to help you? Cant he see its too late?
Gingerly, delicately, the driver steps up to the rear of your body, then backs up a few inches, steps forward again. And again. He mutters hehawesome. Yanking your eyes from the image of your body being defiled, you are affronted by two armor-plated testicles descending from above. The man crouching repeatedly over your head pauses only to take several screen caps.
Your brain finally ceases activity, and you log off to take the longest, hottest shower of your life.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
No one likes to get raped, and its even less pleasant when youre dead. Humping someones dead body isnt just nasty, its downright insulting. Youve killed him; you won. Chill out with the aggressive homoeroticism already.
Theres a reason that in all of human history, theres never been a civilization that showed dominion over their opponents by humping their freshly killed corpses on the battlefield. Except the Sumerians, but everyone thought they were dicks.
Appropriate Punishment:
In-game, real-time ritual castration to be performed by the respawned victim.
#4.
Level Abuse (Gluttony)
Youve been playing WoW for a while now. Youd like to think that youve got the basics pretty down: ran a few characters up to level 12 or so, taken part in some big raids, attracted an in-game girlfriend who really seems like shes not a dude. You finally decide its time to take things to the next level with a PvP character.
And for a while, everythings fine. You get a small Alliance group going, engage in long, drawn out battles with Horde minions of equal strength, and pickup some wicked items to sell on eBay later. Your Dwarf Paladin, Captain_Tiny, is bruised but none the worse for wear.
That is, until a level 70 Warlock descends from the heavens upon a magnificent winged beast and slays you and your entire party with a wave of his hand.
As he loots your bodies and tosses your precious items into a gully, you demand an answer from beyond the grave. What the fuck, dude?!
He shrugs, steps over your body, and prepares to squat.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
The value of an accomplishment is directly proportional to the obstacles faced in the process. Graduating at the top of your class is an accomplishment, because you had to study hard, be genetically gifted or cheat like a motherfucker to make it happen. Not pooping yourself is not an accomplishment because any retard could do it (unless youre actually retarded, in which case good for you!).
Reaching a high level in an MMORPG is also an accomplishment because of the hours of dedication and mind-numbing repetition required. Using that high level character to kill low level characters isnt an accomplishment at all, because it takes no effort whatsoever.
So I guess what Im saying is, the type of player who takes pleasure out of bullying weaker characters is the type of person who probably considers it a good day when they end up in bed without human waste in their drawers.
Appropriate Punishment:
The infliction of a permanent, irrevocable level 10 level cap.
#3.
Team-Killing (Wrath)
A team of designers are putting the finishing touches on the multiplayer portion of their game. Someone at the table brings up the issue of friendly fire. This is a team game, after all; should teammates be able to harm each other?
Yes! Argues one of the designers, for are the bullets not real? If you drive one through someone at high velocity, do they not bleed?
No! Asserts another, for people are jackasses, and will shoot their own teammates for no reason whatsoever.
But, asks a third, should we really acquiesce to the darker side of human nature? Shouldnt we rather appeal to the best in our players by giving them the benefit of the doubt?
I dont care, announces the fourth, and they decide to leave friendly fire on, then share a delicious sheet cake, for it is one of their birthdays (lets say the third one).
Six months later, the game ships, and jackasses proceed to shoot their own teammates for no reason whatsoever. Cake remains delicious.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
Dont murder. Its a pretty universal rule, and one we often overlook when gaming. After all, do those zombies really deserve to get shotgunned in the face? Couldnt they have been rehabilitated, or simply outrun? Of course not, because killing is awesome, and after all, were just killing masses of brainless polygons.
But put a brain inside those polygons and you quickly discover that theres a time and place when killing is not awesome. That time is during a crucial team death match, and that place is your own base, surrounded by people you once considered your friends and allies.
Getting team killed is the ultimate betrayal; like Judas turning in Jesus except way more shitty. After all, Judas hanged himself out of guilt, while the guy that team killed you will at best write oops, my bad bro and at worst dance around your body shouting SNIPED! Did you see your head explode? Wicked!
Appropriate Punishment:
Always getting placed on a team with fellow jackasses, that you may kill each other for the duration of the game in an endless cycle of outraged revenge and rampant douchebaggery.
#2.
AFK-ing (Sloth)
Youve infiltrated the Blu base and laid waste to two scouts, a pyro and a soldier with your heavys minigun.
You never would have made it without the aid of the trusty medic by your side, who valiantly risked his life to keep you patched up and in good health. With Blus last command point just ahead, you pause a moment to savor the victory.
Good run, friend, you growl to the medic. No reply. Thats cool, you think, this dudes all business (or possibly Japanese).
Well, lets make it happen. You take a bold step forward, awaiting the warm embrace of the medics medigun, but none is forthcoming. As you hear the sound of Blu team members spawning ahead of you, all you can manage is a frantic mashing of the keyboard. Then the pyros are on you.
Its only twenty seconds later, while your corpse smolders on the ground, that you receive a reply from the medic:
Sry, AFK. Eating cheese sandwich.
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
Team gaming is about trust and dedication. How can you expect to coordinate an attack on the enemy if you constantly have to worry about your teammates bladder control and/or relative levels of hunger? You cant. Ask Patton.
Besides, how much self-control does it take to focus your attention for the duration of a three-minute match? If you listened to a song today, youre already qualified. Im not saying youve got to finish playing a video game while your house is burning down, Im just saying if you did, it would make God happy.
Appropriate Punishment:
Oddly enough, team-killing.
#1.
Exploiting (Pride)
Blizzards latest opus, Burgercraft, has finally hit store shelves. You unpack the patty-shaped disc, slip it into your computer and spend the next forty hours of your life perfecting your seed-to-bun ratio, stacking order and learning which kinds of hot deli mustard to pair with the wasabi mayo to unlock bacon. After conquering the single player campaign and defeating the menacing denizens of Filet Of Fish-Opolis, you decide its finally time to take this show on the road.
Beefy with anticipation, you load up Battle.net and start a multiplayer game with a computer-selected opponent. Assured that youre in for the epic fight of a lifetime, you immediately start producing lettuce harvesters and reinforcing your fledgling base with a perimeter of pickle spears and fry pits.
Suddenly, and without any warning other than the words kekekekekeke appearing onscreen, four zerglings invade your base and devour everything in sight. The game lasts all of five minutes, and youre left with nothing but questions. Questions like, What kind of douchebag plays like that? and A Zerg rush? How was that even possible?
Why Its Seriously Not Cool:
In theory, games are made so that, through a series of increasingly difficult mental and/or reflexive challenges, a human being interacting with the games interface can learn how to effectively manipulate it, then use that knowledge to accomplish objectives laid out by the designers and trigger the release of endorphins in the brain. This effect is known as fun, and it can also be achieved through sexual stimulation or narcotics use, although those methods dont feature nearly as many laser rifles.
At some point, a faction of gamers who actually un-ironically call themselves hardcore forgot all of that definition except the word objectives, and decided to treat video games like second jobs. They work at the game with grim, humorless dedication until they discover the best way to win, which is invariably to exploit a balance issue or design flaw, then they do that. Over and over and over again.
Their belief is that, by learning a rote mechanical action and having the endurance to repeat it without soiling themselves, they have become skilled at the game. And they are skilled; just like a robotic arm designed to punch a square out of a sheet of aluminum is skilled at that task. So yay for them!
Appropriate Punishment:
Being relegated to a server where all the players use exploits all the time, games average thirty seconds and the other player always runs a plug-in that makes all his units turn into Jesus piloting a Star Destroyer.
When not writing for Cracked, Michael roams the DC Wastes as head writer and co-founder of Those Aren't Muskets!
L4D2 is a mario kart mod. if you get to the finishing line first, you get your helping of health kits.
ReplyI severely hate people who button mash in fighter games like Mortal Kombat. It's like playing against a controller that's been programmed to spam you with Nigerian Finisher scams.
Replylol except if you're in wood league number 1 is all you get 90% of the time from Starcraft 2.
Reply"use Donkey Kong to grab the winning player and walk off the edge of the level." DK's best move.
ReplyI love rts games. My favourite thing to do is to just hold back and build myself up and let my opponent build up. My best against his best. seeing and fuckton of your troops enter battle with a fuckton of theirs is always epic, even if you lose the encounter. Seeing half a dozen units SLOWLY wipe out your base is dumb and frustrating.
ReplyThis articles was decent. I honestly dont see the problem with tea bagging. if i was the one who killed you, then i feel entitled to hover my nuts above your face and press "crouch" in rapid succession.
Reply#1 is why i stopped playing most online games. but maybe it has something to do with john cheeses article, too, about online gaming.
Replymy best friend's lil brother treats games as a job. plays practice mode for 8 hrs at a time for fighting games, looks up cheap strategies to use against people online. takes ALL the fun out of games. but he plays at beginner level just to get 'acheivements' which to me goes against the definition of the word.
How can spawn stealing not part of this? Dating back to friggin EQ, waiting hours and hours to kill something and BAM - stoled. EQ2 helped that... if you knew how to turn encounter lock on - which made all those idiots from EQ1 fanboi whine they couldn't take what was theirs and... aw hell... you know what I mean.
ReplyI once played a game of Supreme Commander and had a nuke left right as we won the game.
ReplyGuess what happened to my clanmate's commander unit?
How is #1 exploiting? Falling through the map floor on BF3 Metro is exploiting. Doing the FB trick on de_dust before it was patched (where throwing a FB in the right spot flashed everyone) is exploiting. Being good at a game is NOT exploiting. Maybe you should not be playing on ladder matches if you are completely unable to counter something like a 6/7 pool. You could have made #1 something as simple as Team Stacking or Pub Stomping, which wrecks online games.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesArticles like this are starting to make me loose faith in the Cracked staff.
This may be the unintentionally funniest comment I've ever seen on Cracked. Bravo, sir. And being on the wrong side of a balance issue sucks (see: everyone who uses Akuma in Steet Fighter) makes you an asshole.
The funny thing is that the system usually self-corrects: See also why over 30 Yuns were in this last EVO, and...I think 1 made it to the finals? If that? It was the same way with Ken last year: when so many people use the same character the same way, people who are even a TINY bit good can beat them in their sleep.
The whole point was that the whole early pool is easy to beat. Its not that hard, therefore, not an exploit. Exploiting refers to using an issue in the game to your advantage, not being good with a 'cheap' strategy. And besides, its not even a balancing issue. If you defeat the attack, they are left at a bad position entering in mid game (if you build right).
And Akuma takes damage like a seven year old girl. One wiff and you eat half your lifebar.
my best friends little brother treats games like a job because hes never had one. just because you think #1 doesnt described you, there are people like that. and it robs all the fun out of games. acheivement whores and people who look up cheap strategies for fighting games. they exist. just to make gaming less fun.
Again, there are two things wrong with the actual post, so lets stick to that.
1) ITS NOT EXPLOITING. Exploiting is using the games flaws in programming to gain an advantage over another player.
2) He is playing RANKED matches, not casual. You can match with other players in lobbies or just play with friends, and hash out ground rules. Ranked matches are whoever is the better player wins. If you haven't played SC2 before, its obvious that he was playing ladder (the COMPETITIVE mode), because he was assigned a match by the computer.
And for every cheap strategy, there are tons of ways to counter it. Well... in every game besides MvC2.
Team killing is a ritual that I dare not acquiesce for fear of retribution. Also, it's fun as s**t and if you don't shoot first you get shot first.
ReplyCamping wasn't on this list?
Replywhich deadly sin would that be.
Deadly Sin #8: Thou Shalt Not Be A Dick.
Swaim just created a religion and I am now part of the flock. Swaim, do you want all my money now or later?
Replythese things are generally why i hate online gaming
ReplyI actually prefer having limited interaction with others while playing games, even if it's in an online game, and know that I'm not the only person who prefers such mainly for many of the above reasons.
ReplyActually that's a lie, at least personally the main reasons are that it always seems like 75% of the people who are supposed to be helping are terrible and are so slow it's like they're all finger amputees and/or are completely clueless and asking s**t like "Hoow do u atack?" while getting their faces smashed in. In mmorpgs Those are the players with ridiculously low levels/bad gear and no skill who take up space on a team despite the fact that they obviously have no place being there seeing as they obviously don't even know the basics of playing. Meanwhile it always seems like there's about 2-3 players on the other team that dedicate their lives to the game and destroy everyone just to amplify the frustration.
While online games can be pretty awesome when you get a group of people who, even if they aren't experts at the game, at least know enough that they can function pretty well and can intelligently ask if something is confusing, and if you're confused they'll help without being assholes, the better portion of the time the people in online games are...just absurd. In a terrible, terrible way.
I don't even know where they come from or how they can stand to play a game and still be that bad and clueless, running around flailing like retards somehow having no idea what in the name of god they're doing and never trying to find instructions while somehow not being embarrassed even in a game by how f*****g stupid they act, but those kinds of players are all over, and I shudder to think how they must function in real life.
Don't know if it has been mentioned, but I HATE people who team kill if you pick up a weapon they think is rightfully theirs. Not just within the course of the game, but right when the game starts! You spawn in, pick up a sniper rifle, and get assassinated/shot so your D-hole "team mate" can loot you. To make matters worse, they are GARBAGE with it! They weren't even good with that weapon to begin with. I tell you, some peoples kids...
Replywas sort of mentioned in the first part, avarice/item theft
I remember playing starcraft with some other people through battlenet, us against four computer opponents. One of them started too close to the enemy and ended up being mostly destroyed so I let him share some of my base till he got back on his feet. He thanked me a short while later by nuking all my buildings and replacing them with his own, leaving me with enough to stay in the game but not enough to actually do anything.
ReplyHis excuse? "At least I let you stay in the game!" With the other players agreeing with him and telling me to "stop whining."
IF I had the patience I would have waited until the last enemy building was about to be destroyed then dropped the alliance and quitting before they could finish me off, ending it in a draw, but I just don't have that kind of time!
dude i know exactly what you mean. me being new to the series i was jaw dropped how so many players just rush i was like "come on, there has to be more strategy then this?" Nearly killed the game for more. I play mostly custom modes now instead of the ladders. at least in those i can have fun and there better balanced.
I had a guy pull the "quit before he loses" thing on me during an online game of "Catan", for gods' sake. He cussed me out, quit before I could win, and rated me "unsportsmanlike"...because I put the robber on a space he had buildings on.
ReplyI used to build walls around my teammates town center in Age of Empires II. They couldn't build a new one until later in the game and they couldn't get later in the game without being able to get to their town center. And they couldn't attack my units.
ReplyI only did it against friends though; I wouldn't attack random teammates except picking off a teammate once or twice in call of duty and pretending I thought he was an enemy. Ok, I'm exactly the kind of player who enjoys team-killing. Only my thin sense of honor keeps me from doing it all the time.
That was good fun. I used to use the "Attack Ground," command with Siege weapons to destroy their buildings.
i would only do that to idiotic cpu allies
Ugh, I keep getting a*****e casseroles who join my L4D2 server and waste the whole team and scream UMAD. I'd add in people who constantly abuse the game physics; closing doors on you or moving furnature and s**t in your way when you're trying to run. Punishment? Maybe any wall or item touched explodes in their face.
Replyu mad?