I wonder if they were fired?
No one that we would ever really know about, just some poor schmuck who had the misfortune of posting new Xbox Live features in the Microsoft Knowledge base before it was ready. Two days later, the official announcement went out, I think more out of mercy rather than plan.
This had the unfortunate effect of exciting every Xbox Live user around the world. Multiple downloads? Improved playback of content? Cleaner way of finding your Marketplace items? Keeping your music playing between different games? Who wouldn’t be. It’s a great update, and one that was promised “sometime next week.”
Alas, next week came and went, without an update. It would also appear that I was the only one not surprised by this particular development. Or perhaps you haven’t seen the blood in the forums of Xbox.com, or in the comments of Major Nelson. The Internet has the unfortunate ability of turning the most timid person in “Real Life (RL)” into the most vicious complainer in “Virtual Life (VL)”.
Anonymity is like alcohol, you get enough of it, and you’re saying whatever you want, sense is (frequently) optional of course.
Now I know what some of you are thinking: “You’re one to talk Hawkes, you bash all the time in your articles and on the podcasts.” True, but I’m not doing it anonymously. My name is David LaMont, says so on my birth certificate. That’s not anonymous, that’s borderline journalist. Hank257 posting on a forum is probably nothing but a VL complainer who keeps his mouth shut in RL.
I’ve already gone over whiney bastards and their over-the-top ways of describing hate or dislike for something. Instead I’m going to focus on the dimming line between RL and VL and how it’s going to affect gaming.
It’s been happening gradually, since giving my name on this site. Sure everyone still calls me Hawkes save for Adam, but the line between the VL and RL really did start to break down at that point. No more did I find myself in a comfortable place of just simply going for broke and complaining about everything under the sun. Granted I don’t really think I’ve diminished in my complaining, but I find that I have tempered it better than I did when I was simply Cooper Hawkes.
I don’t immediately jump on the defensive; I play devil’s advocate in my mind, because no matter that there are always two sides to every story. I give a bit of weight to the opinions around me before coming to my own conclusions, and I find that someone’s eloquent typing in a forum post does not as easily sway me.
This has actually carried over into my online gaming. Even people who have no clue what Gamer Andy is, if I’m playing them, I present a levelheaded, and sometimes quirky, but never quite vulgar, nor rude game player. The few times I have cursed I’ve immediately apologized.
In short, I act like I would in public. It’s a lesson that a lot of people in the VL can learn.
Now someone’s thinking: “That’s nice Hawkes, and I agree, but what the hell does that have to do with gaming?”
Simple actually, I believe that it’s in the best interest of all gamers to start taking these habits into online gaming. Since every next (or in Nintendo’s case, NEW) generation gaming console is promising a level of online community building, it’s time someone said what we all felt, people need to start acting in VL, the way they do in RL.
Xbox Live includes a feedback system, if you haven’t used it when someone was inexplicably rude, then it’s your own fault you got someone like that again. No, I’m not trying to teach VL manners by any stretch; I’m just saying that if you don’t go walking up to strangers in RL yelling “FUCK YOU!” to their face and laughing, why do you do it in VL?
Cause you’re a spineless coward.
Now I’m thick skinned, so the little fuckers that swore they were going to teabag me during a recent match of Halo 2, got nothing but a smile from me and bad feedback. Oh it was sooo tempting to come back with “Teabag me when your balls drop ok little boy?” but I held my own, no reason to sink to their level.
As we all should. The only way we’re going to curtail these little peckerwoods is by taking away the thing they love the most, attention.
Yes this is nothing more than a long diatribe, which could be summarized as “Don’t feed the trolls”, and I’m sure you’ll also tell me that you don’t, but you do or else I wouldn’t need to say this.
Right now there’s just Xbox Live, it’s niche and it’s currently a gamers only area. But it’s not going to remain that way, and the minute it gets bigger, and Sony and Nintendo throw their hats into the ring with their services, it’s going to make the community vulnerable to attacks for the Jack Thompson’s and sensationalist media’s of the world.
What could be the fallout? Well with the ESRB up against the fence, how about any Online games immediately getting an M or AO rating, since there’s no way to know for sure if some tiny pricked twelve your old is going to scream “I’VE GOT A HUGE BLUGING COCK!” throughout a match of S.O.C.O.M 4?
Sure on the one hand it sounds great, since then only adults would buy the games, but the negative effect could be game companies not bothering with an online component to maximize selling potential of a game.
I agree that this is hypothetical, but didn’t we all once say that the ESRB would never re-rate a game based on it’s POTENTIAL to have extreme nudity or violence? The recent Oblivion re-rating should answer that particular debate right there.
All it takes is one angry and organized bad-parent, to start screaming at the top of their lungs to start really messing it up for all of us. The creators of the consoles and the software have been kind enough to leave us unmonitored, which leaves it up to us to police our own.
The alternative choice is less gaming selection, and the end of this wonderful community that we’ve built up simply from love of video gaming.
Think I’m exaggerating, or reading too much into it? Maybe, but it’s better to start acting against these immature fucktards now, then it is to write up an article bemoaning the end of online gaming because of them.
It’s up to you, and me.
Semper Fi!
Indeed. As I have read somewhere, forget the retail games - if parents heard what is going on over XBL during games, they would have a heart attack.
I'm kind of divided on this one.
On the one hand, I don't like the little pre-pubescent shits that I have to deal with online. I have the Editors' Choice Edition DVD-ROM version of Unreal Tournament 2004 and I was playing an online deathmatch against a bunch of terrible n00bs. One round I beat the second place finisher 71 to 19! The round after that I saw a player type into the chat, the words, "SUCK SOME COCK!!!" in big letters, twice! Non-gamers who might be seeing this could get a terrible impression of who we are because of little shits like this. Me personally, I'm not a braggy, egotistical winner but when I lose I do complain as to the fact that my game is off. My typical phrases are "Dammit! Why is my game so off?! gg though!" and stuff along those lines and I don't get nasty with someone unless they get nasty first. I do have a right to self-defense, but I wouldn't call that rude. I'm actually a rather well-mannered person online if I'm not being jumped on. With me, remember this: Respect will beget you respect and hate will beget you hate, so don't insult me and expect me to bend over and kiss thine royal l337 ass.
I also agree with rude people in online games not shutting the hell up. It would be really bad with MMOs especially because I'd be, with WOW, be paying about $50 plus whatever the next expansion is going to cost plus the $78 for a six month subscription plus any local taxes that might be put on MMO play, and for what? To hear a kid who hasn't hit puberty yet dropping F-bombs or using bigoty slurs? To hear an egotistical, braggy asshole saying how damn great he is? To hear some egotistical feminist beating me and throwing her sex up in my face in the process and not giving a shit? People discussing their issues with society? People trying to bash me based on whatever little issue they have been having that day? No frickin' thanx! I'd be paying money to play the game (or sometimes free), not listen to some flame war or some Kumbaya, hippy, let's-hold-hands campfire discussion of what's bugging us. Leave that for the internet sites, discussion sections like right here, or for the vast number of web forums out there, but keep it the hell out of my game. I want entertainment which is escapism from reality, not throwing it back in my face when I don't give two shits ATM!
On the other, I don't see much wrong with the idea of being pissy and complaining in and of itself. It helps to advance an artform. If it weren't for those that are pissy then every artform would be complete crap thousands of times over. Every medium has AND needs its' critics. So when it comes to games I can't blame the cynical players for being the way they are because games have not reached a status of artistic quality, we have to weed through sucky piece of shit after sucky piece of shit, and the companies that make them are insulting our intellegence and/or who we are.
Other than this, we need to cool off a little for the sake of our own image. Damn good article that really got me to thinking a little. I did have my own opinion when I came in here and it's still intact as of now, but it's just been twisted just to a little bit different of a direction. Real thought provoking, Hawkes! :)
"Respect will beget you respect and hate will beget you hate..." Rings truer than most other life lessons I've heard.
I'm about the same as far as complaining goes. I'll say "Damn, my game is off today." if I'm doing crappy. In a sense I'm almost nicer online than I am with my close friends. I actualy do try and treat it as a real life situation. To be honest ever since I got on the net and chatting to people and that I've wanted to be truthful and I was never afraid to give out my real name. (Not the whole thing because, Oh no! the internet pirates will get me! But still ...)
Swearing never bothers me unless it's in excess. Then it gets a little anoying because it just means the other person is whining fruitlesly about something that, in the grand sceme of things, is utterly pointless. I don't even sware on servers that don't request you not to swear. Even if I feel I could rip someones head of for endlessly killing me and me being helpless to stop them.
Too many times have I seen people break server rules, get kicked only to come back and complain about how their rules were unfair. To me that seems like walking into someone elses house, pissing on their carpet then getting mad when they ask you to leave.
Either way, great article Hawkes.
Excellent article, Hawkes!
Unfortunately it's the nature of the beast ... people will, anonymously, act with impunity because there really is no way to reinforce rules. It comes down to having good manners (spot on example, Robotkio) and respect for each other, both which seem to be a lost art.
I agree, if I'm spending money for entertainment, I should be able to actually enjoy my experience ... but how many concerts have you gone to where some drunk kept screaming in your face, jumping up and down in front of you or standing on his/her chair, only to end the night by puking on your shoes? There's (at least) one in every crowd.
As for the plethora of kids' bad behavior online ... I have two words for that. Chocolate Milk.
Just so y'all know, I wasn't lying when I said what I said about me playing online. I really did do that well, at least against them, and they really were typing that stuff in. Bunch of immature little shits.
I'm glad to see you agree with my philosophy on how to deal with others. I have quite a few of those up my sleeve. I may be young, but I'm not stupid. BTW, your example of people complaining about server rules was hilarious one! lol :)
I only get nasty online if the other person does it first, get on my ass and I'll jump down your throat, otherwise nothing but peace and love.
To Sharon, I have a better idea than taking away the chocolate milk. Unhook the damn PC, Mac, or game console. It's not physically fused to the power sockets, you know. Even better, all rude assholes in online games should be sent a virus that blows the little son of a bitchin' game system the f*** up to where they can't harass others anymore! lol ;P
It's just way too sad that nicer gamers have to both hear this and have it ruin their image in the eyes of the non-gaming public. Makes me want to cry :S
For all the "community" built up around Xbox Live, I find that I'm pre-arranging games amongst friends to avoid the antisocial VR behaviour Hawkes is talking about. I've given up on having any fun with random people in Halo2 - its just not worth the effort. If I'm playing with my friends we can smacktalk each other all we want without fear of offending someone (well really without fear of someone taking it the wrong way and banning us).
Perhaps the best way to deal with this is to force under-16s to have "kiddie" accounts, which parents would be required to set up themselves (so that they understand what the terms of use are), force the "kiddies" to play against each other and restrict their access to mature games.
"Its like paddling pools, once you're big enough then you get to swim with everyone else, until then go and pee in your own pool"
It'll never happen, but hey.
Even if we made "kiddie-accounts" it wouldn't stop them all. There are full grown adults that do this shit too. That same server I played on was maintained by full-grown adults and when the real challenges hit that server a few days later I had to personally deal with it directed at me and I got nasty back. Found out that a lot of the people on that server were of legal age and even older than me, based off of the website they gave for their server information box. Assholes come in all ages, believe me.
The "chocolate milk" I was referring to is the famous (or rather infamous) video/audio of a 9 year old arguing with his mom while on XBL.
If you haven't seen this, do a Google video search for "chocolate milk" ... it is a perfect example of the behavior we are complaining about but it also shows that, with some kids, it's not just online and, with some kids, the parent is pretty damn ineffectual.
My best friend in RL and in VL happens to be an African-American male. When we hang out in RL, people suppress their prejudice (I live in Louisiana, and he only recently moved to Georgia). In VL, however, people (possibly those same people) never think twice about screaming the "n" word at him simply because he happens to be a black gamer.
People make statements to the effect of gaming entering and defining a "next generation," but is this truly the direction we want to be heading? As racism dies (slowly, yes) in RL, should we flock to VL, where racism runs rampant?
Never heard of that one Sharon. I might check it out.
As for you Trey, I can understand you to a point.
"People make statements to the effect of gaming entering and defining a "next generation," but is this truly the direction we want to be heading? As racism dies (slowly, yes) in RL, should we flock to VL, where racism runs rampant?"
Racism or discrimination of any kind is a touchy subject as is not some grand thing to be proud of. It's a very primitive thing to discriminate based on being part of a particular group that hates another. On the other hand it's virtually impossible to rid ourselves of our preconcieved notions of others, so in the mean-time we need an outlet to vent these primal instincts.
But why? In this PC society of ours we're expected to suppress our urges to judge others by what group they belong to. It seems like you can't poke fun at anyone of a certain group without the PC police jumping down your throat telling you how damn wrong you are even if you feel like this. Racism or lookism or whatever you want to call it is a very negative quality of human intellegence and it's an offensive concept to even think about, but I consider it an even more offensive concept for some other politically correct loving person or people to think their standards of what's appropriate are better than mine. In other words their not only trying to judge for me the difference between right and wrong but I consider it to also be a tad arrogant and bossy.
I may be a nice person in real life and online so you may think of what consequence is this to me and for the most part you'd be right, but I still want a portal to freely vent my anger and problems with another type of person. Not being able to vent it, like I believe the PC people to be doing, is unhealthy in terms of venting my frustrations for fear of being punished or socially ostracized for saying something.
To me it's a moral dilemma: Either risk bottling up my anger and views and just blow up and/or start to feel sick inside, all for political correctness, or let it loose and risk people hating me for it. To me it would seem like either way, I'd be screwed.
So Trey, correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I don't think racism is really so much dying in real life as much as I think it's just hiding underneath the surface due to the uptight prickiness of American society, and the people who feel oppressed by expectations to shut themselves up are using the internet and online gaming to let it loose where they can't let it loose anywhere else. I mean hey, the people who go online are real people and they don't just do things on the net without in some way meaning it or believing in it one way or another. It's not like as if a persons' RL or VL personality are two different personalities, but one in the same personality, just two different sides to it.
So if racism, sexism, lookism, or any other prejudice offends us too easily that just goes to show a lack of strength on the part of any of us. We may hate it and we may condemn it, but we can't just sit here and be offended by everything that everyone says that we find objectionable. Remember this, and this just how I feel, we should respect the qualities one another has which also should encompass our sense of prejudice. I mean no offense, just giving a touch of constructive criticism.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not some bigoty skinhead, I'm in fact EXTREMELY far from it. But telling others to censor their sense of prejudice up is in turn oppressing them and put them in their place, just as they did to you or in some way tried to. It would prove you no better than them, sort of a matter of stooping down to their level. The whole "you want to tell me what I am so I'm going to try and tell you who you ought to be" type of arguement if you ask me is a bit childish, IMHO.
I do however think there is such a thing as taking it too far towards either side of the arguement. I wouldn't want to be either to oppressed nor bossy of others. I like to stay in the moderate middle in this regard.
If I offended any of you then I apologize, but I'm blunt and I refuse to be told what to say or not say. There's my two cents. Tried my hardest to look at things on both sides of the arguement, that's why my post is so long.
I believe people have a right to free speech. This is, however, as long as it isn't hurting anyone. I agree people need to vent, but they don't need to do it to someone who make take offence or get pissed off from it.
"I do however think there is such a thing as taking it too far towards either side of the argument." I think a fair number of people missed that lesson. I mean, heck, I don't know one kids show that didn't have at least one episode that touched on overcompensating.
If someone takes offence to things easily then I think that could denote a weakness in their self confidence. The more someone can laugh at themselves the less would bother them.
In essence Political Correctness (which I would consider a form of censoring) is just an easy way out. Or at least people think it is. Just seems like an, "if I can't see it, it's not happening," or more to the point, "if I don't use the REAL word no one is offended," sort of thing.
I find being offended by the USE of a word very stupid. If someone were to say "Fuck, I burned my finger!" I wouldn't not be offended. I know some people would be. I assume not too many people here considering it is a mature podcast, but still. I may be offended if someone were to say, "You're a moron." and they WANTED to offend me.
Eh, to sum it up I think it's much easier to put up walls but much healthier to teach awareness.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should subject young kids to intense violence or anything. I still believe that people need to be of a certain level of maturity before they should have access to things. The only thing I find unfortunate in that area is that laws assume that age is equal to maturity. But I think I'm rambling and way off topic.
Sharon; I remember seeing that Chocolate Milk video. Holy crap that kid is a spoiled brat. Laughed my butt off though when I watched it. :D
No, no Robotkio. I don't think that age is necessarily completely tied to maturity either. As I said before on this site, there are 12 year olds that could probably handle GTA or Soldier of Fortune as well as there are 30 year olds that probably couldn't handle Mario.
Also, if someone gets pissed off easily at what you say, then well...matters on the situation. Sometimes theres no need to offend someone of a certain group but a the same time this sense of warriness can wear a person thin. Believe me when I say that you can get an uptight feeling about what you say in either RL or VL for fear of offending somebodies sensibilities.
I also don't think that calling someone a moron or even a half braindead jackass is offensive if the person really was not thinking hard enough. A person like that deserve to have their own stupidity pointed out. Hell, the other day I was hanging out with my friends and I was sitting in the backseat of my friends car and all of a sudden it started raining. All the windows were halfway down, I rolled up mine, and told the rest of them to do the same. One of my friends misinterpreted me and start to roll the window down. I ask him what the hell he was doing and he said he thought I said to roll down the window. I said "Yes. Roll down the window to where it can rain all up inside the car! Dumbass!" You see, he didn't get offended because he realized his own stupid mistake, so only people who deserve it should be insulted.
Yes, but you weren't trying to offend him I don't think. That was my point. That it's not necesarily what someone says, it's what they mean behind it. I would realy only begin to take offense to something if actualy wanted to make me feel bad. This is outside of trash-talking, though. If it was some random stranger who decided to start mouthing off to me to try and get me pissed off I wouldn't care nearly as much as if my friend said something to me trying to piss me off.
#gamerandy on irc.gamesurge.net
Port: 20609
Password: chapple
