Good game but "bad" Players?

[schmaila]

Hey there,

So I started playing Armagetron couple of days ago. Its very entertaining and I really enjoy the multiplayer BUT one thing kinda dampens the fun. Very VERY unfriendly player community, especially all those players who seem to belong to groups/clans (whatever you call it in Armagetron). One lil mistake as a noob and my a** gets booted from the server. Immediately! So disappointing to see that kind of elitist behaviour on a regular basis. So to all those pro's out there: plz show some patience with other players. Every ingame vote to kick me, makes me wanna deinstall the game and go back to my FPS and MMO's. Should I?

Anyhow,

Greetings from Germany

[ed]

You have a very good point that has been brought up before.

There is no denying that armagetron has very aggressive style of play. Unless you are very good you need to be aggressive in order to win.
This doesn't mean players have to be rude, but I guess they often go hand in hand.

If you're being kicked from the server I'm guessing you are playing fortress in one shape or another which makes you part of a team. That team may have a player(s) who would prefer to win than to try to introduce new players to the game of fortress. This I disagree with, unless they are clearly unwilling to learn. And I believe it is the main reason the fortress game has has taken a decline in recent months.
Athough the ladle 16 seems to have reawakened many players. Bravo!

I remember when the cvs test fortress (fortress's first incarnation) first arrived on the scene. No one know what they were doing, mostly non grinders, probably delving into their own zones to see what would happen. There was no kick vote. We all evolved. Many still play today.

Trouble is new players to fortress don't get this luxury we had. They make a couple of mistakes, a well known player starts a poll, enough follow to get him kicked. He/She may never come back again.

In answer to your question. Yes you should come back again. It is a brilliant game, really. You just need to understand the community, which at times can be difficult.

[radian]

schmaila ,dont give up cause its a great game once you get the hang of it,,i sudjest not going into the main fortress servers just yet until you have a reasonable standard of gameplay(learn your skills on servers where you are not in a team,,and your mistakes will only affect you) not all players are unfriendly to newbies,,and many will invite a newb to an empty server for some 1v1 to help out,,like i do,,the gameplay on the most popular fort servers is first class,,and it goes to follow you need to be pretty good before you enter those servers,,if you need any help just come and find me for some 1v1,, Radian

[sinewav]

Luckily schmaila, there are a lot of servers with decent people in them. Keep playing and eventually you will find "your home" - a place with friendly people and fun settings.

Oh, and I can be a real jerk sometimes. Just ignore me!

[Monkey]

schmaila you are totally correct about this and this is one of the things that annoys me the most about this game. There are, however, some players who are willing to teach, including me. Fortress is my favourite game mode and I had exactly the same issue as you when I started. I got kicked quite a few times when I was new but I realised how good fortress is and I kept coming back. I suggest that you do the same, don't give up on it, it is definitely worth the effort.

I also suggest "naming and shaming" of players that are constantly unfriendly to new players. If people behave like that to you then take screenshots of the conversation and post them on this forum. The screenshot key is in the menu under:
System Setup --> Misc Stuff --> Global Keyboard Configuration --> Screenshot.
You can make change that key to anything you like.

[onearmbandit]

just o to Yelow sub. or Cheers or some other high server and they will be more friendly i think

[Ratchet]

I bet I can solve your problems

Try this:

http://wiki.armagetronad.net/index.php?title=The_Basics

After you have read that, you can basically enter any server.
Ask information on the gametype if needed, so you don't get in trouble.

For instance:
you:"Hello, how does this game work"
pro:"No digging or sealing"
you:(wtf wtf wtf wtf is digging and sealing )

so the basics should help on that part ;P


However, for a specific gametype, read the server name, if you can't get information there try looking at the bottom of the screen in options.

for more specific help on a gametype:
(I cannot find this page, (LOL!) if someone can find it please put me at justice. I will try and write a page ASAP. )

[Tank Program]

I apologize for all the ass hats out there. The servers with fewer players, more around 3-5 if they're not tagged will be nicer people usually.

I think.

[Phytotron]

You're right; the player community is terrible (and it's not just in gimmick server team games), and you're not going to escape it. Assholes and cocky, shit-for-brains, snot-nosed teenagers pretty much became the overwhelming standard about 3 years ago or so. Before that it was a more mixed crowd to my recollection; still jerks but they seemed to be more the exception than the rule and were generally ostracised. Now they're embraced and glorified and run in herds.

"Hey, so-and-so is in this-or-that server, let's go harrass him! LOLMAX!!!" ... "You're so gay NOOB! Play by our idiotic made-up rules or we'll incessantly berate you then kick you!" ... "I'm the shit. Look what I can do, bitch! PWNED!" ...

That's the other half of the reason I "retired" from playing. This game was ruined on two principle levels—the player community and the developers.

[radian]

i dont beleive the way forward is to retire from playing because of the playground attitude of individuals who mostly end up being punished in game for being abusive/disruptive/or just plain annoying,and because of that they tend not to be around long anyway or move on to less popular servers where they get bored and move on .Retiring from playing just means there,s one less decent player around who can help change attitudes for the better,,,and as for // That's the other half of the reason I "retired" from playing. This game was ruined on two principle levels—the player community and the developers.// The developers and moderators who keep this game together are well aware of these issues and i must say in thier defence actually give real good advice when asked ,,,,so i,, hope to see you back on the grid,,because there is also a very dedicated group of players (the majority i would say) who want this game to progress ,sigh

[epsy]

People in tron are bitches.

While in other games banning someone for 2 days because he was acting like a prick is perfectly normal, in ArmagetronAd you get flamed for just kicking them and giving them the 4 minutes autoban. Even silencing them one round sounds like just plain non-sense to them.

I wish indeed such idiots to go away, or them to stop tell crap around about you. There are many perfect examples. Many. Maybe they will recognize themselves.

Maybe not. Those who don't are the real concern.
Those who realize about it actually understand their ban. Either they are really idiots(think about Izual, aka Durriel, aka the fake Plastik) and will just continue and even provoke admins (with insults that sometimes even went against the laws in Germany¹), either they realize their error, give apology, or not, but at least go on.
Those who don't realize what they are doing go on to whining, reporting about the operator's action here, and even when proved that they acted wrong, they repeat their facts, sometimes way later.
Either they are just a little dumb or distracted, either they are just trying to **** you up in your operator "functions", by provoking you by all means all the time.

These really need a break, or it's me who needs a break from them

First type I mentioned(Izual case) would need permanent banning, until they actually try to get in contact to give apology. It can happen.
The rest are those who will report here as soon as you do anything to them. At Café wrtlprnft preferred me to not do anything against those, but if it was only up to me, they would earn some bans, but not permanent(except if the player gets a dozen of bans like this, you shouldn't need to go for the permanent ban)

It's sad. Those are usually players that I used to appreciate, and all they do is talk crap.

Now to the newbies. The whining type is the one who will usually bash newbies, maybe unconsciously, I don't know. They won't attack them directly, trough. They will rather be really annoying to them, like:

Press SHIFT+ESC for help!

Lawl go to the (empty|unfriendly) noob server!

Are you the real "Player 1" ?

omg n00b..

Telling them to grind is not helpful either. For the half English-native players, they will get a hard time getting what do you mean with grinding. For non-native speakers grinding will be a new word to them.
This is not efficient, and don't tell me you tried teaching them after having said "omg n00b grind" to him.

Trying to teach..Some wouldn't even bother to say "omg n00b grind" and would go straight for a poll. Oh yeah, but it is a SUSPEND poll, not a KICK poll! Wait, tell me, do you feel a difference when you get kick-polled or suspend-polled? I don't.

This happened few days ago. A newbie comes, plays a few rounds. Player A after some rounds polls him. A moderator cancels his poll.
For Player A, this is unacceptable. YOU CANCELED MY POLL! Five minutes of arguing about the moderator's right to cancel a poll or not. The newbie left. Still arguing. I could finally move the arguing to why would he cancel the poll(yes, the moderator has been given the right to cancel polls, so let him use it, period). Laziness. Sit down, watch a newbie not grinding, wait a few rounds, then make the effort to go to Player Police menu. Either he assumes he's lazy and doesn't poll the newbie or he tries to help him. If the newbie still wont listen to anything, THEN you can give up and poll him. You don't give up to doing nothing.

I've just downloaded this game, went to the first server in list, and I've seen three people arguing about crap, well forget, I'll just uninstall it and play CSS.

That's exactly the thing you want to avoid, at least if you don't want to be an asshole.
Using a colored(or not) instant chat will rarely help, either. You must really talk to him, and not just sit down in a lightcycle.
As a final note, I think that it's better to start explaining the split then the grind. That's how I seen someone learning all by himself how to play fortress. I haven't really experienced with it, this may just apply to specific cases.

¹ I'm talking about the laws effective in Germany because that's where Café was hosted, which is where I had to deal with Izual.

PS: If you react aggressively to the first part of my post because I once banned you, you are just proving that you belong to one of these categories, so please, behave.

[sol]

I'm talking about the laws effective in Germany because that's where Café was hosted, which is where I had to deal with Izual.

Café clone is in Germany too. I've never thought about those German laws but they can be funny. Indeed.

[Phytotron]

Radian, you misunderstood, conflating two separate issues/complaints. When I talk about the developers' responsibility in having ruined the game, I'm referring to the development of the game itself. I'm not referring in that instance to any moderating relationship the developers may or may not have with the player community—to the extent that they even can or do (e.g., new policing code). I think the program itself was ruined, see. In addition and apart from that, the community meanwhile went down the toilet. That's two distinct (although not necessarily mutually exclusive) phenomena that occurred over roughly the same period of time.

And by the way, I quit playing something like three years ago; too late.

(Of course, another, even better reason for quitting is that there are simply far too many more interesting, productive things one can and should do with one's life.)

[sol]

And by the way, I quit playing something like three years ago; too late.

Phytotron, let me get this straight... You don't play this game since 2005 but registered on forums in 2005 and still talk with us while saying it's crap and tell us to do more productive stuff?

[K-Yo]

I also suggest "naming and shaming"

I agree that there is a real problem here (maybe have servers depending on levels? if only average/good players stopped using ctwf and go to ctwfl....)

but I disagree with the naming Idea... I don't like that, informing
Can't tell why but it just doesn't seem right to me