Online gaming, it's more about the players than the game

I've been doing a lot of online gaming lately.  Definitely more than I used to.  My reason being that as little as a year ago I couldn't stand playing games with other people online.  I called them the great unwashed masses.  

Not because I have an inflated ego but rather because it was always a free for all that had less to do with playing the game than suffering the people playing it.

If you've spent any time playing games online you know what I mean.  You have the Rambo types who spend so much time with the game that it's doubtful they do anything else.  They tend to get irritated when you do anything to screw up "their" game.  It doesn't have to be an FPS game either, I've seen it in driving games and RPG's as well.

Then you have the new players who seem to spend all their time getting in the way  (Noob is such a nasty word)  Hey we were all new once so cut them some slack but I would suggest that new players find an unranked server.  Somewhere along the line players who frequent a game regularly become more concerned with their stats than their teammates so best learn your way around the game before joining them.

Finally, you have the cheaters of which you can be assured make up at least 10% of the players on any popular server.  So far Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 seem to be the most popular with the cheats so be warned.

There's a video series on YouTube called Battlefield Friends that hilariously recounts experiences with each of these characters.

There's a process I went through to finally start enjoying online gaming.  The first part is to remember that it's not all about you.  You're playing a team sport and you have to accept that not everyone has the same goal or ability.  I like to spend a few minutes watching the action and even spectating other players  if I can before getting into a game.  It's the best way to get the lay of the land and figure out if you want to stick around.

After awhile you begin to recognize certain indicators of whether or not a particular server is worth your time.  Probably the most obvious (and common) is a server being dominated by cheaters.  If the game is relatively new and the scoreboard shows a ridiculously wide point spread that's your first hint.

In a fair game no one player is going to completely dominate another team especially if you have more than 10 people on your side.  If your game allows it, check the real-time stats of the players.  In an FPS, for example, a player who has 30 kills and no deaths in 5 minutes is likely a cheat.  If the admin of the server allows it there's nothing you can do but find another server. 

Another trick is to look at the level of the players on the server.  Every game has its bonuses and perks for leveling up which grants a slight advantage to the recipient.  If all the players on the server are 20 levels above you then find another server that's a bit more balanced.  If you want to try to compete anyway, feel free, just don't take it too seriously when you end up being everyone else's target dummy.  This is the reason why games like Team Fortress 2 have defaulted to player matching instead of letting you easily just join a server.  Modern Warfare 2 and 3 take this route as well with admittedly less than ideal results.

Once you start getting some experience and earn a few perks you'll find that your tolerance for other players will increase dramatically.  After all, it's addictive to level up which makes it all the more worthwhile to invest the effort.  That and the fact that you're not losing as often.  There's nothing like a victory or two to make up for a being a practice dummy.

I've been involved in both incredible and equally awful online game experiences.  Just like real life you make the most of what you have and if it's too awful you learn to cut your losses and move on.

In time you'll start finding like minded players and if you're lucky you can join up with them which increases the chance for having more good than bad games.  Some players even go as far as to rent their own game servers exclusively for use by their membership.  Yes I said membership which means throwing a few bucks in the pot.  If you really enjoy a game and intend to play it on a regular basis this isn't a bad idea but you'd have to be pretty serious about the game.  Casual players won't get much out of it.

I've been playing Battlefield 3 and Team Fortress 2 quite a bit as of late.  It seems cheating has been running rampant on many of my favorite BF3 servers.  In some cases so much so that I've dropped them from my favorites list.  That doesn't mean I'll never go back but I know that at this point in time it's not worth my effort. 

Team Fortress 2 has so many mods and perks that it's hard to tell a cheat from someone who's just an advanced player.  This is where the matchmaking fails in TF2 as you can be dropped into a server with players that you couldn't hope to even scratch let alone defeat.  TF2 is almost a cult following and the community and server admins do their best to keep the cheats out.  It may take a bit more patience to find a good server but when you do it's worth all the "pownage" you suffered before.

Again, it's about the players not the server.  What generally happens when cheats dominate a server is that the serious players will start dropping off of it in mass.  In the span of a few days a popular server can be consistently empty.  Even the cheats will leave if they don't have anyone to abuse.   There's no point in being a predator if there's no prey and cheating another cheat is like Superman fighting his own clone.  Powerful but unproductive...

That happened on a BF3 server called ATF Killer B recently.  It was consistently one of the most popular North American servers but was invaded by cheats.   Every game was dominated by the same few players causing everyone else to give up.  For weeks the server never had more than a few players on their 64 player maps even during prime gaming hours.  Only recently has it begun to come back and it appears the cheats are being kept at bay from all the players I've seen kicked off the server. 

In the end the key to enjoying online gaming is to learn to read the players.  You can tell a lot from a scoreboard before ever setting foot on the map.  It's also helpful to know what is and isn't possible in the game to identify when you're being cheated.  Spend some time on unranked servers to learn the ins and outs of what's possible. 

Just remember, there are no rocket packs, jump boots or light sabers in Battlefield 3...