Top 10 - Why Multiplayer gaming sucks

Right up front I'll admit that I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know.  Just point your confused friends to this page when they're wondering why you're tearing up the furniture after your 150th round of Battlefield 3.

This list is ordered from what I feel is the most egregious to the annoying.  Your mileage may vary.   Too much of any of them puts the furniture in jeopardy.  

1. Cheats - This one's easy and we've all suffered them.  Aimbots, world hacks, stat boosters and the pond scum who love them.  Both Battlefield and Call of Duty are rife with these self-centered morons who ruin it for the rest of us.  There's just nothing like having hundreds of hours of experience in a game and getting pwned 50 times by some 12 year old with a $10 hack.  You can be sure that if the developer leaves an opening someone's going to exploit it.

2. Lag - You can't help this if say you're in North America and the server's in Germany.  Adding more

servers in a region can fix it but that rarely happens.  Which is probably why you're crossing an ocean to play in the first place. 

It can be almost imperceptible showing itself at those times when you know you should have hit what you were aiming at but didn't because it really wasn't there anymore.  Other times it can be more obvious with an annoyingly slow frame rate.  One of the worst cases you can suffer is the rubber banding  effect.  This is where your character keeps getting reset in the same spot as the server tries to compensate for excessive lag. 

Online games can be sensitive to player induced lag and many have instituted a maximum ping time to the client to combat it.  Most dedicated game servers will  try to tune the game performance to the slowest connected client.  Problem is,that can lead to the rubber banding effect so you're more likely to run into a maximum ping restriction.

3. Game Server Admins - Most online game servers are privately run with only a handful of "official"

developer controlled examples.  As such you have to deal with a game environment that doesn't necessarily follow the official template.  Ridiculously high ticket counts, weapon restrictions and draconian banning practices can ruin an otherwise good game. 

4. Player Matching - Call of Duty and Team Fortress 2 try to do it but never do it well, Battlefield 3 doesn't even try which means you could end up like a duck in a shooting gallery if you don't check out the leader boards before you join.

You'd think player matching would be a good thing but you usually end up with a bunch of players at a much higher level than you  anyway.  I prefer choosing my own servers but it would be nice if games like Battlefield 3 made it easier to figure out who you're playing against before you get in a game.  Something along the line of an average player level indicator or a color code in the server list would be helpful.  Are you Listening EA??

5. Who you have to play with - It'd be nice if everyone followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do but they don't.  Cheaters, noobs and people who just take the game too seriously can turn a game sour fast.  A few here or there can be safely ignored but in numbers you may as well give up.  It's why I prefer co-op.

6. Game tweaks - BF3 is the biggest offender.  Every patch contains "fixes" that change multiple game elements.  Weapon effectiveness , map elements or even the availability of equipment can be affected which makes every logon a roll of the dice.  Hmm, maybe that's why Battlefield's developer is named "Dice."  In their constant fiddling all they do is throw off the game balance and annoy players.  Worse it's usually done to support new DLC even if you don't buy it.

7. " Premium" - From reducing the amount of available servers for "normal" players to special "events" that give an unfair advantage.  This is the most blatant evidence of a software publisher's money machine in action.  From "double experience weekends" to early access to new maps this tactic will allow you to buy your way to the top of the leaderboards if you have the scratch.    

8. DLC - Make no mistake, this is nothing but a money machine for the publishers.  A few new maps and weapons may be nice to have but they end up skewing the whole game for everyone else.  DLC or downloadable content is meant to extend the life of an old game.  The more DLC available the weaker the core game is.  The mark of a great game is re-playability without a bunch of tacky add-ons.  If you have to keep adding content to keep things interesting you've either held something back at launch or your game is boring.  'Nuff said.

9. Huge Game updates -I realize that games have to be constantly fixed but there's no reason that a game that is 5 GB fully installed needs a 4GB patch every 3 months or EVER.  Publishers like to "preload" DLC and extra features whether you buy them or not.  So come patch day, everyone suffers.  Expect more of this as the new PS4 plans to "preload" full installations to your console based on what Sony "thinks" you'd like to buy.  Hope you're nowhere near your Internet Download cap!

10. Slow game joins - This could be lag but more likely it's just too much preload going on.  It wouldn't be such a big deal but sometimes the delay is so bad that the game ends before you get a chance to play.  You get tired of seeing "Loading" after a while.

Some of you may think I've missed one, namely "noobs."  Hey, like the say, we were all noobs once.  Instead of cursing them in the chat window just point them toward the unranked servers to practice on.  Otherwise let them learn the hard way...as practice targets.