I was playing the Mass Effect 3 MP this morning and something occurred to me. I'm know I'm not the first one who's wanted separate sections in multiplayer games - one for normal people with lives and one for those bionic kids (and unemployed adults, lets be honest) who spend all damn day getting headshots and climbing leaderboards. But the main reason I want such a separation is because sometimes the mouth-breathing hordes start to make me feel a little guilty for not being more obsessed with a game. That's just craziness on my part. I wish there was a way for super-competitive players to have their own little world where they can yell at each other to their hearts content and leave those of us who are just trying to have fun to play on our own.
A little background - I've never been into multiplayer games because most of the ones I came across were shooters. I'm rubbish at FPS games, honestly because I don't find them that enjoyable. When I was a kid, my brother and I would play Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight together and he would wipe the floor with me until I was in tears with rage. He was just better than I was, and I didn't really enjoy the shooter aspects of the game enough to try and get better. Seriously, when you have the option of a lightsaber and Force powers, why would you ever use a gun? Same thing happened when I tried to get into one of the Halo games - I wasn't very good, and it wasn't enough fun to try and get better so I quit because who wants to spend an hour getting yelled at by aggro jerks about how much you suck? And thus began my exile from multiplayer gaming.
Cut to the last few years - there are more and more games out there with multiplayer aspects that aren't FPS based. The first one I really got into was Assassin's Creed - Brotherhood, and believe me it took a while for me to even try it. But, to my infinite surprise, it was incredibly fun and I was actually kind of good at it. Not scary good, mind, but good enough to come out on top on a good percentage of rounds. And there didn't seem to be the trend of "superior" gamers lambasting you for not being that great. I don't know if that was because stealth-based games attract a different sort of person or because mics were a bit superfluous and not many people used them. Turns out multiplayer can be fun if you enjoy the mechanics and aren't getting shouted at by "GlockSniper69" or some such nonsense.
So by the time Mass Effect 3 came out I was open to the idea of trying a shooter-type multiplayer game again. After all, it was in third person, not first, and it was an RPG. Surely things would be different. Ah, naivete is a beautiful thing. Anyway, I quickly found my favorite class mechanic in ME3 - the Vanguard. I was halfway through the single player campaign before I tried multiplayer and I was completely in love with that class. I like melee games and as I said I'm not that great at shooters, so the fact they included a melee class in the game was amazing. Until I found out that the aggro jerks with a superiority complex were alive and kicking - after I started playing a Vanguard in multiplayer I started seeing a lot of hate for that class online. It went from complaining that the class is cheap and overpowered to accusing anyone who plays it of being a kill-stealing n00b.
So yes, there was a little guilt on my part whenever I'd enter a game playing a Vanguard. It felt like being the last person picked for kickball and now your whole team is glaring at you like you have Ebola or something. At one point I even heard someone over the mic accusing me of not knowing how to play. This person's N7 rating was over 500 - mine is floating around 40. For those who have not played the Mass Effect MP, that number is the collective level of all your characters, and the max character level is 20. So this dude had leveled at least 25 characters to max level. That kicked my brain out of its unreasonable guilt complex right quick, and my thoughts went something like this: Yes, Mr. 500, I'm not as good as you because I have a life and I do other things like hang out with real people and go outside every once in a while. And I'm playing a Vanguard because I like to - its fun and I suck less at it. And if you're not having FUN playing a GAME why are you playing it in the first place? Of course I couldn't say any of these things because my computer doesn't have a mic on it, but I just muted him and kept going. And from now on, if I want to play a damn Vanguard, I am going to play one. I might play an Adept or an Engineer too, but I am not going to let you gormless tits make me feel guilty for playing my favorite class.
Back to separate sections in multiplayer games. There's nothing wrong with being super-competitive. Verbally abusive - wrong. Competitive - perfectly fine. But there are those of us who only play casually, who just want to have a bit of fun before they have to go to work, or write that paper that's due tomorrow. So after some thought, what I'd like to see is some kind of quiz you have to take before entering a multiplayer arena. Sort of like a litmus test for a player's mood - are you feeling laid back, or do you want to own some bitches? And people wouldn't always have to be in the same section. I came up with one specific to Mass Effect 3, but I think I'll put it in a separate post. This is getting kind of long.
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