Sportsmanship in Games

[kTrmnatr]

Perhaps this is considered unsportsmanlike like but when I'm just trying to get through my game and some person invades me so that they can benefit from inconveniencing me I just DC them. All I want to do is finish the game and move on, I hardly call the duels fair when my best chance of winning is them somehow falling off something. How am I supposed to compete with fully upgraded weapons before Ive even got past level 20. Being unable to escape any other way but quitting to the dashboard is kind of a dick move in a game that's hard enough already. Under those circumstances I think being polite whilst a nice touch is completely unnecessary considering that I won't think any better of them after they are cheering on my corpse and I have to backtrack to where I was to get my souls back and lost my humanity.

This is normally the point I get called a casual despite being a bigger gamer than they are.
It's like the difference of sitting down to a game and just having fun and metaphorically fighting the game to death for the fun and in this case just trying to figure out what the hell is supposed to be happening.

If you don't particularly feel like playing Dark Souls with other people, you can opt to play in offline mode for that session, or go through the game hollow; that being said, I can totally empathize with being frustrated with players who make specific builds to brutalize other people who are just starting the game. Oh, and players who camp cliff-side areas and spam Wrath of the Gods...irritates me to no end. I think you would do well to recognize that the slogan of Dark Souls is "You Died" though xD

As far as your use of the dashboard quit, I don't think that's really unsportsmanlike unless you do it after you've clearly demonstrated that you are willing to take part in combat. If you quit right from the get-go, the other player should be able to figure out that you just weren't in the mood for PvP. If you quit after a few minutes of combat with 1/4 HP left, that's definitely unsportsmanlike (unless you come across a hAx0rZ or something, I guess).

Sportsmanship is about facilitating a fun and fair experience for both the winners and the losers, and encouraging participation on both sides. As a winner, you should be gracious and appreciative of the participation of the loser(s), because they allowed you to have a fun experience by playing. As a loser, you should be (again) gracious and continue playing through to the end, recognizing that you want others to do the same when you are winning. Unfortunately, the anonymity of online MP can make it really easy and tempting for players to violate this setup.

 

[Vegosiux]

You want a good look at a really unsportmanshippy group fo players? Play a few games of League of Legends, seriously! I love the game and play it but the fucking people, might be that I always have ba dluck but I always go with gg after a game, and always small letters, doesn't matter if I win or lose. I play for fun!

League of Leagues always being one of the examples that I can say that I have seen the jerks outnumber the people that are not. Moba games in general have more jerks than anything... (yay! more generalizations!)

There's a rather feasible explanation for that. See, games tend to last for a while. So whoever lost, feels like they've just wasted an hour of their time. That tends to make people cranky.

That's for example why the dominion games in LoL are more relaxed in general, they're shorter so even if you lose it doesn't feel like such a waste of time, unless you lose several in a row.

As for the "GG" thing, hey, sorry, I don't dig fake politeness. I tend to just be quiet and go about my business. Only comment when it's "Weirdest game ever" or "Shame that guy ragequitted on you, guys". But "GG"? Nah, just doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Don't want to sound like an old man complaining about the kids, but does anyone else think that sportsmanship and manners in gaming has deteriorated?
When I was playing Halo 3, GoW and CoD 4 the majority of messages were positive such as GG or thanks and abuse seemed to be in the minority.
But these days playing Reach, GoW3, MW3 and BF3 I find that I hardly ever get positive feedback and only get abuse.
I play almost exclusively on XBL, so maybe that alters things but I think that when gaming (online) was new everyone felt the same way; we were all just as glad to be playing the game and interacting with others. As time lapsed however, the competitive edge took control and it became less about the social aspect of playing with friends or meeting new people and more about having an awesome KD or wicked video to upload.
Just my opinion...

It's actually gotten worse since Halo 3? That's not even that far back. Players were definitely nicer on average back in the late 90's/early 2000's, but it's hard to believe that it's gotten even worse since the start of this console generation.

By the way, I still see good sportsmanship, even in games with supposedly terrible communities like LoL. In fact, if you want to see some really good sportsmanship, hop on an older game with active servers. I've recently picked up Battlefront II again after buying it during the Christmas sale on Steam but not having much time to play, and it's full of good sports. There's the occasional jerk claiming everyone's a hacker, but most of the players will not only say GG at the end of a match, but NS, GF, N1, TY, and for exceptionally good games, GFG are all still in active use. It's like taking a step back into the days when online gaming was less being yelled at by strangers and more going to a friendly neighborhood gameshop without leaving your house.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Luckily for me, I don't really deal much with unsportsmanlike behavior.

Last time someone bitched at me was whenever I won a match in Mortal Kombat with strategic use of blocking. My opponent messaged me after (I guess I'd call it) mock blocking a bunch in the second round, saying something to the effect of "i can blok too faget."

Little bitches, man. Little bitches.

Fortunately, I've yet to see butthurt bitches on Skullgirls or Third Strike. Hell, the people I've messaged there seem downright gentlemanly. Even in Killzone 3, I've yet to get asshole messages. I think I've gotten teabagged a few times, and the people responsible can certainly suck a fat sack of cocks in hell, but I haven't gotten messages.

 

[him over there]

See this is why I play pokemon, nobody with any self respect is going to do anything unsportsmanlike. We have established rules, we have a peer reviewed tier list, we have colloquial phrases to congratulate each other.

 

[Epidemiix]

You want a good look at a really unsportmanshippy group fo players? Play a few games of League of Legends, seriously! I love the game and play it but the fucking people, might be that I always have ba dluck but I always go with gg after a game, and always small letters, doesn't matter if I win or lose. I play for fun!

League of Leagues always being one of the examples that I can say that I have seen the jerks outnumber the people that are not. Moba games in general have more jerks than anything... (yay! more generalizations!)

There's a rather feasible explanation for that. See, games tend to last for a while. So whoever lost, feels like they've just wasted an hour of their time. That tends to make people cranky.

That's for example why the dominion games in LoL are more relaxed in general, they're shorter so even if you lose it doesn't feel like such a waste of time, unless you lose several in a row.

As for the "GG" thing, hey, sorry, I don't dig fake politeness. I tend to just be quiet and go about my business. Only comment when it's "Weirdest game ever" or "Shame that guy ragequitted on you, guys". But "GG"? Nah, just doesn't seem to serve any purpose.

Right, I can see why some people might be upset at wasting an hour of their life losing but its not just the losing party that seems to be sore over it. Most of the games that I have played in League have had far more jerks in them than actual.... non-jerks? Ok, lets go with that, non-jerks. Overall I have seen less jerk-ish behavior out of League than I have of Dota. I deceived that the terrible attitudes of the people that play Dota has to do with a form of elitism of understanding a game that is sort of complex in its nature. (Seriously try to explain how league and Dota work gameplay wise... its tough).

The one thing that doesn't make that much sense then out of these two points, what of the people that play games that are not very complex and do not take that much time to play a round of two in. I am sorry to say this because this seems to be not fair, but most FPS are in this category and yet a lot of poor sportsmanship seems to come form them also. I have always wondered why it seems that these types of games have attracted the same if not more poor attitude players than the other games.