These boys have a lot of quitting in them

The cute, pop-up sound of signing into Xbox Live (the same tone for unlocking Achievements) is gratifying. It builds up your adrenaline -- your ready to play and compete online against real-life gamers. And that's what I did.

The "final" fight seemed a little disappointed with players I decided to insert Halo 3 into my 360 machine -- not because I haven't played it in awhile, but the fact that I like it better than Reach (map-wise). I forgot what a joy Bungie's game really is with its multiplayer -- the weapons, the persistent jump, and most certainly the vehicles -- it's a nice alternative if your a Call of Duty-freak and want to take a break from kill-streaking feens.

Then suddenly, during the match, my team vanishes; they're gone, retired, sayonara , you're all alone. Sure, it's my own fault for playing with a gamers I don't know, but that's not what bothers me. What makes me cringe is the fact that they left for the simplicity of losing. Some (actually many) people cannot accept failure. Haven't they ever heard of "You win some, and you lose some?" Thanks guys, I guess I'll take on the rest of the opposing team, or die trying.

I think of a resolution. "Okay, I'll just get better partners next time." I sure did, and we won. "Let's party up" one says. "Fine with me" was my response. At one point, we were confronted by insanely good Halo players, and they beat us down to China town. "F*** this" I hear from my one of partners." One down. "Yeah, they're cheating or something, this is bulls***." Another one withdraws. "I don't care if I lose XP, you all suck." See you later kiddo.

This doesn't just happen in Halo, I see this calamity happen more frequently in Call of Duty as well. Don't all of you remember how irritating it was in Call of Duty 4 when the host quits? Or how about somebody whom acquired the nuke in MW2? They all leave; these guys can't face their fate in the competition. So what if we lost? That's what online gaming is all about, much like sports.

You know what!? You know what I'm gonna do!? See ya' I know sometimes your connection is broken-down -- your Internet goes to hell. Happens to me as well. But think about it for a second, the host migration happens more so in Black Ops, and many times when you see the connection time out, it's the obvious fact that whoever left purposely zip-passed the quit method by exiting to the dashboard. Believe me, I've seen my friend do it before, and it's the weakest move in online history.

This balls-to-the-wall tactic ruins the joy and experience on Xbox Live. When low-blow moves like this grace the event, I have to remind myself as to why I don't play these games with random people anymore. It sure isn't getting any better for that matter. People often complain about the misfortune of joining a game that immediately ends -- the result could be from these actions.

Jeff Grubb just posted a couple days ago regarding some awesome new features on Modern Warfare 3 and its multiplayer. He describes one player can have all the perks in one game once they have earned them. Sounds cool to me, but expect the "quitters" to draw in like flies in a s*** factory. Finish the fight kids. Just saying.

Pictures courtesy of IGN, Wikipedia, and FTCDN.

Tags: Online, Xbox Live

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Sandy Morley

September 04, 2011

I've played dozens and dozens of matches on FIFA 11 now, and I've won just two games. Not because I'm rubbish, but because everyone save those two decided to quit when the going got tough. They usually put a great deal of effort into making it worse, often by quitting at the very last minute, deliberately conceding as many own goals as they can, or--this is the big one--wasting as much time as they can. Waiting until the computer takes the free kick/goal kick/throw in for them, and pausing at every opportunity, adding 40 seconds a time onto the already excessively lengthy game.

It's gotten so bad that I often deliberately lose because I still want that 100 games achievement, or (as was the case in my last win) I'm forced to keep the ball for the last 5 minutes so that they can't pause; even then, they can turn their console off or exit to dashboard, so it doesn't usually help.

It's easy enough to punish players that ruin the game for other people in this way, but these are usually a bigger audience than those that lose out. Game companies don't really want to punish them, because they lose their userbase through it. Great.

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Brandon Guerrie

Precisely. Thank for pointing this out. I should've mention sports game as well. I'm not a huge sports fan, but I do have Tecmo Throwback for the XBLA. Though no one plays it Online anymore, every time I did play, they would quit right as the fourth quarter ticked seconds away -- even in a close game. All that effort to leave, to me, is not just a sore loser -- you wonder why they even bother playing. Nobody is perfect, you know.

Wow, had some bugs on here, but I finally got to change the title. How embarrassing..

Danny Concepcion

One thing I like about Street Fighter Third Strike Online Edition is that in a ranked lobby a player's "disconnect" percentage is displayed right by their name, before the players can officially confirm the match. So if someone has a high rate, you can opt not to play with them. It also forces the quitters to wear their "mark of shame," so to speak. Xbox dashboard runs count as well.

September 05, 2011

That's a awesome feature. I feel more games should have this, and I'd think it would be good for COD Elite. "Mark of shame" -- so true!

Daniel Castro

September 11, 2011

Or Marvel vs Capcom 3's feature. The system holds an invisible reputation stat that, if it goes too low, that player will be pitted against other like-minded rage-quitters, taking them away for all of us who like to finish what we started.

September 12, 2011

These fighting games are on the right track. Now it's time for other genres to take the multiplayer status log more seriously.

Sean Bassinger

September 24, 2011

Back in the day, I had my fair share of Unreal Tournament Capture the Flag games where most of the losing team simply left before the game ended. It's especially irritating when you know for a fact there was a chance for some kind of turnaround.