Oswald Rant: Pass the online gaming, please

I have begun to notice tempers flare and unnecessary word sudden spew from the mouths, okay hands form many gamers in the online gaming community. What is gaming all about? While competitive juices flow within all of us, the bottom line is to remember two things. First, its just a game. Second to have fun.

When growing up as a kid, I lived under a good roof over my head, loving parents and a understanding of right and wrong. If I did something which did not please my parents, I was punished. If I went against their rules and spoke back to them using four letter words and ‘f-bombs’ I would usually end up in serious trouble.

Why do I have a feeling that the online generation of today has no morals when it comes to having a good time and crossing the line. Since I have finally upgraded to a high speed Internet connection, I have the opportunity to spend more time online playing Urban Terror on many servers. While this type of experience is invaluable in the continued development, something is really bothering me.

I am not worried when gamers complain about current features or how weapons are too powerful or the maps are not up the par with rival mods. What really shows the true colors of a gamer is their online etiquette. Since the Urban Terror community is relatively the “small fish in a big pond” most gamers play with each other, especially if you frequent the same servers on a daily basis.

Just like gamers using cheats because they want the “upper hand” over everyone else, nothing looks worse on a server to see gamers who are spamming with verbal diarrhea from their mouth after a LPBer took them out with a burst from a UMP45. I have seen some gamers who literally bind obnoxious and gutter mouth saying just to piss the rest the players on the server off.

I can understand and accept the typical “trash talking” that goes either in clan match or on public servers between gamers. It is often one or two gamers who completely ruin the experience for the rest of the server. Inevitably a few colorful comments set off some players who end up retaliating with verbal flaming of their own. It is not necessary. Why not just ignore the llama who does not have the skills to stay alive? If his comments persist and a server admin is available, hopefully they would see it to kick and ban this player from the server. If not, let them run their smack and hopefully the will get bored when their obscene comments fall on deaf ears.

While this is great in theory we all know it does not work on servers, except for the IP banning, which may seem extreme, but one less llama locked out makes that server much more enjoyable for the remainder of the gamers. Hopefully gamers will take a lesson in online etiquette and try to remember the main objectives are to enjoy the game, players and to have fun.