I also have a very ambivalent relationship with online shooters. I enjoy playing them alot, but the immense immaturity, trash talk and unsportsmanship that I often encounter can be overwhelming. So much that sometimes after an "intense" session I "give up" and don't play them anymore for months.

I think that I'm a very good player -I've been playing shooters since Wolfenstein 3D- and that can be a problem. I play WarRock alot - its free - but you can buy premium accounts and spend ingame money to buy bigger weapons than the standard-issue rifle.
I lost count of how often I've been kicked from a game because some idiot can't believe that I keep killing him even though I'm using the standard rifle whereas he is using the 30.000$ FAMAS. I receive alot of verbal abuse for being good almost every other game and get kicked about one third of the time.

On the other hand, I can understand why people are so wary. Almost every game I'm in has someone using hacks. With WarRock there's always "waves" of hacker infestation. Sometimes after a patch its all good for a while, but sooner or later it starts getting worse again. I completely don't get the cheater mentality. I don't see the fun in pointlessly gunning everyone down without a challenge and ruining the game for everyone else.

Then there's the standard verbal abuse of course... I try to ignore it as much as possible.

I wish there was a good shooter with some kind of age-authentification. Over 25 year-olds only. I'd totally go for that.

Awesome, and WAY TOO TRUE.

Games are rarely about winning for me. They are almost always about PLAYING.

It is always good to hear that others can be the same.

...mmm muliplayer..T3..QQ ..ooohhh>>CAPLOOMPH<<< PASSED OUT....

nightkill:
...mmm muliplayer..T3..QQ ..ooohhh>>CAPLOOMPH<<< PASSED OUT....