SOUND OFF! But Not Too Much; There Are Kids Present- Wait Those Are Kids…

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From my early days of playing Day of Defeat to the virtual war zones I enter in Call of Duty 4, one thing has stayed consistent in my on-line video game experiences and that’s trash talking.  And I’m not just talking about the occasional four letter F or S word, I’m talking full out race hating, blatant disregard for all other human beings (or so it seems to come across).  If war brings out the worst in us, then what does virtual world do to us?

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me lay it out first:  I love on-line gaming; I think its better to play a game against other real people anytime from all parts of the world (especially first person shooters).  My curiosity comes from the types of the people that I seem to predominantly run into while playing the on-line first person shooters.

Day of Defeat wasn’t my first online game; it was actually Phantasy Star Online for Sega’s last console system the Dreamcast.  It was friendly place where you would adventure out with three other on-line players working together for the purpose of saving the world (and leveling up and getting more stuff).  All the interaction was done via a keyboard and all curse words were censored through their program- clever.  I was even able to speak to other people who didn’t speak my language.  The game had a crude, but effective, translation program (accept Japanese, they had to type in English for me to understand them).

The first game I played that had voice chat capabilities was Socom for the Playstation 2.  The headset for Socom was also used in the single player campaign; your team actually understood short commands you gave them.  For Socom, only one person from your team could speak at a time, so trash talk was limited.  The trash talk in Socom was minimal and tolerable.

Up until this point, on-line gaming (for say Socom and Socom 2) was new and only those that spent the money on broadband adaptor and used broadband Internet were playing; i.e. not as many as today.  The pioneers of the console on-line shooter experiences were primarily nerds with too much free time on their hands; nerds that didn’t partake in the over the top trash talking of today.  Most of the people on Socom just wanted to play the game.

Once the XBOX and Halo hit, more and more gamers emerged.  When broadband internet finally found its place in the majority of those homes, thousands upon thousands of people (mainly males between the ages of 14 to 28) started logging onto XBOX LIVE.

Because Halo 1 was not an online game many had to play other online games before Halo 2 made its debut.  I can recall the first game (Crimson Skies) in which another human came online for what seemed like the sole purpose to rag on everyone for being nerds and F-ing losers.  One of his more humorous statements was asking everyone if we all thought Princess Leia was the hottest character and whether any of us has seen a girl naked besides our moms.  In his own defense, he claimed to be at a party on his friend’s XBOX playing and emphasizing that there were in fact many girls there.

I believe his ramblings actually intimidated my friend out of ever playing online video games again, but not me as I didn’t give a flying F#$% what anyone says about on-line gaming, its fun.

But since then, online gaming did get increasingly hostile, rude, and out right disturbing as time went on.  There seem to be different types of on-line trash talkers, each with their distinct style and methods of trying to piss the other players off.

1)  The Yeller:

The Yeller is the guy that will scream obscenities at almost everyone and anyone that doesn’t play his way.  He’ll yell cheaters (even though you can’t cheat or hack the games intentionally any more; not like in Socom days).  He’s yelling to vent his own frustration, so he’ll continue to do so until he turns until another type of trash talker.  A Yeller is a moderate player who will have good and bad rounds; mainly depending on how well he can compose their selves.

2)  The Player Provoker:

The Player Provoker comes in many varieties and with many levels of trash talking.  A Player Provoker is commonly good at what the game at hand.  A Player Provoker will mainly make remarks about your playing abilities and drop a few f-bombs to get other players pissed off.

3)  The Real World Razzer:

The Real World Razzer is similar to the Player Provoker in his trash talking composer, but he’ll stick with mainly picking on players about their real life.  They’ll call them losers in real life as they believe this is the best way to piss other players off.  A Real Life Razzer is moderate player to poor player and you might find him trying to kill his own teammates just for his own amusement.

4)  The Defensive Wise Guy:

The Defensive Wise Guy is someone that mainly responds to yellers, provokers, and razzers.  They’ll wait for the remarks to be said by others and then hit them back with a clever come back.  The Defensive Wise Guy is mainly one of the best players during a game.

5)  The Soap Box Ranter:

The Soap Box Ranter will come online to express his views on the world and most of those views are not pretty.  This person is less interested in playing the game and more interested in telling the other players what he thinks is wrong in the world and sometimes incorporates the other players in his rant causing them to get pissed off.

A couple of the more disturbing transmissions that come through my XBOX LIVE headset are those players that were racist.  One guy came online and the first words he conveyed to us were he hated all non-white Americans (he actually named off the different ethnic and racial groups he hated).  Beyond that, what is more disturbing is when you hear what sounds like 12 year olds making similar racist remarks.

I can only hope that half of what is said online doesn’t reflect the way most of these people act in real life, but if this is what a large population of males between the ages of 12 – 28 are thinking behind closed doors, that can’t be all good.

As far as censoring these trash talkers, you can easily mute these players.  Also, you can send a complaint into XBOX LIVE on any players.  If that player gets enough complaints from many other players, they’re XBOX LIVE account will be banned from online play.

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