The online multiplayer mess

So, this article is a bit of an odd one, but it intrigued me enough that I just had to write (or rather type) it down. I never really played any games as a kid or a teen that had a lot of random online multiplayer stuff, (unless you count Webkinz or Club Penguin, which I won't since those are primarily for younger audiences.) Sure, I played online with friends on stuff like Minecraft or Pokemon, but those were exclusively with friends. When I started college, I started to play more games that included online multiplayer with random people. And to be honest, it kind of sucks. Sure, at first its fun to play with others if your friends can't play, but after a while, you start to see how a majority of the people playing these games act, and it's never really that good. Sometimes, you'll find a diamond game in the rough of crappy games, but for the most part, the players you play with kinda suck behavior wise, and it almost ruins the game.

One particular thing I've noticed is that if someone thinks they might not win, or things don't go the way they want them to, they just quit. Even if there's still a decent chance of coming back and winning, they just abandon the game like it isn't even worth it. I notice this a lot when playing Rocket League. When I started playing, I used to be able to join a new game and start it with some other people. But recently, most of the games I end up joining are ones where one or more of the players just left because the team was behind by a point with time to spare. And regardless of how it starts, there are so many people that just leave the match if the other team gets ahead of us at all. I don't understand it at all since there's still a chance at victory, and because of the fact that winning shouldn't really matter. Especially since the games I play are in casual mode. I could understand competitive games a bit more, but these games are literally just for fun! Yet people just see being behind as the end of it all.

Now, being an adult who's been using the internet for over a decade, I get that people swear and say stupid things on the internet. But random online multiplayer games are one of the absolute WORST places for this! I've had so many people just get angry when they lose, or generally just treat other players like crap without reason. One of the worst offenders I've played is Among Us. These games have been chock full of people who get unnecessarily angry when they get caught or voted out, or just treat everyone else like garbage because they think they're better than everyone else. For example, I was playing a game, and there were only 4 players left. Three normal players, and one imposter. we split up 2 and 2, and all of a sudden one of the players from the other group reported a dead body. It was obviously them, since the player I was with was with me the whole time. The imposter tried to play it off like it was one of us, but we knew it was them. And once we made it clear we knew it was them, they started swearing up a storm of obscenities at us, then once the game was over, they banned us. All because they lost. I honestly don't understand why people think that they absolutely can't lose, and then lose their minds when they do. It bothers me a lot.

Anyway, that's my rant for the day. I started writing this down after finishing a round of Rocket League where some of this happened, and I have been astounded by these things for a while now, so I decided to write this, as it fascinates me how such a large amount of people playing online games can be so horrible.

This is post 24 of #100daystooffload.