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Here's a good question. Do you ever kick the ones who grieve mpi out of strat games?'

Ive been playing this game since I was 5
(Just saying because you said anyone who is a vet plays strat). The reason I play mpi is because I can feel relaxed. Im a casual player who doesn't want to worry about dumb ai not properly defending stuff from real players. (I honestly doubt any ai could defeat a reason person)

XxHAMADEHxX wrote:Here's a good question. Do you ever kick the ones who grieve mpi out of strat games?'

Ive been playing this game since I was 5
(Just saying because you said anyone who is a vet plays strat). The reason I play mpi is because I can feel relaxed. Im a casual player who doesn't want to worry about dumb ai not properly defending stuff from real players. (I honestly doubt any ai could defeat a reason person)

That has not been the case until recently. Think about it, if having a 'good game' requires you to have 8 or 10 people, then with such a small community, you dont have the choice of kicking someone you don't like out of your game if it means you must wait 20 more minutes to an hour to get even teams.

There has been a small group of ST players who have griefed MPI in the past, occasionally, and out of boredom. And because it was infrequent enough, most ST players didnt care at the time what happened. However starting from a few months ago someone has been going around griefing MPI games as much as possible and as a result it's been getting a lot of attention lately which is too bad because GSH's attention could have been used towards improving core gameplay mechanics and fixing bugs rather than being diverted to anti-griefing measures which have been adding bugs that he must then fix in addition to the currently pressing bugs which would normally have high priority.

So yeah, said player has been getting some hate even from other ST players, and more people are cutting down on their tolerance of griefing going on in other game modes. At any rate the anti-griefing measures are probably a good thing in the long run.

Here's a good question. Do you ever kick the ones who grieve mpi out of strat games?'

Quite a lot of strat players have been trying to keep such people out of their games for longer than you may believe. The griefing goes along with the trolling and abusive behaviour that have become quite normal in some sections of the community. Simple fact is, if your the sort of person who does not want to engage in abusive online chat, then your going to have a hard time being a strat player at all these days. Its the cheapest way to dominate, offending your opponents out of even wanting to play the game. The problem is that we are not able to effectively keep them out of our games and they are apparently too dim to understand that not everyone wants to be, or listen to a Gobshite. It all makes fully enjoying the game a very difficult experience for most normal people and is, in my opinion, one of the reasons for the gradual depopulation of the strat community.

=( so even strat is effected by these idiots.

Is their way to solve this problem?

No. The best method is to just ignore them and move on. If I actually did play BZ2 (I don't have it installed currently), they're just private games. I'm actually trying to see if this private MOD Sonic made a while back in the early days of 1.3 still works on the latest patch. I haven't had time to test it, and I'm going to need to get that link from him again at some point to test it. Who knows, if it works, I'll have to see if I can get him back to playing it with us again since its been a while since I had a blast in there.

Ok, now I'm rambling again. Really need to stop that... But anyway, most games I do are private and no one can enter them anyway. There really is no method that'll permanently stop any sort of griefing, just measures to prolong it sometimes before people find a way around that.

=( so even strat is effected by these idiots.

Oh yes. The game naturally creates a culture where some players become dominant because of their exceptional skill at it, this apparently can trigger some sort of obsessional reaction in some lesser players and leads them into attempting dominance by any means available... That is how we end up with some idiot using a bot net to ddos games with the knowing acceptance and approval of similarly inadequate individuals.
I am wondering if it would be possible to set up some sort of private channel within the match making system, so that only those with a "licence" could actually see the games up there...
This would make ddos attacks far harder to target and allow for revocation of the "licence" should a holder become a problem. This of course may not be possible. Or just result in the matchmaking server itself becoming the target.

Zero Angel wrote:First of all, Nielk1, you are full of ****. Vets includes anyone who plays strat, knows how to play strat properly (e.g. scav management, team maneuvers) and has at least half-a-brain. This includes people like sub-0, tub_but, luminess. who are genuinely nice people not to mention the dozens of people who you've never even met or talked to because they don't go on forums. Jeeze, you make it sound as if theres some kind of conspiracy that the 'vets' are on like we're all some kind of 'clannish' cartel of people who conspire to ruin MPI games because we can't *stand* that people are having fun outside of our game mode. This is FALSE. Blatantly false.

No, you are wrong, vets are in fact not the same group that play strats and know how to play strats. Neither does the set of all strat players include the set of all vets, nor does the set of all vets include the set of all strat players. It is this incorrect and frankly uneducated view that has caused so much of the anti-MPI animosity. Good job perpetuating the bullshit.

Zero Angel wrote:A majority of vets simply don't care what the noobs and MPI players play, and while we preferred they played our own game mode, this is only a preference and not something that warrants wrecking someone elses enjoyment for (not to mention that it is not effective at all). I can picture UEP becoming more popular among MPI players because of the small amount of MPI maps available in 1.3 stock, but for ST players, the poorly tested and maintained game modes in UEP was not appealing at all and more gimmicky than anything. Honestly you would have to have been a really active ST player to understand what makes ST so fun for the people who play it, which is why TV's mods and FE, were so respected by vets.

I watched the massive vitriol from the majority of vets when the UEP came out. Additionally, this statement is based on your first failed assertion about what constitutes the set of all vets. First question is, how are we using "vet". Your definition is just downright wrong because it is, for lack of a better word, prejudiced. You created a false group of vets. If we actually look at the small clic of people who go around calling each other "vets" and agreeing with each other on that classification, we find a tiny group of mostly rage filled nut cases.

Zero Angel wrote:With that said, what the mpi players do or what happens to them has never been a concern to most ST players, just like how i'm sure that most MPI players dont care about what goes on in ST games.

Again, you are perpetuating the false red line between Strat and MPI players and drawing a relation that vet = strat. This is simply not the case. Many non vets play strat and many vets play MPI. It is simply that the most vocal minority of vets, who go around always calling themselves vets, dislike MPI.

ZA, I thought you better than this, but if your best comeback is that I am "full of ****" its clear you don't even have a grasp on what goes on in this community. Over the past few years I have watched you become more and more disconnected from the reality of this community. I have actually had you tell me people have changed only to have me find them, nigh on a day later, in the act of griefing games, attacking individuals, or going on racist tirades. Do you even read the forums you are supposed to moderate over on BZ2Maps?

It is a fact that the party that call themselves vets came out in force against the UEP. Two individuals of that group colluded to release a the Strat portion of the UEP, shortly before it was released by the UEP team (and thus we canceled the early Strat build), with the specific design to hurt the UEP. This is a proven fact as you can see maps made just for the UEP in that very same pack and some others broken because the nincompoops couldn't figure out that a map or two used a custom DLL. From there, that map pack's assets were incompatible with the final UEP (on purpose I might add) allowing for an artificial reason for vets to refuse to even look at the UEP. A few did use it, I might add, but the outward face of a group is by no means created by it's silent majority but by its vocal minority.

If you really want to fix the problem, maybe instead of saying that I am full of ****, you should tackle the issue of fixing the vet's public face? But no, your normal tact is to perpetuate the lie that vet = stratter, and stratter = vet, and that there is no animosity or issue and anything could just be swept under the rug. This single DDoSing twit has given you a nice opportunity to blame one person and try to shovel it all under the rug but rest assured after that is resolved the original issues will come screaming back, with no one having changed a bit.

Stop imagining I'm full of **** and clean up the refuse you are practically living in.

Nielk1 wrote:Stop imagining I'm full of **** and clean up the refuse you are practically living in.

Kudos to N1.
For the rest I'm not going to cought in this discussion, everybody who can think for him/herself knows exactly whats going on.

There really isn't anything ZA can do about it Nielk1, you've had enough dealings with them to know this, all he would achieve is a target painted on his own forehead along with the rest of us.
Haters making themselves famous...

Nielk1 wrote:

Zero Angel wrote:First of all, Nielk1, you are full of ****. Vets includes anyone who plays strat, knows how to play strat properly (e.g. scav management, team maneuvers) and has at least half-a-brain. This includes people like sub-0, tub_but, luminess. who are genuinely nice people not to mention the dozens of people who you've never even met or talked to because they don't go on forums. Jeeze, you make it sound as if theres some kind of conspiracy that the 'vets' are on like we're all some kind of 'clannish' cartel of people who conspire to ruin MPI games because we can't *stand* that people are having fun outside of our game mode. This is FALSE. Blatantly false.

No, you are wrong, vets are in fact not the same group that play strats and know how to play strats. Neither does the set of all strat players include the set of all vets, nor does the set of all vets include the set of all strat players. It is this incorrect and frankly uneducated view that has caused so much of the anti-MPI animosity. Good job perpetuating the bullshit.

I misread that first time around and I think that's what you did to. That should be read, I think, as "vets are those who play strat, know how to properly, and have half-a-brain". All of the above, rather than one thereof.

Nielk1, the definition for 'vet' is relatively simple -- 'minimum of one year online experience'. If we strip away my modified definition and go by the game preset defined by TV's BZNES shell mod which was released over 10 years ago. It encompasses a range of players who have obtained some decent level of experience or 'veterancy', and naturally encompasses about 95% of the strat players out there at this point in time. Your use of it is as a group to demonize is like saying muslims were responsible for 9/11 and then going off on a tirade about muslims even though the terrorists believed responsible for 9/11 were just a tiny subgroup of muslims.

AHadley wrote:

Nielk1 wrote:

Zero Angel wrote:First of all, Nielk1, you are full of ****. Vets includes anyone who plays strat, knows how to play strat properly (e.g. scav management, team maneuvers) and has at least half-a-brain. This includes people like sub-0, tub_but, luminess. who are genuinely nice people not to mention the dozens of people who you've never even met or talked to because they don't go on forums. Jeeze, you make it sound as if theres some kind of conspiracy that the 'vets' are on like we're all some kind of 'clannish' cartel of people who conspire to ruin MPI games because we can't *stand* that people are having fun outside of our game mode. This is FALSE. Blatantly false.

No, you are wrong, vets are in fact not the same group that play strats and know how to play strats. Neither does the set of all strat players include the set of all vets, nor does the set of all vets include the set of all strat players. It is this incorrect and frankly uneducated view that has caused so much of the anti-MPI animosity. Good job perpetuating the bullshit.

I misread that first time around and I think that's what you did to. That should be read, I think, as "vets are those who play strat, know how to properly, and have half-a-brain". All of the above, rather than one thereof.

WHICH IS WRONG. I read it fine. It works on the basis of saying that some party that has all the needed qualifiers of quality and age and time and skill are excluded based on an irreverent fact. I am going to make the tasteless comparison to classic racism, where equally skilled workers who understand every facet of their trade with years of experience are excluded from the union and meetings simply because they are of a different color.

Zero Angel wrote:Nielk1, the definition for 'vet' is relatively simple -- 'minimum of one year online experience'. If we strip away my modified definition and go by the game preset defined by TV's BZNES shell mod which was released over 10 years ago. It encompasses a range of players who have obtained some decent level of experience or 'veterancy', and naturally encompasses about 95% of the strat players out there at this point in time. Your use of it is as a group to demonize is like saying muslims were responsible for 9/11 and then going off on a tirade about muslims even though the terrorists believed responsible for 9/11 were just a tiny subgroup of muslims.

And yet you participate in the very same improper labeling of the group.

It encompasses a range of players who have obtained some decent level of experience or 'veterancy'

Correct.

and naturally encompasses about 95% of the strat players out there at this point in time

Incorrect.

And furthermore... "naturally". "naturally"? Of course, only stratters can be vets, that is the natural law, or at least that is the natural law you dictate and has long been the basis of the core issues in this community. This is the single most prejudiced and disgusting part of your argument and it is the basis of the entire argument. Without it, it falls apart. It allows for one party to be elitists and exclude another due to their arbitrary meaningless criteria.

Furthermore:

Your use of it is as a group to demonize is like saying muslims were responsible for 9/11 and then going off on a tirade about muslims even though the terrorists believed responsible for 9/11 were just a tiny subgroup of muslims.

Incorrect, and straw man. I didn't say that that was what vets were, what I said vets were was a larger body than you say they are because you are being exclusionary and elitist. I also made the point that the vocal minority public face of the group of vets, that parade around the title of "vet", are the problem, which you ignored and chose to try to attack me with that strawman.

First of all, vet != strat. No matter how you try to hold onto the name, it doesn't mean that.
Second of all, the vocal minority of the self proclaimed vets are the public face of the group.


Here is a PROPER analogy for you, not a strawman, though I cringe making this comparison because a game is of no consequence in comparison.
Vetrans of the military encompass all those who have seen combat and those who have not.
In many cases, only those that have seen combat see fit to wear the title.
The vocal minority changes from time to time, sometimes it is a shining example of the best and others it is an example of the worst, and I am not going to go out of my way to pick a specific instance, but you can think of one I'm sure.



ZA, you do a lot to defend the abhorrent behavior of the vocal minority of vets. You probably don't think you do, you sit there and preach that they stop and try to act as a go-between them and us and yet you actively do nothing about their behavior and at times make up excuses or apologies for them (such as indicating people have changed, only grief sometimes, etc).

Stop trying to defend it. Stop perpetuating the elitist dickery. And stop using stawmen to prove your point.

Nielk1 wrote:

and naturally encompasses about 95% of the strat players out there at this point in time

Incorrect.

And furthermore... "naturally". "naturally"? Of course, only stratters can be vets, that is the natural law, or at least that is the natural law you dictate and has long been the basis of the core issues in this community. This is the single most prejudiced and disgusting part of your argument and it is the basis of the entire argument. Without it, it falls apart. It allows for one party to be elitists and exclude another due to their arbitrary meaningless criteria.

When I say 'naturally', I refer to the relationship of cause and effect. The fact that this is an old game with a relatively slow amount of incoming players, so 'naturally' the ratio of vets to noobs will be very much higher than it was in 2001.

There was never any exclusion done on 'arbitrary meaningless criteria'. If you are talking about the 'vets only' games of 1.2, the exclusion was done in order to preserve the quality of the individual games and have been around enough to have some basic level of in-game functionality like the ability to manage scavengers, hit scavs/pools, assist teammate and run from combat when your health is low. It required people to possess enough tactical knowledge to do anything more than seek combat at every opportunity (unless it helped the team) and waste ships in suicide runs on base thereby giving your team NEGATIVE advantage (in the cost of lost ships and loose scrap given to enemy scavengers). Vet was at this time a term used to classify players based on very meaningful criteria and goes alongside the term 'intermediate' which is a person who has decent tactics but is still in a very developmental stage, and 'noob' which are players who are either very fresh or lack tactical ability or 'brains' altogether.

What Nielk1 and others are annoyed about is the (rather blatant at times) mentality that anyone playing MPI is automatically a 'noob' and just needs experience to become a 'vet' and 'graduate' to that game mode. Plenty of people with experience play MPI, and that's not an insult. Strat is Player vs Player (PvP), which some gamers seek out for their kicks. MPI is more Player vs Enemy (PvE), which other gamers seek out for their kicks. Both are 100% legitimate expressions of gaming time. Neither is sub-par. Neither is insufficient. But one side has allowed its loudmouths to try and promote such a misconception.

MPI players are annoyed, but don't go out of their way to grief strat. The reverse is not true. MPI players in general don't badmouth other players with insults (racist, sexist, intellectual, game skills, or anything else) or insult other game modes. The reverse is not true. Those strat players that are out to badmouth other players/game genres are what give strat a bad name in the eyes of many as being a toxic cesspool. 99.9% of MPI players just say "that's not for me" and move on. If only the reverse was also true, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Topic locked.

-- GSH