Category: Editorials

The number one article request I get here at MMO Fallout is when someone gets banned from an MMO and wants me to write a scathing piece about how the developer wronged them. I don’t follow through with them, but that doesn’t mean I am not paying attention. Years of wrongful ban claims and actively engaging with communities has lead to my list of the top five obnoxious gamers who will eventually find their access to a game/forum revoked.

This list is mostly derived from my experience running several game servers (Counter Strike, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, etc) and GM’ing an MMO. I didn’t want to call this a list of trolls as it would imply that they are self-aware. Many remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability.

5. The Loudmouth

The loudmouth refers to the kind of person who inevitably gets banned or suspended from a large portion of the servers that he plays on. You’ll often find him on forums complaining about his forum/game suspensions, claiming innocence while using liberal amounts of expletives and comparing the customer support to Nazis. He doesn’t know why he was suspended for misbehaving, after all he didn’t do anything out of line unless you’re referring to the explicit and likely racist comment he made in chat in response to someone calling him a “noob.”

A short fuse grants this person with the ability to type and press enter before the reasoning center of their brain has time to act, and will be the root cause of much of their problems keeping out of trouble with customer service and in life for that matter. While some are aware of their position in this category and are actively working toward better behavior, others merely shift the blame for their actions (“people asking obvious questions make me angry”) or deny it completely (“they banned me because I’m too good at PvP”). Depending on their severity, this group also fits the gamers who send death threats to players and developers, or stalk people off-game after a loss.

One of the benefits of the loudmouth is their lack of subtlety. If you want to find them, just head into any game with global chat or forum of any topic and wait less than thirty seconds.

4. The Metal Ninja Fanboy

One consistency among each of the gamers on this list is that they have a habit of thinking that their work is more subtle than it really is. The metal ninja fanboy is the term I’ve given to the kind of person who hangs around on the forums or in chat to talk about how great the game he’s playing is. Not the one he’s talking in, mind you, a different one. One that has better graphics, controls, a more mature community, servers with less lag, and a better developer who provides more content, faster.

Yes, this gamer has fourteen days left on his subscription and he is going to log in every day to remind the people in [world] of this fact and how relieved he is and how awesome it will be when that day comes, and how he can’t wait to move on to his awesome new game. Really, he should have done it earlier. This idea of developer expecting people to pay money for this game? What kind of moron would enjoy it, he wonders out loud to himself in world chat.

This person won’t be banned from the game, but in all likelihood they will find their posting privileges revoked after the tenth time they create a thread asking why you mouth-breathing sheep continue to subscribe to this crap like the tools you are. If you happen to be in chat with one of these players, they are best left ignored. Responding will only feed their need for attention.

3. The “Loyal customer.”

The self-proclaimed “loyal customer” is my favorite kind, because I see them a lot. This is the person who you will find posting a thread about how they are quitting a game or want a refund because the company has performed a cardinal sin and gone against their wishes. As a loyal customer, you can understand that their quitting isn’t a decision that they came to lightly, and that they would never take such action if it wasn’t completely necessary, but that it is indeed still possible to win their favor back.

You will recognize this person because they posted the same thread two months ago following a previous set of patch notes, as well as two months before that and again in two months when they post another goodbye. The final straw was apparently lain nearly a year ago, but the camel’s back is taking longer than anticipated to break.

This person will inevitably be banned in a sea of expletives when someone digs up their previous quitting posts and responds them to the latest “I quit” thread with “why aren’t you gone yet?”

2. Edgeville’s Finest

I won’t try to deny that I was a horrible little bastard around the early teenage years, when kids are little more than short sociopaths. I do know that teens, and in many cases adults, often try to be as edgy as possible either to show off to their friends, feed a lack of self esteem, or because they watch Daniel Tosh and want to be a comedian. One thing all great comedians know is that comedy equals tragedy plus time, with a dash of comedic timing. In short, the time for your racist joke isn’t in world chat in a video game, or really anywhere else in public for that matter.

This person can most often be found post-ban showing their complete misunderstanding of what freedom of speech applies to.

1. The Frustrated Cheater

My personal favorite, as a former GM for several game servers and as customer support for an MMO. The question I get asked the most is why I don’t trust when someone posts an “I was banned” thread claiming not just innocence, but ignorance. I’ve heard every excuse in the book, many from blatant cheaters, some of whom we even caught boasting in chat about how their cheat was “undetectable.”

Believe it or not, but quite a few of these people are deluded enough to pay monthly subscriptions for the assurance that these cheats are “undetectable.” True story: One kid emailed us an invoice demanding that we pay his last month’s subscription for a cheat tool because he was guaranteed by the creator that he wouldn’t get banned, so in his claim we were violating the EULA.

Which isn’t to say that everyone who creates such a post is lying, mind you. I would be willing to put my money down, however, that most bans are due to account theft, which itself can be traced to poor security on the part of the user.

Whether their pleas are out of desperation or true ignorance is up for debate, but to make a list within a list, here are my favorite excuses.

• “I don’t even know how to cheat.”
• “The developer sold my account.”
• “My cat probably walked on the keyboard.”
• “My friend stole my account.”