So I was playing a bit of Trove the other night. I had just started a Shadow Hunter 'cause who doesn't love more ranged DPS (I also wanted to rake in some bow-type weapons to disassemble for Mastery points), and was leveling up alone.
I normally keep at least half an eye on the global chat window, even though I've maybe one spoken once. At one point, some kind of quarrel between two players erupts, likely after one called the other a "noob" or something typical. Suddenly, the other is winging insults left and right like it's one of those t-shirt shooters, and trying to demand the other share their Mastery level (basically, a leveling system shared across characters that measures your collecting/leveling accomplishments). It was a train wreck and I was enjoying watching every bit of it.I'd like to think I'm not the one one that enjoys watching things like this go down. I mean, I'm pretty sure they created Reddit for this purpose, right? It's not like you're watching mom and dad fight - you have no investment in these participants' well-being for it to be awkward, and we all got front row seats to a show in which winners don't matter.
Also, I must admit I'm a sucker for a good troll. It's an art to come up with the right trigger words to say, and doing so properly may earn them a grand celebration - the feeding of the troll! Oh, what a sight it is to witness such an occasion. Bonus points if a fight then erupts from this insidious icebreaker!
Perhaps this is why I tend to have a very lonely ignore list in any MMO. The sight of hotheaded folk and trolls never justified me removing them from the existence of my chat box. Now, if it's some scammer/botter/beligerent spammer, then sure - they're welcome to check in to the Ignore Hotel.
I guess it was basically the Internet that desensitized me to this sort of stuff. Nary is there a comment section on a trafficked site that doesn't boil down to some silly argument, seemingly resulting in some ethical quandry.
Q: Who is your favorite Pokemon?Maybe it also motivates me to be a better person when I see people go at it in global game chats, I dunno. Perhaps it's instant gratification that, "Hey, at least I'm not that guy, eh?" In any case, it's simply something amusing, plus it lets me write about it on some silly blog site.
A: My favorite is Pikachu.
WTF Reply: You know who else liked rats? Osama Bin Laden. It's all your fault, and so is abortion.
I suppose I should say that I'm not trying to incite trolls/fights to erupt from the bowels of the Internet and start a hullabaloo of hatred. I'm all about it happening naturally, assuming I have the opportunity to stock up on popcorn first before it all goes down.
Don't worry, I'm still pleasantly and casually playing da vidya games. Sometimes you just gotta get a taste of the sriracha to swelter up a dull day. It's all tasteless in the end.
What's the best experience you've had with trolls on the Internet? Share below!
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Troll Face by thetolkienist.com
Internet Troll by chuwechuwe.wordpress.com
I play CounterStrike. Trolls are just part of the game, for every great experience you have with a pug team that just gels together, you have two with a player or two who're just out to mess about, generally because they're deliberately trying to lose in order to lower their rank. When this happens, it's best for your own sanity just to apologise to the other team and just play along (and forget about any hope you had of doing something constructive with the next 45 minutes). Somehow, though, it's the fun troll games that you remember long after the good games have disappeared from your head, the ones where the whole team tried to make it to the sites while standing on each others shoulders, or did laps of map dodging the enemy players, or played long ever-escalating games of strat-roulette.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely heard about the good times, the bad times, and the troll times when it comes to Counterstrike - it's definitely a beast of its own. I've played a couple of F2P FPS like it, but they never quite had the stigma CS has around it.
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