ESOCommunity

Mitoe wrote:Also, for what it's worth, I think the community has improved a lot this year in terms of friendliness.

Goodspeed wrote:It's not because of the game, it's a culture shift that happened fairly recently. During and before the ASFP days it was not at all common for people to act like sore losers especially in important matches.

What made this culture shift happen is anyone's guess, but I have some thoughts on it. It seems safe to say it started with top players, because they are in the spotlight, and we shouldn't underestimate the impact of the example they set. Around 2015 our top player community wasn't very united. There was much less of a sense of community than among AoE2's top players, as far as I can see. There were some big egos, a lot of rivalries (and not the healthy kind), a lot of mistrust which was often with good reason. BS_OP for example never really found his place in the community. Him and his "cronies" always felt like they were anti-ESOC. Maybe they had their reasons, or maybe it was just his idea of fun, but that sort of thing doesn't help.

In short, and perhaps an unpopular opinion: Our top players have been doing a poor job at setting an example in recent years.
The good news is this has been improving recently. I think the LAN was especially good for nudging us in the right direction.

BS_OP for example

Goodspeed wrote:I didn't only blame BS_OP?

BS_OP for example

I think he is a good example of a player who was there but didn't really feel like part of the community. Overall there were a lot of grudges among top players which will inevitably start to affect the way they respond to losses when they play against each other.
No doubt Ryan had his part in this, too, but I think this culture of flames and general hostility went much further than ragequits. Ragequits seem to me like more of a symptom than a cause.

spadel wrote:100% agree with goodspeed. What I particularly don‘t get is why people flame on their own streams. It seems completely counter intuitive in my eyes, you‘d expect people to „behave“ themselves on camera, but it turns out to be the opposite at the moment.

Also people tend to get salty especially once they get better, see Blackstar or more recently Hazza as an example. Overall I think it’s an ego problem that exisits in every game, the difference is that within the AOE community it is tolerated while in other games it‘s not.

Hazza54321 wrote:

spadel wrote:100% agree with goodspeed. What I particularly don‘t get is why people flame on their own streams. It seems completely counter intuitive in my eyes, you‘d expect people to „behave“ themselves on camera, but it turns out to be the opposite at the moment.

Also people tend to get salty especially once they get better, see Blackstar or more recently Hazza as an example. Overall I think it’s an ego problem that exisits in every game, the difference is that within the AOE community it is tolerated while in other games it‘s not.

Fuck you spadel thought you were cool!!

spadel wrote:100% agree with goodspeed. What I particularly don‘t get is why people flame on their own streams. It seems completely counter intuitive in my eyes, you‘d expect people to „behave“ themselves on camera, but it turns out to be the opposite at the moment.

Also people tend to get salty especially once they get better, see Blackstar or more recently Hazza as an example. Overall I think it’s an ego problem that exisits in every game, the difference is that within the AOE community it is tolerated while in other games it‘s not.

[Armag] diarouga wrote:The "it's tolerated" part is interesting. In Starcraft II, streamers also get mad (if you watch heromarine, he spends half his streams complaining about the balance xD), but they are not allowed to talk in tourney except for "glhf", "gg" and "pause" in most tournaments.
There was even a drama in 2013 where Stephano wrote "gl, hf" in proleague where you're not allowed to speak at all. The admins paused the game and he got warned. His opponent answered "gl" to make sure Stephano wouldn't get in trouble.

HUMMAN wrote:[...] Another note to consider, people are kinda scrubs in aoe. Like nilla players, RE GP/deccan players, game was not balanced good and players tried to create sub-culture which is unhealthy for a game. We can still see in EP like no-NAT, wall-lame cry, sea lame, cease fire where players avoid these and try to make them illegimate turning game into their terms. which makes player base polarize.

lemmings121 wrote:

[Armag] diarouga wrote:The "it's tolerated" part is interesting. In Starcraft II, streamers also get mad (if you watch heromarine, he spends half his streams complaining about the balance xD), but they are not allowed to talk in tourney except for "glhf", "gg" and "pause" in most tournaments.
There was even a drama in 2013 where Stephano wrote "gl, hf" in proleague where you're not allowed to speak at all. The admins paused the game and he got warned. His opponent answered "gl" to make sure Stephano wouldn't get in trouble.

iirc in kespa a player got a map loss for typing "pp" instead of "ppp" to request a pause lol

Papist wrote:And as someone who's been a part of both communities for a long time, I haven't seen what you're saying about this community being a vehicle for in-group bullying and snobbery. Sure people here fault the RE for its technical bugs and bad civ balance, but who doesn't? And when has anyone here attacked the people who play on RE?

Garja wrote:Players on RE are bad, laggers, and they're lazy asses that would sell their mother for a couple of Elo points. They're similar minded as well. If I exclude those players basically I find more games on EP, even thought it means spending more time.
It's not just my opinion, it's a fact (which I guess is the same thing, hence your confusion) that the EP is better in every single aspect. Yes I'm arrogant, but I'm right, once again.

bepsi wrote:Interesting observation. I do think that the rift caused by the esoc patch, dividing the community into an self proclaimed class of 'pros' vis-a-vis the vast bulk of unwashed noobs still playing on the RE patch, generates a whole lot of toxicity in and of itself. The inherent country club mentality it fosters is conductive to in-group bullying and pecking order, and a snobbish attitude towards outsiders. Apart from the apparent evils this phenomenon is bound to generate, it will certainly also alienate the vast majority of potential community members globally who are unaccustomed to the anglo-american (ie puritist) mindset. Just my 2 cents.