Frickin' Rep.

I don't know how many of you other members pay attention to your rep, but I do. It is directly related to why I joined 2o2p. I got sick of gaming with Timmies, people who I didn't know, and the random joker I didn't like. Modders, stand-byers, and general idiots were the reason I nearly let my XBL account lapse. I was sick of it. I got to the point that if someone didn't have a decent amount of stars, I didn't want to play with them. 2o2p is the reason I'm still on Live. I have a pretty full friends list and game with some of the funnest and funniest people I've never or rarely met. It's an awesome haven for me. The IDIOT-TO-GAME RATIO ® is at its all time low for me.

But Utopia as it was, has ended.

Not anything to do with the site itself, of course. The site is still the bomb-diggity. I had a full rack of stars and people who invite me to play with them. I had a pretty good sense of self esteem. Until Thursday night.

If you've read one of my previous posts, I'm completely addicted to CrackHounds. I'm a fairly casual gamer, but when my 360 is on I'm playing CH. I have made Platoon Sergeant, am getting some pretty good achievements and generally having a hellacious good time. Until Thursday night.

My squad is not the DeathMatch kings, we like the co-op fights in trying to win the war with the nation we are affilliated with. We don't play humans very often, and if you haven't played the game, there is a VERY distinct difference between the AI and real-life gamers. And we have NO idea how to go up against humans consistently. It's a choice that I'm pretty comfortable with, I like winning. As I stated above, I have a delicate ego and my rep means quite a bit to me. Not playing humans in a game that is becoming ripe with stand-byers and disconnectors is an easy choice.

So Thursday night, we're gaming it up, making progress in our territory. I'm happy with my performance and the numbers are looking pretty good for me. We start getting messages from a squad who wants to play us and it comes to light that these guys have been hounding a few of our guys for days, harassing my squadmates and calling names because we don't want to play humans. We're feeling pretty cocky, so we finally decide to engage them and make them put-up or shut up. It's pretty obvious about 2 minutes in that these guys are very good and are beating our asses soundly. They are faster than any squad I have seen, Free Battle or otherwise and are deadly accurate. I was in a 270 kph Hover chassis going across a valley and a sniper I couldn't even see drilled my mobility with one shot and popped my cockpit with the second. I'm out in about 30 seconds. Crappitycrap.

As the end gets near, one of our Hounds left and five of theirs, our player named So-and-so says "grumblegrumblesnort" and we get a "So-and-so has disconnected" message. Hmm, he usually has a decent connection, but then again we don't play humans often. Oh well. Three seconds later, we get the Host Disconnect message, which means the match is over early and we get the credit for a win. Now our host has no trouble hosting MOST of the time with six guys playing the CPU, but it gets shaky fairly often. So it sucks, but it happens.

Before I can get into the squad room I get a Chat Invite from one of the other players and I accept it. I start fully apologizing to the guy saying that our host wouldn't disconnect, he's never hosted twelve players and his connection must have crapped out. The guy was cool, if a bit skeptical and laughed with me when I asked for his sniper's assembly data because it was a bad mofo. No prob, Bob.

When I get in to the squad room, our host player had been kicked clear out to the Main Screen when he lost connection and was pissed about the disconnect. Player So-and-so admits that prior to his disconnect he was stand-bying the game and didn't give a shit about rep after getting hammered in BF2. Didn't/wouldn't change the outcome, but he was in and out of chat with the other players post-match. I have no idea what was said but I'm guessing it was a bit heated. I figured it was a good time to hit the rack or hot someone, so I say my goodbyes and head for the bed.

I fire up my 360 last night, looking for a solid night of CH since the wife is out of town. (Woot!) I notice my rep bar in the dashboard and I have been BLANKED!! The guys we played left every one of us negative feedback for quitting early. I have a quarter of a star left and I am nearly losing my mind with anger. I was livid. I sent my squad leader a pm to discuss it. He heard me out and we started checking our squadmate's rep status. Three of us got blanked and the other three took some hits as well. I guess I didn't have enough reports to counteract the negative since I play with the same players 90% of the time. I don't cheat. Hell, I don't let my son use cheat codes and we believe those who do are weaker for it. This is very serious for me.

Our squad leader talks to every member who was affected and decides to issue an ultimatum. Any squad member who was caught cheating would be expelled. Fair enough. Doesn't help my rep, but the line has been drawn.

When So-and-so get online later that night, he's bubbling and fired up for some games. It gets very quiet in the squad room and here's the little back and forth:

So-and-so: "Man, I got my new mech together and I'm ready to kick some ass!"

Me: "Does it come witha standby button?"

The squad chuckles and I go on to explain to him what had happened and the Squad leader tells him the new rules. I turn off my mike so he can't hear me calling him names that are not easily forgiven. If he learns a lesson, he's a man who learns from mistakes and moves on. If not, the end will come soon.

I crack my mike back open and tell So-and-so that it's water under the bridge and we get into a mission. So-and-so lasts one mission and bails out without a word. He was obviously butt-hurt, but we'll see if he mans up.

My question is, How important is your rep to you? Do you feel ike me and see it as a direct reflection on you as a gamer?

IDIOT-TO-GAME RATIO® is trademark of MassdaAss Ent. LLC and should not be used without express written consent of the Grand Poobah. :)

(Names have been changed to protect the semi-innocent.)