How quickly things change in the space of a few days. I've been playing a couple hours each day of the L4D demo, and I notice today that people have gotten 'bored' of the two levels that exist and are starting to act up in a most amusing manner.
Y'see, if you play through the two available maps cooperatively and run into the safehouse like you're supposed to - you get a nice cheerful victory screen, and then a long 20 seconds delay, complete with L4D advertisement (which is rather pointless since we've all pre-ordered in order to play the demo early).
Naturally, trigger happy FPS young men and boys cannot stand to sit still for half a minute and then go through the trouble of starting up the same episode again.
So they have evolved a 'tradition' of calling for a vote to restart the episode, and while waiting, they blow each other apart in traditional FFA fashion to claim the oh-so-glorious "I win!" king of the hill monkey-hierarchical prestige.
The problem with this, I notice, is that it starts to set up an acceptance of friendly fire and spontaneous backstabbing. So games which started out serious, can suddenly devolve into fits of let's-shoot-each-other-and-watch-the-resultant-carnage clowning/nonsense/hilarity (insert word as befits one's values and mood.)
Then there's a linked problem. As time goes by, certain people get more and more uptight that everyone should be playing well. (And the demo isn't even out yet for the general public, DUH.) They get shorter and shorter tempered if other people do dumb things, and generally start yelling obnoxiously down the mic or voice chat (which really never works to improve another's performance, but I presume, makes them feel better.)
Fer instance, I just quit out of one server because this guy, aptly named 'great @ this' got more and more pissed off that the rest of the team were being morons. Which, strictly speaking, was true. As they were running headfirst into various zombies, and being very prone to friendly fire anyone in the vicinity of their cone of fire.
Still, I personally just treated it as a challenge (Hello, we've already seen the two maps, there's no 'progression' to speak of) to improve my own play. After observing that I was getting my head blown off and my body shot to pieces by the other well-meaning newbies, when trying to run in to melee and save someone grappled down by a zombie without incurring friendly fire, I decided to make it a point to stay OUT of their firing range, period.
But anyhow, Mr Progressively-more-exasperated yet Obnoxiously-Uber-at-this decided that he would run in front of one of these newbies to show off his leet SMG skillz on a pack of zombies.
(Two of us were already dead. So I had a beautiful spectator's view of the incident. And I could have told him what would happen because I have been in both the shooter and the shootee's positions.)
He got a backful of shotgun shells. Obviously intended for the zombies he was so intent on killing too. BLAM. He goes down. Screaming his fury over voice chat. The poor guy who shot him is trying to help him up, when the onrush of zombies brings them both down and ends the game for all of us.
I get a whiff of what's coming when I notice that he's lost it and is emptying his pistols into the other guy's downed body.
We all respawn. And this time he's hopping mad. At everybody else. The guy who shot him is already looking out the door, shooting zombies, thinking we're going again. Me, I know better. Sure enough, he comes out howling for blood and empties his clip into the fourth guy - who didn't do a thing to him except be a bit newbie-ish.
Having already gotten kicked around as the dumbass newb on a Texas-based server in which I was fighting bad ping and a group of 3 who were on voice comms and seemed to know each other (that's where I figured out the above 'friendly fire' tradition), I was ready in vigilante fashion.
The fourth guy, who is now down, is of course reacting with typical pissed-off-ness by trying to empty his pistols into the guy who shot him. Mr Uber has taken refuge behind a door, and I see him reloading (courtesy of the nice blue outline Valve gave us to locate each other for teamwork reasons).
I flip the door open and empty two shotgun rounds into his brainpan.
He drops. Obviously there goes any semblance of hope that the team is going to give it a proper try again, so I decide to leave the server, leaving the two downed fellas trying to pistol whip each other through the doorway.
Ah well. I guess boys will be boys.
I do like the vigilante option of blowing away the first guy who started the whole 'griefing' session though. Just seems like appropriate justice. Eye for eye. Death for death.
It does seem like the one person that is naturally best at FPS in the team will start to act up. That Texan server I was mentioning? I basically tried it out to test playability with high ping. Playable but much harder to react - so I was basically like the slow noob retard they had to carry for most of the way. Didn't help that they had evolved a certain style and route that they stuck to like glue for the whole mission, different from the one I was used to on servers closer to home.
They played with excellent cooperation and were great shots on the whole. I learned a number of valuable things just running with them. (Such as listening out for zombie sounds to tell which special zombie was around the corner.)
But I suppose because they knew each other, they were really prone to monkeying around. So a chain reaction of FFA play would start at freaky moments, usually instigated by the best shot/player on the team. And he would cackle down the mic at everyone, gloating that he was pretty much untouchable (in typical bruhaha, I am so leet at FPS twitch skill fashion). Didn't help that they were treating the outsider as pretty much the dumb omega wolf retard to toy with and help when they felt like it. Still part of the pack, but sort of the outcast runt kinda thing.
I suppose it is a guy thing. It just makes me grumpy. And when I get grumpy, I start plotting vengeance. Hell hath no fury and all that. Perhaps it is a feminine trait, or maybe it's just a ME trait - but I practice Tit-for-Tat strategy (as applied in Prisoner's Dilemma game theory, sometimes with forgiveness, sometimes not.)
I cooperate first. I cooperate once. If I get blown to pieces just cos someone is out looking for a temporary kick, he can be sure his name is on my priority target list. So shortly after the first two freekills of me, Mr Best Player went down as number one on my hitlist.
As usual, because I am a nice person who practices tit-for-tat, I never instigate a friendly fire battle. But because I am a cunning observant ruthless bitch, I keep my eyes peeled for the signs and stay out of easy firing range. The instant Mr Best Player started shooting someone I assumed was his best mate, I went on the hunt and sent shotgun shells into his head.
Best Mate went down, and so did Best Player. Course I made the mistake of staying within range and assuming that was it, but no, Best Player went on firing with his pistol at me and I went down. He cackled over the mic about the noob. So I fired back into his head with my own pistol and obviously, he's got less health than me and dies first. Best Mate then manages to kill me and be the last standing - or, er, still alive, rather. Fine. Scrimmage over. Like I care about 'losing.' I just wanted Best Player's blood.
Personally, I think I did a fair job given the ping that I was up against. The 263ms kind of ping. The kind of ping that sends Gonnil away crying for his lost FPS ability when he tries to play TF2 with us on local servers or whatever.
Obviously, people who've never experienced it aren't so understanding about it, and simply assume the guy playing with them is slow, dumb, retarded and/or a clueless noob.
Little do they know that while I may be a crummy shot and not have the best l33t twitch skills, I do watch and learn and try not to screw up the same way twice in a row.
So the second time there was one of these FFAs that started, I was prepared to come around behind Mr Best Player, blow him away, retreat out of LOS behind a convenient pillar, let him start plinking away at the only target available, his best mate, who of course, got blown away by him at the start of the FFA, before coming back to finish the job. Permanently this time.
Revenge is indeed a sweet desert.
Course, the point of the cooperative game was long long lost some eons ago, so I gave up on the server and called it a decent ping test - playable, but slightly more sucky playable.
It's interesting to see how monkey nature foobars the initial premise of cooperation so easily though.
It suggests the thin veneer of civilization is truly very fragile indeed. Enlightened self-interest only works if everyone has the same goals and values in mind.
I do wish I had a stable group of 3-4 friends to play L4D with, because I think that'll give the best experience possible. But I suppose random luck of the draw has its more unpredictable ups and downs and gives rise to a lot of blog stories.
The good news is it's going to be only 4 people a side, so there will be many many servers and many chances to hit upon a small group with the same shared goals and values. Even if I do hit a lot of jerks and fools along the other end of the normal distribution.
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