Gather 'round and I will tell you a story of great justice against ultimate stupidity.
I've been playing this game for, I don't know, the middle of May I think - whenever that recent steam sale happened. Not very long, I know, so I guess I don't really know what the community here is like when there aren't steam sales happening. All I can tell you is that it has been a hit or miss experience for me, insofar as some lobbies are completely chill and others are full of random people saying really awful things to each other.
I'm a very competitive person with an aggressive personality, and I take particular pride in leading groups of people, both in my professional and recreational life. I run a gaming group of 12 people, our biggest accomplishment being our role-playing setting that has been consistently active for 3 1/2 years. I am used to being respected by my fellow gamers. I am also used to my gender being irrelevant when it comes to gaining that respect.
So, while it wasn't exactly surprising to run into the type of stuff I have in this game, it isn't something I am accustomed to. Certainly, I've been on the internet at this point since AOL was pay-per-minute. This means I have grown a very thick skin, to the point where people angrily threatening to rape me garners only a shrug (and usually a comeback - my policy is not to ignore these people; I bite back). What I am not used to is the sheer volume of these types of encounters. Not even when I was heavily into MMOs did I ever encounter so many guys saying highly inappropriate and usually threatening sexual remarks to me. But it's every other day here.
I'll grant you that it's usually low level people who probably just bought the game, but is that an excuse? No, it is not. This is why I tend to avoid competitive games despite my competitive personality - the BS I have to put up with just for revealing the fact that I'm female by saying "hello" in the lobby. But I don't avoid this game because I actually really, really admire the uniqueness of the teamwork aspect, and the depth of the combat system. I like the fact that you're only as good as the rest of your ship's crew, whereas in most co-op games you can often go off on your own and be good or bad individually.
So with that preface let me tell you that last night was a pretty typical encounter for me. I've been trying my hand at piloting for the first time this week, and was doing so when I entered a 4v4 match. My crew was comprised of a real-life friend (Norm von Luftballons), his friend (Geometric), and a girl gunner (Sae) I met through the game just this week. In the lobby the only other person I vaguely knew was one of my team's pilots (ieatbugs). His crew was people I don't know. The other two ships on my side had level 1 pilots. The other team was comprised of 3 ships that apparently knew each-other (on their individual ships, not as a whole team) based on their clan tags.
So one guy from blue team asks to match if we can hear him, as he's testing his mic. I respond like a normal person and say, "Yes we can hear you," on x chat. Hearing my voice is apparently enough to get someone else from blue team to proceed to call me a slut, say that I'm unoriginal because of my ship name (the Lusty Argonian Maid - an obscure Elder Scrolls reference), and you know, a bunch of other very graphic stuff that I'm guessing would be a violation of terms of service to even describe here.
I don't particularly care when it's one guy. What made this encounter special was that, after his entire ship jumped on board with these comments, eventually 9 out of the 16 people on blue team were saying this stuff to me. All because I said "yes we can hear you" and had a female voice. They were so overwhelmingly loud that it was impossible for me or any of my team to get a word in. My only response was to type to match chat, "Prepare to die." Of course this only made things worse for me, until we got in game. How we live in a world where 9 out of 16 men think it's okay to do this to someone I will never know.
Match starts and I then proceed to get on captains chat. I informed the other 3 captains, with special attention placed on the two level 1 pilots, that we were going to (expletive deleted) the other team up their (expletive deleted), and they were to do exactly as I say and let me call the shots. ieatbugs was down for it, one of the level 1's responds with a yes ma'am, other level 1 is silent but apparently responsive, as he did everything I asked. It was Red Sepulcher, so I demanded they do not go through the pass for any reason, even to chase down a dying ship, that we would stay in the red spawn the entire time. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how difficult it is to convince level 1 pilots to use a cautious strategy like that, but miraculously, they didn't chase enemies at all.
So the match pretty much went like this where cat = red team:
Every target I called they targeted. ieatbugs got in trouble one time and we rescued him, but otherwise it went incredibly smoothly. My ship was utterly unstoppable (junker with meta one side, all artemis other side), and I am sure we got at least half the kills, including the winning kill. I spoke harshly to my team, but rewarded them with praise when things went well - which was most of the time.
In the end, we won the match 12 - 0. Finished it off with taunting to the other team that I probably shouldn't repeat, got the last word, and never heard from those guys again.
Felt good man.
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