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Halo 3 To Have 'Mute the Jerk' Button
Eurogamer is reporting on comments from the Bungie website. A feature for the upcoming Halo 3, that they've just announced, will be most welcomed by aging FPS players tired of hearing high-pitched squeals through their headsets. When playing an online match, players will be able to hit a button and then choose one of the gamertags playing the game. The result: a total mute on that player for the remainder of the game. They don't mention it on the site, but one would hope the Xbox Live servers are taking metrics on this activity, to be used in calculating the player's reputation. The more you mouth off, the worse you look to future players. Anyone have some other feature they think might make online gaming better?
Vote kick/ban are always handy.
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You can mute a player on x-box live today, but it is a tedious process. You have to break from gameplay to mute a individual. You really don't want to turn down the TV, it is nice to hear team mates.
Not sure people will leave if they know they're not being heard. People still post as Anonymous Coward on Slashdot, don't they?
Sounds all well and good, until some jackass decides to start muting everybody else just for the fun of bringing their points down.
Fnord.
I think it's a great idea, especially if the muted player gets a notification of the muting and if the status shows up on any lists of players on the server.
It would be a good deterrent if they knew that multiple players considered them not worth talking to. Even better if it sends them into an incoherent rage that results in more and more people muting them, if you ask me. Nothing quite like a wave of unpopularity to send an immature kid off sulking.
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"A feature for the upcoming Halo 3, that they've just announced, will be most welcomed by aging FPS players tired of hearing high-pitched squeals through their headsets."
OK, so there may be some correlation between older players wanting more strategy-oriented comms, and younger players getting out of hand verbally, but it is by no means a "hey you kids, get off my lawn" issue! Please, at any age if there's someone on your team just swearing constantly, belittling other players, screaming, singing, or my personal un-favorite - putting the mic next to their stereo - it is distracting and annoying to others. You don't have to be old to hate idiots yelling into their mics, and you don't have to be young to act like a trash-talking jerk.
Then there are the folks who say they do it "cuz you other people take this game way too seriously man!". Except that there's plenty of us who don't take the game to seriously, it's just that when we signed on to play that was what we expected would occur, not some crapfest of screaming idiots who can't be bothered to actually play the game. If we're talking it too seriously by wanting to enjoy a couple matches then these griefers are taking the game way too UN-seriously by thinking that any behavior at all is acceptible by virtue of just showing up.
I think this is a long overdue enhancement to the system, right now you can mute these jerks but it's a bit unwieldy and can take too long when you're actually trying to concentrate on play. I'd also like to see them add a feedback options for people who quit early - or at least internal tracking that affects game matching queues accordingly. While I understand that every now and again some of us have to quit mid-match, there are lots of people that abuse it by quitting when the other team scores once, or they don't like the map, or the gametype, or.... etc. If someone starts ranking up a statistically significant number of "left game early" feedbacks they should have an automatic wait penalty added to any game queue, and make it big and obvious so they know why they're being sanctioned in such a way. Just my $0.02 as a frustrated weekend gamer.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
I don't know about obnoxious players leaving, but this seriously might make me start playing online again. The only thing worse than being fragged by a 12-year old who has nothing to do but get good at playing Halo is to have to listen to their pre-pubescent trash talk. That was the chief reason I quit playing Halo 2. You can stick me with a plasma, gut me with the sword, blast me with the shotgun, or hit me face-first with a rocket, but please just shut up with the trash talk!
-stormin
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