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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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It's like manna from heaven!
A feature like this is long overdue for dealing with the assholes who seemingly dominate Xbox Live.
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20060 821
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?
We used to joke that there should be a skip-the-shit button on most of the games. There's a lot of games where they make you sit through videos or storyline that doesn't really have anything to do with the game. A lot of time they are just trying to push a story into a game that doesn't really need a story, or the story is so bad, that nobody wants to listen.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
It's much better than "Jerk the Mute"
Who the f*** do you think you are ass wipe.
Halo 2 always had the ability to mute a *specific* player while in gameplay... it's just that it took about 3-4 clicks and a scroll or two. It was a little cumbersome, esp. in the middle of gameplay. It goes more to the fact of how annoying some people are online that if it can be shaved down to just 2 clicks and 1 scroll, we're in great shape.
I'm pretty sure that beyond it being a quicker-access, the rest of it is the same: meaning when the person is muted, he is muted forever and ever in your personal account preferences. And only in gameplay... post and pre game, everyone can be heard. They may have changed that, but if so they haven't spelled it out.
n/a
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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This is really nothing new, the function already exists in every 360 console. It just looks like Halo 3 will just be making it easier to access. If the game allows you to hilight the player and bring up their profile, there will be a mute option on the list. Choose that, and you are done with all of the annoyances. If you cannot pull up the player gamer profile from the game itsself: simply hit the "X" button on the center of the controller, bring up the recent players list, find the a-hole player and select their profile,then choose mute This has come in handy many nights with some of the trash talkers in Gears of War
If you could just automatically mute anyone not old enough to drink.
"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.
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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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Sounds like a philosophical question to me... "If a 12-year-old n00b plays halo and everyone has him muted, does he still complain about lag?"
Actually there is a gamer device that hooks in and allows you to record and playback audio with a button. I used one of those to record a moron like that and I constantly repeated his words right after he said them. It pissed him off so much he left the game.
Works great, and when everyone in the game decides to simply gang up on the idiot it makes for even more fun.
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And I'm stealing that for my sig.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I totally agree. I've been gaming for a long time, but just started using a headset for the first time two weeks ago. I've never heard more offensive, foul, cruel language in my life. I'm no prude, and cussing doesn't bother me that much. But when it's all I hear, it's sad.
And the racist comments! I can't believe how much offensive racist crap I've heard in the past two weeks. Today's gaming youth in America is an embarrassment.
My headset experience only lasted two weeks, because I'm back to playing without it.