This CAD comic about League of Legends is not only funny, but pretty accurate.
I’m not sure expecting the community to ever be all flowers and hugs is reasonable though, it’s a PvP game after all, and some level of competitive spirit (read: rage) is par for the course. It would actually be odd to have five people remain perfectly calm and positive when they are getting stomped 5-30. Like hey, you are getting worked, it’s probably someone’s fault, feel free to let it out. I don’t want to hear “we can win this guys!”. No, we can’t, and you suggesting we keep on keeping on is just feeding the rage (and is it just me, or is the overly positive guy usually the one responsible for the disaster in the first place?). Yes, 25-30 or even 15-30 is not doomsday over, but 5-30 is something that needed to end five minutes ago.
Moving on.
A M&B:W saga post is coming later tonight, but I just wanted to point out one pretty damn cool feature here, because I think it really adds a ton to the game and is a good example of adding some fantasy without going all-out and totally changing the setting. In PoP special ‘mega stacks’ can spawn, which feature a named target along with a huge host of similar-themed enemies. This army then goes around causing havoc, be it to trade caravans, peasants, or NPC lords trying to go about their business.
One interesting occurrence that I witnessed was a kingdom warparty of multiple lords being sidetracked by a special spawn, as they all had to run away from it (the special spawn, being huge, moves pretty slow). My guess is that the spawns slowly get whittle down after fighting enough battles, and once you get a pretty strong force, you can attempt to kill them. Rumor has it they have special item drops, but I’m not even close to that level of power yet.
What I love about this feature is that it adds a very classic RPG feature (a boss or big bad) to M&B without it feeling cheesy or totally out of place. The lore behind PoP explains why these events occur, and it makes sense. It’s not “hey we have this medieval setting without magic, but look, random dragon event here, yay!” Maybe to others the difference is not as important, but to me it’s huge and adds a great twist to the M&B formula.
Hardcore Casual 
“calm and positive when they are getting stomped 5-30.”
It’s odd, but losing doesn’t particularly bother me; being roflstomped doesn’t irk me at all.
As long as I can surrender early.
It’s INCREDIBLY irritating to just be farmed over and over, pushing out a surrender vote as soon as possible, only for one dickhead to say no. I mean, why? What’s the point in playing? If I leave, I get a penalty. If I AFK, I get a penalty. And that’s what really gets me, that there’s this in-built assumption that, by leaving, you’re ruining a game and thus must be punished. Sure, the people roflstomping me may have their lolz cut short a bit, but who cares? They’ve already won. Being blackmailed by the system into playing through an awful match just because some arse won’t surrender is *the* most annoying thing I’ve encountered in online games in the past 2 years or so.
So in the end, it DOES piss you off.
Buckley? Funny?
In this day and age?
I don’t think so.
News at 11 : PvP with random PUGS is even more fail than PvE!
Seriously as long as you grouped with random people it will never work. Group players by rank AND group them by social networks. Avoid grouping them with random people.
[quote]
It’s odd, but losing doesn’t particularly bother me; being roflstomped doesn’t irk me at all.
They’ve already won.
[/quote]
See this is why it doesnt work . In game players like you cause me rage and call you all kind of names. I bet you would also call me a jerk and asshole.
I would prefer never play with people like you and I am sure you would be happily play with player not stressing over a win. But NOOOOOOO. they invent some BS tribunal system. Hence I dont play LoL.
If what CAD says is true and the low ranked players are better behaved than veterans it raises some very interesting questions.
Is it that the game requires you to be a jerk in order to do well?
or
Is it that the game actually changes people’s behaviour as they get sucked in to it?
or
are there more possibilities I haven’t thought of?
One thing I really like about LoL is how often my team comes from way behind to pull off a win. I really try to avoid surrendering as much as possible.