Guild Wars 2

There needs to be a way to keep track of sportsmanship in PvP. If Guild Wars 2 is going to be a big PvP e-sporting game then bad sportsmanship on the battlefield should not be tolerated. I was a swimmer back in high school and if I talked to any of my competitors the way some of these people I play Guild Wars against do I would be disqualified from every race at that meet. Not only that, but it kind of ruins the game when there is that one guy who complains about lag when he gets killed and calls you a noob when he kills you. Allowing poor sportsmanship is disrespectful to the sport.

You haven’t been gaming online long, have you. :p

I don’t really see any way of doing this that wouldn’t be a prohibitive drain on resources for ArenaNet. It would requiring monitoring chat… which would require many, many human beings to keep track of. It would also introduce a somewhat Orwellian feel to the chat channels. Bad enough you don’t know what you can get banned for in crafting and trading; now we have to watch our mouths or be banned by the PC Police?

One thing that would be interesting would be the ability of players to mark other players, over the course of a match (as in WvW) or at the end of an SPvP matchup (never done SPvP, so I’m not sure how it works), as having been particularly fun to play with. If someone manages to make “most popular player” at any point, they could get an achievement for it, maybe with the title “Good game, bro” or something like that,

It is the community’s responsibility to manage more “structured” tournaments, and to that end I do not see your desire as being impossible. However from other competitive gaming I’ve watched (with opponents not meeting in person), I have not seen a player be punished for repeated negative behavior. They merely gain a negative reputation while acknowledging whatever skill they have.

If GW2 becomes the type of competitive game that is regularly broadcasted on a relatively large scale, it most likely won’t be ANet doing the broadcasting, with ANet instead focusing on giving the means to do so. The built in tournaments being more to enable players to get exposure and reputation, and if there’s ever any “lets get all the powerful players together for an intense tournament”, that would be put together by the community. Thus with that balance, I would expect any conduct-enforcement to be the responsibility of those hosting the more serious things.

Well, of course minding some conduct parameters are outlined in the ToS, for which the report tool is the means of enforcement.

Actually, in most honest competative online gaming circles those with nasty reputations get thrown to the sidelines no matter what skill (if any) they have.

Besides, those that rely on such things regularly are those that prove to suck hard. The best PvPers remain calm at all times and keep the focus on their own performance and in supporting the team. No one wins a game themselves, the ones shouting noob and claiming lag is causing their problems are also the type of individuals that believe they can single handedly win a game. They are typically always the ones that cause their side to lose. While no single individual can cause a side to win, it only takes one hotheaded fool to lose a game for their team.

Welcome to the internet.

Please remember that eSports are not regarded as highly as real-life Sports.

As such, there is a level of trash talk that is tolerated by the community so that the particular game draw in a wider audience of players, and allow the developers to prove to sponsors that there is an investment opportunity in the game.
Trying to regulate the behaviour of anonymous players is simply not within the developer’s or publisher’s power.

Things like sportsmanship are not regulated until the higher tiers of competitive player, where players must start revealing their identities and gain a public image.

It’s not ideal, but that’s the sacrifice we must make since there is still a heavy stigma around video games for a big portion of modern society.

And of course, there are also people who believe in psychologically attacking other players too. They firmly believe that bullying tactics are a healthy part of the competition.

Sad, but true.

Another possibility would be if, for SPvP, players had the opportunity to block other players from their match-ups (I seem to recall XBox Live having a similar function). Players who were consistently abusive might have difficulty finding matches, though that risk would also exist for habitual banners.

back when you were on the swim team, did you have flippers on?
would’nt the other team get a little mad if they’re swimming fair and square and you have flippers on and leave them behind without any skill or effort?
thats the difference,

in real life its your physical/mental ability that gives you the edge so people will congratulate each other when one of them fairly wins.

Back in GW2 someone spamming an easy mode Quickness/Backstab/heartseeker build is likely to get a lot of hatred, for playing with such a cheap build.

you really expect everyone to clap and say “bravo! well played!” when some guy is going round clicking 2 buttons and one shotting everything?

if the game was balanced, and skill determined who won
then you’d likely see sportsmanship.

I like what League of Legends did, allowing people to rate each other either positively or negatively depending on how they play. Each player with very high ratings them get a mark next to their name and kind of automatically earn the trust of the team. Maybe it could be adapted?

In general bad mouthing in online games is an overall problem with the culture. It’s hard to change, but it doesn’t mean we should say that’s how it is and give up.