Re-re-re visit game ruining and intentional feed rules

[child]

Okay so I know that this has been brought up many times, and I have not seen anything done about it. There NEEDS to be a limit or a cap on the number of deaths a person can have (assists also taken into account) within a time period in which the team should be allowed to kick them without risking being banned.

I do not care for the argument "oh if they are trying and making an effort it should never be allowed to kick them".

Whats the basis to this argument? I only see this rule as in clear contradiction with the following.

Is not ENT about providing a service that aims to please the large MAJORITY of its players?
Are rules on ENT (and in real life) made so that they protect the interests of the vast MAJORITY of people?
Isnt it possible they are just making it look like they are trying? (most likely).

Look, I play A ton of DOTA on these servers, and while I would label about 50% of the players "noobs" I really do not mind playing with them. About 35 percent are decent/competent players and about 5% are very skilled. The last 10 %, are players who are either intentional troll feeders or completely incapable of playing the game -- these people I cannot stand and I think the other 90% of the player base would agree. The problem is that well over half of this 10%, in my opinion, simply do not care for the team or the game or anything really and although they appear to be "trying" (which protects them from being kicked) they really dont give a crap and feed feed feed. In my opinion almost all of these people are actually doing this to entertain themselves / troll their team.

Take for instance this game https://entgaming.net/findstats.php?id=2227749 where I was admittedly trolling on a smurf, yet I always try to win. Two of my team were what I would call noobs, but noobs that I can enjoy playing with because their deaths are always in an effort to benefit the team or they are simply farming and pushing lanes and doing their best not to die. The other two (who were friends I believe) died 13 times in 22 minutes and had zero kills and basically no assists (i dont count AM's kill because he waited right behind me with full hp for about a minute while I killed their whole team and then blinked in and ulted the last one who had about 200 hp left while I was about half). By the end they were 0-21 with 3 assists. BUT they were like killing creeps and fighting when attacked so under the rules, it isn't allowed to kick them. [b]Thats bullshit.[/b] The saddest part is that if they had only died I would say about 5 less times or if the other team had VK at 22 mins I would have won the game with 100% certainty.

This kind of protection allows the 10% of trash free reign to troll and ruin games, as long as they make it look like they are doing something. For maybe the occasional new new newbie like never played before (I strongly believe that consists of 2 percent or less than the people I played with ever), im sorry but theres something called AI for a reason. NEW New newbies usually do not stay long and feed , as they want to win but are just terrible, unlike trolls like this who will die 20+ times in a game and laugh about it.

I propose that if the other members of the team all agree, and if at least 1 of the other team agrees, a player who goes 0-7 or 0-8 with 2 assists or less in 20 mins or less should be allowed to be kicked AND banned for 2 hours and if the other team does not vote they should be banned. If game goes 30 mins and u have a 0-10- 4 or less assists the same deal. Again is this not about serving the interests of the MAJORITY and being fair? I can not remember myself having that bad of a game, but I have definitely remember being about 0-5-0 at 20 mins or so and you know what I did? I left the fucking game. Why? because im not one of these douchebag game ruining trolls that consist of 5-10% of the ent player base that enjoys feeding. I was pissed because I actually want to play to win. I realized that I was ruining the game and the other team wouldnt kick me so I left. Guess what? Yep I got banned for it, but my team went on to win, while these game ruiners aren't banned and stay to ensure a loss, but make it look legit.

It needs to happen, the issue is getting worse believe me. Not to mention that people are scared to VK anyone anymore because "trying" is an all encompassing term pretty much

[child]

and to add to this, its downright disgraceful and ridiculous that users such as https://entgaming.net/openstats/dota/player/bulgogi/

have not been given year bans at least. There are very few of these trolls that actually have some skill, enough to guarantee losses and hide it behind decent kdr etc., yet I have played with at least 3-4. This one is probably the worst, he does what he can to ensure a loss for his team yet maintain even kdr. After 200 games with decent cs, good denies, and even kdr do you really think that it would in any universe be possible to have 400 elo if he didnt throw 99% of the games he plays?

[EdgeOfChaos]

First, I'd like to draw a distinction between "trolls" and "bad players" since you seem to think they are one in the same.

A troll will intentionally lose his games, a bad player will try to win. This IS admittedly difficult to tell while watching the replay, so we typically give people the benefit of the doubt for first offenses. However, the system of getting rid of trolls and keeping 'noobs' in works. For example, I have played with many low ELO players (TheBandit, myvi) and they often have parts of the game down well (Like ganking) but are seriously lacking in teamplay and don't understand why they're losing. Whereas, I have also played with trolls (gurke, leedsheet etc) and I believe I banned gurke for 1 year for throwing games over and over + dodging a while back. This is just a long way of saying I'm pretty good at telling the difference between a troll and a noob. So I reject the statement that it would not be "...possible to have 400 elo if he didnt throw 99% of the games he plays". It is very possible. If you disagree with this, watch games of that player and show me where he throws intentionally. If you can prove it, the user in question can be banned.

Also: I'll refer to the "really bad players" as noobs in this paragraph, because that's how I think of it

Alright: To the opening post.
I think you misunderstand what the purpose of banning is. The primary purpose of banning is to re-educate people, to get them to follow the rules. The secondary purpose (if this fails/for MH) is to get him off of ENT to make the service more enjoyable to people who follow the rules.

How can you teach someone through banning to be a good player? Simple answer, you can't, and therefore banning people for being bad players goes directly against the purpose of banning. You might argue that it fulfills the secondary purpose of making the service more enjoyable to others, however I think it's wrong to ban a bad player because he is bad, even if it makes the service more enjoyable to more people.

The rules of ent are a list of things that are wrong to do because they decrease the quality of the hosting service. How can you argue that it is "wrong" to be bad at a game? Saying that doing something is wrong implies there is some choice involved in the taking of the action: accidental actions taken that result in bad consequences are generally not bannable (example: someone xin glitches by accident and they didn't know about the glitch: not bannable). There is clearly no choice in being bad at a game.

Next: The majority is not always right. If "pleasing a MAJORITY of the players" means kicking a user who has done nothing wrong out of the game, then ENT is certainly not about pleasing the majority of the players. And no, rules in ENT and in real life are not made so that they protect the interest of the majority, they are made so they protect the interests of everyone who is not intentionally degrading quality of ent. Since you brought real life into this, I'll give a real life example of this. When slavery was legal, black people were a minority in the country and white people were a majority. Does that mean it was absolutely fine to have slavery because the majority of people benefited from it? Of course not. Laws in real life are to protect everyone who doesn't initiate force, and likewise laws in ENT are there to protect everyone who doesn't initiate actions that intentionally ruin other people's experience.

A dota example: If there are 4 people who want to go fountain sit at 5 minutes in a game and one person who wants to play, are they allowed to kick the player who wants to play because they are a majority? Of course not.

This was all argument for keeping people who are doing their best in game. Now I'll address the argument that the 10% of really bad players are trolls.

Do you remember when you started playing DotA? I do, and I was one of those 10% really bad players. Some people really just DON'T understand the game at all when they first start, and think doing things like buying 2 boots for heroes with 2 feet is a good idea. It's very possible to be trying and go 0-20. Decent players do it vs soju and other top10ers all the time.

P.S. since you brought up laws in real life:
The philosophy you use in the OP is utilitarianism ("the greatest good for the greatest number"). Here is a great article on why the view that laws in real life exist to protect the majority: http://theophilogue.com/2009/11/19/util ... -not-work/ (somewhat applicable to this topic)

Also: more on why the majority is not always right. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 615AAsQUFB (more applicable to dota)
I hope you'll read all of this (admittedly very long) post and respond why you think this rule should still be in place. Thanks

[child]

[quote]First, I'd like to draw a distinction between "trolls" and "bad players" since you seem to think they are one in the same.[/quote]

No, I said in the first paragraph that 50% are noobs that I am fine playing with, I don't even consider them bad players from game to game. Then I also said that in the 10% of game ruining players that there are "some" genuinely bad and or brand new to the game players. Im saying that that number is way way lower than many people think, and that of that 10%, 8/10 times the person is a troll ruining on purpose. Do you really believe that a person who was never played dota before or is just bad would go out and die 15 times without a kill and everyone clearly upset by it? For 30 minutes straight? The only way I see that happening is if they were enjoying it. Simply put its an issue of perseverance. When I am going 10-0 against complete noobs at 10 minutes do I want to continue doing this same thing for another 20 minutes? No, because it becomes a chore or tedious, any rational person would feel this way.

[quote]The majority is not always right. If "pleasing a MAJORITY of the players" means kicking a user who has done nothing wrong out of the game, then ENT is certainly not about pleasing the majority of the players. And no, rules in ENT and in real life are not made so that they protect the interest of the majority, they are made so they protect the interests of everyone who is not intentionally degrading quality of ent.[/quote]

It is not even about being right, it is about enjoyment. I just find it hard to believe that ENT would not sacrifice the rights to play of MAYBE 2% of its player base when it would result in 8% or so of the people that ruin games and degrade its' name being removed. The slavery analogy I do not get, because that presupposes that when I am saying that the enjoyment level of the majority would be to the terrible injustice to "slaves" or newnewnewoobies it is simply not necessarily true, they can play on other servers freely or ai for a couple days or weeks and then come back or whatever or appeal. And I doubt it makes an ounce of difference to them if they truly are new. I would even guarantee that most genuine bad/new players would enjoy AI or bgn apem or such.

[quote] If there are 4 people who want to go fountain sit at 5 minutes in a game and one person who wants to play, are they allowed to kick the player who wants to play because they are a majority? Of course not.[/quote]

I do not get this either though... The point of the game -- ENT completely aside and even DOTA -- the point of any team game is want and try to help your team to win. My claim is that 92% of people consistently do this, while 8% actively do not. If the 4 people sitting in the fountain all tried to win the game and wanted to win for the first 5 minutes while the 1 person who wanted to play fed NS 4 times, doesn't say a word, and goes back to feed another time then yes, I believe those 4 people have the RIGHT to kick this person. HE singularly is ruining the experience of four other people.

[quote]Do you remember when you started playing DotA? I do, and I was one of those 10% really bad players. Some people really just DON'T understand the game at all when they first start, and think doing things like buying 2 boots for heroes with 2 feet is a good idea. It's very possible to be trying and go 0-20. Decent players do it vs soju and other top10ers all the time.[/quote]

I cannot remember for DOTA as it was probably Aeon, in which case everyone was somewhat a noob. But sure, when I played Halo 2 for a long time I remember being a complete noob and not even knowing how to use the radar. I played online and maybe ruined one or two games by dying like 20 times and u know what? I said fuck it and played campaign to figure the game out because I was not having fun feeding, nor was I actively not caring about winning or trying to lose for my team. Maybe I am sentimental or too respectful of others experiences but when a single player option or lower level option is available to avoid ruining many peoples fun online I think any decent person would go there -- UNLESS it is fun for them to feed and ruin games. As for my 10% claim, I am pretty firm that of that 10% 1/5 players I have played w/ within the last 2 years are genuinely bad or new to the game, yes. I have personally only once seen a player buy 2 boots who I deemed not a troll, but sure I've seen a few new new mistakes. But you know how I can always tell if their really noob or just a troll? A real noob will almost always leave after a few deaths or at least say, hey guys wtf is going on??

Its the majority of the worst players, the 10%, who know how to farm silently and die inconspicuously, and enjoy doing so that need to be restrictred.


Just look at this
https://entgaming.net/openstats/dota/player/shyshaddy/
says not a word in either game, except telling a player to go kill his mom or something
I mean, really?? Believe me also if you do not play much recently, this is pretty standard of that 8% i am talking about. A player, some benjaigm, even follows him from the first game to the next knowing that he will feed 10+ deaths and it wont be allowed to kick him. It makes me sick

[EdgeOfChaos]

I think you have BBCode disabled in your posts: your quotes are showing wrong and it makes it hard to read.

No, I said in the first paragraph that 50% are noobs that I am fine playing with, I don't even consider them bad players from game to game. Then I also said that in the 10% of game ruining players that there are "some" genuinely bad and or brand new to the game players. Im saying that that number is way way lower than many people think, and that of that 10%, 8/10 times the person is a troll ruining on purpose. Do you really believe that a person who was never played dota before or is just bad would go out and die 15 times without a kill and everyone clearly upset by it? For 30 minutes straight? The only way I see that happening is if they were enjoying it. Simply put its an issue of perseverance. When I am going 10-0 against complete noobs at 10 minutes do I want to continue doing this same thing for another 20 minutes? No, because it becomes a chore or tedious, any rational person would feel this way.

You could keep going out and dying if you're trying to learn the game and no one wants to help you learn it. You could if you simply don't want to get banned for leaving or base sitting.

It is not even about being right, it is about enjoyment. I just find it hard to believe that ENT would not sacrifice the rights to play of MAYBE 2% of its player base when it would result in 8% or so of the people that ruin games and degrade its' name being removed. The slavery analogy I do not get, because that presupposes that when I am saying that the enjoyment level of the majority would be to the terrible injustice to "slaves" or newnewnewoobies it is simply not necessarily true, they can play on other servers freely or ai for a couple days or weeks and then come back or whatever or appeal. And I doubt it makes an ounce of difference to them if they truly are new. I would even guarantee that most genuine bad/new players would enjoy AI or bgn apem or such.

Okay, I, will say it in terms of enjoyment then. If you kick+ban bad players, you are taking away the enjoyment of players who have done nothing intentional to take away the enjoyment of others. They are trying to learn dota, and by being noobs have made others have less enjoyment. I say this once again, the majority is not always right, and it's not always good to do what the majority wants.

The analogies were supposed to prove that what's best for the majority is not always good. Yes, booting new players is injustice if you want to think of it that way. The argument that they can "play on a different server" is completely irrelevant. How about we just ban you for no reason because you can go play on a different server? No, it doesn't work like that.

ENT tries to provide the best quality gaming. Above all, games need to be kept fair. It is not fair to ban someone based on their skill level at the game.

I do not get this either though... The point of the game -- ENT completely aside and even DOTA -- the point of any team game is want and try to help your team to win. My claim is that 92% of people consistently do this, while 8% actively do not. If the 4 people sitting in the fountain all tried to win the game and wanted to win for the first 5 minutes while the 1 person who wanted to play fed NS 4 times, doesn't say a word, and goes back to feed another time then yes, I believe those 4 people have the RIGHT to kick this person. HE singularly is ruining the experience of four other people.

I wasn't saying that the point of the game is to lose. Let me rephrase.

Consider a game where 4/5 players want to forfeit, but there's one last player who thinks they can come back. Is it OK for the 4 players to conspire to kick the 5th player who does not want to ff because the majority wants it? Of course it's not.

I don't care who wants someone kicked: if someone is not intentionally ruining the quality of the game, you have no right to kick him. ENT is not a democracy (even though some things are decided through votes, ENT really isn't a democracy).

I cannot remember for DOTA as it was probably Aeon, in which case everyone was somewhat a noob. But sure, when I played Halo 2 for a long time I remember being a complete noob and not even knowing how to use the radar. I played online and maybe ruined one or two games by dying like 20 times and u know what? I said fuck it and played campaign to figure the game out because I was not having fun feeding, nor was I actively not caring about winning or trying to lose for my team. Maybe I am sentimental or too respectful of others experiences but when a single player option or lower level option is available to avoid ruining many peoples fun online I think any decent person would go there -- UNLESS it is fun for them to feed and ruin games. As for my 10% claim, I am pretty firm that of that 10% 1/5 players I have played w/ within the last 2 years are genuinely bad or new to the game, yes. I have personally only once seen a player buy 2 boots who I deemed not a troll, but sure I've seen a few new new mistakes. But you know how I can always tell if their really noob or just a troll? A real noob will almost always leave after a few deaths or at least say, hey guys wtf is going on??

Well not everyone already knows what they're doing. Some people have never played an AoS before, and many do not know about the AI maps, or do not want to play them for the reason that AI maps are all but useless for learning how to play vs real players.

A noob won't always leave after some deaths. Maybe they don't want to get banned from ENT for 5 days, or maybe they want to learn the game.

(edit)
While that player you brought up is obviously quite impolite, I think I'd be impolite too if I was trying to learn the game and only got flamed by players and told to leave, etc. I will, however, watch his replays and see if he's intentionally ruining.
If you think a player is intentionally throwing games/trolling, feel free to report as that is very bad.

(edit2) You might be interested to know that was the second game of dota that user ever played. Yes, I checked aliases.

Bottom line: ENT is service for all players who want to have fun, regardless of skill. Only exceptions are intentional ruiners.
Want a game without noobs? Go play EDL/HR games, or just swap teams when you see a noob join.

[child]

Ok so you do not at all agree that there should be an imposed limit, way back in the first post, of scores at different times? I would think that if there was, and if a person was truly a noob, it would provide some reference to what is really bad. And, since you said they would not want to leave to avoid ban maybe they would do their best not to get banned for going over this limit? And ask team for advice? Maybe the few people that are in reality really bad or new think going 0-17 is ok. And for the rest, the troll game ruiners, at least it would limit their destructiveness.

If no, ill leave it alone and Yondy can process

[EdgeOfChaos]

I don't believe score matters as long as the user is trying to win. They would do their best, but there's only so much they can do if they don't understand the game. I guess they could fountain sit if they wanted to not get banned unless reported. Also, score doesn't tell the whole story all of the time.

Asking for help doesn't work for two reasons
1) Most people would give constructive advice like "leave" or "stop feeding". Those who would like to help would be limited by the fact that they themselves have to play the game and can't spend a whole lot of time typing
2) The user would not be able to implement the advice immediately. It takes time to practice techniques necessary to win at DotA.

Imo no. But I'm not saying you have to close the suggestion. If you think it's a good idea, by all means argue for it.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

Well I've been stewing over this for a couple days now. Great posts from both of you.

I support the proposal. I also highly respect Edge's arguments and I do support his good intentions and the nice breath of fresh air which comes along with someone actually trying to "stick up" for baddies/newbies, and actually not having fallen victim to a harsh, cynical, jaded, "fuck it" attitude toward those players. It's difficult to keep your head above water in regards to fighting that attitude in any online game, and honestly in my opinion DotA and even moreso LoD is probably one of, if not the, absolute most depressing, difficult, and painful popular online games for new players to "get into", let alone enjoy. There's countless super hard elite games out there which make DotA (or NWU or Legion TD or whatever the fuck it is you people still play) look like a walk in the park, but as far as the "genre" and playerbase goes, wc3 at this point in its lifetime is no friendly place for noobs. It's like trying to play SC1 for the first time in 2013 vs. a bunch of koreans: good fuckin luck bro.

However, this environment does play into my reasons for supporting suggestions such as OP; what seems harsh and unforgiving is really just the best way to deal with it, unfortunately. But I'll get back to this later.

Anyway, so you have this decade-old game in which I think it's fairly safe to make the following assumption: by FAR most people still playing it are NOT newbies, by ANY means. Now that doesn't mean there aren't ANY new players! I can assure the reader that games just as old, or even older, can and do enjoy not just a "renaissance" so to speak (check out Good 'Ol Games and their impressive work at redistributing ancient RPGs for the younger generation; I can assert with 100% veracity from my own experience that old games DO get new gamers; in fact some old games only still survive due to the donations of a slow trickle of new players in conjunction with the remaining old vets), but if not a resurgence, there's at least a constant and endless "leaky tap" effect of people.

Still, by and large, most are longtime vets; unless I read incorrectly, this is a point you both seem to agree on (as for %s or numbers, I have no idea, but I'd wager somewhere around 1% of wc3ers are fresh nubs--I can't picture much more than that). So, I'm only mentioning this because it's part of the buildup for why I think some harsher rules are not only a good thing but also fairly demanded by the vast majority of wc3ers who aren't trolls or griefers--those who may be shitty players. or may be super pros, but regardless they play to have fun and don't play just to fuck with other people.

So, we have an environment in which a tiny tiny tiny % of people are out to fuck with everyone else's fun; and we have a tiny tiny tiny % of people who really are completely clueless and don't know Arthas from Aragorn. The rest of the players are not newbies, and when they play, they play to win (or at least if winning isn't going to happen in a given game, they're still gonna give it their best shot because that's what the fun is).

Now amongst this group we can further subdivide yet more groups:

--Some players may have played ladder or dota or WMW (etc etc etc) years ago, but may not be as good now as they were then.
--Some of these players have "forgotten" their "skill" and while some comes back, they simply are not that good, or are still re-learning how to not suck.
--Some of these players simply always sucked from day 1, and even years later and thousands of games under their belts, they still are terrible players.
--Some of them played addictively year after year and it took that intense playtime to keep their skill sharp and honed; when they took a hiatus for a tough semester that one year, they were never the same again; the game changed too much while they were gone, they lost their edge and likewise their will and confidence to be pro. They are "vets" but no longer "pros".
--Some of them only played infrequently year after year and were never that good in the first place; certainly not terrible feeders every game, but far from impressive; these are the guys who can probably still remember the recipe for Satanic or what you need to build a Chim, but are gonna be easy for skilled opponents to beat.

--Now some of these players aren't by nature trolls or griefers, or even leavers, but there's a million and 1 reasons why a player gets super pissed off ingame and ragequits, fucks his team over intentionally, gives up and "plays" but doesn't put forth 100% effort, and so forth. Sometimes even the most good-natured guy can go apeshit when someone flames him the wrong way, and it will be rare to see, but if you treat him badly enough, you might push him into that "fuck it" zone of not only giving up or leaving but even feeding kills and buying couriers or whatever.
--And some aren't "normally" the type to do this sort of shit, but they also are "known" to do it "sometimes"; they have bad tempers, are super arrogant, or don't know any better way to deal with trolling/flaming/bad luck/feeder team, other than flying off the handle or going griefmode. These guys can normally be counted on to be reliable and "legit" teammates, but due to clan connections, lots of friends, or whatever it is, they have learned that as long as they walk a fine line, they can get away with some quite lame behavior as long as they play their cards right.
--And of course, some are just plain vulnerable to trolling/flaming/getting their asses kicked, and can be reliably counted on to act the fool any time they don't get their way.

So what's the point of talking in so much detail about all this? The point is to show that it's pretty easy to look at the wc3 playerbase (does anyone even play ladder anymore?) and break it down into easily-identifiable categories, and it's pretty easy and simple to make an assessment about a given player, after enough experience with them (or, case in point, after they've played enough games on your bots so you can track their behavior).

Now what's the point of that? The point is that honestly there aren't many new players around, for one thing; and for another, most people aren't douchebags (although everyone can and will be douchebag in the right situation).

And what exactly is the point of all these observations? Well, it leads to the important question at hand: the rules should be designed and implemented to benefit who? Obviously, the best answer is the majority. But it's not that simple either; the rules should benefit everyone as much as possible, and hurt as few people as little as possible. It's not easy to sacrifice one for the other, nor is it ever possible to please everyone all the time.

Yet you must ask yourself the question of how important are these new players, and how far are you willing to go to help them? How much of a sacrifice are you willing to make for their sake? How far should everyone else bend over backwards just to deal with newbs and trolls?

One problem is that with the groups I identified above, there's always the consideration that people who suck badly or act noob, aren't REALLY newbs. There's the fact that literally anything and everything can be found, digested, and learned on the internet; and there's the fact that there is really absolutely no excuse for stepping foot into a new game and not knowing what the fuck you're doing. I don't care how harsh that sounds; it's pure laziness and bullshit to claim that you're a nub and that's why you bought 2 boots of travel (edit: I don't mean you, Edge. Just using your example; I in no way mean to direct this at you; just being hypothetical here; I thought that was a great example). Fuck that shit! Are you kidding me? No way. Maybe 10 years ago, but not today. There's no legitimate excuse for not knowing what the fuck is going on, because the information is out there, waiting to be found if only you cared enough to try; not to mention asking people for advice before you try something. Now sure, maybe your asshole teammates will lie to to you or fuck with you or flame you or try to kick you; but if you joined a game without knowing what the fuck it was, then the responsibility is on YOU to NOT ruin everyone ELSE'S enjoyment.

If you don't know what you're doing, and don't care to learn, and join random custom maps without any clue of what it is, then fuck you. Why? Because you're a lazy selfish prick who obviously doesn't give two shits about anyone else; unless you're literally retarded and unable to comprehend the most basic concepts of life and human interaction, then you HAVE to know that you can ONLY cause pain and difficulty for the game by joining it without knowing what to do. "But then how will people learn?" Bullshit. Watch a fucking video on youtube, or read one of the 50000000 websites that cater specifically to noobs in 500000 different games with 50000000 different "newbie guides".

If you're not a newbie, and you're just an asshole troll, then fuck off anyway; these people obviously shouldn't count for anything when deciding how harsh rules should be.

If you're not a newbie, and you're just a bad player who doesn't remember shit about the game, then read above: fuck off and stop wasting our time because you're too lazy to spend your own time at learning how to not suck. It's really not that hard; I can't think of a single game ever in which you can't at least be decent by putting forth some effort to understand what to do and what not do to. Even a longtime pro DotA'er can go -15 K/D (or even 0 kills 20 deaths, whatever) with the right circumstances of shitty game, shitty choices, shitty allies, pro opponents, bad luck, bad hero, etc. But even with a "score" that's absolutely terrible, you weren't buying 50 chickens or a bunch of useless recipes or running headlong into towers and dying. Maybe you ruined the game (more or less) by feeding so hard, but at the same time, maybe you also still pulled through and ended up winning anyway (we've all done it a million times--those comebacks are the best).

So what am I trying to say here? I'm trying to say fuck those newbies; stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. Stop asking everyone else to sacrifice our fun just for the sake of the guy who doesn't want to lift a finger to understand the game's basics before he joined. Yeah, that sounds mean, but it's really not; tough love is an old phrase for a damn good reason. Just as old and wise are the sayings about "boy crying wolf" or "dog biting the hand that feeds" or "give him an inch and he takes a mile" or whatever else the fuck I just can't think of at the moment. The point is that coddling people and showing them that they can walk all over you only leads them to believe it. If you honestly are playing a wc3 custom map for the first time in fall 2013, and don't know what the game is even about or what the fuck to do, then your friends who got you into it are assholes for not showing you; or you're an asshole for not bothering to find out on your own; or you're an asshole for purposefully joining the game and knowing that you don't remember shit about it. There is no other option here; you suck and should be dealt with harshly, because those other people in that game aren't there just to watch the pretty lights and colors on the screen.

Stop protecting and defending newbs, trolls, and griefers, and start protecting the people who are trying to have fun and put forth the effort to try ensuring everyone else has fun also.

This is already way too long so I'll stop here.

Thanks for reading.

[EdgeOfChaos]

Okay, I'll respond point-by-point.

Anyway, so you have this decade-old game in which I think it's fairly safe to make the following assumption: by FAR most people still playing it are NOT newbies, by ANY means. Now that doesn't mean there aren't ANY new players! I can assure the reader that games just as old, or even older, can and do enjoy not just a "renaissance" so to speak (check out Good 'Ol Games and their impressive work at redistributing ancient RPGs for the younger generation; I can assert with 100% veracity from my own experience that old games DO get new gamers; in fact some old games only still survive due to the donations of a slow trickle of new players in conjunction with the remaining old vets), but if not a resurgence, there's at least a constant and endless "leaky tap" effect of people.

I can only argue with anecdotal evidence, as I don't have any proof for broader claims. I'm in clan MnM, my brother's clan, and most of the people there rarely play anything but hero wars, so when we decide to DotA on ENT they do.. really badly. They aren't new to WC3, but they don't care to spend the time to get good at DotA. I'd guess that there are many people like that.

And what exactly is the point of all these observations? Well, it leads to the important question at hand: the rules should be designed and implemented to benefit who? Obviously, the best answer is the majority. But it's not that simple either; the rules should benefit everyone as much as possible, and hurt as few people as little as possible. It's not easy to sacrifice one for the other, nor is it ever possible to please everyone all the time.

I disagree with ENT rules being there to help the majority of the players. Let's say hypothetically the majority of ENT players were in favor of removing leaving bans in all circumstances, do you think we would do so? Now, you can argue that they are not, so this example is irrelevant, but the principal still holds: the majority is not always right. What is best for the majority is not always a good thing to do. My argument for this and why it applies to ENT is long and philosophical, but I think that's needed as this philosophy of the majority certainly extends beyond ENT. Read it if you want.
[spoiler=]In the real world, laws are in place to stop people from initiating illigitimate force on others. If you think about it, initiation of force – hurting others who have done nothing to you – is how most people would define evil in the first place. I'm assuming that we both accept that initation of force is bad, but if you don't agree, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

Laws exist to prevent initiation of force and, more broadly, to prevent people from hurting each other. This is unrelated to the majority voice, in fact sometimes opposed to the majority voice. As an example, think of slavery in the early United States. The slave owners initiated force against black people in order to deprive them of their freedom, therefore this was an immoral action. The majority of people in the US at that time were not slaves, so if the US was going to do what's best for the majority, we would still have slavery.

The majority is not always right. The majority imposing it's will to deprive people of their freedom is no better than a robber stealing from an innocent person. There truly is no difference. For example, what if the majority wants to take all property owned by people who play on ENTgaming and distribute it to the other people? This is an immoral action, even though the it would be in the best interest of the majority.

Finally, the majority supported Hitler in Germany during the Third Reich, but that doesn't make the actions that Hitler did any better, does it?

How does this apply to ENT? Well, rules at ENT should not be structured around what's good for the “majority”, just as laws in the real world shouldn't be. They are in place to stop people from initiating force in order to ruin games. An example: joining a game and teleporting to the enemies with furion and suiciding: bad. You joined a game against random players and took an overt action to intentionally ruin the game.

On the other hand, joining a game and playing your best – however well/poorly you end up doing – is fine, as the only intentional action you took was to join the ENT game, which is open to all users.[/spoiler]

One problem is that with the groups I identified above, there's always the consideration that people who suck badly or act noob, aren't REALLY newbs. There's the fact that literally anything and everything can be found, digested, and learned on the internet; and there's the fact that there is really absolutely no excuse for stepping foot into a new game and not knowing what the fuck you're doing. I don't care how harsh that sounds; it's pure laziness and bullshit to claim that you're a nub and that's why you bought 2 boots of travel (edit: I don't mean you, Edge. Just using your example; I in no way mean to direct this at you; just being hypothetical here; I thought that was a great example). Fuck that shit! Are you kidding me? No way. Maybe 10 years ago, but not today. There's no legitimate excuse for not knowing what the fuck is going on, because the information is out there, waiting to be found if only you cared enough to try; not to mention asking people for advice before you try something. Now sure, maybe your asshole teammates will lie to to you or fuck with you or flame you or try to kick you; but if you joined a game without knowing what the fuck it was, then the responsibility is on YOU to NOT ruin everyone ELSE'S enjoyment.

Players are under no obligation to do research/practice before they play a game. Besides, try finding a comprehensive DotA guide that covers all noob errors and explains how to not feed. I guarantee you can't, because dota is a little harder than just reading stuff and becoming pro.

If you don't know what you're doing, and don't care to learn, and join random custom maps without any clue of what it is, then fuck you. Why? Because you're a lazy selfish prick who obviously doesn't give two shits about anyone else; unless you're literally retarded and unable to comprehend the most basic concepts of life and human interaction, then you HAVE to know that you can ONLY cause pain and difficulty for the game by joining it without knowing what to do. "But then how will people learn?" Bullshit. Watch a fucking video on youtube, or read one of the 50000000 websites that cater specifically to noobs in 500000 different games with 50000000 different "newbie guides".

There's nothing like the real thing.. read guides and play AI as much as you like, everyone sucks for their first games. Watching a video of some pro destroy inferior players won't help if you haven't even seen the map before and don't know what's going on.

If you're not a newbie, and you're just an asshole troll, then fuck off anyway; these people obviously shouldn't count for anything when deciding how harsh rules should be.

Yes, intentionally trolling is bannable.. they don't count when deciding on these kind of rules.

Stop protecting and defending newbs, trolls, and griefers, and start protecting the people who are trying to have fun and put forth the effort to try ensuring everyone else has fun also.

The only one of those we protect are newbs, the others we protect with a two week ban. And, your sentence seems to imply that newbs aren't trying to have fun, which is strange.

If you're not a newbie, and you're just a bad player who doesn't remember shit about the game, then read above: fuck off and stop wasting our time because you're too lazy to spend your own time at learning how to not suck. It's really not that hard; I can't think of a single game ever in which you can't at least be decent by putting forth some effort to understand what to do and what not do to. Even a longtime pro DotA'er can go -15 K/D (or even 0 kills 20 deaths, whatever) with the right circumstances of shitty game, shitty choices, shitty allies, pro opponents, bad luck, bad hero, etc. But even with a "score" that's absolutely terrible, you weren't buying 50 chickens or a bunch of useless recipes or running headlong into towers and dying. Maybe you ruined the game (more or less) by feeding so hard, but at the same time, maybe you also still pulled through and ended up winning anyway (we've all done it a million times--those comebacks are the best).

So what am I trying to say here? I'm trying to say fuck those newbies; stop giving them the benefit of the doubt. Stop asking everyone else to sacrifice our fun just for the sake of the guy who doesn't want to lift a finger to understand the game's basics before he joined. Yeah, that sounds mean, but it's really not; tough love is an old phrase for a damn good reason. Just as old and wise are the sayings about "boy crying wolf" or "dog biting the hand that feeds" or "give him an inch and he takes a mile" or whatever else the fuck I just can't think of at the moment. The point is that coddling people and showing them that they can walk all over you only leads them to believe it. If you honestly are playing a wc3 custom map for the first time in fall 2013, and don't know what the game is even about or what the fuck to do, then your friends who got you into it are assholes for not showing you; or you're an asshole for not bothering to find out on your own; or you're an asshole for purposefully joining the game and knowing that you don't remember shit about it. There is no other option here; you suck and should be dealt with harshly, because those other people in that game aren't there just to watch the pretty lights and colors on the screen.

There's a part of the rules that's forgotten all too often

it is possible for a player to ruin the game by both being new _and_ refusing to learn; in this case votekick may be used

If you seriously get a player who buys only chickens and you tell him to stop and he doesn't, you will not be punished for kicking that person.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

Thanks for reading/replying (fast too!)

Well, I understand your point about newbs wanting to have fun, too. But honestly, aside from all the immature cursing and vitriol-spewing, I don't think having a stance toward potential newbs as I described is being too much of a hard-liner. The reason is really just Occam's Razor, common sense; as I said in the beginning of the post, I really do admire a "benefit of the doubt" stance, and obviously--well, to put it bluntly--you can't be an asshole and expect to have people play with your gaming community. That's an important point which I think you guys are keenly aware of; kindness, decency, and second-chances are crucial to having people enjoy being around you (or directly applied to ENT, crucial to having people play on your bots, hang out on your forums, donate, all the things which a free gaming "enterprise" hehe requires to survive). I understand that you can't be a dick as a matter of course and suffer the consequence of potentially pushing people away, alienating people--you want newbs to come, and stay.

But again: how realistic is this, honestly? Again, what is the current situation? It's a world of difference from 3 years ago, let alone 7 years ago. I just don't think there's so far you can stretch the "benefit of the doubt" before you not only start hurting a loyal fanbase which has already been acquired and carefully tended, but also before you start becoming viewed/known/seen as a haven for douchebags. Now, to be clear I'm not saying this is the case "yet" or that it "ever will be"; I'm not trying to somehow forecast your doom because you were too nice to newbies. I'm just saying that you need to really pay close attention to the 80/20 rule and take a hard look at your players, and identify who is the 20, and who is the 80. Likewise, who is the 80 and who is the 20? If that doesn't make sense to you, let me know (or google/wiki for the basics) and I'll try to explain it a bit better.

The point is that having loyal, honest, "hard-working" (so to speak--in terms of always putting forth solid effort, even when they're getting their asses kicked and know the'll lose) players--that's your bread and butter. These are the ones who play loyally, maybe donate, maybe not, but at any rate spend their time (probably not much, but still) doing their best to improve their enjoyment and everyone else's by posting ban reports or whatever else. These are the players who should be the primary concern, and these are the players who should be catered to. The "newbies"? I just don't buy it. Like I said, it's really a struggle to seriously picture all these poor clueless newbies getting turned off by harsh rules and a harsh stance on feeding/ruining, whether it's intentional or not. It's a difficult exercise to give much, if any, benefit of doubt to players who claim to be clueless (or even convince you they're clueless through acting clueless)...because it's just not very sensical in this "day and age".

Earlier I used the example of going (in dota) -15 or even 0/20. The latter is definitely exaggerated; if you are seriously 0/20, then I don't care if you once won a tournament or had 2500 ELO on a respected clan; you deserve to deal with the threat of being kicked. In LoD in particular, or shall I say -em games in particular, there's only so far you can go, there's only so much you can suck, before the game is thrown irretrievably. There's no easy way to judge the numbers, but anything past 7-9ish deaths without doing anything really useful for the team--to me that signifies either dangerously bad or dangerously trollish. I go 0-9; I don't expect to get kicked for it since the game is probably close to being over or the team is so bad that I'm not expecting them to give half a shit in the first place. But would I cry foul if the team tried votekicking me? Hell no! If I'm so underlevelled and useless that I'm just food and the heroes I fed are already so strong that they're nearly untouchable (they're probably only going to die when they get too confident and start doing stupid reckless shit like chasing to the fountain for a kill), then why would I expect to be served and protected while everyone else suffers by my mere presence outside the base?

I highly disagree about whether or not a newbie should have responsibility to learn the game. It's not rocket science here, and you're not running UNICEF. It's just common sense. I do stand by the (admittedly harsh) claim that any TRUE newbie in current wc3 DOES have the responsibility to understand what the fuck he's doing when he joins a game. It's just too much of a challenge to reasonable doubt to expect otherwise. Similarly, if he's not a true newbie and just really bad, it's too much of a challenge to rationally think that he'll ever improve or even gives a shit about improving when he consistently shows he can't or won't improve. Now, that doesn't mean he should be banned outright and let the door kick him in the ass on the way out. But it does mean that you should toss a bone to the other players by giving them a chance to kick him from their game if that's what they want to do.

The philosophy of a VOTE kick is really at the crux of the issue here. It's one thing to make an argument like I am and recommend that an ingame mod can kick at will for these players/situations; that's clearly wrong and unsupportable. But it's another to offer a democratic tool in which the players who are in the game can decide for themselves whether or not to get this guy the hell out of their game. And as we all know, it's likely not going to happen very frequently anyway, simply because people don't pay attention to votes, don't care either way, or refuse to vote for whatever selfish reasons (or, potentially not selfish--it's a real stretch but it could be possible to argue "i refuse to kick the poor guy cuz i want him to learn and get better".

I don't support much in regards to "rules" on votekicking; it's just nonsensical to me. The assumption that it will be abused can be challenged, because most of the time I don't even see people voting to kick someone obviously lagging out/disconnected/pulled the plug (I swear I've seen this, which blew my mind--I didn't think anyone seriously did that anymore, but I've seen at least in 2 games someone obviously died or was about to die and lose their huge steak and coincidentally just happens to lag out--yeah, right dude. Of course it does happen, and it's happened to me, but you can tell with quite some certainty when looking at the rest of the pieces whether it was intentional or not).

I think giving newbies the benefit of the doubt and attempting to protect them really only serves to protect trolls and griefers. Again: because there really aren't any new players; I just don't buy it. And those that truly are? They should (and would, if they cared) understand their responsibility to at least do a little work before they join the game. You used being a Halo nub as an example, where you didn't even understand the radar. Nothing personal but I think that's bullshit. That's like not understanding the minimap; it means you didn't even bother to read the basic "game manual" for the most basic game concepts. Maybe that's harsh, but yeah--if you're playing Halo and not cognizant of the radar, or you're playing DotA and not cognizant of the minimap, there's absolutely no excuse for that, because the only answer is that you're lazy and "want to have fun" but don't care at what expense to others your own fun comes at. If the price for you not giving a shit about it in the first place is that everyone else has a shitty 20 (or 40 or whatever) minutes of being shat on, then that price does not outweigh the potential "profit" of pleasing/catering to that new player.

Votekick should be allowed whenever the people in the game want, for whatever purpose they want. If the price for that is pissing off newbies or making a bad vet cry, or if the price is having trolly pros always kicking nubs, then consider the fact that in a pub game, chances are a) the kick won't even get close to passed; b) there's only a handful of pros in the game period; c) they're probably stacking teams anyway so it's going to be a giant shitfest feedfest for the losers anyway. Consider the profit gained: less unhappy "non newb" players; more fun for everyone else; pleasing the players who probably have and will continue to play games on your bots, regardless of the outcome of that game.

I know that opening sentence in the last paragraph sounds like it's absolutely inviting disaster by offering too much laissez faire power to people, but I think in practice you'll discover that it won't be quite so bad as you may fear.

If these rules serve as a buffer, protection, cloak of untouchability to anyone claiming newb status--whether the rules "serve" that function by design and intent or not--then they're not being very effective at protecting the enjoyment of everyone else, and they're unfortunately being very effective at protecting trolls who will say whatever they have to say in order to avoid punishment both ingame and post-game.

I'm not saying all these rules do this, or that even most of your rules do this; I'm not saying that I have any issue with really anything other than the votekick stuff (and the fountain farm thing but that's another subject). I think in my short time here I've been extremely pleased with both your written rules and your administrative presence. I think you guys are doing a great job. I just think you are doing "too" great of a job at coddling newbies, and "not so" great of a job at serving the interests of most players.

All I'm saying is that each game should be treated as its own separate microcosm in terms of justifying how and when votekick should be used. It shouldn't be prevented outright unless someone can be PROVEN (ingame--therein lies the rub) to be cheating or intentionally ruining the game. As I mentioned in another thread, I think it's a bit backwards: if you get kicked and you feel like you were done wrong, then YOU should come to the forums and explain why, and call for action to be taken on the evil kickers; not the other way around where the kickers sit through a game of bullshit and then must come to the forums to prove that this guy could and should have been kicked.

I think giving "power" like votekick to the hands of players to be used how and when they see fit can only be a good thing, because whatever bad ends come of it will certainly work themselves out; the price will certainly not outweigh the profit (if not immediately then at least over time). It sounds selfish and greedy, but honestly it's just an attempt at reasonable treatment for everyone.

[EdgeOfChaos]

I reject the concept that there are no new players going to DotA. I know from personal experience. I myself started dota about a year and a half ago, so I don't find it that outrageous that some people could be starting it now.

I don't really think the 80-20 rule applies, because we don't sell a product. We don't have to guarantee customer satisfaction of the 20% at the expense of new players, we can try to set up rules that are fair to all players that are trying their best.

You can not believe that newbies will quit ENT because of some ridiculous rule, but I myself quit dotacash and went to ENT because of their non-user friendly rules. Now I'm not such a noob anymore and I even help out, and dotacash missed that all because they're busy being banning people who toss allies in order to try to kill the enemy (the details of the ban, if you are interested, is that I was laning with techies who had shared control, I checked his spells and he had level 2 suicide and mana, so I said I was going to throw him. He did not respond in a while, so I did it. Later on, allies used wisp ult to kill me and the mods thought that was me, so I got banned for "intentional feed".)

Another thing: Votekick is built in for the purpose of getting rid of rule violators only, not voting out who the players don't like. That is not the purpose of votekick, so that is invalid. I say once again, the majority is not always right. Votekick is purely a tool for getting rid of rule violators, not getting rid of players that the majority don't like, that's just how it works at ENT.

Sorry for the brevity of this, i am pretty busy right now.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

Please don't apologize for brevity--if not for stupidly-long posts like mine, yours would like pretty big

I respect your arguments. There's not really too much more I can say since this disagreement is more rooted in attitude/philosophy than mere "opinion".

However I will respond directly to both your example of the dotacash ban situation and the votekick thing.

The dotacash thing--Edit: Read next post first since I probably commited a huge fail

Well, here's where we disagree. See, to me, that's a shitty situation for you, and it's unfortunate. But I think you're glossing over some important points:

1) Don't you have to hold yourself somewhat accountable for fucking with the techies guy and threatening to grief him? Regardless of what happened past that point, you were in the wrong there, from the start. I'm not by ANY means saying that what you said gave ANY right to the others to then grief you later on, but I think it's highly ironic that someone with such a defensive and forgiving stance on noobs had made a classic "vet troll" type remark/action ingame as trolling/threatening to grief the nub (whether it was "deserved" or not is completely aside the point here). Then, to have actually done it--?? That's not right. I don't care what the rationale was, but I would have banned your ass right then and there if I was a mod, or attempted a ban request immediately if I had seen that ingame (or attempted a votekick on you if that was possible).

2) I don't care how bad or nub that guy was, that's not cool--and that's my point with votekicking and being harsh on noobs: if possible it would have been a better solution to attempt kicking the guy from the game so you didn't have to deal with him, rather than starting the back-and-forth griefing shit which you KNOW always starts a vicious cycle once people start fucking with eachother. And you surely must understand my point about noobs being held responsible to at least learn the basics of the TEAM game and put forth their own effort to try ensuring that the TEAM game is FUN for everyone ELSE in the game, ESPECIALLY on their OWN team.

3) There's a huge difference between being an asshole hardliner who advocates harsh rules which allow the kicking of noobs and feeders, and being the guy who griefs people ingame when they're being a noob or a feeder. It makes more sense to me to have the guy removed from the game if you didn't want him in the game (and enough agreed to pass a votekick), than to have him "unable" to be kicked since he wasn't "violating" a rule, and force you and everyone else to deal with him for the whole game.

4) As for the allies then griefing you, again I'm by NO means saying that was okay or that they were justified to do that. But again, what did you expect when you started the grief train in the first place? Regardless of reasoning, they were wrong to do it, and I would have banned their asses right there (or attempted request/votekick as applicable). Most importantly, I certainly wouldn't have just said "fuck dotacash" and turned my back on it after that experience; I would have put forth my time and energy into making sure the admins understood the situation--you should be banned equally as them, but you shouldn't be punished for something you didn't do; you should be punished for what you DID do and they should be punished for what THEY did.

5) You seem to blame all this on others, and then claim that it's "their" fault that they lost you as a valuable resource. That's wrong. You should accept responsibility for being an asshole, and owned up to griefing the techies, while at the same time doing your best to ensure that you exacted punishment on the wisp for griefing you in turn. To say that dotacash's harsh rules made you turn your back on them is not only a bit pathological but also misses the fact that you had MANY other options to choose from and you chose probably the single worst one.

----------Now to be clear I'm LONG experienced with dotacash and I know how their system has been for years commonly accepted as full of bullshit, with mods/admins who do as they please; corruption, dereliction of duty, and so forth--------------------
----------But you didn't mention any of that as a reason for abandoning dotacash; you seem to focus on that one event and feel like you were done wrong. If you had said "I tried explaining the situation and appealed and etc etc etc and they didn't believe me and the mod ingame was a total dickhead and made up a bunch of shit and I had no recourse but to say "fuck you dotacash" that would be different, because that happened to me and dozens of my friends and thousands upon thousands of players over the years.----------

6) In fact I notice you directly contradict yourself in your own post: first you say that you were wrongfully banned for throwing an ally while trying to kill an enemy (which sounds reasonable), but then you explain that you threatened to throw him, and made good on the threat when he didn't meet your ultimatum (of responding to you). So...yeah, how exactly are you holding yourself to be above responsibility for acting so clearly wrong? And how can you honestly try to say that you didn't intentionally grief him, and therefore didn't do anything wrong, when it the next breath you clearly indicate that you DID intentionally grief him? Something isn't adding up here.

----------------

The point is that nothing in your story really has anything to do with defending noobs. If anything you indicate that you have as little patience for them as anyone else, and had no problem dealing with it in a grief manner ingame as you saw fit. Sure would have been a lot easier and less painful on everyone involved if you had just votekicked the guy once you saw he was (intentionally or not) throwing the game?

-------------

As for the votekick thing (purpose of the mechanic), well I respect and understand your point about "that's the way it is on ENT", but we'll just have to agree to disagree there. As I explained, I don't think it exists only to kick rulebreakers; you can rightfully claim that regardless of what CAN be done with it, here on ENT it's ONLY used for that purpose, but that's a decision that was made by ENT, not by the votekicking mechanic itself.

Anyway, please don't take the above as a big troll attempt or talking shit to you; just my honest opinion and there's no hard feelings from my end, so I hope you won't have too many in return.

Regardless, thanks for the debate/argument/whatever.

[CumInMyAssPlz]

Well, after some thought, I realized that I may have misinterpreted your story about tossing techies. I'm not going to go back and edit or delete anything in the other post for the purpose of honesty/clarity, but I do want to let you know that I understand now that I really jumped the gun and thought you were saying one thing when you may well have not been at all. I had been under the impression you tossed the guy because he wasn't talking to you, but it seems like a more rational explanation was that you didn't toss him to kill him out of malicious intent, but merely were planning to toss-->suicide and hoped he understood the tactic, and when he didn't reply you went ahead anyway.

So, if you read this before reading the other one, you can just skip most of that--I went on for a long, long time ranting about how I thought you were being a dick when you killed a teammate. I'm assuming now that wasn't the case, which puts a whole different spin on the entire point of your anecdote. In all truthfulness I still think it's kind of fucked up to toss someone without their explicit permission, but that's TOTALLY different than what I thought you were doing--at most I might be a little pissed off like "wtf dude? i didn't say do it" but that's so far away from tossing on purpose to kill him.

Anyway, I really do apologize for not taking the time to fully digest your story before I reacted and ranted on and on about it. I think I understand now very clearly why you were pissed off with cash and abandoned it. I still do say that you could have handled it a bit better (the post-game part), and I'm not sure tossing people without making sure they're okay with it is cool, BUT even still that's certainly a huge huge difference from what I thought, and more importantly it means that most of my post doesn't really apply at all.

I'm putting some more thought into mulling over the implications here. I do still stand by my harsh stance on newbs and votekicking but in addition to the arguments presented above, I also forgot to mention one very important thing also, which is that in practice I see votekick used for feeders/game ruiners (using those 2 in particular since those are the 2 chev votekick standards which must be applied before starting a kick), and those communities don't seem to be suffering overmuch from it. Same with FFing--I don't understand why it's allowed at all here, and in fact the rule granting a grace period is virtually encouraging it. But again, that's another story.

Thanks for reading (if/when you do) and I apologize again for that.

[EdgeOfChaos]

Yeah, I wasn't trolling, it was actually a free kill. And if I remember right, the enemy was low too. Plus, he was talking earlier and if I tell someone I'm going to do X and they don't argue, I assume they're ok with it and go ahead ;p. Looking back on it, that may have been a bad strategy (it was a loong time ago).

Anyways the point of that was to point out that banning people who try their best and do badly (this is what the OP is suggesting) does have consequences. People will leave ENT. And not necessarily just on those (relatively) small amount of people who do badly. Others will see too, and while some agree with you guys, I know that some also agree with me here and would see that as nothing less than abuse.

[supersexyy]

I didn't read the whole thread and I doubt anyone will.
Just want to say that the whole not-kicking-noobs thing can really hurt some maps.

In civilization wars where the gap between a noob and a good player is HUGE, 1 noob will often cause a whole lobby to leave. It is hard to come up with a median but I can see exactly where the OP is coming from.