Being a better person.

Ok, so I have another episode of my webseries on budget mtgo decks going up later today, but I need to get this off my chest before I move on or I won't be able to think properly.

I met a really scary person on Magic: The Gathering Online last night.

Here's the story:

I'm recording videos (for my web-series), it's getting late because of the downtime, and I sit down with another player for a Modern Tournament Practice match.

** Note:  I'm not going to publish his name, because I contacted an ORC (mtgo admin) and because I feel it would be rude. **

Anyway, the match starts, we exchange pleasantries, and he plays a Turn 1 Thoughtsieze (Look at target players hand, choose a nonland card from it, that player discards that card and you lose 2 life).  He takes three or four seconds to look at my hand then abruptly, silently, concedes the entire match and leaves.  No warning, he didn't even wait for the spell to resolve.




My first thought was he had a bug (since mtgo is known for its stability issues) so I started a private chat with him to see what was up.

Now, before I go on, let me say this:  I should not have interacted with this guy after it became clear what a jerk he was.  It was late and I was tired, but that's no excuse for me to get preachy and obnoxious, which I fully own up to being at this point.  Let me be clear, I should have dropped it much earlier than I did, so don't think I'm completely blameless here.

Below is the actual, entire, chat log from mtgo, copy/pasted here.  The only editing I'm doing is replacing the other players name.

**********

1:48 AM Magicpokey: why?

1:48 AM *****: your deck is bad

1:48 AM Magicpokey: who are you to judge?

1:49 AM *****: I saw your hand?

1:50 AM Magicpokey: so, you dont know what my deck holds, you dont know me from some random dude on the street, why would you quit?

1:50 AM *****: because I don't want to play against poor people

1:50 AM Magicpokey: so, you are the kind of person who only wants to play against the same two or three decks over and over again then?  with no room to grow as a player?

1:51 AM *****: there's no growing in stomping your face in bro

1:51 AM Magicpokey: you dont know that

1:51 AM Magicpokey: and, according to the mtgo logs, I just won that match because you decided to throw a hissy fit and quit

1:52 AM Magicpokey: modern is about experimentation, its about deckbuilding and trying new stuff, and you just want to play aginst the same three decks over and over again.  I really dont understand people like you

1:53 AM *****: I've been playing modern since it's a format

1:53 AM *****: plz stop messaging me

1:54 AM Magicpokey: im done after this final thing.  I want you to think about other players feelings, you arent playing against the computer, you are sitting down to play with real people.   being rude is never appropriate.

1:54 AM *****: go kill yourself

**********

What kind of person thinks its okay to interact with another human being like that?  I admit, I should have dropped it when he said "I don't want to play against poor people", at that point I was probably feeding a troll.  And I definitely should have stopped when he asked me to, but me being somewhat pushy is no excuse for that kind of rudeness.

Let's be honest here.  He played the Thoughtsieze, took one look at my hand, decided that I was 'one of those poor people' and quit.  No courtesy, no explanation, nothing.  It was staggeringly rude on its face, but his attitude makes the whole thing worse.

I understand it's easy when you're playing online to not think of other players as people.  You can't see them so they aren't real, this is why Xbox Live and PSN have such bad reputations for racism, sexism, and hostility, but that's no excuse for this kind of rudeness.

"1:50 AM *****: because I don't want to play against poor people"

What kind of attitude is this?  How bigoted and closed minded can you be?  How does this guy think the popular decks got to be popular?  It's because people PLAYED THE GAME with unproven decks until they won enough times that other people took notice.

His attitude is the kind of attitude that stifles player creativity in the mtgo community.  This is a poor prospect, because without that spark of creativity, mtgo will stagnate and die.  Not to mention the elitist overtones to lumping anybody who doesn't start a game with 'fetchland into shockland' as "poor people".

That's a bad attitude right there, but it got SO much worse.

He told me to go kill myself.

This guy actually thinks it's okay to tell another human being to commit suicide because he thinks I am not 'worthy' of playing him in a card game.

That actually scared me.  Not because I felt I was in any kind of danger, what scared me was the implied attitude behind that statement.

Like I said, it's way too easy to think of online players as little more than NPC'S when you can't see their face.  And it is, unfortunately, way too common for people to treat their online peers with the same casual disrespect they would treat a computer controlled enemy.  But that last message really crosses a line.

If he can so easily fool himself into thinking of another human being (that he is interacting with) as a non person, how long will it be before "go kill yourself" becomes "I'm gonna kill you"?

If he can so easily believe an entire group of strangers (online opponents in this case) aren't people, how hard will it be to start thinking that strangers in the mall, or on the road, or in school aren't really people?

And if they aren't real people then, apparently, it's okay to advocate their death.

I believe it's that kind of attitude that enables man to do some of the most horrible things he is capable of to his fellow man.  That kind of attitude leads to things like concentration camps, or terrorism, or the Sandy Hook Massacre.

Now, I'm not saying this guy is as bad as the people who perpetrate the atrocities I mentioned above, I mean come on!  It's just a card game.  But I believe the attitude he showed is the first step on a slippery slope to much worse things.

I'm done ranting about this, so I'll end on a plea:  Think about the feelings of other people on the Internet before you treat them like scum.  These aren't faceless, emotionless computers you are playing against.  You wouldn't treat people like that in person, at FNM or a PTQ, so don't fall into the trap of thinking "it's okay, people on the Internet don't matter".

People always matter, and it's never appropriate to treat them otherwise.

/rant



** For more information on how to improve the community in the face of the kinds of attitude I encountered last night, please feel free to check out this video:  Building a Better Gamer by Bob 'moviebob' Chipman.  I really respect his work and this video in particular is a powerful one. **