[Guidelines] How to play like a Gentleman

Well some people apparently didn't understand that these are guidelines, sort of a help for new players etc. It is not aimed to change a behaviour of veteran player ... well, a veteran player should already knew these. Like I said, most of these recommendations are common sense.

Being friendly and nice is in my opinion important, when a person I play with doesn't even say Hi to me, I ussually just ignore him for the rest.

I strive to be like this in every game. In fact it's probably the only "rule" you really need - Don't be a ****.

Well, yea But that wouldn't be much descriptive, would it?

good post, too many times have i come across people that don't talk. I also think newbies should practice against the AI first rather than jump in a MP. Had one join me yesterday who didn't have a clue what was going on in my team game, so i told him to sit tight and watch me play and learn which he did asking a few questions and i responded too.

Please don't use "newbie" a begginer is a much more respectful term.

I believe newbie is a neutral word, similar to beginner. Different story would be calling someone a "newb" or "noob", that is for sure disrespectful.

Another gentlemanly thing to do is not to misuse the word 'rape' to mean something positive. Not sure when that became a thing in gaming, but it's in bad taste. Could use 'pwn', 'own' or tons of other words instead.

Agreed.

The problem with "guidelines" is that the difference between a guideline and a hard rule is often one of cultural acceptance.

I once knew a little boy. When we were 8, we played football on the school field. The 'guideline' was to wear barefeet. The little boy wore shoes. Other people moaned when I kicked them in the shins, because shoes hurt.

Because everyone believes in the guideline, the guideline is a hard and fast rule. Mandatory because of culturally expected behaviour.

Here's the rub - if your shins hurt, ain't my problem. My feet hurt after you stomp on them. I wear shoes, you wear shin pads. Both deal with our own problems without imposing them on the other player. Opposite argument applies of course - I should take my shoes off.



That's why I disagree with any idea of mercy rule (which is not used in most professional sport. I don't think even amateur sport in NZ). If you have given up your entire Saturday morning to drag your Dad out of bed, drive halfway across the district and to the football pitch on a wet and cold morning, you're 7-0 down, and it's halftime, you don't just give up and head home. You play up, play the game, and make damn sure it ends up not being 14-0, but closer to 7-8. It's a morning you won't get back, may as well make the best of it.

May point out that the Americas Cup never happened last year, so we never were 8 - 1 up and never lost 9 - 8, because none of that ever happened, and I will quite categorically deny it in the interest of national embarrassment if you suggest such a thing.


That's my general view on conceding. It comes down to two things.

1) If you don't have time to finish game, or don't feel finishing game is anything but a waste of your time. **

That's not my problem. Take your shoes off or put on shinpads. You're winning. Deliver the winning blow or play to win on my terms. Play up and play the game.

2) Technically, while I don't *have* to play the game to a 'foregone' conclusion, neither do you. There is a certain obsession that every game must be completed by both players. Either player has the opportunity to drop out to spend their valued time elsewhere.

Ultimately, if you want the victory, you are going to fight for it tooth and claw or die in the attempt. If you have everything to throw at me, throw it at me. The time wasted is entirely your problem, I got nothing. Drop the hammer.


The fact is, even at high levels of play, if you can't deal with being in a losing situation and turning it into a win from behind, you're not going to get better. At some point you have to learn to turn those situations into wins.

**Tournament rules specify concession at discretion of referee for time purposes, tournament rules apply. I have as many minutes as I want to put into it otherwise. And even in elimination rounds of a tournament, I'm not going to simply roll over and let you win 'because you are better'. May as well just play the 'show results' game type. Final minutes of the tournament, time to go out in style.

I never forced this guidelines into rules. They are general recommendations ... I probably will have to repeat this for the lifespan of this thread, sigh ... and they are a common behaviour among top players in every RTS games. It is just as simple as that. Either you want to learn from the best or you want to do it your way for good, but that is everyone's personal choice.

When I wipe your main base in 15 minutes and you keep running from me around the planet or keep switching the planet like some clown not wanting to accept the loss, well if it wasn't a ranked match I would just leave. It is not fun for any side, unless you are a super good troll with dull real life, whose only joy comes from annoying others.

The guidelines I have here are carefully chosen and base on high rank environment. I will keep promoting these points in the tournaments. What people do in their personal games is up to them, I am not capable of forcing actions for them and I will not do that. Let everyone play like they want. People who are wise enough to understand these recommendations will follow them.

"How to play like a Gentleman"
Well if this applies only to you guys. Can you perhaps add "Let the lady win" then .
Otherwise I pretty much agree. There's nothing more annoying than hunting a remaining commander...

EDIT: So I decided to update it myself:

How to play like a lady
1.) Be nice
2.) Enemy commanders are you enemies, not the players
3.) Avoid online interaction when you're really mad

That's it

Before you edited your post, I already modified the main post

Now this seriously made me laugh. You have an extra point for that .

Maybe this got mentioned in the last five pages, and I'm sure you didn't mean it to be, but this is incredibly condescending and sexist and has no place in these guidelines or the gaming community as a whole.

@Quitch , don't encourage him, it's just going to get worse.

I know you don't. However those guidelines are "rules". If you want to play in some RTS communities, you have to follow the guidelines. You can't drag the game on and on. If you do, you're considered an inconsiderate *****. It doesn't matter if there are some strategies where the loser can win if they drag the game on and on. The reason they are "rules" is because they are common behaviour. The hypocrisy is in the thread title, when applied to the community at large. If you want to be considered a "gentlemanly player" by the community, you have to follow the guidelines.

Listen to the words you're using to subvert opinion to follow yours. "If people are wise, they will will understand these recommendations".

Assuming two things - 1) No air already built (unlikely), and 2) 1200 radius planet
When you wipe main base in 15 minutes you have 82 seconds to build 15 t1 air factories with 15 bot/vehicle fabbers.
25 seconds to launch 15 bumblebees.
100 seconds to move those bombers to the furthest point the commander could possibly be.

3 minutes 45 seconds. Every second the game goes after that is you being discourteous to your opponent. Running away isn't possible, and you can start that process sooner rather than later to reduce his grace period. Likewise, orbital fighters are now faster interplanetary than the Astraeus, so switching planets faster than catchup crew isn't possible.

The guidelines you have here are all well and good. However, you dismiss the comments of the current PA stats number 1 entirely because he's disagreeing with you, and call him a troll. Why don't you actually ask for input from the top 10 players?

Conceding is ultimately up to personal choice, and has no place in any guidelines. It's up to tournament referees to enforce on a case by case basis, it's up to individual players to choose for themselves. What you see as "trolling", I see as "giving my nuke the extra time it needs to complete before I go in for last minute crazy snipe".

I can type 77 words per minute. (Ok. I just did a test, where I typed 77wpm)

I.e. it takes me less than a second to type gl;hf. Assuming you consider it an actual word. There's no thought put into it, it's pure muscle memory and autopilot.

It doesn't take effort to put some thought into coming up with something original for yourself, and spell the words out in full.

That is VERY unlikely you will wipe someone's base in 15 minutes on a 1200 planet. And if you do, you will probably have a lot of units in the air or comming already his way. So this isn't really a good example, but I know what you mean.

On the other hand, if you still manage to escape, you are basically 15 minutes behind. The "winner" in this moment, can just spam some scouts to patrol whole planet to find you and send a stream of units right into you. Not to mention that at 15 minutes everyone has loads of gunships, that will probably get rid of you and your new base very quickly.

So yes. It is probably 5-10 minute job for the winner to finish you. Maybe it is not much. Maybe it is time you could have already be in a full lobby and starting another game.

Watch some streams from the tournaments will you. If we are talking about the input for topic of conceding, you can see very clearly in those stream that not only top 10, but probably top 50 players do concede before their comm is killed.

At least in the games I saw, there was "gg" followed by comm explosion couple times.

What I clearly do dislike is, that someone calls "gg" and then continues playing ...

I don't think you'd like Phantom or Murder Party very much then...

A game type based entirely on deception

It actually was added after my comment which (in a bit unfortunate form of sarcasm from my side I guess) was intended to point out that the title of the topic effectively says that it applies only for men. Check the 3 posts right above yours and possibly blame me instead as I'm technically responsible for this whole thing.

It is a joke, it has nothing to do with sexism. Don't worry. It is my responsibility what is written in the main post.