[Guidelines] How to play like a Gentleman

Hi guys,
many of you remember so called "gentleman rules" we had in past, which are no longer valid. However, these rules were mostly aimed to balance the game in parts it wasn't yet balanced due to certain game build.

This guide of "How to play like a gentleman" is different. First at all, these are not rules, but more of a guidelines or recommendations. It is aimed to give you a good understanding on how to play fair, how to interact with other players and how to behave in the game like a true gentleman, like someone, whose oppenents will always want to face again in battle.

These are recommendations that noone forces you to follow. They are a product of many years spent online and meeting thousands of players and playing thousands of hours online. They also include a lot of common sense.

I would like to point out, that this is ongoing thread and some of you might have good suggestions of what should be added to these guidelines. I will edit the main post if such a suggestion appears in comments.

Content:

1. Choosing a proper name, using a clan tag
2. Being a gentleman in chat
3. Know when you lost (conceding)​

1. Choosing a proper name, using a clan tag

• What name not to choose:
  • Pure gibberish
  • Political, ethnical, racist, religious, sexual meaning
  • "Names" that are a whole sentence
  • A name that is way too general (eg. Commander, Sonic, Aragorn, Master)
  • FULL CAPS
  • T00 m4ny r3pl4c3m3nt w1th numb3rs
  • WriTiNg tHIs wAY
  • Disrespectful

• A good name is:
  • Easy to remember
  • Ussually short is better than long
  • Genuine, it express yourself in some way
  • Easy to pronounce
  • Easy to shorten if long
  • Use latin letters (you can use cyrilic or asian fonts if you play in those regions, otherwise people will find it very hard to read your name)

• How to use a clan tag:
  • Make sure you use the exact same tag as you whole clan
  • Use any kind of separators to distinquish your tag from your name ( [ ],- -, = =, etc.)
  • Use only one tag
  • If you are not in clan, you can use your country code (might help you get some new fellows)

2. Being a gentleman in chat

• How to please others:
  • Always be polite and friendly, don't forgot to say Hello in every game. When the game starts players ussually say "gl hf", which means "Good luck, have fun". Say this, if you mean it, but you should, we all want to have fun when playing and wishing luck is a polite move.
  • Communicate, communicate and communicate, nobody likes if you are silent and never reply.
  • If you are a beginner or newbie, don't be scared to admit it, it is completely fine, we all had to start somewhere and you will let others know, so they can help you improve.
  • After being annihilated (or your whole team), you have couple options what to do:
    • Thank for the game or say something nice or simply say "gg", which is commonly used among RTS gamers as "Thank you for the game". I also recommend saying "well played". And you leave the game.
    • Again thank for the game and remain as spectator if other teams/players are still fighting. During spectating, try to remain as silent as possible, do not disturb others.
  • Controversial topic: If you are in FFA game and you are still alive, you can announce intel to others ("Player X is building a nuke, be aware") in general chat. This is a strategic move of yours. Just make sure you are still in the game, if you are already annihilated, revealing such info is not a gentleman behaviour.

• What not to do in chat:
  • Never be rude or say bad thing even if you lose, admit your defeat, review the game and be better next time. Remember, that you gain 10 times bigger experience in games you lose, than in games you win.
  • When you are spectating, never ever reveal the intel (information about the state of the game). You are spoiling the game for others. If you are with your buddy on Skype/TS and you are spectating and he is still playing, do not be a **** and don't reveal him the intel either.
  • Make sure to avoid embarassment by typing into wrong chat. If you are talking about any important strategic move, make sure you are typing in your team chat!

3. Know when you lost (conceding)

This guideline focuses on 1v1 battles.

This is for many players a controversial topic, I will stick to a guidelines that you will meet in tournaments and among high ranked players. If you wish to play till the very end of the battle, that is completely your choice, but I highly recommend to you to learn how to decide you already lost.

• The more times you answer yes, the less chances you have to win the game (mostly applies to first 10-20 minutes in the game):
  • You lost all your fabbers
  • You lost most of your energy plants
  • You lost your metal expansion
  • Your base is in ruins
  • You only have a commander left
  • You didn't touch enemy's base at all

• Now ask yourself these questions:
  • Does my enemy have a fully running base?
  • Does he have plenty of eco?
  • Does he have metal expansions?
  • Is he pumping units from his factories?
  • Does he already have T2 factory out?

So how many times did you say yes? Many times? It is time for you to concede. You might save just 2 or 5 minutes, but hey, everything counts, especially in tournaments. To concede in PA you simply have to delete your commander (select him and press delete).

• Very bad moves are:
  • Running with your commander around the planet is wasting time
  • Switching planets with your commander in Astreus is wasting time

• These recommendations do not apply to Team games. Team games are ussually played to the very end, unless the two points I mentioned just above.

• In FFA games it is also very different.
  • If you manage to escape the main planet with your commander, you have a good chances to rebuild your base on another planet and maybe your enemies will be busy with themselves and not chase you down.
  • If you manage to escape into fog of war, you might have a good chance to comm-bomb your enemy. I recommend comm-bombing the player responsible for the disappearance of your base, if you choose completely random player I wouldn't consider it gentleman.

• Important thing as a last note on this topic:
  • Never actually leave the game without deleting your commander
  • Don't ragequit and don't be rude, accept it

4. BONUS: Meeting a lady

• You always let the lady win.
  • She must appropriatelly prove to you, that she actually is a lady and she must appropriatelly reward you for your kindness. Of course.

This in no way is supposed to be disrespectful to you, ladies.

________________________________________

• I am looking for more recommendations.
• I accept valuable feedback and I will edit the main post accordingly.
• I will not bother commenting on posts that clearly comment on something taken out of context.
• These are guidelines, not actual rules. You do not have to follow them, but they can give you a good picture of a good sport especially during tournaments but also in normal games.

Gentlemen.. there's no fighting in the war room!

> 30 min inside the Game nothing really big happened
> i sent a bunch of t2 bots to my enemy
> They hit the base
> break defense @ one point
> destroyed 2tech2 energy plants
> enemy delete commander
> nice game.....NOT

deleting your commander is *cheesy*, but sending him orbital from planet to planet also

Mod Edited: Let's not use pejoratives that are clearly past their sell by date.

Some of my funnest and most memorable games were like this. There's nothing wrong with not giving up.

another one for FFA ettiquite:
As a gentleman, don't suicide/comm-bomb purely out of spite or in the name of random anarchy. Using your comm offensively is fine in an FFA, but if it goes badly for you, don't just walk up to an opponent base and end their game too. At least not without a reason better than (for example) that they beat you away from that MEX cluster near to both your spawns.

These are the moments that are questionable, as I said. If you have nothing, but you comm left, you are sure you haven't touched enemy base and yours is almost gone .... that is a "gg", seriously, it is.

EDIT: Probably UNLESS you play against some newbie, who doesn't know how to finish you, but I don't expect a newbie to rush and kill your base in first 10 minutes either.

If you destroyed most of his T2 and your factories are still pumping out T2 units, he probably knew he couldn't make a comeback.

If you managed to break his defences and tear his base appart, then it was probably a good call of your opponent. Nothing wrong I say. If your personal taste is "I must kill your comm personally to get my satisfaction" then it is a question of your taste, but typical player would consider this a normal win.

I would like more opinions here. FFA is almost a different game and is ussually much more rough environment. When you know, you lost, many players choose to comm bomb someone and in my opinion in FFAs this is acceptable. I personally try to comm bomb the player, who destroyed my base.

Running your comm to a base you never even touched before ... well that is a **** move. Still I would like more opinions on this! Please keep discussing.

Sure thing. Fair enough. I tried to leave some wiggle room in there, but was having some trouble finding the line, myself.

How about "Don't say gg if you're winning and the game isn't even done yet".

I think I have that there already, in part 2.
"... do not announce "gg" when you are about to finish him (eg. launching a planet), it is impolite. ..."

All looks good.

I must admit I had a string of bad games recently and I started rage-quitting when I was a) Dox Spammed 2) T2 Bomber rushed (not in clan games but random 1v1s - I really should stop)

I also prefer to have a bloody battle, rather than my opponent giving up and deleting their com. Fair enough if their doom is imminent, but when they are fed up of light raiding and decide to gg, I get annoyed. I am blood-thirsty and want that kill dammit! On the whole though, these look spiffing.

I don't play with people who give up. If they are a friend and they give up prematurely, I am done for the night. Other people don't get second chances.

Then again, by your definition I'm sure I am anything but a gentleman.

A

Awww I'm in the bad name section

Apparently I'm not genuine

This all looks good other than the aforementioned comment about deleting your comm (at the very least send him marching gloriously into a final battle) and the point about using 'foreign fonts'. Because for the person using it, it isn't foreign. I dislike the continued homogenisation of everyone into English speakers with a native 'home' language.

I am sure I described the situations it is good to call "gg" properly, didn't I?

If you whole base is lost, it is basically next 3-5 minutes until you lose your commander as your opponents gathers some forces to finish him. Why is this bad? It is not.

Calling a "gg" is very normal in any competitive RTS games, nobody waits till the last unit/building (in our case commander) is destroyed. This is just the way it is and there is nothing wrong about it.

Yea I was thinking about that. I believe that these guidelines should apply to english community, of course russians and koreans would have their own names and I am fine with that. I will modify the main post to reflect this later.

I would struggle to talk to you by name as probably many others would. A somebody who is nobody ... well, I could call you "Some" -> "Sam". You are a Sam to me.

Aah ok, I fully agree that people replacing characters with numbers/characters from other fonts is a pain.