I knew this was going to happen, I just knew it…
First thing I thought when I heard the words “four player co-operative” way back when I first got wind of L4D was griefing. Epic, unrestrained, unmoderated griefing.
Not just run of the mill, “shoot the hostages and t-bag them” stuff. That’s childs play. No, to really grief it, you need to get in the midst of a co-op game, run with them for a while, then when the going gets tough, really play the douche bag card and shoot them all in the back.
I’ve been playing mostly Team Fortress 2 for the last year. And while the game has it’s share of morons, the community is pretty pleasant for the most part. Part of it comes down to the game itself. There just aren’t that many opportunities to grief in there. I mean sure, Team Roomba has shown us all a thing or two, but by and large it’s the exception rather than the rule. It’s hard when you’ve got no friendly fire, a team of 12 to compensate for one moron, and few serious ways to cause problems.
Left 4 Dead on the other hand has SO many ways that you can shoot each other in the back - figuratively and literally.
Pashdoggs is a douche
Such was the case of Pashdoggs (here’s his Steam ID. Go stalk him).
We were having a pleasant game. I was playing through Death toll with Crimson Starfire from over at Word of Shadow. I’d been pimping the game all week to him, and he finally went out and bought it. This was the first run through.
There was me, Crimson, some other guy, and Pashdoggs. The three of us except Pashdoggs were playing pretty well. Pashdoggs was being a bit of a clueless n00b. Doing stupid stuff, but not in a seriously bad way. Little things, like running off from the group, not helping when people get pinned by a hunter, stealing med packs. Stuff like that. I figured he was just new to the game, and didn’t quite understand the dynamics. We could have kept going like that. Sure it was a pain, but we were able to carry his antics.
Right up until we got past one of the zombie swarm trigger points.
Pashdoggs typed in “I GTG BYE”. So I said, “Cool, seeya” over voice comms.
Except he didn’t leave. He started firing point blank at all the team members - oh, and at the alarmed car… So before we know what’s going on we’re getting swamped by zombies AND we’ve got a tantrum throwing baby shooting at us with an M16. Great.
After fumbling around for a bit, I wondered if Valve had built in a vote-kick feature in L4D for this very situation. Turns out they had thankfully.
Name And Shame
So what to do about it? I could forget about it, and be the bigger man. But no, anonymity is why people think they can get away with this crap.
Penny Arcade summed it up best (as always)
Except he’s not really as anonymous as he thinks.
Actually, it’s super easy to get someone’s steam ID (just type “status” from the console). And from there super easy to find their steam page. And from their steam page, they may have stupidly listed their real name as “Nathan Pashley”. His profile is listed as:
im crazzzy
nathan pashley
i pwn the shit out of n00bs
Google tells me Nathan Pashley attended Noble Park Secondary College, and was awarded “Student of the week” for week ending 19/05/06, and who seems to have stared in this video:
Super cool. Such a nice, clean cut young lad. I hope your dad knows how much of a dick you are in L4D Nathan.
