Nice people - why?

I recently compared the LG community to some of the other online game communities that I am familiar with and the people here are about 100x nicer. Never here have I been flamed or recieved insults regarding my mother or my sexuality. Why do you think this is? Is it becausse the peoplee here are more mature than in a lot of other on-line games (say counter-strike, Leauge of Legends or something similar) or is it because the nice properties of the games here often don't leave much of a luck factor or anything else to blame your loss on (other than that the opponent outplayed you). What do you think?

Oh but sometimes you can complain about bad luck :)

http://www.littlegolem.net/jsp/game/game.jsp?gid=1355422&nmove=1

but even in such games I never hear the kind of flaming I've heard in other (often live action) games. Maybe people just get too caught up in the action, whereas in the turn based game they don't let their emotions get the best of them.

I've also played a few times in phpDiplomacy, and people there are usually pretty civil, too, even if the game sets for being "rude" or "angry". But indeed, people here are in general quite nice in global

You need a higher level of intelligence to play games here competitively than you do in games like counterstrike or League of Legends. In general, we are a pretty smart community. I think this higher level of intelligence leads to a higher level of respect for your opponents because you can be fairly certain that they are not immature 10 year olds playing on daddy's account. The corollory of this is that you tend not to feel the urge to flame them, insult their mother, or their sexuality. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the way I've always looked at it.

I agree with Robert, the people here have a high level of education. Many have an academic degree - here are even professors, priests, or international master of chess. The age structure is very balanced, not so 'young' than in other (game) communities.

The culture here is rather anti-inflammatory. I've seen people talked out of an uncivil posting style in forum discussions, people who I presume get a response in kind on other sites. On two occasions (in 5.5 years) I've sent a private message to someone who has gone overboard, to good effect.

I also agree with Robert Irvin, that it helps that playing the games here well requires intelligence, and, at least for those games with an extensive literature, a lot of study.

I also think the turn-based character might lead to a more considerate and 'slower' kind of player.

You have 36 hours to ponder about the precise insult and after that you decide not to ;-)

Yeah, like chewing gum it's losing its flavour in the process ;-)

You're all wrong, and you're all grotesquely ugly freaks !

Oh no, FatPhil is joining the conversation... than I quite I don't want to be in the same topic with that Fat guy. I bet your mom is so thin she is ugly again and that is why you are fat.

Oh F(a)ck

what did I do??? I just swallowed my chewing gum...

Oh no it were my false teeth...

Easy people. I find it pretty ironic that this thread is turning out like this :/

FatPhil: even if you don't share the point of view here you could express your viewpoint in a nicer way.

Hjallti: Yeah his mom is dumb

My mother? My mother is a hamster, and my father smells of elderberries !

Thnikkaman: "I find it pretty ironic ..."

Your ability to understand irony must be called into question !

That's exactly the great thing with Little Golem, people are not only very nice and friendly, they are also very intelligent and have a lot of humour... That's a fantastic conversation my precious good friend K Arthur, but you see, he's already got one...

"You need a higher level of intelligence to play games here competitively" - uhm. That explains a lot. Why didn't anybody tell me? :-D

I tought connect 6 is just a stupid game - it turns out that i'm the problem!

Slaapgraag wrote

> I tought connect 6 is just a stupid game ...

Hmm.

You give classes and tell the students that "Connect 6" is stupid?

Or do you mean "thought"?

Ingo

(thinks that Connect 6 is one of the nicest new board games:

for thousands of years people have played related 5-in-a-row-games;

and by a very simple change [move order ABBAABBAABB... instead of ABABABA...]

i fantastic game appears)

wouldn't it be "taught" for the joke to work?

still, pretty good joke

Ouch, my English is hunting me.

Please, excuse me very many (would the press officer

of the Leningrad Cowboys say).

Ingo.

You mean the guys that messed up LA Woman?

I mean the guys behind these clips:

Those were the days my friend

by the way: at 1'06'' you can see our FatPhil, playing the barkeeper

and

Leningrad

and

Going America

Ingo.

Ha ha, just kidding, I like what they do even if they messed up LA Woman ;-)

Wow, I'm honoured to have Mato Valtonen mistaken for me - I am indeed that suave and handsome! Thank you very many. I've seen them several times, including when they had the Red Army Choir in tow - stunning!

"You need a higher level of intelligence to play games here competitively than you do in games like counterstrike or League of Legends." - Robert Irvin

So everyone agreed that this community consists of more intelligent people, so it must be the reason, and everyone moved on and started posting funny youtube videos. Well, before I start my rant about "intelligence level and games", I'll present you the real (and pretty obvious) reason why you meet more insults in those communities, than here:

THOSE ARE TEAM GAMES, WHILE HERE YOU PLAY ALONE.

I played thousands of games in many team based multiplayer games, and I can tell you that 98% of the times the insults come from your teammates and not from the opponent. Your teammates are the ones who blame you for a loss, or for a silly move (or whatever reason). In the majority of the matches the opponents accept their loss silently just like here. I even played very luck based multiplayer games, and even there I very rarely met opponents, who were harassing me after a loss.

And now the 'intelligence' part... What do you mean 'competitively'? 2000+ Elo? Or top 1%? Have you ever met a 2000+ Elo League of Legends player? Have you talked with him? How do you know that those games need less intelligence? Have you even tried these games?

Why Twixt needs more intelligence than League of Legends? Twixt is easier to learn, and have much less 'variables', so it's much easier to compute. Or is it the learning curve? Or the skill cap? How do you know those games have lower skill cap? Have you reached it? Or met someone who 'reached it'?

Ok, let's assume that this community consists of more intelligent people, and even that we are older than an average gaming community. But the main reason why this community is so nice, is that there's extremely little chance of confrontation. Why?

- As I mentioned, these are 1-on-1 games, so there's no teammate-confrontation. You can only blame yourself for a loss.

- The userbase of this site is really low compared to the few million player of Counter-Strike or League of Legends. The forums are really slow, only a few post per day at max, and it's even more separated by games. There's really noone to flame or troll. So the 'evil kids' you guys mentioned got bored fast and go away.

And these are the main reasons why this community is so nice (or looks nicer than other online gaming communities). This has nothing to do with intelligence...

That's a very intelligent post, mikabast.

My dog is stupid and nice, which I prefer to intelligent and mean ;-)

Hello,

I think, mikabast gave some good arguments.

Most I like his observation on LG's slowlyness:

> The forums are really slow, only a few post per

> day at max, and it's even more separated by games.

The forums are slow, and Little Golem in total is slow.

This missing speed helps a lot to create a nice environment.

In Germany, 30 years ago, we had a nice novel

"Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit", by Sten Nadolny.

Translation to English is "The discovery of slowness".

There is even a Wikipedia article on it.

Click here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discovery_of_Slowness

A nice quote from the English Wiki:

> Slowness is a powerful asset; the possessor of "slowness" can

> afford to wait, because he must wait. As a result, he attains

> victories unimaginable to the more "hurried" multitude.

Ingo

(when we were children, we had snakes and let them run races)

I still have a snake (named Kobus) and, barring the presence of a rabbit, he's a classic example of slowness:

kobus

Christian, I am not sure if I want to visit you next week or later ;-)

It's a gliding scale, actually. We has an 'accident' twice and I could manage him on both occasions, though not wholly undamaged :)

But I'm 65 by a few days now and he's 30k. 4m. In ten years time I'll be 75 and he'll be 4.5m and 45k. I'll have to be even more careful then. Getting away undamaged, if indeed at all, may not be all that easy. On the other hand, it's a magnificent way to go ;-)

There are 4 questions for you, Chritian:

1. You have a dog, too, don't you? How do they get along?

2. Who are your neighbors? Do they enjoy Kobus as much as you do?

3. Do you and your family really really live in the house shown above?

4. So, Kobus weighs about 10 kg/m?

Thank you for sharing this photo with us. I am learning new things every day.

I disagree about the team argument. Sure, it does get out the worst in people but I've played a lot of online matches in RTS games and fighting games where the other player after losing has been flaming me and calling my strategy or playstyle lame or claiming that I had luck (even if those games had no random elements).

However, I have never had such an expirience on LG.

@Tim Shih

I have a husky and three raccoon dogs and they wouldn't like Kobus if they met him. But he has his own room (in that very house, yes) and in summer he spends a couple of hours each day in a fenced front garden, entertaining the neighborhood children by his mere presence:

kobus

The neighbors don't mind as long as I'm keeping an eye on him and I've got an excuse to sit in the sun and have coffee and smoke a dutch specialty ;-)

on the left hand side?

I don't usually pass it ;-)

Christian, I made a mistake with my limited and

errorprone English: I meant snails, not snakes,

in our childhood games.

Ingo.

Wait till you see my 30k snail ;-)

Uff. You seem to have a cover

for each pot... ;-)

Ingo, thnx for the error. We probably wouldn't have seen these lovely photos without it.

Christian, I know the players here at LG like Slither, but you have taken it entirely too far.

30k, you do mean "30 kg"? Surprise us with photos, please. And, what else do you have in your repertoire? I am deeply impressed your shows. :)

On the other hand, it is fun and lovely for us to look at Kobus in the photo and very afar (or in a zoo). But to look at Kobus in real life, crawling slowly, 99.9% of the adults in this world will scream and be terrified (I think), not to mention children (you mentioned that children in your neighborhood are being entertained. How do you know they are?) .... I have tons of questions for you. What do you feed Kobus? Does Kobus really recognize you as his keeper? Do you have a 300-kg lion?

What kind of snake is Kobus? An Australian Python? Or a Brazilian Sucuri, maybe?

Kobus is a male Burmese python. Males don't grow all that much. He's been with me for over ten years now and has grown about half a meter in that time (went from 20 to 30 k. though).

He's like a high voltage electric devise: handle with care. He 'recognizes' me at least as being to large for prey. The first 'accident' was when he mistook the infrared image of my hand for a guinea pig. Just means my hand was in the wrong place. I had to use a really hot shower to convince him to let go of it. My hand looked like the fruit of an eggplant the next day. Nice array of colors too, and some 70 bitemarks :)

Second time I failed to ritually greet him (show him it's me, BIG infrared image, once he gets it I can handle him without any trouble or danger). He grabbed my upper leg from behind (like a blow with a hammer). I could rip him off my flesh, but he had a firm hold of my jeans, and kept interfering deplorably with my efforts. That would have been a nice YouTube hit, but filming it was the least of my concerns.

So you learn to respect rituals, not to mention the snake itself.

How do I know the children like him? If he's not outside they continually ring and ask me to get him. They love him :)

Kobus eats rabbits, about one every three weeks.

Very interesting. One rabbit every 3 weeks is all it needs? (Besides water I guess.) That is a very energy efficient animal. And I understand it sees in infrared. I would never turn off the light. Imagine that animal watching you in the dark when you don't even know where it is.

How did you come to share a house with him?

@marley's: great joke!

How did I come to share a house with him? When my son was 7 yo he wanted to become a herpatologist which of course implies having a pet snake. I thought ok ... but I dont want one that can disappear easily. And indeed, I don't turn off the light. It's best to keep an eye on him at all times when you're in or he's out. But he's usually not agressive and fairly easy to handle. When he has had enough sunshine he leaves the front garden by himself and slithers back up the stairs to his room (that's what he's doing in the first photograph). Down the stairs I have to carry him.

P.S. My son is now 18, finished highschool, is curretly backpacking in New Zealand for a year and wants to become a cook or an actor. So it goes :)