RANK OFF!

Back when I started playing games online things were fairly straight forward.  You selected the online mode, the game type and off you went.  Then with the advent of X Box Live and Playstation Network, console owners were introduced to a little thing called the Friends List.

Now the idea behind this was for the gamer to accrue a list of people that they enjoyed playing games with so that they could see if they were online and simplify communications with them.  The idea was excellent and worked really well.  More importantly it served as a filter.  You could avoid having to run the gauntlet of the random idiots who love nothing more than 'trash talking' (in other words being racist, homophobic or spouting vile things about your family from the safety of their living room thousands of miles away).  It gave you control to make sure that you only got to play with the people had a element of trust or at least camaraderie with.

Then the games started to change.  Some bright spark decided that it would be a good idea to introduce a ranking up system in their games.  This entailed you getting access to better weapons and perks as well as having a ranking system which reflected the time and success you had playing the game.  This seemed like a good idea except for one major draw back.  It only applied if you played the game against random people in a ranked match.  If you chose not to do this, then you could not rank up in the multiplayer and so access to new weapons and perks was closed to you.

The first major game I recall doing this on the consoles was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  I could be wrong and there may have been another game before this one, but there is no doubt that this game set the benchmark for how the majority of games were to follow.

To me this is wrong.  First of all it totally negates the point of the friends list when it comes to using it as a filter for the people you want to play with.  Microsoft went to great pains at the launch of the X Box 360 and it's new and improved X Box Live to show how the friends list was a way of being the centre point to the online element of the service for gaming.  That seems to have been overlooked by games developers.

It is not just Microsoft but the same thing applies to the Playstation 3.  If you want to unlock stuff in the multiplayer then you are forced to play against people you don't know and therefore run the risk of abuse and so on.

Now I know that you can mute communications with the idiots, but you still have to endure their rubbish and it certainly does not stop them acting like childish morons in the game.  I have lost count of the number of times I have come across someone in an online session who is doing nothing more than trying to disrupt the game and ruin it for everyone else.

As far as I am concerned the developers of these games are forcing you to have to play the game a certain way online in order to get the full benefit from it and that is wrong.  I want to enjoy the whole game and I want the unlocks thank you very much, however I don't want to endure hours of playing with potential idiots in order to achieve this.  What I want is for these perks and unlocks to be available when I am playing in private games so I can enjoy playing against people I know are not going to be abusive and still enjoy the whole of the game.