There is no law against kicking someone out if you are the host.  That is why there is a kick to begin with.  Host your own if there is a problem and you can kick whoever you like.  Anyone is just as capable as another to host a game and kick as they wish.  No player has any sort of monopoly on hosting or playing games on ICO.  There are some that will grief and crash lobbies to get people to leave for other game(eg Star Player) but it can be sidestepped to a degree.

Also, in other threads ICO has stated that there will be an elimination of smurfing to a degree with rebellion which may or may not help.  Only time will tell.

Because this thread is not about your interactions with how...this thread was previously about siddy as per the OP but was derailed at least partially by you.  Also, if you had not interjected yourself this thread would have already been dropped and fewer would speculate about your motives.  You only have yourself to blame in that regards.  Guess that makes you the head clown huh.....

[_]-Greyfox

siddy is smurfing thanx to this post, howthe 2. Now look what u've all done? |Turned this post into a witch hunt| U should have all just listened to me when i said to help the 2  kiss and make up.

Judging of how passionate you have become over this matter, i can say that i did right thing posting in to this particular thread. After all, this thread was already loaded with emotions.

This said, I merely pointed out to OP that very things he causes his clanmate of doing, is his own crimes too. I do not like hypocrisy, and the best way to point out how i felt about his actions is to come here and point out that he was complaining about same things he is himself committed against me and maybe others.

And now, it is water under the bridge, i get along with him well enough. However, some of you are crusading for position that cannot be defended, no matter what initial 'good' intentions might have been there. You cannot act like an ass towards new players. Even if there is only 1 new player for every 100 'alias' players. I may have thick skin, and passion for competitive game play to actually come here and show it down your throats. But many others might not bother and thus not form any bond with the game.

Your prejudice cannot be justified in any form or manner. And hurt ego's, because 'alias' might have slipped the net and caused a game loss, is NOT a reason enought to act like elitist towards anyone you might not know.

@ RiddleKing: Why do you keep calling me BiNks?

And my ping ain't the best, either. I can barely play BF2 MP, and sometimes I can't. So I'm in the same rut you are, here.

Then so be it. Let Siddy and howthe tear eachother's throats out. And thrown BananaSpear in there. I'd like to see him in a fight.

And I don't doubt I'd get my ass kicked online. I can tolerate getting my ass kicked in a fight. What I can't tolerate, however, is guys who constantly talk trash and take verbal cheap shots. (AKA Siddy)

I also can't tolerate high ping very well...

So, howthe, where are those logs???

While I can definitely say that How is a hypocrite, he is nothing close to the jackass that Siddy is.  I have never seen how make derogatory, racist, or downright obnoxious rants that Siddy spouts out practically every time he is around.  He doesn't even work them into conversation.  He just says them with no rhyme or reason just to troll people or to be obnoxious in general.

It sounds as if they have, Riddle.  Banana is ok with how now from what he says.  All is right with DT again apparently and they may go back to griefing and smurfing to their hearts content.

[_]-Greyfox

How banning Siddy

YOU SHALL NOT PLAY!

contributing funny videos.

Finally, we're on the same page

i love all of the people, JA_JA, Riddleking, Sinperium, among others who have taken it upon themselves to make sweeping assumptions and generalizations about ICO when they do not play it themselves.  Please, you guys are pathetic, the multiplayer forums is for people who play multiplayer.  If you're too afraid to get on and play, or you make excuses about your ping, you're just being more pathetic then you seem to realize.  If at any time any one of you "armchair generals" want to come on ICO and play me I would be happy to accomodate you even in my very limited time in college, and proceed to smoke you to the point you won't want to talk stupidity on forums.  Have a great terrible day

*shrugs* I've only played the DS mod on ICO and I almost always get my ass kicked if I don't either play a comp stomp or team with a much better player.

Why does RiddleKing and Nightraid3r call me JA_JA?

Oh, and add Nightraid3r to the list of people I'd like to see in a fight.

Star u know haw it is. Forum warriors, noobs, retards had always most to say especialy about balance and other player who they never played with.

And im most "beloved" person on ico for saying it streight

Actually, I do play on ICO--I am just not able to play hours at a time every day or on a regular schedule.  I've played a total of about 16 games.  Not a lot but enough to make the comments I have.  In those sixteen games, about six or so were finished without one side quitting or disappearing and about half of the remainder were the negative experiences I had with "the big boys".  The remaining four or five games were very fun and I'd love to play more of them--if only I didn't have to spend two of every three games playing guys who quit or are crappy sports and unpleasant buttheads.

What we really need is for the guys who hate everyone who isn't their buddy and in their inner circle to stop playing with the rest of us and just play with themselves.

Unlike some, my sense of self worth isn't dependent on winning a space game.  I play for fun.

My most recent game was a couple of months back.  I've had a couple that started since but everyone bailed before they got going and recently lots of time with few on and no games available.

Ironically, I play with smurfs myself to avoid having to deal the juvenile crap I'm seeing here now.

What do you mean when you say that the players quit or disappeared?  Did they just up and quit while the game was still competitive and while their team still had a legitimate chance to win the game?  Or did they take off only once it became clear that their team was going to lose the game?  If it's the later then they may not have been being rude at all; instead they were extending a courtesy (and basic etiquette) to the winning team by not forcing them to have to go through the boring motions of doing a mop-up job, extending the length of the game.  Is it also possible that some of the leavers minidumped or lost their ICO connection?

In my experience, it's not that common for someone to voluntarily quit when his team still has a legitimate chance of winning the game, at least not unless he has been reduced down to one or two planets and knows that he'll no longer be able to help his team.  I've seen people take off because of unanticipated events that need to be addressed in the real world.  (Wife walks into the computer room and says, "I'm having a bad allergy attack, I need you to run out to the drug store and get me such and such, this is an emergency."  I can't say no to something like that, but I type out why I'm leaving.)  I've also dropped out of games because of power outages and lost DSL connections.

@DirtySanchez...Here's the "quit" scenarios I have seen personally in games I was in:

• Players still logged in and in play but gone after half an hour without saying a word--returning hours later to see if anyone is still on "because they wanted to do something else for awhile".

• Players who got creamed close to the start and pulled some of the other players they knew out of the current game to "go start a new one that was more fun".

• Long-time players who come into a game and then when they see "better players" in a new game then leave to go play that one--in the middle of the game they were in.

I have seen players suddenly "log off when they lost their ico connection and I was in one game that ended very quickly because of lopsided victories at the very start that creamed the other side and there was no point in continuing--no problem with those.  Also no problem with the couple who's parents told them to get off their comps and go to bed--which they were polite enough to let us know.

I'm an old board-gamer and trust me am used to egos and bitching and bad behavior when hours into a game someone realizes they are going to get slaughtered.  I've seen games with boards the size of dinner tables and thousands of counters that took days to play knocked flying in the air by a player who lost one single battle.  Nothing new here. But some here seem to delight more in the bad behavior than actually playing...unless you're "their buddy".

This isn't a good example because in light of smurfing I can totally understand it but last night I logged into a game that stated "skilled-no smurfs".  When I came in someone said, "no smurfs".  I answered "I'm not" and then they replied, "Not skilled then" and kicked me out of the game with not another word.

So put yourself in the shoes of a new player who just wants to play the darn game--it's like, "Who do I have to sleep with/kill/bribe to play?".

The people who are proud of their griefing and look down at new players with complete contempt really are the issue.  The game has a password lock feature and I think if you are going to have a public game then use that if it isn't actually open to "the public".

^This has existed with every online game I've ever played. Not necessarily to the point of never finding a game, but always enough so where you hope new people manage to avoid it for a bit and you can keep your encounters to a minimum. I'm even talking games like Diablo 2. Whodathunkit?

That was probably Howthe?.

lol JA_JA u will never know why.

Raider: I've played on ICO before, now im playing lan games with friends -and i win games. Best part is we are all in one place playing and bitching about it face to face unlike here.  

 The reason why we are complaining about players we have never played is because they don't let new players play and call them smurfs. Its a shame the so called best on ico as listed in the forums have the worst attitudes.

Plz listen to what im about to say very carefully: Forums are not for multi-players or ico players alone. That is pure ignorance to all the single players, lan players and general fans of the game who visit this site.

After playing many lan games - i was able to really make the most of the races from stuff i learnt here and ironically studying the way most DT players play-u mr Auqia, mr mecha, tyr and ofcourse that vasari lover boy howthe. Quar is cool. be quar. ( yes greyfox i watched yours too lol)  All this stuff payed off with more wins than i'd hoped for. 

DO u honestly think u will get good sins players without being both engaged in discussions on forums and watching replays and eventually playing ico game when u get the chance? That is exactly the reason why new players have been pushed to the side because of ignorance and a general appreciation to making the sins community grow. 

TO ALL ICO PLAYERS: 

The best thing u could do for the community is upload as many replays as possible. We love u all so plz love the whole community.

"Skilled/No Smurfs" means exactly that.  When I host such games, I expect more than 50 games played.  Otherwise, the account indicates low skill or smurf status.  I also never saw Wrath89 logged in, so you must have been on another name.  Also, if the game title wasn't "Skilled/No Smurfs" exactly, then it wasn't me, but someone else.

No problem on the skilled-smurf thing...but I'd have never known "50 games" is the definition of "Skilled" if you didn't state it here.

I wouldn't claim to be up to the speed of the best here but I have played a couple of games and watched experienced players do some poor strategy versus others--not to mention the time I was the sacrificial pawn for one of the dumbest attempts I think I ever saw and I stupidly went along with it because everyone said the man in charge was one of the better players on ICO.

I think some of the new guys might surprise you if you gave them a chance.  My biggest challenge is having to study and think a little more than the player who's done it so much it's instinct.

One reason I don't play on my forum name is the first two games I played were 5v5 stacked matches where experienced players came out and recruited brand new ones and then put all the new guys on a team versus them--trash talking and making put-down the entire time while we played.  Every game I joined that day, they'd try to get in and pack the other side before it started.  Was really annoying.

Still a fun game and I think in a couple of weeks I might have some extra time to log on more.

I appreciate your effort to present some balance DirtySanchez.  Nice to see.

If these were first-person-shooter games I'd shrug it off but its a real investment of time to get on and finish a game here.

I'm not a stickler for 50 games.  Heck, kbroke sucks and he's played 2,000+ games.  My point is that low game numbers are usually an indication of low skill or smurf.  That's all.  I'd argue skill requires probably 500+ games.

Howthe, are you interested in allowing the online community to grow? (Or, to not die due to inactivity?) I hope the fact that there are rarely more than 50 players online at a time is concerning to you.

In a community this small, to keep it relatively active, I think we need to be more inviting to the newer players. In other words: "Skilled/No Smurfs" games, while they're certainly fun for the players involved, give newbies a very bad initial ICO experience if they happen to stumble onto one of those games. In combination with the huge learning curve (nearly all other players are experts), this could easily scare off the newbie into never logging on again.

Thankfully, there are some newer players who've had the perseverance to stay on for a while despite being labeled smurfs/noobs initially (LoKi, cboy, a couple others) but due to the exclusivity of ICO, the community's hostility to noobs, and "Skilled" games, these people are certainly the exception rather than the rule.

I'm not saying that "Skilled" games are inherently bad or anything - the regulars sometimes want to play against decent opponents and should definitely be able to do so - but there is a real cost to kicking newbies, a cost that we really should pay attention to if we're worried about the dwindling ICO numbers.

If any game can claim elite snobbery as a highly refined art form, it's Eve Online.  I played for a year independently and--yes--in a corporation as well.

Knowing the math behind dps, movement, logistics, etc., etc.  is de rigueur there--as well as coordinating as a team in defined positions and roles.  No Sins player can boast of being more strict or demanding than a good corp in Eve yet ironically, Eve and it's players realized the need to provide a sandbox for new players and created an official new recruit corporation (as well as there being being several player created ones).  The "elite" players there hate "carebears" but they also know the need to retain them.

For me, Sins gives what Eve didn't--an opportunity to manage my own force with my own tactical and strategic  management ideas and style.    But the game developers and players at Eve were right in recognizing that if they didn't put some safe ledges on their "learning cliff" that player churn would put them out of business. 

I see primarily two types of perspectives in these debates: the "I'm good and damned if I am gonna accommodate stupid, unchallenging players" and the players that see the need to invite people in rather than just club them and cherry pick the survivors.

You can actually have high level play and entry level co-exist but crappy attitudes don't bring anyone new in.

Why don't the really good players whip a map up where nine new players can come at one pro?  Play it once in awhile and invite noobs to meet the challenge? I think it would be fun and it would be a good way to see who is rising up from the recruit ranks.  Make it an official tournament sort of thing.