The maturity levels on Generals

This article will point out many facts, opinions, and statements about how the community is right now.  It will look at everything from playing a game online to the community forums to fan sites.  Read on.  

When I visit the official forums of C&C Generals, I notice a few things.  The first and most obvious thing I see is forum members ridiculing EA staff members because they want something done.  Often times, they argue the same fact over and over again, hoping that EA will finally listen.  However, if you think hard enough, why would they want to help you if you have been making fun of them the entire time?  Issues like this happen because players want a new patch, want a bug fixed up, want a forum member banned, or the most annoying I have found, is the polls of asking a side or faction to be in the Generals Expansion, if there is one.  

Second, I see the believers of EA.  These people tend to be people who work on a Command & Conquer fan site, such as this.  Generally, they tend to stick up and defend the words of EA because they have a deeper thought process (not trying to make fun of anyone, but come on).  People who work on sites obviously work with C&C enough to notice that deeper meaning of things.  If a patch is late, that means they are fixing up any errors to make it the best it can be.  Now, I am not saying that these are the only supporters, but they make up a large percent.  

Next, I see ignorant ‘children’.  I say ‘children’ because these are the group of people that constantly flame certain forum members or everyone and anyone for any reason they come across.  I can name many names, however I won’t to keep with the reason of this article.  There is really no point in making fun of someone just because you can.  

There are more things that I see, however these are the biggest and the ones people are most affected by on the forums.  Maturity doesn’t only apply to the forums, but also Generals Online.  

Most people will say the biggest thing they see on Generals Online is cheaters.  This, I can agree on.  Disconnecting, mismatching, and other forms of cheating have spread so rampant on Generals it is hard to find a good game anymore.  Another problem is ranks.  People will often times look at your rank and say you are either to good or to ‘newbish’ and leave or kick you because of it.  This has to stop.  Playing someone better than you is the only way to become better yourself.  

Another thing I see on Generals Online is the ‘n00b’ players.  These people are the ones who Spam the lobby for no reason, constantly joining a game then leave without a purpose, or anything else to disrupt normal game play.   It shows they have nothing better to do than to make fun of people for "Playing Generals all day and having no life" when they are the ones who sit in the lobby all day and make fun of people, coincidence? I think not.

Maturity goes even farther on than Generals.  The fan sites also come into this ‘thing’ we call maturity.  Because of the huge amount of C&C fan sites and the huge amount of viewers daily, it is safe to say that the fan sites of the community play a big role in how people will think and act about Generals Online.  Sites should promote as much positive attitude as possible.  A site displaying negative thoughts and feelings of EA shouldn’t even be up since they are the creators of the game you have a site on.  

What can be done?  

Patches take time to make, create, and debug.  Working with EA to help and find the bugs, telling them what you want, and then helping to solve any problems they have or questions they have are a lot more helpful then screaming and yelling at them to produce a patch.  Chances are, they will only hurry, make mistakes, resulting in yet another patch that you will be rushing them for.

There is absolutely no reason to cheat.  The only thing bad that happens if you loose is that you stats may drop from ten losses two eleven .  This isn’t, and shouldn’t be a big deal, at all.  Statistics mean nothing when you do not have the skill to back it up. 

The ridiculing on the forums needs to stop.  Once again, there is no point in doing it.  It can only get you in trouble and cause more problems.  Unless you are insecure about yourself, you shouldn’t be flaming people on a public forum that is meant as a source of entertainment.   

To close I would like to say that I care very much about the Generals Community.  I feel that we need to just get together and play friends.  We see the same people a lot and it is best to make due with what you have, meaning play nicely, have fun, and don’t cheat.  Generals players are part of a community, one that should be together, not apart.