As it turns out, gamers aren’t very fond of sharing their gamespace with a screaming 12-year old throwing a temper tantrum. They also don’t like mixing it up with Serious Gamers who have devoted their waking lives to a game and know every corner, contour, and exploit. Oh, and something about running the same map and gamestyle over and over again being really boring? With over 43,000 responses, this could be considered a definitive survey of the online community. IGN has the story.
I really only play online with friends, for these very reasons. Also, the general public, as rule, is really amazingly bad at games. In any cooperative game, that can be a problem. I trust to my own cabal of murderfiends and slow, sure hands to solve all my digital problems.
As for the rest, Penny Arcade perhaps said it best, “The answer is to mute them. Mute them right away and never stop muting them. Mute them forever. “