We've all had that highly irritating experience of wanting to throttle someone you're playing online with but can't due to the restrictions of time and space. The question is why are some people such idiots online? Will internet gaming ever be free of the deuche?

f I get called "faggot" one more time by somebody I don't even know...well, I don't have a decent threat. What can you do?

Online multiplayer is terrific, when enjoyed with friends. When your friends aren't online, when you're up all night due to insomnia and you want to play Quake Live or Left 4 Dead or anything on Xbox Live at 4AM, when you have to play with a batch of strangers, life can really start to suck. Prepare to be randomly, verbally abused for no real reason. Prepare to hear profanity spewed by awkward, adolescent voices. Even if you're not using VOIP, get ready to see hastily typed, or worse, macro recorded insults hurled at you as fast as immature fingers can produce them.

Something about perceived anonymity brings out the worst in some people. I don't want to pigeonhole teenyboppers, as I've met some very nice 12-year-olds, but they seem to be the worst of the lot, at least according to my admittedly unscientific survey. It consists of counting how often the voices—calling me a very, very naughty word—crack as they hurl curses.

Euphoric via extremetech.com »