Some of those playing the computer game “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands” need to get a grip.
I gripe, because “Wildlands” has just released its online multiplayer mode. This mode involves a battle between two teams of four players, with each player picking a soldier class such as “sniper” or “pointman.” It’s a good concept and the game design and maps are intelligent.
Unfortunately, too many players are playing like idiots. Enter EliteSniper45.
Playing on Tuesday evening, I had the unfortunate pleasure of being assigned to a team which included EliteSniper45 (or something similar). Now, even assuming that EliteSniper45 selected his name in the belief that he is an elite gamer sniper and not actually an elite sniper (you can never take this for granted when it comes to military gamers), EliteSniper45 was the antithesis of elite.
Indeed, he was so antithetical to “elite” that I was compelled to “rage quit” the “Wildlands” servers.
Yet my rage was not so much about EliteSniper45’s incongruent name, but rather the astonishing quality of his immense stupidity. In “Wildlands,” because each player can revive an injured teammate and use a beacon tower to identify enemy positions, teamwork is crucial. The problem is those players, like EliteSniper45, who pick the sniper class and hide on the periphery of the map. Forgetting that this is a game and not actual combat, they render themselves too far away to help in firefights and heal injured teammates.
EliteSniper45, for example, was totally irrelevant to our team’s success and largely responsible for our failures. If our team was winning, he would happily take potshots from his happy perch (missing most of the time). If we were losing and injured, he would hide in denser foliage and wait. Of course, the enemy would then use the beacon to locate and encircle him.
It’s not just EliteSniper45. From my experience thus far, many players seem to think they are actual Green Berets. They are not.
