This is a game. G-A-M-E. It's not a sport, it's a game. Monopoly is a game. Does your family keep a chart of who's won every game of Monopoly ever played in your house? No. (And if by chance they do, I really pity you and your family) The purpose of a game is to amuse ourselves for a time. Sure, we all like to win, but mostly we play to have fun. "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." That little sportsmanlike saying seems to be all but forgotten in the world of online gaming. Apparently most online gamers are out to be leet, and pwnz0r the opposition.
I'm getting sick of people who lag games out, or cause out of sync errors to prop up their precious win rating and their fragile little egos because they got BEATEN. I like to win, don't get me wrong. But I'm not going to resort to cheating behavior to win, it's just not worth it.
And you might say, if winning doesn't matter to me, if I play to have fun, then I should know I won even if the other guy cheats, so what difference does it make? Well, I'll tell you why it makes a difference. It makes a difference to me because I'm not a great player, but I don't suck, either. Oddly enough, this makes it very hard to find a game! People of lower ranks often kick me out of games because they think I'm too good. People of higher ranks often kick me out because they think I'm not good enough, or something. maybe they kick me out because they're afraid I might beat them. God knows I've seen plenty of games with titles like "Noobs only" hosted by people with higher ranks than me, higher win percentages than me, and more experience than me. And they kick me out, obviously because they feed off noobs to inflate their rankings.
And so I beg of ESO, make the game fun again. Get rid of the rankings. Get rid of the win percentages. Get rid of the incentive to cheat. I have no problem if the server tracks such information for one's private knowledge, but making it public turns it all into a "my **** is bigger than your **** contest" and takes all the fun out. I realize the stats and rankings are unlikely to go away, so let me rephrase my request. Give us the ability to play unranked games. If we don't want to be ranked, why must we be ranked? I demand my right as a paying customer to not have my **** size proclaimed for anyone who wants to see.
If I remember right, original AOE had ladder rooms and non-ranked rooms. The sharks with the gotta be leetzor mentalities can play ranked, and the people who want to play just for fun could do that too. And if a shark wanted to play an unranked game and school some less hardcore just-for-fun types, it was all good. And oddly enough, I don't recall ever seeing an unranked AOE game go out of sync.
Mark my words. If ESO makes unranked play areas, they'll be used. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.