Has this ever happened to you? You're sitting there, having fun and playing with one of your friends online, running around in some game, and one of your other friends (from your friends list) starts messaging you mid-game. You figure "Hey, I can just answer this later, they'll understand," and ignore it until later after a couple more kills. Then, out of the blue, another message, and then another, and another, spamming (with online status messages as well) you out of the blue to invite you to their game, or randomly informing you of meaningless nonsense about their achievement that they're oh so proud of. And then, the big one: "If you don't want to play with me, just say so;" you stare at the screen in disbelief after the heated round of Left 4 Dead. I can understand that in the past, you couldn't tell what your friend was doing on XBL, and that nobody has to read messages sent to them, but for the love of Mike, guys! In this current age, you can not only tell what game is in your friend's box, but you can even tell exactly what level they're in, if they're in the lobby or idling, and can even tell who they're playing with! It's just common sense to look at whom you're sending your message to before you send it. Check to see if they're doing something which means they can't respond! To that end, I've come to the conclusion that the users of Xbox LIVE need a little lesson in proper behavior online, and I've come up with a short list of five things you can do to improve your Xbox 360 online etiquette:
Rule 1: Check who you're sending messages to and stop mass-sending - It's a common courtesy to make sure that your important and epic message can be read immediately by your friend by checking their online status FIRST. If they're in the middle of a huge firefight in one of Halo 3's new maps, or perhaps unloading on some zombies in L4D, your message can cause chaos and result in you being ignored. At the same time those gamers who send out mass-messages informing everyone that “you are going on vacation and will be offline for the next two days” – please stop with that as well, to be honest no one cares.
Rule 2: Xbox LIVE Party crashers stay away - With the advent of the new XBL option to create "Parties", people have a new way to keep in contact with their friends, even while playing other games, and with more friends at once! You can share pictures and talk and otherwise have a great time, but beware, for many people don't spend the extra five seconds (or more, depending on who's behind the controller and how much they know about the Xbox's GUI) to set their parties to PRIVATE or INVITE ONLY. For those of us who are setting up parties, take that extra time to ensure that your settings are accurate! Make sure that if you're trying to have a party with only a select few friends for some kind of guild for a game (Like a party for L4D strategy, for instance), be sure that you've set up your party to have INVITE ONLY mode on. For those of you incredibly lonely people who desire to party-crash, it's always nice to send a message to ask if you can join first, even if it is open for anyone on the list to join.
Rule 3: Your MIC is not a toy (just part of one) - With great power, comes great responsibility! Your Xbox LIVE mic is a far greater power than you will ever realize, and it is always wise to be sure of what you're going to do with it before you start. At no point is it wise to use your mic irresponsibly to spam the channel or the group with the annoying music that you think "Rocks out loud" or is some "Bangin' $#17, dawg!" Be aware of your other players, many of us who use XBL are the very young, and are very impressionable; it's a bad idea to start spouting expletives (curse words) or racist comments at your fellow players. You never know what these little players may choose to repeat, ad nauseum, back at you for the rest of the game in the most high-pitched, nasally, annoying, and frustratingly loud voices on planet Earth. Try to use more acceptable euphemisms, and try to keep your volume down. Some of us like being able to hear the screams of our victims during FPS frag-fests.
This feature editorial list continues on the next page, please click below to reveal the final three ways to improve Xbox LIVE etiquette.
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