Bad sportsmanship · 4:10am Feb 28th, 2017
A little outdated, given that the event described happened last night as opposed to today, but here goes.
Last night, I was playing Rome; Total War on multiplayer and got in a game with three other people, a 2 player vs. 2 player situation (SPQR/Roman Senate ally and me as Macedon vs. Thrace and Egypt). I thought it was going to be a great game.
On the surface, the battle was a major win; the other guys were totally crushed.
The problem lay with my ally.
At the beginning of the match, my ally came in with his army of Urban Cohorts (I had mainly Royal Pikemen with heavy cavalry support and four archer units) and between us the Thracian player was simply crushed between us.
While this was all starting to happen, I notice my ally in the chat shouting (my word for it; technically there was no sound from the chat) at the Egyptian player on the other side, who was being sluggish in going to the support of the Thracian player.
My ally (whose in-game name I'm not going to name and shame here, even if he deserves it) continued to send insulting messages to the Egyptian player as we crushed Thrace (who unfortunately did end up struggling alone until he was driven off the field). Sadly, I did not remember the key that allows chat, so I ended up fumbling with the keyboard for a while until I just decided to pull the answer (T key) off my phone's internet.
By that time, it was late in the battle and the Egyptian player, whose phalanx units had been slowly approaching while remaining in phalanx mode, was nearly beaten and the battle almost over (I'm not going to list his name either because I'm not sure whether he'd have approved of me making this blog on his behalf). I was able to get in a few sentences to try to get my ally to stop with his insulting comments. He didn't exactly turn on me, but instead tried to give excuses for his insults, mainly that the Egyptian player had allowed his ally to be destroyed. I attempted to calm him down by saying that it could be a misunderstanding or due to lag (which turned out to be the case; this game, due to the number of soldiers on the field, lagged considerably).
At the end of the match, the SPQR player demanded a rematch. I ended up returning to the lobby to wait.
I waited for several minutes until the Egyptian player wound up hosting his own game (1v1 siege battle), and, feeling sorry for the guy and, significantly, feeling as if Someone was telling me to do this as the right thing to do, I joined.
I tried greeting him, only to be told "I don't want to talk right now."
He did, though.
It turns out, the guy had lost his father at an early age and he and his mother were struggling to make a living. He was easily put down as a result and was both angered and depressed by the SPQR player's actions; a comment by my ally (who was a random host who I hadn't known previously to my knowledge) that particularly hurt was that the Egyptian player "sucked/failed at life," or something incredibly similar. My new friend said that if the two of them had been in the same room he would have punched the SPQR player. He explained that his action in the prior battle had been due to lag, which I'd guessed at before.
However, after I talked with him a while, he was ready to play another game.
Now, I hadn't gone into this match intending to add someone to my friends list. I'd gone in hopping for a good battle and some practical experience playing the game against other people as opposed to the usual campaigns against the AI. But the SPQR player's insults ended up driving me into the camp of my former enemy, so to speak.
Me and the Egyptian player, who was now playing as the Julii Roman faction for the siege battle, had a great game and I added him as a friend at the end of it. He was a decent guy once he got past the insults the other player had thrown at him.
My main moral of the story is to not insult other people online. The SPQR player may not have known about the Egyptian player's personal problems, but that's no excuse for all the garbage he threw at the player who would become my newest Steam buddy; you don't know who's on the verge of depression or anything, and even if you happened to know that's not the case, it's still not appropriate or cool.
However, as I said previously, I also felt an... urge? pressure? to join the guy's siege game. It wasn't anything overpowering, but I tend to have an opinion that it wasn't a random thing, and that the urge, I guess I'll call it, didn't originate with me. I think anyone who knows me well enough will understand what I'm trying to get at here.
I hope this helps people to not issue insults over the internet. You just don't know who is going to receive it or what state they're in. If the Egyptian player had had an extreme form of depression, this incident would have had the potential of pushing him over the edge (i.e., possibly self harm or commit suicide). I was honestly dismayed by what happened and felt sorry to have helped my "ally" beat him and his army.
Now, I'm not immune to saying stupid stuff either; I'm fortunate not to have a mic for my Xbox One, otherwise I might be issuing insults everywhere on Battlefield 1 whenever I can't fulfill a medal thanks to enemy action. I need something to deal with my anger in the heat of the moment, other than swearing and saying bad things, and if anyone has suggestions down below, I'll be happy to at least listen to them. But this incident opened my eyes at least a little and made me realize that what we say does matter, even if it's just text on a screen in a video game. The people on the other side are real, and should be treated as though they were right next to you.
Thanks for listening, and may God go with you all. 
There's talking smack, and then there's just being a jerk... It's a game and should be viewed as just that. I get my blood up when I play world of warships, so yeah, I consider myself not immune to the emotions that come with PvP.
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la time i played multiplayer the same thing happened to me because my teammate was angry at me because i didnt chharge in frontal without a tactic like he did i ended up destroying both enemy players at the same time by myself