I wasn't sure where to post this, so I put it here.
Remember the last time you had an opponent ragequit? That moment when they were so intensely nasty to you for whatever reason, and then they leave the game because they think it makes them superior? Yeah, I've found something worse than that: sorryquitting.
Sorryquitting is worse than ragequitting. A ragequitter is more likely to stay in the game longer to stick it to you, and might actually talk more about whatever's upsetting them, thereby giving their opponent more chances to attempt to reason with them before they rage quit. Furthermore, when someone ragequits, most people sigh in relief and think something like "good riddance!"
This doesn't happen for a player that sorryquits, though. A sorryquitter is a nice person who, rather than attacking their opponent like someone who is ragequitting, they're attacking themeslves. They leave a game early because they get discouraged and think they can't compete, or they don't know the rules well enough, or they haven't used OCTGN before and don't know the keyboard shortcuts, ignoring or forgetting that every good player has been in the same position many times.
And when they leave, you feel really sad because you were probably just deprived of a fun and exciting game against a fun and exciting opponent. Then you get annoyed because the player base on OCTGN is so small (relatively speaking) that you might not be able to get another opponent for several hours. They might think they're wasting your time by trying to play against you, but the reality is that they're wasting much more of your time by sorryquitting.
Also, on a related note, I want to point out that the rules of Mage Wars, while the major gist of them is simple and intuitive, many of the details are complex and difficult to quickly grasp. I think I can safely say that nearly every Mage Wars player has accidentally cheated at some point before. I understand that a very sizable fraction of Mage Wars players are hardcore competitive gamers, and that's not a bad thing. However, when it comes to accidental rule-breaking in casual games, I think we should all cut people some slack. Rather than getting angry or impatient, we merely need to explain how they broke the rules, linking to somewhere in a Rulebook, FAQ, or forum-ruling if necessary.
It seems to me that the attitude that quite a few people have towards accidental rule-breaking in casual Mage Wars games seems to be "You cheated! I don't care the reason why, you had better STOP RIGHT NOW!"
This attitude is not helpful to newer or less experienced players. None of us wants to feel like a darn dirty cheater, we just want to learn from and fix our mistakes so that we can improve our game and have fun while doing it.
It kind of worries me that my last opponent sorryquitted before I had even cast my first spell of the game. I've only ever won once or twice and I've lost probably dozens of games, but for whatever reason they were so discouraged that they believed they had no chance against me. Why were they so discouraged?
I think that it should be stressed that Mage Wars is a complex game with a high learning curve, but that a high learning curve should not have to be daunting or intimidating. After all, every high learning curve is made of a bunch of smaller ones, and life itself probably has the highest learning curve. In life we never know all the rules, and because of that we make mistakes, yet many of us still manage to enjoy life and improve ourselves in spite of that. The same can be said for Mage Wars, but I think it's generally far easier to learn to play Mage Wars then to learn how to live your life.
So relax, enjoy a game of Mage Wars, try not to get impatient with less experienced players, and please don't sorryquit.
