Domination Frustration

There it is: flag B.  Mine to capture. Mine to defend. Mine to loose. In the blink of an eye, I am shot dead.  Nevertheless, I have put in an admirable and
honourable job defending this stick with a silky sheet attached to the end. I respawn and head back to flag B, located in a small open space surrounded by buildings on three sides and one side by a fence indicating the edge of the map. When I get there it is still in our control. Bullets wiz by my head. One hits me and I go down like a publicity junkie two drinks shy of their own reality show. I respawn again. I notice flag B is still ours. Over the mic I hear my clan mates screaming - some for help, some for a medic (we all know that isn’t going to happen in Modern Warfare 2, but it’s fun to yell nonetheless). Flag B is being “overrun” by two enemy members. Their intentions are clear: kill as many of our team members, as possible who are defending the flag, with the total disregard for capturing it.

For those of you that don’t know, Domination is a game of, simply put: capture (and defend) the flag. Three flags are scattered about the map and it’s the job of each team to capture the flag and defend it from hostiles. Every few seconds a single flag is in your possession your team gets a point. The more flags you have captured the quicker the points will accumulate.The first team to 200 wins. This
seems simple enough, right? I wish!

See, a lot of online gamers play Domination according to the rules: capture the flag; defend the flag. But, there are those select few who perch atop buildings or hide at great distances and try to kill off as many enemies as possible, with absolutely no intention of capturing said flag. These players don’t care about the flag. All they want are the “easy” kills to run up their killstreaks and XP.  Even after killing enough enemies and getting that harrier, gunship and pavelow, they still refuse to capture the flag.  It’s frustrating. (Almost as frustrating as the hackers and gamers who expose “glitches” in the game to their advantage. What’s the point of using glitches to advance? Why not just hack the software, get all accolades, etc and give yourself a billion kills and no deaths and retire grand champion?) Why can’t they just play the game as it was intended: a) find flag; b) capture flag; c) defend flag; d) repeat once you respawn (this seems to be a recurring theme in my games!). I can’t stand these players, but I take solace in the fact that they would be kicked out of any army in the world for their actions, in the real world. These gamers have no respect for the game and the other players.  What can we do about them?  In a word – nothing. When playing Ground War it is impossible to avoid Domination mode, as it seems to be the “random” choice of game-type four out of every five matches. The only thing to do is to play the game, as it was intended, and avoid these so called “players”.Definitely easier said then
done. I have no respect for these people. They don’t care if their team wins or loses. They are self-indulgent, greedy little run-and-gun types that don’t think twice about their teammates, let alone their team. All they care about is themselves.  However, this could be the fault of Activision and/or Infinity Ward who have created an awesome online experience that rewards the individual and not the team.  But, that is a whole different story…