I'm that guy that just wants to play.

I don't care about Elo.
I don't care about kill score.
I REALLY don't care about jungling.
I don't care about buying wards as my responsibility.
I don't care about dedicating to a single champion.

What I do care about, is respect.

In the 1-20 level range, I noticed a high population of people who used a lot of sarcasm, insults, and threats to communicate with their fellow players. This isn't kosher. This kind of attitude is all over the internet, and as of the last few years it's been bleeding into the real world.

People are forgetting how to be polite and respectful to each other. A little respect will go a long way. Many individuals have seemed to adopted a policy of "show me respect and I show it to you." Why did we let this become a social norm?

How do you expect people to want to play with you if you sit there insulting them all the time? Sure, I'll admit that some of those people with the rude social qualities are good at the game. While I think most are trying to compensate for their own mistakes by making everyone else look bad, some have skill and are just being rude. Skill doesn't overshadow respect. Just because you're good doesn't mean you can make everyone else feel bad.

The worst offense I've experienced was when I first joined League of Legends a year or two ago. I was already skeptical on whether or not I would enjoy the game, as I'm not really comfortable in a Player-versus-Player environment. However, I enjoyed DoTA, and decided to give it a shot. Several matches in, each one a loss, I was starting to feel drained of my experience. I decided to play one more (which resulted in another loss).

At the end of that final game, as we were looking at the final statistics page, one player from the opposing team spoke up, "vinta clavert y u suck" "vinta makes his team bad" "u make ur team hate you."

I was shocked. What had I done to deserve the attention of this anonymous user? His team had won, but he decided to add some insult to injury. I was very upset. Because of this one individual deciding to be disrespectful to a new player on the opposing team, I quit. I uninstalled the client and didn't look back.

It wasn't until I found out a few months ago that my local friends were playing League of Legends that I decided to return. At first I was hesitant, "I don't want to play with the community, they've been nothing but jerks," but they assured to me they only played Co-Op versus AI and custom matches against bots.

Playing with my friends sparked an interest in this game for me. Suddenly I started to memorize champions, learn abilities and when to look out for ganks, and I started to remember what the items in the game do. To add to it, I was gaining summoner levels!

On this day, I'm summoner level 22, now with many runes to enhance my play-style and have even submit nearly $100 to Riot Inc. for champions (and even one skin for my lovely rat, Twtich) within this three-or-four month period.

Why all of this sudden burst of fun and rise in skill? Because my friends don't insult me every time I die. They don't use sarcasm when they praise me. In friend versus friend matches on Twisted Treeline and Proving Grounds, they don't tell me I'm a huge problem (or that I suck) when my team loses. They show respect.

Now sure, there is a such thing as playful banter, but they never mean it seriously. It also helps that I'm around them, and can hear the voice inflections in their jokes.

That is one part of the issue when it comes to why you can't be sarcastic toward each other or use personal jokes in the text chat. You can't imply that it's a joke with text, especially if you lack the know-how of putting voice in your writing.

Thankfully, I can say the insults and jokes become less common in the 20-30 summoner level range. I'm starting to branch out into the Player-versus-Player world again, and people at this range seem to show a little bit more kindness. It's not completely eliminated (and may, in fact, become worse due to the sense of elitism or entitlement people may get from being level 30), but a sense of compassion and understanding exists among these players.

All in all (I'm bad at conclusions, give me a break), my main concern is a little respect goes a long way. The next time you feel like telling a new player he sucks, think about how you felt when you started the game. People might actually feel more encouraged to play competitively if we just stop treating each other like lower life forms.