I think that the one thing that mostly ruins a game for me are the number crunchers. Especially in multiplayer online games, these are the people who twist the game around, searching for the exact code and formulas that determine how everything in the game works, and then manipulating it to maximize their character as much as possible.

While in theory this sounds like a great thing to try to do, in practice it usually results in a group of people that are very elitist and tend to look down on anyone that doesn’t try to manipulate the system as much as they have. I tend to find it very tiring to hear how ‘broken’ or ‘gimped’ I am because I haven’t spent an obscene amount of time (as if I don’t spend too much time on it already) getting X item-of-doom that will add another 1/2% to my damage. If you don’t play the game to maximize your stats to the utmost, then you’re not playing the game correctly according to these guys. Which really goes against the idea of these games in the first place– to try to play and enjoy the game however you want to.

What really gets me about the number crunchers though, is how generally mean and condescending they get to people who don’t want to play the same game they do. I’ve had people outright refuse to even <i>allow me to help them</i> because I wasn’t ‘uber’ enough for them. I’ve also had people refuse invites to parties because we weren’t maximized for the most exp/hour. This seems outright stupid to me.

I’m fine with people wanting to play the game that way if they want, to make the most out of stats and stuff, but no one should ever try to enforce this type of thinking onto everyone else.