On Tue, 24 May 2011 11:40:42 -0400, Metspitzer
wrote:

I always thought there should be an OPTIONAL handicap mode. I don't
know anything about Battlefield, but games like Quake and Unreal
should give lower skilled or less hardware players a dynamic advantage
where all players are getting about the same amount of frags. You
could still tell the best players by how much handicap they have. This
would prevent new players from getting discouraged and quitting.

They have a solution for this today: console gaming. Everyone on
same playing field. Personally I'd prefer to see PC gaming remain the
domain of hardware enthusiasts who accept that every hobby has a cost,
and the cost of PC gaming is an ongoing expense.

Really in multiplayer games, internet latency is a bigger factor than
fps overall score or ease of killing.

There is no shortage of options, if one's income or financial is such
that they cannot afford hardware that maintains at least 60fps on the
games they want to play: They can (1) play older games, (2) lower the
resolution/settings to achieve solid 60fps, (3) exit the hobby of PC
gaming completely, (4) switch to consoles, (5) get a better paying
job, (6) make other financial tradeoffs in the management of their
lives

These are all much easier problems to solve than the internet latency
dilemma (for most people in the USA at least, where choice of
broadband providers is usually limited and crappy in performance
compared to many other countries).

I think the cost of PC gaming as a hobby is actually more cost
effective than many other hobbies (golfing, skydiving, boating etc)