Heya Pax.  I myself am a new player, and I agree some players can be harsh, and I'm sorry you've been plugged with the elitists most of the time.  I have only encoutered a few bad eggs in my matches, but many people seem very friendly and helpful.  Just try to communicate with your team as much as possible in the lobby and during the game, and most will warm up to you.  I was once in a game where one of our players was very new to the game, and kept feeding the other team.  My other teammate blew up on him, and I tried to calm him down but then he attacked me for whatever little mistakes I made....these are the people you cant help.  There are people online in these games just to harrass other players for whatever selfish reason they think is funny/cool even though it just makes them immature and unliked.

Someone will respond to your post in an aggressive/passive aggressive tone either defending those people who play to win because why would someone play to lose, or the whole deal with it takes 20 minutes for a custom game to get started and people get aggitated when they are placed on a bad team.  Well people, this is still a new game, and there are tons of new players trying to learn the game still, like Pax here.  Give them a chance already, jeeze not everyone is a 5 year DOTA vet like you.  I also come from a fast twitch FPS background, so it does take a little adjustment to develop strategy skills from running and gunning.  Good post Pax, I wish you luck in the future and add me as a friend if you'd like too, I'd be happy to teamup with you and trade strategies.

You can make a friends list, that will start helping.  Sadly, you should consider making a "red flag" list, as I call it (I don't call it a ban list, yet).  I've been playing games for 15 years, and I have to agree, this is the first time I've EVER had to make some kind of "ban list".

Friend me Pax, I'll be glad to play with you any time.  And these may help:

http://www.scarylogic.com/demigod/items.php

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/349958

Pax: I've noticed a fair amount of shitheads myself, and some kind souls as well.  I found the game expeirence much more enjoyable when I found a group of regulars to play with on a public vent.  Most of those guys joined a clan, and so did I, and the players in this clan have been very helpful and patient with me.  I'm not out to recruit for the clan, nor do I have any kind of skin in the game, but you might try the clan Xen of Onslaught if you want a mature group to play with.  I think we have a thread for recruiting new players in this forum.  It's been a good expeirence for me.

Hope to see you on our Vent.

Actually some people are more patient than others. What makes the patient players lose their patience is when they try to talk to you and give you hints/tips/orders via the team chat and you do not respond and instead go play solo. Don't take it hard. Play with players you like (add them to friends list... so when the friends system WILL FINALLY WORK then you will be able to coordinate games with them). HF.

people are evil... it's sad.

but I still love them

What should concern people the most is that an early mistake will often set the tone for the entire game.  You make a mistake or feed someone even once and they now can have a huge advantage over you in terms of gold/levels.

Please don't respond with how many people have come from behind to win.  It can be done, but I have seen many well-played DG's completely lock you out the moment they have an advantage and you may as well just /quit

I usually don't mind bad players on my team so much unless it's apparent that they're doing stuff they would have learned not to in a few single player games.

Yeah there are some griefers in-game. Have had several games where just because the team didn't want to do what one person was (insanely) doing they freak out and call various people noobs. A few games ago there was a guy new to online Demigod playing sedna - he was really trying, being nice and making a big effort despite still finding the ropes. For his effort he takes a massive amount of grief from someone, just as he hasn't quite got the experience at playing that some would deem 'worthy'.

My advice is to just ignore them, play the game for the team, but most importantly play to have fun. If people are taking a game as seriously as they sometimes seem to be then I think they really need to turn off the screen, go outside and experience some real life for a bit instead.

There are still nice people out there though. One skirmish last night had a dropped player in 2vs2 but everyone was in good spirits and there was good fun in chat between the two teams after us remaining 3 decided to play on.

Even though the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion due to the Ai on one team it was still good fun and prob one of the nicest games I've played as it was played for fun, not the win... lots of "ooo, you nearly got me there" and "I'll get ya next time". Like I said a nice game - there are still plenty of good people to play with out there. Stick with it.

lolz