How to find n00bs

"Every general knows of 5 things. Those who know them prevail, those who do no know them do not prevail. Therefore use these assessments for comparison. That is to say, which political leadership has the Way? Which general has ability? Who has the better climate and terrain? Whose discipline is effective?? Whose troops are stronger? Whose officers and soldiers are the better trained? Whose system of rewards and punishments is clearer? This is how you can know who will win" - Sun Tzu

The obvious way to find out if someone is new and/or sucks is to /stat them. Unfortunately sometimes their stats will be private, or chat will be lagged and you won't have time to stat a player before someone else challenges them. Sometimes you just won't feel like constantly typing it in. So I'd like to present a few useful tactics I've found that help figure out, on the spure of the moment, whether or not a potential opponent is a newbie(or at least a moron).

Tactic 1: The first letter of their name isn't Capitalized.
This may seem minor, however if you take a look at the current top 20 list you'll notice that only one player has failed to capitalize the first letter of his name. Now, if 95% of the player population capitalized the first letter of their name, this wouldn't really prove anything. However, a quick glance around chat shows that usually only around 50% of players have bothered to capitalize the first letter of their name. That, combined with personal experience, leads me to believe that capitalization of the first letter of your online name can be seen as a general indicator of intelligence.

Tactic 2: Numbers at end of name(Dug4312, Blackknight41, etc.).
Not a single player in the top 20 has a name with numbers at the end. It just looks stupid, and it's annoying to type in when you're trying to stat someone. There aren't so many people playing that it's hard to find a name that isn't used, so why do so many people put numbers at the end of their name? I can't pretend to know the answer, but from personal playing experience(350+ games), I can say that they tend to suck.

Tactic 3: L33t speak in name.
This includes not only the use as numbers instead of letters, but dashes and underscores(- and _) in the name. Also, alternating small and capital letters in name(no offensive to PaLaDiNz_Dude, and to a much letter extent Glaci0s, the only players in the top 20 who have this problem.) Again, from personal experience, these people tend to really, really suck. They'll also tend to insult you a lot while they play, and will quit once they realize they can't possibly win by hitting exit/lobby/shutting off screen. They'll almost never hit the surrender button.

Tactic 4: Extremely offensive name(Hitler, Jewhata, etc.).
They seem to be extremely similar to players who use l33t speak in their names, except when they insult you they'll often use racial slurs. The only possible example of this in the top twenty is TheRapizt, which really isn't all that offensive. Players with really offensive names seem to be the rarest type of newbie, and usually quit after only a few games. They can often be heard saying "This game sucks, it's all part of the Jewish conspiracy, also I hate black people(quote edited for content)."

Tactic 5: They keep their stats private.
Most people with good stats display their stats proudly. Only 3 types of people keep their stats private. Newbies who don't know any better. Crappy players who want to hide their suckyness. Good players who want to trick crappy players into playing them by hiding their spectacular stats. Only one player in the top 20 has private stats. Tactic 6: They have the word azn as part of their name.
I know this is a huge generalization, and players like this are rare, but most smart Asians won't put azn in their name, it's just silly. It's something I noticed while playing Infantry, and it seems to hold true for TAO.

Tactic 7: They use a real life sounding name(John Aster, David Miller, etc.).
The vast majority of people aren't dumb enough to use their real name as a screen name, ever. Not even on MSN or ICQ. These people tend to suck. Never hesitate to challenge one.

Tactic 8: They have spelling mistakes in their name.
This is a huge one, I can't believe I originally forgot about it. I'm not talking about people who intentionally mispell their name while using l33t speak(see Tactic 3). I'm talking about people who make spelling errors while typing in their screen name. They come in two groups, newbies who haven't bothered to create a new, properly spelled account, and stupid people who don't realize that they've made the error in the first place. Both are easy targets.

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