Obscure country history lesson:
Multiplayer gaming is still a fairly new thing in Poland. Remember that in the 90's, when most of you guys were already blasting away on Quake servers, Poland was barely out of the snares of communism. Only the richest had internet connection. Children were only beginning to be taught English at schools rather than Russian as their second language. As a result, even those able to play on multiplayer servers didn't know how to communicate, so uhh... they didn't, and it's not that they could expect any reasonable pings with the connections they had anyway. And remember there weren't enough of those people to form local communities. Consequently, the multiplayer scene in Poland virtually didn't exist until the 2000's. In fact, I would say that we have fully caught up with the rest of the world only over the last, say, 10 years.
What about LAN? Well, back in the day if one person on the block owned a computer, they were somebody. Even when that started to change people mostly bought desktop computers. Nobody wanted to splash out on a laptop. Hardly anyone had one. And since carrying over a desktop PC to your friend's house required quite the contortion, people didn't really do that either.
Multiplayer gaming in Poland, for years, has been virtually limited to split-screen and co-op only. And not all games support that. AND it's not like games were easy to get either. You couldn't just go to your local game shop or whatever. That stuff just wasn't there. For years the only way you could get a game is either if a gaming magazine put it on their bonus CD (and they mostly put on old, cheap games, for obvious reasons) or... from a friend... who got it from a friend... whose dad bought it on the black market. Feel free to judge. You weren't there.
The point of this is that, for me, a Polish guy, multiplayer gaming is still something I haven't had too much of. There are things that are bad about it, but it still didn't wear me out.
I love MineCraft. I've had my buildings griefed countless times. But then, I found there is always a protocol to follow to help you. Someone destroyed your stuff? Report it to the admin and the griefer will get banned and your building will get fixed. Someone offended you badly in chat? An admin was probably already there to kick the guy out and/or mute them.
A problem arises when we get to games in which aggressive behavior is actually the point. I mean games like Call of Duty or Battlefield and such. You're supposed to run around killing people. We are inherently a violent species so those games gain huge popularity. I too, on occasion, like to frag some guys. But then there are people who love the violent rush of competition so much that they play nothing else but shooters. All day, every day. You get on a server with such a person, you're gonna have a bad time. Gameplay just isn't fun when you're killed every few seconds by the same person repetitively.
For me, multiplayer gaming isn't about winning. It's about sharing the experience. For example, when I play Re-Volt with my friends over LAN or split-screen I always do my best but I actually want them to win, because if I can't win all the time, that's when things get interesting. That's when real, healthy competition ensues. Sure, I could play the game all day, every day, effectively making myself an unbeatable Re-Volt god, but then where's the fun if there's nobody to throw you a fair challenge?
What I'm trying to say is that although I haven't had as much experience with multiplayer gaming as some of you guys, it seems to me that the games themselves aren't to blame. It's the people. Specifically the people who seriously need to get a life. Should we abandon something that allows all to play together and share their fun just because of those people? I say not.