I have been playing for a month or so now and found the community both friendly and sporting. I have never had any issues and I am always polite and respectful of other players.
Last night when entering a game with only one other player, I came across some, shall we say, hostility. The player told me forcefully to leave the game when he had not even played a shot. I asked him why, he told me my picture did not match my avatar.
I asked, "Is that a problem"?
He said "Damn right it is!" and once more asked me to leave.
After some more requests for explanation as to what the problem was with no response other than leave the game, I left, still confused as to what the issue was.
My Avatar is male. I am 52 years old and happily married. So much so, I always use a small picture I had taken of my wife 25 years ago when we were married on all forums and images including facebook and other social media. A very respectable image of just a face. I have never ever had any one mention or complain about this. I used this image on the profile as well.
I know this may seem confusing to some, but players mostly just ask who the picture is of and after the explanation understand with no issues.
I even told this player who the image was of, and in no way tried to deceive him (or anyone else for that matter) that the picture was actually of myself.
Maybe he was racist (my wife is Indian) maybe he was upset to find out I was not the person in the image, I don't know. But to be safe, I immediately went to my profile and changed the picture back to the default one for my Avatar.
Is there some unwritten rule that says the picture must be of yourself? Because I have seen all kinds of pictures being used of all kinds of people and objects that bear no resemblance at all to the person behind the keyboard.
If the guy thought I was trying to masquerade as Female, the male avatar and the fact I told him the picture was of my wife and not myself should have cleared that up, just the same as it has done on other occasions.
If its a problem. I'll leave it to default, but would like to know what the rules are regarding acceptable and in no way offensive images being used in the player profile.
Anyone who thinks that an avatar image reflects the real person behind the keyboard is not used to the internet, it's simply an image.
thanks for your assistance.