It's not 2011 anymore.
But tbh both Shotgun and Gunboats can be annoying to play against depending on the player so it's w/e. Shotgun would usually win because it's so much easier to finish weak enemy off.
I personally don't use Shotgun because I find it less fun to play with and I don't ever use it in game anymore.

Times change?

Also, which servers usually this happen? i get my fair share of unfun duels in the FirePowered MGE server mostly. The vatican city ones have less people always but the people seem to be nicer over there.

I guess you need to decide on what reason you are playing MGE. I play MGE to practice and warm-up before scrims and matches. I rarely, if ever, will MGE just for fun and I will simply not respond to things people say in chat. Once you decide your goal, it literally doesn't matter what other people do or say in the MGE arena. Work on the shit you need to work on and get out.

I prefer DM to MGE these days because I feel it gives more raw practice on the league maps but that is just me.

ps - any player bitching about a shotgun in MGE isn't worth playing. Find another arena.

I don't complain about someone when hes using shotgun or gunboats even when they do more annoying stuff, the problem is getting someone to actually play with. Is it a common thing now to frown upon shotgun users?

I play EU MGE servers.

At this hour for example, when I have time the servers usually have around 4-6 players, a lot of them are just friends so leaving for another arena is just not an option

All 3 problems will be solved if you play with a friend. It's not hard to find someone who's close to you in skill level.

no
stop playing againts idiots
zfg and palestra are usually fine for me, what servers do you play on lol
hud_say_text_time 0

Has never been a problem with me and has become a standard for MGE in my opinion.

Like SpaceCadet said, there are some people that want to start grief over nothing, so just ignore them. Just play to get better and don't worry about those "idiots".

gunboats are annoying as fuck when people use them to just do fly-bys on the high ground and spam 2 rockets and repeat.

1 tell them that they suck and wait till someone joins you
2 tell him that he sucks
3 tell him that he sucks

edit: for real just play and ignore them

1. Find a friend who likes to play mge.
2. Play with them til your eyes bleed.

I find this much more efficient and fun than trying to find randoms

I don't know anyone who will complain when you use shotgun...unless you're being annoying with it like shotgun denying, and using it as a crutch. If you aren't going for air shots and instead shot gun denying people will get annoyed.

shotgun denying isn't as big of a deal if you know not to hold +duck while airborne and what's annoying is demanding players.

shotgun makes games shorter and you have less room for error, although gunboats allows you to jump more hence give you more airshot practice.