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Of Fanbois and Haters
Synexis
Member Posts: 37
Fanbois and haters have long piqued my interest. Most people understand that personal preference is subjective. Just because I greatly enjoy tomato basil quiche doesn’t mean that everyone else “should” love it as well. My taste is simply a personal preference, nothing more. I do not hate other foods because they are not like quiche, nor do I feel I am “better” or “more sophisticated” than someone who does not like quiche. Nonetheless, those elements are indeed present on many forums found throughout the Internet today. Here are just a few observations I have made over the years.
A) The Fanboi (and elements thereof)
The fanboi’s mind seems to blur the concept of personal preference and objective fact, creating a situation where the two become one. Suddenly, the personal preference of the fanboi is no longer simply his or her opinion, but absolute truth.
I’ve known plenty of people that have strong opinions on various matters, yet I would not classify them as fanbois on that basis alone. The fanboi is something more than just a person with a strong opinion.
#1 Fanbois are extremists
In my opinion, this is the key element of a true fanboi. Most rational people understand that most everything has both positive and negative aspects. For example, while I love quiche, I can still see that quiche is very high in fat and calories and eating too much of it is bad for your health. The fanboi appears to lose the ability to see most -or any- negative aspects about the thing they like. The fanbois see their MMO – or other thing of interest – as absolutely pure and good.
The smarter fanbois, however, utilize an interesting justification technique to make it appear that they are not extremists. The “Vanbois” (which happen to be a particularly ferocious breed of fanboi) have been utilizing the Technique of Universal Exemption – or TUE – a lot recently. Anyone who has played Vanguard can clearly see that the game has problems. Most rational people would admit that the game was released too early. Even the Vanbois have a hard time outright denying this fact, though some will try. Most Vanbois, however, use the TUE. That is to say, the Vanboi will respond to criticism by saying “Well, that is how ALL MMOs are at this stage!”
Player_012: “Vanguard has a lot of bugs that need to be addressed.”
Retort from Vanboi: “Vanguard was just released and ALL MMOs have a lot of bugs when they first come out!”
Why the fanboi attempts to justify bugs is quite strange. One would think a rational individual would agree that bugs in a game are bad and should be addressed as soon as possible. However, the fanboi takes ANY criticism of their game as a personal attack and quickly assumes a defensive stance.
#2 Fanbois can not accept criticism.
A healthy debate is a good thing. If everyone talked only sunshine and roses about MMOs, little improvement would likely be made on a given game. Constructive criticism is a good thing! Yet to the fanboi, criticism is almost always unfounded and wrong. The fanboi’s game is either perfect as is or inevitably will be perfect “very soon”.
#3 Fanbois accept “hype” as gospel truth.
History has proven, time and again, that hype is rarely reliable. Most people understand this and take an “I will believe it when I see it in game” position. Fanbois, however, tend to believe hype as objective fact. D&L is a good example. The hype about D&L, if taken at face value, would have meant that D&L was going to be an awesome MMO. The game was hyped as revolutionary. As we all know now, D&L became one of the biggest disasters in MMO history. Only the most extreme fanbois continued to defend it after release.
#4 Fanbois are often petty
I can’t tell you how many times a fanboi has retorted to a critical post by pointing out spelling and/or grammar mistakes, lack of punctuation, improper use of paragraphs etc.
The Hater
#1 Haters are a subset of fanboi
We all know haters. Haters, in my opinion, are even worse than fanbois. While fanbois tend to focus on one MMO as the greatest thing since sliced bread, haters are not so discerning. True haters will happily go from forum to forum hating on numerous games. Nonetheless, haters usually exhibit fanboi-like behavior in that they often have one game that they see as the “best”, which is the one they are playing. But haters are not content with how great their chosen game is, they want to make sure everyone knows how horrible all other games are.
Haters focus exclusively on every negative aspect of a game with specific intent to spur fanbois into a rage. Haters do not offer criticism to try and make a game better. Haters do not care about other games, they simply like to belittle others and participate in flame wars.
#2 Haters like to operate incognito
Occasionally, a hater will attempt to either A) hide their true intentions or realize they are not being taken seriously and thus to be more effective haters, try and improve their image. These kind of haters are my personal favorite, as I find their methods hilarious.
You can usually identify these kind of haters as they will point out a small positive aspect of a game they have been hating on or will say that the game has “potential”. After the small positive comment, however, the hater will immediately resume hating on the game. When called out by fanbois or others, the hater will immediately point to their small positive comment and use that as “evidence” for them not being a hater.
Hater: MMO_X has a lot of potential but right now it sucks and the devs are stupid and people who pay to play it are idiots and the gameplay is boring…. etc.
Poster_0923: You are clearly a hater. You have started 15 threads about how much you hate this game. Just don’t play it.
Hater: STFU! Didn’t you see where I said this game had potential! So I am clearly not a hater! Stupid n00b! (The hater will usually drop his ruse long enough to hate on the poster at this point)
#3 Haters get around
While fanbois tend to stay in their own respective forums (for the most part), haters spend most of their time wandering around hating on random games, seemingly on a whim. A true hater will hate on Vanguard for a while until he or she gets bored and then move over to EvE online and hate in that forum for a while. After lunch, the hater may decide to hate on EQ2 or attempt to start a flame war in the General forum with a crazy claim about some game.
C) Parting Thoughts:
(Fun Fact: haters and fanbois account for the vast majority of “trolls” on any given forum.)
Truth be told, most people in online forums are rational individuals that strive to objectively view each game and debate the positives and negatives. Fanbois and haters make up a very small total percentage of an online forum, yet they scream so loudly, it creates an illusion that they have large numbers. Yet time and time again, if you pay attention, the hating and fanboi-ism can be traced back to the same few people.
Thank you for reading Syn’s thoughts on fanbois and haters. 
~Synexis
Comments
and they gain the most attention in every forum. Sod what any reasonable person has to say, lets quote any fanboi or hater in any thread multiple times over as it is the most controversial! Even worse, is that an extreme of either can tend to polarize someone else to another extreme just because of his worm-holedness. Good post and fitting for these forums.
No true hater is hidden fanboy.
True haters hate even the games they are playing.
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
everyone is a fan boy to something to even the tiniest extent.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
Haters and fanbois are usually one and the same. Most haters are really trying position their own preferred game, but a few are simply unstable people on a vendetta against a game or company.
Something extremely important to keep in mind is that not all criticism of a game is hate and not all defense of a game is fanbo-ism. You can even have both criticism and response to that criticism in the same discussion without either side being a fanboi or hater.
The accusation of fanboi is usually thrown out when someone refuses to agree with an opinion on a game that someone else holds to be self evident. When you mix this with the fact that fanbois think its self evident that their game is better then all others you get an interesting result. The people most likely to throw out an accusation of fanboi are in fact the fanbois themselves, to their mind the fact that people dont agree with their opinion on their chosen game is in itself proof that that person is a fanboi.
I found this example somewhat interesting because its suggestive a fanboi mentality on the part of the threads original poster. Of these two, its actually the first who is more likely to be a fanboi, but the OP fails to recognize this and attributes any defense of Vanguard as being fanboi-ism. This is very typical fanboi reasoning.
BOTH those statements are inherently true and valid and BOTH COULD BE an example of fanboi behavior depending on the context. The typical behavior of a fanboi is to hold games they like to a lower standard then games they do not. A fanboi therefore is very likely to single out games they dislike for problems that effect all games.
While fanbois are also prone to discounting problems in their own game this is much harder to tag as fanboi-ism. Different problems will have a different threshold for different people. Since you can expect people to gravitate to games where they have a high tolerance to the problems that exist you can expect them to discount the importance of those problems.
People who have a higher tolerance for grinding will not see the problem with lineage being to grind intensive, a person who doesnt mind zoneing is less likely to have a problems with it in EQ2, a person with a high tolerance to a cartoony outdated art style will not see the problem with the art in WoW.
The typical fanboi response to all of these people is going to be to accuse these other people of being fanbois because they refuse to admit the flaws in the game they are playing. The true fanboi in this case is actually the person making the fanboi accusation because they cant accept differences in taste that lead them to games other then the one they play. While the other person may be a fanboi as well you need to look deeper into their postings to really know.
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"...I am a loving guy..." - George Bush
Crusaders where also doing crusades for peace, love and friendship...
Hating a game is wrong. Hating a concept is definitely desirable. Enforcing a gameplay over another is what bring soooo many "hating", but they deserve it, all of it. An enforced gameplay is automatically wrong, there is no place for debate, even if it is enforced grouping... Respecting a gameplay you create, and thereby the players enjoying said gameplay, shouldn't be optional!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Haters come because of fanbois :P
People get fed up of the fanbois and then hate all over the game.
A good community build itself alone, with no efforts. As players who are happy are sharing their good feelings. Harsh behaviors such as been displayed in Vanguard is displaying you an ill community, something rotten, to the core. A good community come naturally, with happy players.
The EQ community wasn't builded by guilds, it was builded by peoples grouping together and doing PUGs. Why do you think these uber guilds are crying? The community tired of them and left them, to themselves...I was but a tiny part of the community back then, as was anyone there, including the tiny minority who benefit from the raiding setting; which come later, as an afterthough. As players didn't understand the implication of such dynamics.
In CoV, I experience nothing but the greatest community I ever saw; simply because the players are happy. Not because a guild achieve this or that, build this or that, but simply because players are happy. You can get a group easily, it is easier than in any other MMO I ever play....and to top it, I can always solo and have great fun...in fact, most of the time I can't commit to a group, I solo and get offered to join groups. Peoples who, for any reason, dislike CoV...they quit (and they usually quit happy, since they have a good time and got bored, so they will talk of the game positively; ED excluded)! Which keep the community, happy! Unlike some other MMOs trying to hook unhappy players. I wouldn't want to share a garden with an enraged bull, would you?
See, in CoV, if I see peoples in needs, I will be happy to switch to ANY of my toon, just to help. I am but a tiny part of what build CoV great community, and they afford to lose me on many occasions, yet I always come back, because peoples are happy, which make a great community!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
IMO you couldnt be more wrong. A good community will only grow in a suitable environment. In a game, this environment is created by the rules put in place by the developers. Having a certain rule fosters one type of community, having a different rule fosters another while having no rule at all may foster a third type of community.
As more and more MMOs hit the market the days where you can have multiple communities develop under a single ruleset went the way of the Dodo. The first and best example is UO, the lack of restrictions on PvP was suitable for one type of community but less suitable for others. As soon as EQ1 hit the market many of these communities jumped ship and never looked back because EQ was a more conducive game to their type of community.
Today, games need to be even more focused on what types of community they want to develop within their game. CoH has the type of community it does because the dev team targeted that from day one. Vanguard targets a different community, and while you are never likely to see CoH style communities develop there other types of communities will certainly thrive as long as the devs keep their eyes on the big picture of what they are trying to achieve and use a ruleset designed to achieve that goal.
This is bound to make some people unhappy along the way. Again I point to CoH as an example. How many people have blasted Statesman for sticking to his guns about how he wanted CoH to play? Do you think CoH would be what it is today if people were still herding up entire zones solo? Some of the rule changes that stopped this were intensely unpopular but guess what, they brought people back into groups and fostered the play the game enjoys today. Without these rules everyone would be off soloing or worse yet have soloed enough characters to 50 and went of to another game.
During open beta i posted in Vanguard forums.
I played the game on my low - mid range pc with 1 gig ram , desperately trying to test if the game will be playable or not.
After extensive testing , i found out that while fps were bearable , game tended to crush and freeze, and hd hitching made it
dificult to play effectively in any enviroment.
I went on and posted about it in Vanguard part of the forums, because I belive people with such configurations should be warned
and not constantly be fed lies by fanboys (i really dont get their motives)
I was so agressively attacked , even reported and got banned for 24 hours (yes the mod is vanguard fan now)
I was called hater for trying to give friendly advice to people.
So I decided that a game represented on forums in this way , probably has rotten community ingame.
And so far from people comments, it seems i was right.
If a hater is person telling the raw truth , and fanboy is telling collored fables
Who do you like more ?
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Haters - People who hate games that aren't like their game or have been overshadowed by a better game.
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Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
I have no immediate intention of playing Vanguard and didnt have my own account in beta. I do, however, know several people who were and one has a system with very similar specs to yours. He found performance to improve dramatically as Vanguard ramped up to release and though it was quit playable by the end of beta.
To me this suggests that youre warnings were really nothing more then trolling the forums unwarranted FUD. Of course you got flamed for this, what else would you expect? Its hardly surprising that you would get flamed for approaching an issue in such a negative non constructive way. It certainly doesnt paint them as fanbois for doing it.
The only thing that matters is the POINT, the GAME, the FEATURE or the lack thereof, etc.
Person A: SOE needs to have an official forum so we can have a single place to get info from/to the devs.
Person B: You are a lazy retard, why don't you learn how to spell, you must be canadian to be so dumb... etc.
Here person B is attacking PERSON A, not the point, (official forum needed yes or no). Because person B is defending the game, they could be called a fanboy in this case. But it's the attacking of the person and not the arguement that makes them in error. Instead of that kind of reply, B should come back with other example games that didn't have forums and how they faired. If B did that, even if they are truely biased and closed-minded, then it will still be a good read.
Same thing the other way:
Person A: I've been playing VG these two days, and the terrain, the models, awesome. The skills and flexibility in regard to how differently my character can play, is the best I've ever seen.
Person B: Then you must have grown up in a closet. You obviously have no experience and probably just recently got your first computer...
Again, B is attacking the person, and not the arguement or the point. Being negative against the game on this point, they could have been labeled a hater. But the reply is worthless not because of the negativity, but because it's against the person and not the point.
So ARGUE THE POINT.... i love to hear a good arguement where people disagree.... I almost always learn something. Attack the person, and even if you win, the reader gets nothing.
when it really does mcome down to it, you cant go by either haters or fanboys or anyone else.
for me, even though i dont always agree with it, the only true measure of a mmo is its subscription numbers.
great games have high numbers, pathetic games dont.
you can hate and fanboi that all you want but in the end it is true.
your and mine opinion can vary greatly, but everyones collective opinion is pretty clear.
p.s dont bother with the mcdonalds and steak analogies either. Theres no mmorpg that costs 10 times as much and has 10 times the quality in existance. They are all currenly fast food joints. Burger king vs mcdonalds vs wendy's is far more appropiate.
You may be partially right on a small point or two. However you are not delving deeply enough into the psyche of your "self-defined hater".
The vast majority of the "haters" out there are Type A personalities. They are very strong-willed (not milksops) people who know exactly what they want and are truly dismayed by the apparent stupidity of today's MMO developers. By now we should not be seeing the same mistakes over & over & over again. ...yet we are.
These "haters" of yours, when they find a good game they will actually play it and not post very much at all. However, they will be outspoken and do everything in their power to fight the mediocrity and lack of integrity of today's MMO developers. Games today are not being designed on what the gamer wants. They are only trying to make money as fast as they can. If they cannot find THE happy medium of how to please their customers while making money.....then "your haters" will NEVER go away.