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Dang negative MMO communities ruinig the fun!
iHatePants
Member Posts: 33
Does anyone else find that they enjoy playing playing a MMO game until they go onto the game's official forum or a community website and start reading up on all the negative posts from other community members?
I'll usually be playing a MMO and than when I go onto the forums and start reading "this class is broken!" or "blah, blah, blah are useless" I find myself enjoying the game less as I play it. Too busy now focused on all those negative things that were said about the game. But you know what? Im sure this is the underlying goal of the people who post these things on the forum.
Im currently not playing any MMO's at the moment. But when I do start playing a MMO again. I'll avoid the general gaming section of the forums from now on and just read up on the development section.
Comments
My advice is to ignore the negativity in the forums and enjoy the game. Avoid going there at all except when you need advice or help.
I went to WoW's forums and just had a big big laugh at all the trolling on those forums. Especially the realm forums are good. Everyone on the forums know each other and not a single post is made that isn't overrun by trolls. Very entertaining to read. However, the forums felt very loosely connected to WoW as a game and I couldn't really connect community in WoW and community on forums.
Otherwise, I don't determine a games community from the forums. I try to not be to fast to judge. If I meet one total idiot, the first thing I do in the, it doesn't mean the whole game is full of idiots. I try to give the game's community a chance before deciding.
I have to agree with you a little bit though. The forums may be the best place for whiners. They whine about all bad in the game and so on. It's easy to make a post and whine about a class and join the big masses of never ending whiners. It's much harder to go against them and try to defend what the creators of the game has done.
So the forums may be the ultimate place for all the whiners, then you shouldn't go there. The forums are the place where all the negative sides of the community is shown. And no community can just have good sides.
That is the reason you never should visit the official forum. The happy ones is playing the game and have fun. So all the whiners hang on the forums and complain.
Always speak with the ones that accually are playing the game.
Solution: Stop reading the forums.
You'll receive my $250 consultation fee in the mail.
Don't read 'em!
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MMOs played-> UO: AoS, L2, GW, GW: F, HO, SoF, ToP
In the MMO's I've played never, never, have read community forums; I only actually read and participated in SWG customers contra-NGE contest. And when it was done, my only movement was quitting, no posting. It was useless yet. When one likes a MMO never waste time with comm's trolling and flaming hellbuttocks but just speak or do whatever in-game. If ones dislikes a game just quit, but the trolls and the n00bs keep on paying and whining endlessly. Coz of that they are what they are.
Now im curious, knowing that the in-game WoW's comm is so childish and l33tz in-game i just try to imagine the forums ninth circle of n00bish hell it has to be...
In short: never let a forum to ruin your gaming. It will be always the complaining crowd. The flaming and trolling riot will domain, as they are unable to do anything else. All the classes will be said as to be 'over' or 'weak' by some. The scorned ones.
It is a question of fangs.
Couldn't resist to QFT.
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MMOs played-> UO: AoS, L2, GW, GW: F, HO, SoF, ToP
Sadly this is true for most mmorpgs the only game I have not seen do this is cox because they like to do there own thing which is better then letting whinners change the game.
I really hope another mmorpg comes out where they dont listen to the whinners so they can ruin the game, for the most part so many people play mmorpgs these days its hard to have a great community, back in the glory days of everquest 1 it was so much better then any other game ive played and thats when it was new.
Mu suggestion is always keep your general chat off find a good guild and make sure you use the ignore button alot.
However, there are just as many people who play the game and engage in forum discussions at the same time as those that just play the game (i'm one of them). Typically though, most forum discussions happen when people are in places they can't access the game. When at work and you have some downtime, most people aren't in a situation where they can play the game (some sneak though, lol) and so they start up in the forums. Often it depends on your current emotional state of how positive or negative you will be about anything you do in life. What emotional state you are in will dictate what type of encounters you will have at the time. It's like a drunk person will tell you the truth to the 9th degree but won't tell you half of that when they are sober. a bad day, a bad game experience will be your alcohol and you will release your frustrations, usually in the forums since it's the easiest way to reach the most amount of people at once and when speaking out, people do so to be heard (just so we can feel that we actually matter), nothing more. The post that are clearly made negative though are typically because someone has pinned up frustration. Other post that are inbetween, well it's all about the person reading it that determines if you think it's negative or not.
For example, someone makes a post talking about issues they feel is unfair to them or other players based on "their" expereinces. Someone comes along and post a negative comment that they are complaining and the person who reads such a post makes the decision if they want to fuel the fire or ignore it or not. so you make your own positive post or negative post. It's your perception that is to be judged on negativity or positivity. complaining is one of the biggest accusations in forums and it's generally thought of as being negative because that's what people make it out to be. Also, who became god and said that complaining should be a negative thing, if not for complaining we would still be in the cave man days. someone complained that they couldn't get to point a to point b fast enough or without a lot of work and forms of transportation was invented. so someone thinks your complaining and your negative while another thinks your complaint is positive because it sparks a solution to a potential problem.
so in my opinion, any forum thread I read is what I make it out to be. I make the decision to fuel the flames or not. If I read a negative post, instead of writing negative about someone being negative I try to be diplomatic about the situation and post my concerns about both negative and positive aspects. I try not to focus on one side or the other. equality and balance is what life is about. Nothing positive can exist "ever" without the complete opposite. there is no day without night, there is no life without death, catch my drift?
So in forums, there is not positivity without negativity and when reading forums they are what you make of them, not what you allow others to make of them. If I see a thread that says "this game sucks, I quit". Duh!, I'm not even interested in what you have to say because you've made up your mind and clearly are not enjoying yourself and not in a positive mood or not in a mood to have a mature productive discussion, heck even a debate ain't bad. however, Chances are your post will be negative to the 9th degree. I will instead read a thread I believe can be both positive and negative because it's healthy to see both the good and bad in something. If you think everything is supposed to be all good or all bad, then you have other issues that have nothing to do with the game you are playing.
I think the perception of forums being negative though has more to do with the amount of people that enjoys conflict over peace. It's more enjoyable for vast majority of people to see (or be a part of ) drama than non-drama related stuff. Look at jerry springer, tabloids, negative news cast that focus on death of soldiers more than anything else and all the reality shows that are more popular than all the positive shows, news and topics there are in the world. They are on top of the media because it's more exciting to see the death of a soldier than it is to see an exceptional hard working individual who's doing something positive who one day might just be our president. Even someone who risk their life to save someone from a burning house will be told by the police or someone that their heroic efforts was stupid and reckless (even though they clearly saved people and everyone lived), again turn something positive into a negative. How about the praising of charities and/or something positive that a child has done in the community? That stuff will never make the news unless there isn't any other drama going on at the moment. I mean I'm tired of hearing about paris hilton going to jail (I got family in jail for much more stupid stuff), about britney spears problems (like my cousin isn't having the same problems in her life, I see it everyday), or about the stupid war (a lot of wasted lives, money and time that american's are paying for)...pat tillman left the nfl only to go and get killed by his own army yet he was praised as being a hero, for what, giving his life for a meaningless war that could have been avoided (mind you it had been avoided until bush got in office). I don't even watch the news anymore because of the negativity. however, I miss out on some good news now and the because of it, so I search the net and click on only the news that I find interesting and positive instead of being forced to watch all the negative news cast or tv shows.
So basically forums are just an extension of our real lives. what we take from forums is what we give to them. You don't like negativity, then skip the post that you think are negative or attempt to brighten up such post and maybe someone else will follow your lead.. Just like anything good in life, you have to search and work hard to find the positive in things and we really do have to search hard to find the positives in forums or simply insert our own positives which someone else might enjoy. Overall, nothing is totally negative or positive....true that it can weigh heavily to one or the other, however when we are not doing anything to improve on something we think is negative, then we are just as negative as ourselves. I believe if there is something I have an issue with and I think could be improved and I'm in a position to make a difference, then I will try. For that reason, I end up writing both negative and positive post in forums, hey i'm human, we all visit both sides of light and dark sometimes. It almost certainly depends on my mood and how much influence I have over something though. However, I certainly believe that we do attract what we are or what we feel at the moment. When I get bored in a game and go to the forums, it's not usually gonna be a positive discussion since the first few post I read will sometimes dictate which direction I go in, still I try to stay neutral as much as I can.
The Old Timers Guild
Laid back, not so serious, no drama.
All about the fun!
www.oldtimersguild.com
An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. - Jef Mallett
QFT.... forum dramas is the source of bad blood in most mmos.
If you want text based fun for your MMO try going to a fan site instead of an official forum. Official forums are often percieved (improperly) to be the quickest and easiest way to lodge a complaint to development about their game so you should expect to see a large amount of negativity when you go there. This site has a ratings system set up and forums dedicated to a lot of different games but promises no development interaction or customer service for those games so of course people are going to come here and complain. This place, unlike a fan site, is actually configured to critique the very games that support it so it is the last place you would want to come to find out anything about actually playing one of these games.
The best you are going to get here is "It was good, it was bad, here is how I would fix it, I wish it were like this instead."
The thing is though, none of it should effect your fun if you are not having the same kinds of problems others are having. Unless you are some kind of super empathetic mutant gamer type or something there is no reason for you, if you are having fun, to suddenly feel like you are not because you read somewhere that someone else wasn't. A movie buff will not allow someone else to talk them out of seeing a film nor will they agree that something that they thought was good was bad just because that same someone told them that they thought it was and a gamer is no different.
With all the developers running around spamming other peoples titles with negativity in order to keep the competition down or market their own stuff who would even think that half of what you hear is even the truth unless you have experienced it personally?
Forums are good though for keeping the community appraised of the latest developments and trends, although on a bad forum (any forum only being as good as it's users), even this can be unreliable as most of what you are going to read is based on personal research and experience and still has be be judged by the informed mind before taken seriously.
Don't let anyone make your decisions for you and you should be ok.
Lets put it this way;
95% of the world population is too moronic to be able to breathe and walk at the same time, they simply lack the brainpower for it. Because of this we end up with the TV programs we watch, the presidents we have and the games we play. It's all because the majority voted for it,
Most people are unable to have a proper discussion where one's able to see both sides of the equation and tries to come to a mutual conclusion. In reality people see a discussion as something that needs to be 'won', where there's a winner and a loser. Also most people will cry/whiney/get mad when something presents them with a challenge, probabably because they never had parents setting boundaries and all that (see the "WoW Player Gets Owned By Parents" thread).
I present you with this, read it and try to understand what the guy is saying because he's right. Now, why on EARTH would you want to let a forum where all these ignorant idiots (probably including me) make up your mind about a product/service/idea. Read it, filter out of it which you think could be useful and just laugh at the rest.
Forum battling is a fun form of entertainment, I don't ever let it influence my opinions on a game.
Play the game, skip reading the general forums (you usually can tell by the titles alone which threads to avoid) and go back to enjoying your game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I find those sorts of posts helpful. Who wants to start a character only to find out later it's really crappy as a class? A lot of it is opinion , but if EVERYONE on the forum agrees that such and such a class or item i sworthless, that's usually the case.
MMO players and the whiniest, most demanding, ungrateful group of humans on the planet If I was a MMO dev (I may be someday) I would hurt people, and not nice like.
It should be - if you don't like it, don't play. It is with me, why so many people continue to play games they have so much to complain about is beyond me. These people need help.
I think devs should start putting the smack down, and write nasty replies, like “Make your own MMO biotch!” That's what I would do.
Uhm, if the majority watches Big Brother or any other reality soap, does that make it a good program?
Thing is, if someone makes a proper case for a problem by doing actual testing (and not the "I tried it 5 times" idea), a proper explanation showing both sides of the story and is able to rule out any cirumstantial interference and at the same time does his utter best to debunk his own findings then I will listen to that person, check his tests and start a dialogue on it.
But the simplistic "waah that priest melted my face NERF!!!" for WOW or that "waaah Amarr is underpowered, we're gimp we can't do anything" for EVE is just laughable and should actually be punished since it's trolling. I don't listen to these people because most of the time they lack the willingness and ingenuity to work around the problem as they see it, instead they want to go the easy route and blame others for their losses, which is so much easier for the ego than blaming yourself.