09-05-2003, 01:38 AM
Thanks to Slashdot, I got over to FiringSquad's article Reducing pesky fan noise. It's a summation of much of my beliefs about online gaming forums and why you occasionally see me pop up and complain about all the complainers. My efforts at establishing a base of "constructive criticism" are frought with explanations that can't even come close to such nuggets as:
While I don't agree with 100% of what the author says (at one point he calls hardcore gamers "idiots"), and in no way do I ever imply that posters here are STUPID, just misguided. If you want to make a difference in your favorite games, you won't do it by being a jerk to the developers. They don't care to read it, and it only drives them away. They could tell every poster here at the Lounge to piss off and die, and it would affect the sales of their next game by 1/10th of 1 percent. Tops. This is something that to this day, various people I know online STILL haven't understood.
So when you want to see a bug fixed or disagree with a change made in a patch, could you do so less abrasively? And realize that it's not up to you. If you want a "perfect" game, go make your own!
Danke,
-Bolty
P.S. Comments welcome. Remember that you can be a jerk to me. :) Just lay off Blizzard a bit sometimes.
Quote:You hardcore fans can be bad news...You don't know what's best for a game, because you rarely represent an accurate cross-section of the people buying the game. You don't understand that you rarely drive sales in any statistically significant sense. Youâre just the guys with the loudest mouths. You might think the conventional wisdom is that your mouths drive the word of mouth. And they do. Among hardcore gamers. For everyone else, the word of mouth is driven by friends, the press, and the guys at EB who ask if youâd like the strategy guide for 30% off when you buy the game.
While I don't agree with 100% of what the author says (at one point he calls hardcore gamers "idiots"), and in no way do I ever imply that posters here are STUPID, just misguided. If you want to make a difference in your favorite games, you won't do it by being a jerk to the developers. They don't care to read it, and it only drives them away. They could tell every poster here at the Lounge to piss off and die, and it would affect the sales of their next game by 1/10th of 1 percent. Tops. This is something that to this day, various people I know online STILL haven't understood.
So when you want to see a bug fixed or disagree with a change made in a patch, could you do so less abrasively? And realize that it's not up to you. If you want a "perfect" game, go make your own!
Danke,
-Bolty
P.S. Comments welcome. Remember that you can be a jerk to me. :) Just lay off Blizzard a bit sometimes.
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.