Anti-Aliased: A few reasons to cage the nerdrage

by Seraphina Brennan May 20th 2009 at 3:00PM

Filed under: Culture, Forums, MMO industry, Opinion, Anti-Aliased

There's so much anger in the consumer market these days. It seems like when a new product comes up, there has to be this bandwagon of people who roll in and start nerdraging over the product. Oh, APB isn't up your alley? Better nerdrage about that! You don't like Warhammer Online? Rev that nerdrage engine nice and loud so your neighbors can hear it.

Everyone's a critic and gaming consumers are far from an exception. Some of the comments around these parts are some of the most spiteful sentences that could be constructed. You have console hate, game hate, genre hate, even particular MMO genre hate. But, honestly, why? It obviously doesn't help anyone except maybe the person doing it. A catharsis, perhaps?

So what's this Anti-Aliased about? Honestly, I need rant article that's all about ranting. A hate article on game hate. Do two hates make a happy? I dunno, but I'm interested enough to try it out. So here's a few reasons why you should cage the hate and think twice before you open your trap on the forums you love so much.

5. Because this genre doesn't stay the same

This one is exclusive to the MMO genre -- we have updates. Our games never stay the same and are always being tweaked and improved upon. Certainly some updates never work out the way they were intended to work, but that's why we have hotfixes and rollbacks. We're also constantly adding things to the game, in the form of free expansions or just monthly content additions.

Either way, my point is that these games aren't stagnant. Lots of people like to pull out phrases like, "Back at launch game X sucked." Well I could pull out the phrase, "Back at launch, World of Warcraft was a piece of flaming crap," but I'm not going to boldly say that because things have changed. That's just how things roll in this industry.

"But just because you don't like it doesn't make it the worst game on the market. It just means you don't like it."

Age of Conan fixed their client's stability, City of Heroes is getting a new expansion, Warcraft now has a tendency to crash on patch days, and Warhammer has a new dungeon coming out. These games don't stay they same. So when you start your sentence with, "Back at launch," or even worse, "I heard..." then you've already doomed your argument.

4. Because everyone is not you

You have your own opinions and your own tastes. That's wonderful, but not everyone has the same opinions and tastes as you do. One man's broken design is another man's treasure. Or, as I like to think, one man's Phantasy Star Online grindfest is another man's World of Warcraft. (Yes, I was totally addicted to Phantasy Star Online. For some reason, grinding the same 8 areas over and over again was awesome, but I know it certainly is not everyone's cup of tea.)

Many of our games have a specific focus -- the area where they excel and other games may fall short. Final Fantasy XI is all about the PvE content. Warcraft is all about raiding. Darkfall and EVE have their PvP/sandbox focus. Warhammer has a linear PvP focus. I could keep going on and on.

But just because you don't like it doesn't make it the worst game on the market. It just means you don't like it.

Page 2 of Anti-Aliased>>

Tags: anger, anti-aliased, comments, criticism, distress, featured, forums, hate, joystiqfeatures, nerdrage, noobz, opinion

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

DurEdhil said on 3:09PM 5-20-2009

While I was reading this, I couldn't help but think that Colin had THAC0 in mind with all of his Free Realms hate.

Anyway, I liked this article and have found myself wondering the same thing lately. It is especially true on gaming blog sites that I read. BTW - APB, while not my style of game sounds like it should be fun.

THAC0 said on 3:53PM 5-20-2009

yeah thats great, obviously you don't take time to read anything i said and assume its biased hate because its negative and you disagree.

I think i said on several occasions Free Realms is a great KIDS game... I'm not going to repeat everything i wrote suffice it to say most of my hate is geared at Fanbois of the game for several reasons.

JP said on 3:29PM 5-20-2009

Here's some constructive feedback for Massively -

When there is a multi-page article, group all the comments so their isn't comments attached to each page of the article.

Colin Brennan said on 3:39PM 5-20-2009

All right. Done for next time. :D

CONSTRUCTIVE FOR WIN! :D

justsaynosaj said on 3:45PM 5-20-2009

Thank you for writing this. I hope people actually take something away from it.

Graill said on 4:11PM 5-20-2009

I will add to this "constructive" article.

You forgot dev hate, lack of customer service hate, devs saying this is their game hate, outsourced gm hate, outsourced dev hate, did i mention dev hate?...no consequence hate, forum moderator only post good comments hate.....

Good stuff (grin)

Colin Brennan said on 4:15PM 5-20-2009

I think that might get an article all to itself. :)

Dethgar said on 4:34PM 5-20-2009

Don't mean to be a dick or anything, but what about free speech? It is a first amendment right after all. I'm not saying I like trolling, but sometimes its necessary for players to voice their opinion in an honest manner, good or bad, cliche or not.

kia said on 9:57PM 5-20-2009

a) Not everyone reading this is from the US, and not all games are from the US. The First Amendment is part of the US constitution which, as you may not know, only applies to the US.

b) Even I, who is not from your country, knows that 'free speech' is about what you say about the government, not about what someone says about, or in, a computer game.

postman said on 4:53PM 5-20-2009

ahh good article. i have always been amazed at the pure, raw unadulterated rage and anger that surrounds MMO gamers. i love that picture too, it has future forum signature potential

Sean said on 9:15PM 5-20-2009

Gamer trolls are fairly benign. When the arguments revolve around fanboy devotion and digital ego trips, the results are little more than quickly forgotten rants in buried forum threads. Want to see real hate, comments that will, or ought, to sicken you? Check out the comments to msnbc.com's news stories, particularly on divisive issues. While a "first" post might get modded down and ignored here, I've seen homophobic, racist, and otherwise hate filled comments get bumped by hundreds of people and the original poster heaped with praise. Let the gamer trolls gnash their teeth; at least ForumFall is entertaining for all involved.

Pedro said on 9:34PM 5-20-2009

Thank you for writing this.
You truly hit the nail. People on the Internet are downright rude, obnoxious and idiotic. If most don't like something then they will harass everyone that likes such an issue and grief (because it is griefing) people that have a different point of view.
There is no civism and respect whattsoever. Sean is right. Trolls in MMO games are harmless.
But their behavior and hatred are the same kind that is used in posts on more serious issues.
And many of the unfounded rumors about a game that spreads via word of mouth, especiially on the MMO genre can have a devastating consequence to a game and consequently the jobs of many people. Just pile up enough trolls spreading incorrect and depreciative word of mouth about a game and that game will probably have serious issues to grow because it gains a bad reputation.
People on tthe Internet tend to act like little pricks.
As for the 1st amendment right thing: Internet is freakin universal, not american. Go talk about 1st amendment to the Chinese Government that monitors the Internet for the Chinese population for example. If you are posting on a forum with specific rules you are ABIDING by those rules. If they say no trolling then they have every right to ban you since ya know a forum is someone's property.
This is one of the big problems of today's world. It seems people can stand the success and happiness of others and they will go to every length to try to villify and destroy it.

Kdolo said on 11:41PM 5-20-2009

What is that thing the keyboard is in? It looks like a monitor, but it's WAY too big.

Verit said on 1:48PM 5-21-2009

Looks like a Digital Equipment Corp VT510 terminal/keyboard.

Its actually a really small screen, but as I recall the keyboards themselves were build like tanks. I can kinda imagine shoving one through a screen.

Kdolo said on 2:21PM 5-21-2009

the joke being that it's an old monitor.

Wombat said on 6:05PM 5-29-2009

Isn't it true that it's so much easier to tear down than to construct? The internet culture has an unfortunate side effect that goes beyond empowerment to encouraging troll behavior. It's so easy to just put up some juvenile rant.
But evolution happens. I really like the new forum mechanics of voting on posts, as it allows trolls to be quickly scrolled past without having a web nanny completely blocking posts. Having an Ignore option is also useful.
I do think everyone should have an opportunity to post their comments, but everyone else then has the right to bypass or ignore that person. If you don't like that, you might consider posting something that others find worth reading. If you are going to troll, then at least be artful about it.