Bitter but still paying...

Were your original post as ingenuous as this, it would not have opened with a leading question, attempted to frame the debate from the outset, and then supplied several of your own opinionated answers before any of the people you supposedly want to hear from could contribute.

And naturally you prefer to engage in this "blunt" discussion at the beginning of the weekend, when the mods are away.

I'm fairly astonished anyone would have responded other than facetiously, "Prankster".

The Prankster and a few others made it a point to shoot down any opinion criticising the game with snide comments, passive-aggressive underhanded insults and other malicious arguments. I'm not surprised to see those reused. I don't people on ignore for disagreeing with me. I put people on ignore when there's no point in discussing anything with them.

The very "question" of this thread is a simple one to answer - some people are bitter about SOME things in the game but still enjoy other things and keep playing for them. Some people, as well, take issue with developer action and, furthermore, apparent developer intent, and do what they can to get this point across. I'm of the opinion that this helps the game in the long run so long as it leads to a discussion and not a flame war. Sometimes you need to exclude a few people to ensure that, but it's a price well worth paying, as experience only serves to prove again and again.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Well then, I can only apologize for being human and incapable of always presenting my opinion in a non-leading manner.

I am not trying to frame the discussion in any particular light other than from my own viewpoint, which of course will be clouded by my own opinions.

This was not started on a weekend for any other reason than it's when I thought about starting it. There is no ulterior motive in it's timing.

At least one post in the thread has already been modded, so the OP has already been scrutinized.

Additionally, this is not, I think, the first time you have insinuated my forum handle is somehow inflammatory. It is simply a character name I used for a while that I thought was amusing. Nothing more. I do not have the ulterior motives you seem to want to attribute to me. If you prefer, My name is Coy. Feel free to use that instead.

Regardless of your interpretation of any previous posts, any of my (admittedly) snide comments and insults fired at anyone show nothing more than my, sometimes uncontrollable, frustration. I simply happen to get 'riled-up' over people and viewpoints just like anyone else does. In my personal inner dialog, I often attempt to analyze why I post and say what I do.

In the specific cases that I have gone on the offensive, my frustration has generally been aimed at ideas and viewpoints that IMO were trying to make changes to the game based upon purely emotional arguments. Combined with the frustration of many of the critics posting their emotional viewpoint in so many places, non-stop. It got old, I had my own tirades about it and stopped posting once I realized I was doing so from my own emotional standpoint rather than from a place of logic and reason.

The opening question was to prompt a discussion on the topic of why people get so emotional and bitter about a game. I have gained some confirmation upon the general reasons I already knew. I was hoping to get more than that and I have gotten a little more, but not much. Mainly, I think, because I am not as good at communicating my thoughts and viewpoints as well as i would like.

The answer to the original question is simple on some level, I will agree, but what I am interested in is the portions of our human nature that make us have the feelings of bitterness over a video game to the degree that many posters and players do.

If the discussing these things in the fashion that I choose is not pleasing to anyone, I am not going to apologize for it. I am not ashamed to ask questions that make people uncomfortable, nor am I opposed to answering questions that make me uncomfortable.

My only intent is to gain a better understanding of what makes people tick.

I am not somehow immune to being human, or to having my own opinions about what others think and post.

The very opening title line implies you consider your potential interlocutors to be "bitter". Perhaps you sincerely believe that, and consider such a negative description merely "blunt". Even if that were so, you could hardly imagine that starting out a discussion by calling some of the more, shall we say, assertive members of the forums "bitter" would a neutral gambit. Following up by calling them out as "unhappy" and "angst-ridden" puts paid to the possibility of objectivity. For all your protestations of wanting to know about other people, the rest of the OP is crammed with the first person, littered with unspecified and unsupported examples, and lightly sprinkled with snarky hypotheses about what you consider proper attitudes.

A worthwhile discussion could have begun with a simple "Why are some players so passionate about the discussing the problems with a game they play regularly?" Now it's too late to complain about how you're only expressing your own opinions in a thread ostensibly about other peoples'.

Were that apology not drenched in sarcasm and misanthropy, it might be acceptable in an honest discussion.

Seriously? "Coy" is precisely what you are being about the unsubtle subtext of this thread.

This is where the whole thing breaks down though. You treat the ongoing process like it's a boat that changes direction, and make assumptions about where that direction is leading. A lot of complaints do that. I'm guilty of it too on a few occasions.

But that's a mental construction that stems from our attempts to understand the development process. Our dev team is very open, but not when it comes to the day to day of what they're doing, and not when it comes what things they're working on for tomorrow.

These things you love now? The ones that you say indicate a change in direction? They were always going to arrive when they were done, and they were being worked on at the same time as a lot of those other things you happen to not like. Getting worked up over the fact they weren't done sooner or before other things ignores the fact that the people who did this probably had to learn the things they used to make it while doing those other things. The Whole is a process, and the process is ongoing, and you only get to see the tip of the fin above the water.

And a lot of the time, people weren't telling you your feelings about those other things don't matter, but that getting worked up about it was ultimately pointless, because there were indeed things coming you would like, its just a matter of which things got done in what order.

People would be a lot happier if they just packed up their tea leaves and stopped trying to guess what every change means for the game as a whole.

From my point of view, you are here to vilify me. *shrug* Nothing I post at this point will probably change that viewpoint, but I can live with that.

I am not, in anyway, trying to postulate that all people who post negative comments are bitter. I am specifically, even from the OP, trying to discuss those posters who go 'over-the-top', that have carried their constant assaults on the game and the developers for years at a time, telling them things like they are stupid, the game will die in a short time, etc.

I do think those posters are full of bitterness and angst. I don't know what else to call it. You choose to call it assertive. That is certainly more gentlemanly of you, but I am not interested in being politically correct.

If you do not think I am presenting a worthwhile discussion, that's OK, I don't really need your support in particular to gain a better understanding of these particular people.

As for 'proper attitudes' IMO they do not exist. Every human on the planet, IMO, is entitled to their attitudes and opinions. I am simply curious as to why they hold them, how they came to have them and what makes them keep those opinions, especially in the cases where they seem so foreign to my own.

One poster gave a very clear example talking about PvP for instance.

As far as passion goes, while that is definitely a very big factor in the discussion, I am just as passionate about the game as many of the more negative posters. Passion is only a portion of it.

Game developers get death threats from players over changes to games. I don't think you can just ascribe that to passion to explain it.

The ideas I am trying to discuss here are more along the lines of why these, seemingly very upset people, after sometimes years of posting very hateful and bitter things about the game and the developers, will still pay to play a game that they appear to dislike so much.

As for your assertions that my statements are full of sarcasm and misanthropy, again, I can only state that I am trying to communicate, even I am not coming across the way I intend. I am not trying to be obtuse.

As for my real name, which you chose to attack just as you did my forum handle, it is my real name. *shrug*

I strongly agree. Lemur Lad put it rather more gracefully and politely than I could.

This is why I rarely bother to provide serious feedback on "strategic" development decisions (e.g., Should we have raids? How many costume pieces should be in a booster pack?) as opposed to "technical" ones (e.g., Does this power's effects match its Detailed Information?). No one is going to be influenced by my opinion. I affect development of this game no more than I affect the production of any other product I choose to buy. All I do is choose whether to consume the end product. Writing an angry (or positive, for that matter) letter is not going to change things. At most, it might make a moderator angry with me. Certainly, it won't affect what a developer who is in no way beholden to me does.

Having dealt with irrational and high-handed bureaucracies for all my adult life (working in government and education) has made this somewhat easier for me to accept than I suspect it is for the majority of players, many of whom seem to be somewhat younger and haven't had to face this kind of thing yet. And that's the other thing that makes me try to avoid complaining: in my experience, the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease. It gets the entire cart thrown away and replaced, which ruins things for all the wheels. (I admit I included this paragraph just because I like that metaphor so much.)

I can't state the preference of all of the developers, but in my experience with development and product support, not saying anything is the worst thing you can do. You have to be even-handed about how you go about it but from experience as a game developer, players almost always know the game better than the actual developers do. The developer still sets the direction and has to understand balance and technical requirements, and has a full view of the code, but in a lot of ways this actually hinders his or her ability to see the game as it is rather than what they intended or what it could be.

EDIT: I will extend that statement further. The users of software products almost always know the product better than the people who develop it.

While I don't disagree with you on principle, I didn't get as bitter as I was overnight. For a full year I watched the game, and everything added to it just depressed me more and more. I think year is long enough for me to call it a "change of directions," considering the average non-stupid person (and I count myself among the stupid) would have quit after a few months. What made this worse was the departure of Castle and BABs and the fact that David Nakayama out and stopped posting. Once upon a time, these guys chatted with us and it reassured me that even if what I was seeing looked horrible, they were honestly trying to do their best.

I don't get that feeling even now that I've opted to stop complaining, honestly. I expect good things in the future largely because I feel it makes good business sense. But it will take quite a long time before I can actually trust that the development team is interested in making a GOOD game, rather than milking a business model.

But again - I don't want to talk about these things. Suffice it to say that I'm not at all unhappy right now, and most of the announcements I see in the future actually make me pretty happy. It's high time I focused on the positive stuff, like the ability to start most ATs on either side, as well as the prospect that I might be able to "buy away" some of the more irritating costume unlocks. As I said quite a while ago, I was willing to give the game a couple of years. Turns that was plenty of time for the development team to change my mind, and I'm happy to have been wrong. I do intend to write up a formal apology, but not until I actually see the launch of Freedom and play around with Titanic Weapons, first.

You mean like the people who were telling me that I was a greedy, spoiled brat or the people telling me that I'm an anti-social recluse? I tend to have a pretty good memory about people who insult me directly, Lemur, so I remember what was said, if not in exact quotes. There were more than enough people following me around, accusing me of trolling, telling me to go away and wishing that what I wanted for the game would NEVER happen because people who aren't happy should never be listened to. Again, I don't put people on ignore lightly. The ones who got there I didn't select because they disagreed with me, but more because I wasn't interested in bunnyhopping over insults just to get around the forums.

There are a few people I never want to hear from again. I don't care if they are offering to explain the meaning of life and how to turn lead into gold using an ordinary washing machine. I don't want to read anything they have to say ever again. I would, as a point of fact, be very happy of quotes from ignored people got ignored, as well. Just something like:

Sure, it might leave a few posts without context, but considering it always pisses me off when I accidentally read those quotes, it's a small price to pay.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

/nod

Excellent post.

I know by posting this I am derailing my own thread, but I would love to know what I said that was so horrible that got me on Sam's ignore list, because I certainly don't recall anything leading up to it other than disagreeing with him.

*shrug*

Morbid curiosity I guess...

Three posters liked the idea, four posters were unsure how the reward tables actually worked and were hoping for a deterministic approach as well in the future, and a dozen hated the idea. That is why I said the majority of the posters in the feedback thread hated the idea.

I didn't say all the posters in the pre-beta, I didn't say there was a consensus, I especially didn't say everyone who played beta. I said the majority of the poster giving feedback on the subject.

More to the point, the exact thing the people against the random reward tables warned the developers would happen was what happened when it went live. People were upset and extremely vocal about it. People quit the game, and more are continuing to quit the game over the reward table and the participation system.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

I've not noticed any drop in player numbers

Considering they pretty much plan a year's worth of updates at a time, or at least commit to a year's advance planning, I'll just leave it at the fact that I think one year out of seven isn't worth getting too worked up over. Especially considering that most of the things that are making you happy now, are things they were working on during that span, they just didn't tell you about them.

If things or people in the game or the forums bug me, I take a break. As much as I love this game it's not worth the emotional effort to get literally upset over. Whatever ownership stake I may feel, it's illusory and the game isn't mine to change or not change.

That's another of the funny things about the antis - they shout about a "problem" in one Issue, and then shout that they've been ignored if the "problem" hasn't been "fixed" in the next Issue
The devs have already got Trials planned out to go with the next 5 slots - they aren't just going to suddenly change course because of a few shouters on the forums

Take this how you will, but in my opinion, if something's not worth being upset over, it's also not being happy about, and therefore not worth bothering with. I got City of Heroes and stuck with it for so long because I like the game enough to be excited about it. If I don't care about it enough to be upset when something bad happens to it, I sure as hell won't care about it enough to want to play it.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

The phrasing in the original post with use of such pejorative terms as "angst-ridden" and "tirades" makes it seem less like you really want to know what "makes people tick" and more as though the answer you both want and expect is "Well, these posters are obviously mentally unbalanced and emotionally unstable, so you shouldn't listen to them and neither should the devs."

Especially when you make statements like the following:

You're obviously not stupid - it shouldn't be that hard to think of a reasonable explanation for bitter posting that doesn't involve the poster being a troll, a drama llama or an attention *****. Unfortunately, admitting that a reasonable explanation for such behavior might exist means that you would no longer be able to dismiss outright the complaints of such posters as nothing more than hate-filled rants.

You'll be continually disappointed if you expect people to be logical and rational all the time. Humans are not Vulcans.

Of course, the whole point of the old joke is that you *should* be able to raise your arm and use it in a normal fashion, so being told "Don't raise your arm" isn't really a solution. Telling people who have enjoyed this game for years to simply leave because they're upset by recent or upcoming changes rather than to provide feedback that might help the devs understand what they're doing right or wrong is counterproductive.

Given this, it boggles my mind that you fail to understand that bitter comments by other, disappointed posters stem from exactly the same sort of frustration.

It's not possible to design an MMO based on *purely* rational arguments, though. After all, the purpose of a game is to have fun - something that can't be measured objectively. And when people's fun gets messed with through game changes that they dislike, they quite naturally get upset. When they feel that an investment of literally years' worth of time and money has been cheapened, it's easy to end up bitter.

Nor are the people you're complaining about. Think about it.

Good points all around, thanks.

Still though, IMO, a rant here or there, by anyone, is normal.

It's the _constant_ negative refrain from posters that really baffles me. Really, if 80-90% of what someone posts is negative, for years at a time...I just don't get it. Most people, IME, calm down after a good rant or two, they don't just keep going on about it.

I am interested I guess in hearing about how some of these posters take on the rest of their lives. For instance, I knew a guy that had nerd rage about everything. I am not exaggerating when I say he did things like send a letter to the Mayor about every single pot-hole he found. Every single one.

That one specific question i guess I can pose. Do people who post negative feedback here for years at a time do the same things in RL?

The first line of the Serenity prayer makes my point in better words:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

What I'm getting at here is that I see the getting upset over things as a failure to know the difference. Having passion is fine, but repeatedly expressing your doubts and dislikes in negative terms is ultimately nonproductive. Both for you, and the people listening.

Negative reactions that continue and grow are not a necessary counterpoint to positive feelings and caring about something. You don't have to have one without the other, and neither one is inherent to the worth of the thing that inspires those feelings.

Oh, I don't know, posts like this one in the Incarnates thread seem to have some accuracy:
In 2009 City of Heroes had 125,000 subscribers worldwide. Given the amount of account decline on some global channels, I would have to say that CoH has less players now than two years ago.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

But the Incarnate system has only been out for like 6 months