So am I just supposed to hate the game?
1. You must've missed ED.
2. Forums are for opinions, some of which will be negative and you won't agree with. Strongly positive and negative opinions come from passion. The day you stop hearing passionate opinions on the game, even passionate negativity, is the day the game no longer interests anyone.
3. Golden Girl has a posse.
4. ???
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One word - Passion.
If all you had were smiling happy faces that were like GG and responded to everything done by the devs with smiles and there was no passion in finding a way to make the good into the great then the game would slowly drift into nothingness. |
Other people who actually pay attention may notice that she doesn't always agree with some of the things the developers do, but her criticism is generally constructive.
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The moment someone stops saying anything positive or negative about the game is the moment the devs need to worry about losing that person.
Passion for something you love is a good thing.
The ones who don't care are the ones who quietly unsub, giving no reason for why they left on the exit survey.
I don't see all negative feedback as hating the game, nor do I see all positive feedback as loving the game.
As others have said if it's getting to you, stop reading the forums.
EDIT: If something is bad the devs are going to hear about it, if something is good they are also going to hear about it. I honestly couldn't care less what folks think about what I post, as the ones that matter (the devs) are the ones who will or won't read it.
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I'm sure some folks are very irritated that Golden Girl never lashes out nastily or drips with cynicism against people who don't share her viewpoints in much the same manner as those people behave themselves.
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Anyway, if it weren't for forumrage I wouldn't have conceptually fitting and/or cool Lore pets, the rumored medieval costume pack would probably have armor for males and low-cut princess dresses for females, and there wouldn't be solo/small team Incarnate content on beta right now, among other things. These were all things that players felt very strongly about, and complained about until the devs gave us what we wanted. So, I'm going to keep complaining about stuff I don't like, thank you very much.
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I don't think it's much more pronounced now than it ever was. People were as nasty to one another and to the devs on the forums starting from launch at least. It does make you wonder about specific people whose every single post is about how they hate whatever new thing has come along, doesn't it? But they don't seem more numerous now than in the past, to me.
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Of course, that was then. MMOs that launch today have people criticizing the dev team from launch day, because every mistake they make from day one is further proof that they didn't learn anything from beta, or every other MMO that launched before them. We didn't really have that problem. We also didn't have to deal with people saying we were only copying WoW, or not doing things correctly like WoW, or somehow deal with the existence of WoW.
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Thanks for the little pick me up guys, I needed it . I guess I've always just found gratuitous cynicism in general to be well, depressing. Someone says something that I like is terrible and then I start wondering if they're right and wondering if I have terrible taste because I like it or am I just terrible period and yadda yadda yadda...urgh. Well I still really do like these forums, but the more I think about it the more I realize that it's not the playerbase at large I have an issue with, it's four or five players who just WONT SHUT UP about everything they feel is wrong, which has given me a bit of a false impression as to the overall cynicism of the playerbase. Needless to say, those people are getting put on the ignore list as soon as I finish typing this.
I guess the thing I'm really mystified by is the sudden outrage over bad storytelling. Of all the times to rage over bad story in this game why now? This is some of the best storytelling we've ever had, with mechanics and story practically waltzing together after spending most of the game's lifecycle in seperate rooms. Where were all these content police during like the I10-I12 era? You know the era of "HEY GUYS LOOK THERES NICTUS IN ROME. WHY? I DONT KNOW BUT HEY, THERES MECHAS AND NAZIS HERE TOO. WHY? WELL BECAUSE THE TASK FORCE IS OVER GOODNIGHT."
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I'd post about how I like such and such from this game but it'll soon devolve into saying the same thing over and over, and nobody likes spam.
Likewise, I could post each and every time I find the storylines laughable, and that'd get old just as fast. I'm not necessarily of the opinion that story in video games is like story in porn, but I'm certainly not playing this particular game for that purpose.
You raging and being passive aggressive about it won't change a thing about my behavior or anyone else acting like me. I can only speak for myself for this next part, but I actually get a kick out of people having that sort of reaction, because I believe it's intellectually weak to go and rag on others just to try and guilt some emotional support out of folks.
Where were all these content police during like the I10-I12 era? You know the era of "HEY GUYS LOOK THERES NICTUS IN ROME. WHY? I DONT KNOW BUT HEY, THERES MECHAS AND NAZIS HERE TOO. WHY? WELL BECAUSE THE TASK FORCE IS OVER GOODNIGHT."
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It wasn't until i17 that we started getting all the missions where you had to wade through an empty map and have three multi-page conversations before you could fight something. The ITF has about as much story as a string of four paper missions. It's totally weak, but it's also pretty much irrelevant. However, that was also the issue they put in the Origin of Power nonsense, which is when, iirc, much of the complaining started.
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I HATE this game for making Titan Weapons and not having Giant Scissors be an option. The possibilities they have ruined has shattered my heart. I F&*ing HATETHEM>@
ps, is it wrong that I never realized consciously there were mecha and nazis in ancient rome until I read the post above this one? Takes a lot of out of context to phase this old city hand lol.
Debating the broader conceptual frameworks that deliver storytelling and fighting action in an MMO is almost a hobby unto itself, at least for me. But then, I have been fascinated by game design for over 30 years, and my brain is almost incapable of playing a game without studying its mechanisms at the same time. The present-moment joy of playing occurs while in the game, while the post-game analysis happens when I'm not (e.g., during the day when I'm at work and I have lots of available forum reading/writing time).
While I'm playing CoX, I am mostly caught up in the action and not terribly focused on the things I don't like. I tend to let them slide in order to move on to the next stage of action. It is only after the fact, when I have the time to go back and examine what I do or don't look forward to encountering again in the game, that my more critical side comes out. And, for better or worse, these forums are the best (only?) stage for discussing them with others who are also intellectually invested in the game.
So even though I enjoy playing, and I think it is the best MMO I've ever played, I am nevertheless keenly aware of all the ways in which it--and pretty much all MMOs for that matter--are profoundly flawed. If you've never spent 30 years absorbing countless game designs (especially in the wargame/RPG arena) and working out in your head--and maybe even on paper--what does and doesn't work best, then you'll probably never understand why anyone would be so passionate about picking this game (or any other) apart so mercilessly.
And the same goes for storytelling. My profession puts me fairly close to ground-zero in the Hollywood entertainment "storytelling machine", which means I am all too familiar with all the ways in which writers typically fail to tell compelling stories, especially in long-form. Add to that decades of reading superhero comics that both inspire shouts of "F**k yeah!" and groans of despair, and you have someone who is perhaps oversensitive to all the ways that CoX tries to deliver a great superhero MMORPG experience, but falls short. It is only natural to want to express and vent, and find others to commiserate with.
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Nope, just inane one-liners carefully placed to draw the unsuspecting into rehashing the same arguments over and over.
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That's absurd.
Anyway, if it weren't for forumrage I wouldn't have conceptually fitting and/or cool Lore pets, the rumored medieval costume pack would probably have armor for males and low-cut princess dresses for females, and there wouldn't be solo/small team Incarnate content on beta right now, among other things. |
The developers have already stated that they don't value nonconstructive criticism. Because of this, if you ended up getting anything you wanted, then it certainly wasn't because of any 'forumrage' you've made, no matter how much you've convinced yourself that it has.
61866 - A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings - More than a coincidence?
2260 - The Burning of Hearts - A green-eyed monster holds the match.
379248 - The Spider Without Fangs - NEW - Some lessons learned (more or less.)
I'm sure some folks are very irritated that Golden Girl never lashes out nastily or drips with cynicism against people who don't share her viewpoints in much the same manner as those people behave themselves.
Other people who actually pay attention may notice that she doesn't always agree with some of the things the developers do, but her criticism is generally constructive. |
On topic, over the years I've defended developer decisions I've agreed with, railed against the decisions I've hated, but generally hung around because I enjoy the combat system. It's fun. It's relaxing. I've stopped giving them money when I felt my wallet should do the talking and given them money for silly things that I could have lived without.
Be well, people of CoH.
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I've seen this happen to many MMOs. I have a theory:
As players play through the game they get used to the current quality and content, and with this become hesitant of any changes or additions that aren't what i currently there. Also, they begin to be annoyed by tiny things that didn't bother them before, mostly because the mild inconvenience doesn't go away. They continue to yearn for the days when they were new and just had stupid fun with the game, but sadly once they have learned they cannot unlearn. Not being aware of this, they put that "stupid fun" expectation on newer content, never realizing that it is impossible to play that way once you've learned, and not realizing that it isn't the game that has changed, but themselves that have changed.
This makes for a mad forumer.
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I like the arcs. I like the new enemies and I like the new maps. I hope I'll want to play them when they go live.
Be well, people of CoH.
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OP, I think your basic premise is very flawed.
If people hate something they avoid it - it would be very strange behaviour to stick around and lambast something because you don't like it when there's almost a whole internet to float around in and enjoy and plenty of other things to enjoy/hate (delete as appropriate)
But what you may be seeing here is some very dedicated and passionate players who have one or more aspects of the game they dislike or don't enjoy - and actually want to let the Devs know, rather than walk away.
There's another point: Most people will talk about the stuff that's a problem for them rather than the stuff they love. Because if you love it there's no requirement to say what needs fixing, why you love it etc... sometimes saying you love it is cool but there's far less of a critique that needs to go into it.
Bottom line - it's not hatred or vitriol - but those sensations can be amplified by "teh ineterwebs" and human nature changes online because of the removal of polite fear - people aren't scared of a punch in the face online, and in human history mass communication in this manner is very very new and unique. We still probably need to get to grips with it a bit more.
The upshot of all that is it can give a somewhat skewed perspective of how people really feel about the game.
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There was very little extrapolatable history to complain about when this game launched. Not even the most well-informed players of beta knew 10% of what the most ignorant player knows today.
Let me put it this way: when the Confessor showed how SR could solo a ton of minions in beta, no one, not even the Confessor himself could fully and correctly explain what was going on there. Not even the devs themselves fully understood what was happening there, as evidenced by what happened next**. I would say its a true statement that no one in or out of the dev team could fully explain why SR could do that and yet why it didn't really matter until at least a year after launch.
When your playerbase and your dev team are, to put it directly, that completely ignorant of what the game even is, its much more difficult to generate a lot of energy about what the devs got wrong. We couldn't even specifically articulate what they got right.
Of course, some people were complaining right from the start. But over time, the characteristics of the complaints shifted over time as players became more knowledgeable and sophisticated, and as a consequence much more comfortable in being absolutely sure of their criticism, and much more capable of citing prior history to advance their criticism.
** They cut SR defenses in half just prior to launch, from maxing out at 60% to maxing out at 30%. Today, I don't have to explain what sort of effect that had, but back then it took several candid discussions with the devs to explain to them they cut the set right to the bone and made it totally worthless.
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There is no end to the flaws in any game.
There is only an infinite series of tradeoffs.
So I've been playing this game on and off since June of 2004. Why? Because I enjoy it. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't be here, and if the game didn't continue to evolve in ways I enjoyed, I wouldn't keep playing. But there's a disturbing trend I've noticed over the last couple of years, in which many long term players have violently turned on the game, picking out each and every flaw they can find, all while acting like they're acting in the game's best interests by acting hyper-critical towards it. I'm not saying that criticism of any kind is bad, and a real fan should never point out flaws, but I've begun to feel like the City of Heroes community has fallen into that paradigm of cynicism=intelligence that plagues so many other fandoms.
But at the end of the day, I still find myself really enjoying this game! I like the community, I like the story, I like the design. Could they all be better? Yes, but I've never felt like ignoring the good parts of the game could improve my overall experience in any way. Granted, the increased criticism towards this game has caused me to notice some of the weaker parts of this game and become more critical, but I feel like I'm expected to play this game almost maliciously, looking for flaws at every turn. So what I guess I'm trying to ask here is, would I really be doing anyone a favor by hating this game? Because I can't really see any benefit of continuing to play a game I hate. |
Just play the game, have fun, and if someone calls out part of the game in protest, forget them. They're not having fun and they shouldn't be trying to impede your own.
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Forums exist for ranting.
Not really, but...every game that has forums generally has lots of discussion of things people don't like. *shrug*
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In case it matters, I don't hate the game, love it still, and the irritant parts I either put up with (Gold farmers, notell invites) or don't bother with (IOs, Incarnate, AE broken in certain ways) and it's all good.
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I reverse your reversal.
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