Online Gaming Communities (rant-ish)

[Rob_Knotts]

We're all familiar with the kind of bizarre arguments that can appear on WotC: circular logic, hothouse conclusions, (insert series here) purists, 3v!1 r0**or5, roleplaying vs rollplaying, OD&D was better, real roleplayers don't care about "balance", etcetera, etcetera.

But it's not unique to D&D. I've spent quite a few years looking for places online to talk about games other than D&D, games like GURPS, Hero, even oddities like BESM or Mekton. All in all, D&D forums still have a distinct advantage in that, while a lot of the arguments are cliches, at least there'a a variety of them.

GURPS

You would never think there were so many rocket scientists and law-enforcement, military, and ballistics experts all interested in the same small-market RPG. Nonetheless, posters on GURPS forums seem obsessed with reality simulation, especialy when it comes to bullets, guns, explosives, military vehicles, and hard-scifi physics.

A few years ago I had the privilege of talking to David Pulver in person, and I suspect that if he bothered paying attention to this he'd laugh himself to tears. At the same time, for some inexplicable reason the most recent edition of GURPS has something like 5-7 seperate damage types just for bullets....

Champions/Hero

These people just scare me. On one hand, they can't understand any way of using rules aside from examples expressly described in the voluminous main and supplemental rulebooks. They expect everyobody to interpret the rules exactly as they do.

At the same time the same people revel in loopholes in the game and brag about doing so. This kind of "I can break the rules, but you can't bend them" attitude may seem familiar from the WotC boards, but it's been my experience that Champions/Hero players take this kind of hypocrisy to a whole 'nother level.

Mekton Z

The online community for this defunct anime robot game is the living, breathing, hissing, seething emobodiment of the Oberoni Fallacy. R. Talsorian gave up on the game a decade ago, and despite the numerous flaws and potential updates suggested over the years by numerous different people, you'd be hard-put to find any online fan of the game who support any change to the game they didn't come up with themselves.

These fans also consider R. Talsorian above any criticism for dropping Mekton Z in favor or newer flash-in-the-pan products. Any sort of update or revision of the system would interfere with all the cheats/exploits they've become intimately familiar with over the years.

Me, bitter? Maybe a little. The most devoted fanbase for Mekton Z seems to consist of 30-40 regulars on the Mekton Mailing List (most fan sites mention it). Years ago I regularly posted to this list, but the hidebound loyalty to rules they regularly altered themselves, as well as the prevalence of trying to make Mekton in Battletech (entirely different styles of games), made me give up on it years ago.

WotC and other DnD forums can be really bad, but at least when jerks fall into lockstep they tend to follow a variety of different beats.

[User3]

The internet is a cesspit of ignorance and stupidity.

[Draco_Argentum]

Try a Warhammer forum, its scarily like WotC. All of the things you mentioned from there apply to all the Warhammer forums I've seen.

[MrWaeseL]

I hear the World of Warcraft official forums are even worse than the D&D forums, but Da Count can probably tell more about that.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I haven't been to those forums for years.

And to be honest, most of the crap at the WoW forums was my doing, either directly or indirectly, because I really, really hated those people for stealing my wife away from me.

[Nihlin]

1183721536[/unixtime]]I hear the World of Warcraft official forums are even worse than the D&D forums, but Da Count can probably tell more about that.

They are. I mean, most gaming forums make me stop wanted to go to gaming forums. The WoW forums made want to stop playing WoW. Since I still play DnD and have been WoW-free for a year, I suppose that the WoW forums actually did make me stop playing WoW.

[rapanui]

"The internet is a cesspit of ignorance and stupidity."

It's better than the real world, because at least a digital record of said stupidity is kept for posterity. Furthermore, the minority of people that aren't completely retarded can locate each other much more easily.

[alansmithee2]

I actually like the WoW forums. Not only are they humorous at times, but if you filter through the trolling they can give good advice. I've given up on the game (twice), and I still read the forums quite a bit.

The Warhammer forums on the other hand, often will equal or exceed the stupidity found on the DnD forums. Especially Warseer, a lot of the crap there is just horrible.

[shau]

I lurked around the WoW forums when I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy WoW. The only thing I really noticed was the fact that every class had a board full of people bemoaning the fact that they were the most underpowered class and that Blizzard was clearly prejudiced against them.

[Crissa]

At one time or another, every class in WoW has has a peculiar problem... Paladin had no dps, Priests had no defenses, there was no reason to bring more than one Warrior (whether you were in a group of five or forty), Shaman were mechanically worse than Paladin (but had dps!), Hunters couldn't bring their pets to raids, Warlocks just... had a problem with the 'debuff cap', Rogues were certain they shouldn't be outdamaged by Mages who believe the same. And there was at one point no reason to bring a Druid except that Druid only gear would drop.

And that's only off the top of my head. No a days, there are three classes that can tank (instead of one that could, one that was expected to, and two that just couldn't even though they were technically supposed to), pets don't die instantly in PvE, the debuff cap went away, and four classes are available to heal in groups instead of two we-have-spells-but-can't, one I-can-do-it-but-can't-rez and the overworked Priest.

I find the WoW boards to actually more much slower than they used to... But the signal to noise ratio still changes by the time of day.

-Crissa