Blog Comments

It was smurfing weird this morning man, drove to work at 9 and all the streetlights were still on.

I love winter, but that may be owed to the fact that I live in Texas. My wife and I have been seriously considering moving for years. We hate the heat but love rain and cold. My personally internal clock seems to be counter the darkness anyway and I normally don't get tired until quite late which is already 5 or so hours after dark so I just enjoy the dark cool evenings for taking walks and the like.

Don't have much to add about FFXIV as I don't play and you've already heard my general thoughts. However, I will agree that early on in MMOs the community just doesn't coalesce well. Usually it works out. There are some where it never does, but most of those die quickly. Then there are those that get a little too tight to a fault. FFXI started to get that way that everyone who was left knew so much that it was hard to not know everything.

This post made me realize that I use food analogies when talking about different Final Fantasy games too much. "Tomatoes are enjoyable. Potatoes are enjoyable. Some people only like one of the two, some like both, some like neither. If someone decides to stop selling tomatoes and start selling potatoes, a few of their customers will stop buying, and some new ones will be like 'Yeah. Yeah I like potatoes. Gimme those.'" Everyone who wants tomatoes will just have to accept the fact that potatoes are not tomatoes and look elsewhere to buy their tomatoes.

I'm not drawing a strict line between them. That's why I have that little bit at the end which includes "If you do like the game but don't like certain things about it, post about the things you don't like but also post about the things you like." Basically my rant is about people who clearly don't like the game and scoff at the game at every turn, constantly going on about everything they can possibly find bad about the game and even turning what most people see as a good thing into a bad thing. Basically, trolls.

I generally ignore the the forums of the games I don't like (which means FFX and FFVIII have very, very few posts from me over the years). But I also enjoy discussions, and there may be games where I like some parts but don't like others.

I think you're drawing too strict a line between "liking" and "not liking" a game. It's not that simple. For instance, FF7's writing is really, really crappy. I have ranted about it in the FF7 forum before. But I enjoy the characters and gameplay and parts of the story.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: there's a difference between just talking bad crap about a game (the recent troll seifer in the FFXIII forum comes to mind) and discussing/criticizing specific parts of the game. The latter should never be discouraged.

Oh no doubt. That's why I like EoFF and EoEO in general. I spend a good deal of time on other forums but don't even try to have reasonable discussion. Gaming boards are the worst. Most often it feels like the lowest echelon of the 13 year-old XBL players infest these places just to tell everyone else how stupid they are and throw in pejoratives as often as possible.

I used to visit Core regularly, but haven't in some time. It turned into a horrible place. BG (Order of the Blue Gartr) is much better. It's a very old and far more mature board originally of FFXI players. They don't take as much crap, but even there you can find problems. Also, BG, being what it is, is a very elitist place, so it's hard to discuss anything on the ground floor, but at least you know all of the discussion will be largely intelligent.

I'd suggest you at least check them out if you're frustrated with Core.

There are those such as yourself who criticise FFXIV (and/or SE) a lot at EoFF, but I assure you, it's about a hundred times worse at places like Core. I read the forums there to keep up with news and whatnot but it's like wading through crap looking for dirt. Very difficult to find what you're after and most of the time it's still got crap running through it anyway. There are some great people there but they're largely outshadowed by the trolls, the fanboys (both Blizzard and Square-Enix fanboys, that is) and of course the lack of action done towards those that blatantly troll or flame each other. I'd appreciate the place more if it had better moderation, I think. I like EoFF because we're largely reasonable here.

I can't help but suspect I'm partially to blame for the inspiration of this blog entry. To a large degree I agree with you. I too am frustrated by those who want nothing more than to rain on others' parades. That quote from "The Dark Knight" is so applicable. "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

I've resigned myself to the fact that there are a lot of people who really delight in causing misery in others or being miserable themselves or both in concert. This frustrates me to no end that some people just like to stir the pot. This is far from relegated only to games and tends to be much worse in other discussions. That's why I like EoEO so much. People who want to be silly or antagonistic for the sake of it... can't.

I'm with you in that I don't actively seek out forums of games I dislike just to complain (though I see it often). If people are enjoying it, that's fine by me and I'm glad they are. Of course, I wonder where your dichotomy lies in regards to people having issues with games. My recent posts to the FFXIV forum may seem counter to what I've said here, but if you look at it, I'm not really talking about the game (something I think a lot of people keep missing). I'm talking about SE as a company the same way I would talk about being frustrated with a politician who didn't follow through on something... or about bigoted Americans who haven't learned through years of history that discriminating against gay people is no different than having done so to women and people of color before them.

I think there's always room for dissenting opinion, because it makes us grow to face ideas that don't match our own. But that brings the question of how fruitful such a thing can be in the face of a game that's already been produced... Well how fruitful is it to fret about politics of the stupidity of people in general? Probably even less so.

Sadly, I don't think (at least I hope not) your post is referring to those who want to have reasonable discussion, but more about those who just want to s**t on a game they don't like. Most of them want to be smug and superior because they think they are better people for hating it and want to express how much better they are than you because they don't like it. They are like hipsters of gaming with more of a douchey bro-jock attitude.

Once again... "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Making the other person apologise and send me a gift hamper with a note talking about how wrong they were. Why, how do you define winning a debate?

Depends entirely on how you define winning a debate.

Fair enough. I don't like bitching for the sake of bitching. I bitch to vent - pretty much like the above blogpostthing. But once I'm done, I'm usually done. Unless someone starts a debate out of it in which case I'm never done because nobody wins a debate on the internet.

Depends. I like the bitching itself. And the arguments that involve nothing but bitching afterwords.

I do admit, the reaction is sometimes amusing, but it's not really a factor in if I'll bitch about something.

Really? I find it a good release if I'm annoyed by something but I rarely find it fun. Why do you think they find it fun? The bitching itself, or the reaction?

I will take that long rant you made, ignore the last half of it, and tell exactly why the vast majority of people do this in a simple one sentance response that renders all of your rant moot.

Bitching is fun.

hahahaha xD

and now it's too late to quit!

According to their site "It'll be released when it is done." It looks so goooood. ;___________;

When is GW2 out?

I had a dream last night that Del Tony let me play on his account. Is that weird? I don't usually have EoFF or video game dreams.

I'm still torn about it 'cause I'm also waiting on Guild Wars 2.

:D
1) Good question. Maybe it was Bert. Before Bert I don't remember anybody else D:
2) I don't really PM people. If you checked, I am almost maxed out so I avoid it if possible
3) Snacks
4) Aika, Doomie, you unbanned a lot of my friends so.... Liz, and .. ah forget it
5) You, Yars, um..who's left to visit? Well, I keep visiting Rubahs, so her, and Dr Unne and Leeza (I've met her before but I really should go back!)