Grim News

Ironic considering my “day job” blog, isn’t it?

Obviously, with such an attention grabbing headline, a little clarification is in order.  Those of you who are addicted to Minesweeper or Addictinggames.com, you can leave the room.  You play games, but you are not a gamer.  Those of you who play World of Warcraft but don’t read or post in forums, or spend your out-of-game time reading blogs and information sites, you can leave the room.  You might be a gamer, but you have perspective, and this rant isn’t about you.

I’m talking to YOU, fan boy.

I was once one of you.  I played MMOs up to 18 hours/day on weekends and 5-6 hours/night during the week.  Sure, I had a job, but it was the kind of job where I could follow forums and informational websites while I worked.   Fast forward a few years, and while I write a gaming column, run 2 gaming websites, direct a gaming track for Dragon*Con, and still find time to remain subscribed to 4 different MMOs, I have a job, a wife, and a kid who all rank higher on my list of “important things in life.”  In short, I have perspective.

You see?  I love gaming.  It is a hobby that I am passionate about.  I enjoy any new game that comes out if only for a brief time because it is a much more interactive form of entertainment than a tv show or a book.  I appreciate the time and effort it takes to create a game.  The only real annoyance I have with games are the hardcore gamers who spend all their time whining and bitching about how this game isn’t good enough or that game sucks, or why cant developers just listen to them and change their games to the player’s satisfaction.

If you don’t like it, don’t play.  If you don’t like a TV show, change the channel.  If you don’t like a book, put it down.  Your personal preferences are not sufficient reason to vent spleen in a public forum.  Nobody cares, least of all me.  I realize the inherent hypocrisy of this statement.  Here I am, bitching in a “public” place about my personal distastes.  The difference is, this is “my house”, so to speak.  I’m not going to the World of Warcraft forums to vent.  I’m not stepping into someone else’s home and shitting on the floor.

When in a public forum, try to contribute something to the larger discussion.  If you have a problem with a game, provide some details and ask for an explanation.

“I’ve noticed that mages in World of Warcraft don’t seem to be able to keep up with other classes in terms of damage.  Why is that?”

Provoke discussion, gather information, maybe you’ll learn something that improves your experience and can serve as a guide to someone else who might have the same issue.  That is what public forums are for.  Unfortunately, what you find more often is along the lines of:

“ZOMG! This game is teh sux!11eleventyONE!”

Thanks for your contribution to the world’s store of information, you fucking chuzzlewit.  The only thing more obnoxious than gamers who don’t know any better, are gamers who realize exactly what they’re doing.  Call them trolls, call them flame-bait, call them “attention starved babies whose mommies didn’t love them enough”.  If you are new to the Internet and need a guide to etiquette, I’ll make it simple for you.  If you wouldn’t say it to someone while standing in the same room with them, don’t say it online.  The Internet is about information.  If you honestly think that you are completely anonymous, guess again.

It has been my experience that gamers, even the most obnoxiously hard core types, are much more polite in person.  When I run the MMORPG events at Dragon*Con every year, the people are friendly and engaging.  Even the ones who complain are persuasive in their arguments and are just looking for answers.  If I had a choice between running a convention every month or running an online forum, there’s no contest.  Everyone has a story, and it is a genuine pleasure to meet folks who have the same interests and passions that I do.

So why then do forums not give people the same experience?  Everyone is there for the same reason.  Everyone has at least one thing in common.  It is because forum administrators, in the name of “giving everyone a voice” do not hold forum posters accountable for their words.  On my own forums, I am notorious for being quick with the “ban hammer”.  If a new poster comes around and starts flaming or trolling, I let the regulars have a little fun with him, then ban the new guy without a second thought.  Fair? No.  Free speech? Nope.  If you want to complain and be a pest, go do it somewhere else.

That said, I believe that everyone DOES have the right to make their opinions heard.  You have the right to say the most shocking and offensive things that pop into that little pea-sized brain of yours.  You just don’t have the right to say it on my server or by using my bandwidth.  Philosophically, it is a position that I wish more gaming websites would adopt.  Lock out the ‘tards.  Silence the morons.  Improve the signal-to-noise ratio of your forums and blogs until they again become useful repositories of information and commentary.

I honestly believe that communication in the Internet age has become unpersonal and almost psychopathic in it’s disregard for the sensibilities of the person on the other end.  As I said before, if you wouldn’t say it while standing in front of someone, don’t say it to them on the Internet.