Happy Friday!Follow

I always do. Granted I did state it would happen long ago, actually I might even try and find the thread.

(I gave up....)


Edited, Nov 13th 2012 2:17am by rdmcandie

There's a reason I made the Jesus reference earlier. It's almost like a religious zealotry based on faith that lacking habitual ********* is somehow a bad thing and those not part of the cult are a pox upon humanity. Meanwhile, questions are still answered and I certainly don't see people chasing others off when it's unwarranted. Not everyone needs to write short novels to get anything out of a forum, let alone post at all. If anything, it's a healthier environment when people can come and go without obligation, because the alternative seems to be, "Stay until we find your replacement or we're going doooooown!"

This is a cross-game site. If someone wants a dead set of forums, look to the Rift section. Yet, I know Trion's official boards are lively and the game itself is running healthily. People post there because they have things to talk about, for better (discussion about the Storm Legion expansion) or worse (nerf xyz because my abc isn't as good!). Threads get locked, some people banned. People whine about the trolls. The true contributors actually contribute. Fundamentally, that's no different than here, only the difference lies in volume.

There's only so many times we can explain how Abyssea lights work, what procs are, or other incidental nuances. Conversation can't happen much beyond explanation because there are not unknowns relative to the knowledge. Come Adoulin, we'll have people talking about quests/missions, DAT mines to drool over, how to unlock the new jobs and how they work, how the "exploration" system is going to work, and basically any other thing we can speculate about and dissect. Even of the old stuff, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone who either doesn't know what they should be looking for or can't quite grasp info that's out there and are seeking clarity other than the fear of being perceived an idiot for not knowing something in such an old game with so much info there. And that's just being kind on the sentiment others had expressed. Some people do indeed learn more readily through discourse, and I welcome such, just as I'm sure others do, too. For now, Szabo's been pretty good about posting dev notes as they come up. That's about all we can ask for right now.

Funnily enough, I recall ******** about subjects that get brought up a lot, usually by new posters. Or older topics like RDM melee (We have a drinking game for that yet?). While my advice for such angry people then was to just ignore those posts, it does present an irony of a more active forum by virtue of more postings apparently not being a good thing, either. Inherently, I dislike the false activity +1 threads or senseless flame wars present. For the few that may thrive on resulting drama, others lose interest, make note of troublesome posters, avoid threads they start or post within, and basically find a possible hangout contaminated with the equivalent of internet litter. Fortunately, a forum isn't required to play FFXI or any MMO for that matter. They're supplements and should be stress-free fun of their own accord with people who share a similar hobby.

Edited, Nov 13th 2012 4:43am by Seriha

Part of the issue is also that SE introduced their own official forums, so players no longer have to rely solely on sites like ZAM for their community building efforts.

No one is stopping you from posting **** to stir up the bees. By your own logic, we would welcome you as our hero!

Much to my own surprise, I find myself back on these forums. Spending several years in real endgame somehow dragged me away from the outside-of-linkshell community aspects, and now I'm just relaxing and doing fun stuff like storyline, I'm attracted back here like a moth to the flame. And a lot of the posts I'm seeing here are either I'm Back type or from lower level players. Perhaps the ZAM forum could have a lively niche as the non-endgame place to be, like the old Ogaming forum that ZAM bought out all those years back. (I used to be a mod on Ogaming back in the day.)

Socially, that's largely how the place has historically been, but other sites would be more colorful in describing such in a typically derogatory manner (Barrister actually demonstrating a flavor of this above). Bonus points for frequent posters there being frequent posters here typically adopting selective amnesia of their own contributions or lack thereof. On its own, FFXI isn't a terribly newbie friendly game and there's a lot of competition out there nowadays. With basically no advertising out there, I suspect truly new players wind up hearing about the game through negative feedback from grizzled vets or those who got chased off for whatever reason. This is also why I'm pretty critical about SE needing to get good, new stuff out ASAP as unhappy players can lead to a volatile, unwelcoming community even without the negative elements internet anonymity tends to breed.

Even though I haven't had my sub up since the beginning of the year, I still don't mind hooking newbies up with info and am at the very least keeping my eyes peeled for new stuff that may coax me back. Even in context of limited releases since, I at least know where to look to either point a person there or relay data if a question can be exactly answered. While I'm of the mind I wouldn't suggest FFXI to truly new players these days, those that do choose to tough it out deserve the same kindnesses I'd received, spontaneous or no. And I think some vets forget the game is different now than it was in 2006 or so and simply climbing to 99 as a catch-all suggestion isn't going to automagically happen without help.

Can I bet on that?

To be fair, I was certainly drunk.

Yes

Forum activity is down because of one reason only, a lack of bodies, not because of any one person. Rog didn't start many threads, as I recall. According to ffxiah.com there are 100,000 less active characters since the auction house merge. Forum activity is down on all the FFXI-related sites, is that because Rog got banned there too?

When you don't understand things, it helps to logically break them down into the chronological points made.

(1) Catwho pointed out that it wasn't merely a lack of drama that drove activity in =10 down it was also the establishment of an official forum;
(2) You pointed out that the official forum was full of drama and that drama is the common theme increasing activity;
(3) I pointed out the official forum and this site are vastly different;
(4) You pointed out the official forum and this site are vastly different and asked why I was comparing them (/facepalm here)...

Of course point #3 is not about the community, it's refute to your point that the common theme of drama is not an accurate reflection of cause and effect. People dwindled from this site for many reasons (game is 10 years old, lack of content to discuss, servers being merged, more sites coming about over the years to discuss content, etc.). Your mythological grouping of people forcing this site to be drama free (of which it is not anyways) is likely the least of any actual causes. I have yet to meet one of these migrants that magically brought all their drama to the official forums because of some apparent edict you've imagined on =10. By the way, Port Jeuno or BG is better for those reasons anyways. The official forum isn't even a collection of two logical sentences in a row because there is no rate-down or nuke button mitigating the ultra-casual idiocy.

1) Yes she did and she is right because the Official form has more drama threads which attracted more viewer and posters. I personally did not use the official forms for anything other than "trolling". Which is why I have stopped "trolling" here for the most part. I like to extend threads into a discussion where it wasn't really mean to be derailing if you will. This happens hourly on the official forms in hundreds of topics, in languages you nor I fully comprehend. (granted I did take french and german in high school and japanese and mandarin in college...although I understand all 4 to meet required passing levels!) just because you don't understand it does not mean it is happening. The official site is riddled with drama, more so than any idea SE has grabbed on to (granted they took my healing magic fix idea shameless self plug and all) and adjusted the game because of it.

2) Yes look at the most active threads, and look at he people who post there. It is community building, through generated discussion and flame wars.

3) They are different, but the reason you pointed out makes no sense. Vlor Wint Pikko Thayos Kao DQ have never held any sway over what SE implemented in the game. Hence why your comparison means ****. What we can compare is the community. There are not "trolls" here anymore. The standard was set with the circle jerks ejection of Rog. It was made known that this community no longer tolerates that type of behavior. Cool. Now most of that community is gone anyway. Hell half the people who posted in the post Rog thread took snipes at him because he was gone. That thread (around the end year/new year 2010/2011) was the last thread that reached numerous page levels and had numerous posters involved (may link later). something like 15 pages discussing the tolerable levels desired here. Circle Jerk won. and the circle jerks position, they have this to answer for a site that is demoted to a site based on answering questions. Not building community. The job forums are dead, the server forums are dead (even when mods/admins move threads from =10 to the dead server forum it belongs it.).

4) What you compared and I compared are vastly vastly different. You took basic forum topics from here, and compared it to Devs altering things in the game based on topics from the OFFICIAL site. Do you not see the apples and oranges? I agree you should be pulling a face palm. Literally what you compared is ridiculous, and to defend it even more so.




What I am saying is not about impact on the game. I am talking about community, I am talking about why you still post here, why many of us still post here. I am talking about the things that made us post here over the years. We didn't post because X job got a new ability, we posted because we wanted to talk about the game with each other. We hypothesized, we ran up flame wars, we all got trolled, weve trolled each other, we have become a community. We are a bunch of ******** who have nothing better to do then refresh a forum and see if one of us posted.

Why can't the new folks to the site have that. Why can't they have their "trolls", why can't they have their circle jerk? why can't they build their community? Our community was built on our "trolls" and our circle jerks.

Ill ask a (my generation) community wide question.
Do you post here to discuss FFXI, or do you post here because you want to discuss FFXI with people you know?

Why can't the newbies like CCW get that too?