Is It Just Me....?

Or have people on the forums gotten really vindictive and hostile towards each other lately ever since the last Live Letter...? :confused:

nope that has always been the forums.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

nope that has always been the forums.

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Oh, and here I thought this was suppose to be a nice place all along. D:

It has come and gone, but there are some subjects that really ruffle people's feathers.

The forums are a pretty nice place, especially as opposed to other forums. But sometimes it can get a little heated. Some people's patience have worn thin over recent happenings, and for others, there's a bit of fear-mongering going on. But overall, the forums are still alright. We just don't see it often because a lot of the times, it's the general discussions that get the most attention.

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

Or have people on the forums gotten really vindictive and hostile towards each other lately ever since the last Live Letter...? :confused:

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I have been noticing a slight increase of the amount of people who foam at the mouth if you dare defend SE on a controversial subject. But nothing too drastic most of the time. As long as you stay away from threads related to the supposed doomsday project (the app) it's mostly fine.

General Discussion, while receiving the most activity, is also the one section most prone to conflicts of ideas or interests. People use General Discussion to talk about controversial topics because GD is where those topics will gain the most traction, and since the FFXIV forums have regulars like any other forum, those more inclined to disagree with each other will most likely bump into each other with relative frequency. It’s also very likely that the new app has caused a sort of polarization among the forum community. You’ll inevitably see arguments between people on both sides of that discussion who are very vocal with their opinions, and those arguments have, in some respects, dominated GD. Most other sections of the forums seem innocuous enough, and in this respect GD stands out.

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

Or have people on the forums gotten really vindictive and hostile towards each other lately ever since the last Live Letter...? :confused:

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There is an ebb and flow to forum postings. Right now, there is a bit more tang to the comments as players who have decided they're quitting the game make as much noise as possible until the time they can no longer post anything.

Any form of news tends to drive this cycle. Or any form of lack of news.

It is entirely too easy to read personal animus in any posting on a forum site, whether it is intended or no.

I think it's just that many people are divided on how they feel about the future of FFXIV. Some people also take things how they will and that can lead to negativity. Adding any kind of new function or heavily modifying another will always cause people to look at it in many different ways. The one thing I will give FFXIV is that they are willing to try something new and see how it works.

Yea, I suppose that a lot of these comments do make tons of sense to me, especially the snippet regarding General Discussions, as well as others stating about heated issues and the future of XIV. Definitely anything revolving around that app as well.

Thanks for all of the insight so far everyone. It's nice to see different points of view and perspective regarding the behavior and well-being of the forums lately.

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Originally Posted by Sinh119

General Discussion, while receiving the most activity, is also the one section most prone to conflicts of ideas or interests. People use General Discussion to talk about controversial topics because GD is where those topics will gain the most traction, and since the FFXIV forums have regulars like any other forum, those more inclined to disagree with each other will most likely bump into each other with relative frequency. It’s also very likely that the new app has caused a sort of polarization among the forum community. You’ll inevitably see arguments between people on both sides of that discussion who are very vocal with their opinions, and those arguments have, in some respects, dominated GD. Most other sections of the forums seem innocuous enough, and in this respect GD stands out.

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On this note, it's kind of interesting how General Discussion has more traffic than...let's say the boards designated for certain servers too from what I've noticed. It seems like, based on first impressions mind you, that the individual server boards get more FC recruiting snippets than anything else. I wonder if it's feasible or even worth it to keep the servers separate at that point on the forums and maybe just condense the individual server topics into just their data centers?

Or would that become too chaotic and a pain to navigate through topics, I wonder. It sometimes seems like a lot of dead space just lying around that no one really uses except for certain things.

I learned my lesson about posting in-depth discussions in sub-forums. No one visits them.

To go into some detail, things have been heated lately, more so IMO than in the past. A lot of that has to do with the direction of the game I think. Speaking strictly personally, I've been really vocal lately because I'm unhappy with the state of the game. I see so much potential, but am constantly disappointed with their design decisions.

I still love the game and there are aspects that I still enjoy (MSQ/Raiding), but that's really about it these days. I may tend to come off as antagonistic at times, but generally my goal is to correct misinformation (rampant in the community) or shower-thought different content forms (my Eureka/combat redesign/Paladin rework, etc.). Where I clash sometimes is when someone says XYZ, but never qualifies why they believe XYZ. It's ok to say FF14 combat isn't fun because X where X contains insight, examples, or critical thinking, but a ton of people here make blind statements with nothing to go off of. I very frequently challenge those statements in an effort to learn more about how someone feels, or learn something new myself.

I think it's because people love the game... they have visions of what it's supposed to be and are passionate... conflicting views fueled by that passion is what leads to the hostile feel... of course there are a few crazy/clueless/troll type folks sprinkled in but I think this games forums are pretty tame vs other game forums...

I'm just sick of the seeming need to make mountains out of molehills and completely over-exaggerate your position then expect to be taken seriously. But that's the internet for you, if its not "the worst thing ever" then no one pays attention.

Well, it is social networking, after all. Angry internet people have been a thing for ages, and probably won't stop being a thing. The FFXIV forums aren't exempt from this, but from my experience most of the time it's pretty congenial here.

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Originally Posted by MageBlack

I'm just sick of the seeming need to make mountains out of molehills and completely over-exaggerate your position then expect to be taken seriously. But that's the internet for you, if its not "the worst thing ever" then no one pays attention.

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Culture of Hyperbole is a thing now a days.

Ehh.. forums are forums. You're going to get all kinds of people here with all kinds of points of view. "Thankfully", only a sliver of the people who play the game are registered on the forums, so while it looks like the sky is falling over here, if you step away from the forum (and maybe Reddit), it really isn't that bad.

At some point the Internet became mean because people found that in general no one know who they were so they could get away with it. Where as IRL if you act like that you would get slaps across the face.