On toxicity in forums

[TruebladeNuke]

I tend to prefer the middle ground, honestly. Some posters do need 'thicker skin' and other posters need to take a step back and tone down their aggression from time to time.

It took me a few years when I first started visiting forums back when I was still in school, but the middle road is the one I always try to walk now as well. (Which may explain why I don't post on this forum often) I have to say, it's been paying off too I believe.

On the toxicity itself... it's present here on this forum like every other forum I've been to, but I wouldn't consider this forum the most toxic community forum I've seen. If TV Tropes is anything to go by, it IS however one of the most "Divided in opinion" communities out there, warrenting it's own page under the trope "Broken Base". (Please note though that there's a major difference between the fanbase simply being divided in opinion VS actually being toxic)

And as others have already stated, sometimes when people come on here to complain, it's because they actually DO care about the game and want it to improve. (Another thing that took me awhile to get used to when visiting forums) It can be annoying though at times to separate the players who are complaining because they actually care about the game VS the ones who are complaining simply because they can and want to get reactions out of others.

[BigRed5392]

snip

try WoW forums someone got temp ban from the game for 72 for asking the forum how to report someone (well 5 ppl) after they was called " the w h word for a lady of the evening"
the forum goers mocked the person over it, they said what they was called, and was temp ban from the forums and game.

no it wasn't me but a friend of mine. I get flack for typing on the behalf of my girlfriend, when she has me type for her due to the fact she has autism.

[alimdia]

The word "toxic" always gets thrown around so easily, specially when someone dares to disagree with you in any topic. This forum does has a problem of people being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian whenever someone makes a suggestion (aka "this doesn't affect me but I don't want it just because"), but I wouldn't say that's toxicity.

But on the topic...

I tend to prefer the middle ground, honestly. Some posters do need 'thicker skin' and other posters need to take a step back and tone down their aggression from time to time.

The posters who are truly worthy of being taken seriously will be fairly 'middle of the road' and will be capable of agreeing to disagree.

I agree with this, there are people who are over aggressive and there are people who are oversensitive, unfortunately you can't control the first group, but belonging to the second group is your choice, you can choose to ignore aggressive people and hit the middle ground of agreeing to disagree, you don't have to argue with first group people unless you choose to, you don't even have to acknowledge them unless you choose to, if someone is being mean the solution is as simple as not reading chat or blacklisting, and the problem goes away.

[Miste]

The word "toxic" always gets thrown around so easily, specially when someone dares to disagree with you in any topic. This forum does has a problem of people being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian whenever someone makes a suggestion (aka "this doesn't affect me but I don't want it just because"), but I wouldn't say that's toxicity.

This is very true. Personally this forum doesn't seem very toxic to me. People have differing opinions and we all disagree with others sometimes but yeah it isn't really what I would call toxic. Toxic would be a lot of outright verbal harassment and I don't see that much on here. The mods would likely take care of that anyway.

[Aramina]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...mage-the-brain

[Savagelf]

I argee that the general forum is toxicity

[Vahlnir]

You're going to find this everywhere you go on the internet. All things considered though, this is one of the more "friendly" forums I've been on. Sure, there's toxicity, but it could be so much worse.

[Gravton]

In my experience that's just video game forums in general. People complain because they love the game, hoping for changes to this or that so they don't feel like they should quit.

[LunaFaye]

the forums are nothing in comparison to the actual in game toxicity on some servers, and I am not talking during high end raid content with statics etc., simple things from somebody asking a question in zone/region chat, entry level dungeons aka satasha and tam tara (others as well, but not going to name them all), all the way up to just walking through a city with the wrong glamour that day.

We experiencing that for a while, in fact in the last years it always occurred during summer break, teens are allowed to play during that time it seems as well as WoW having mostly no content patches during that time, leaving the players we normally don't encounter bored and with FFXIV's promotions all the time, as well as huge expansion packs right during that time, makes this game appealing to a lot of different genres.

And while it's very frustrating and annoying, it mostly ends right at the start of September, that's when most of us veterans even return after having taken a break during the non enjoyable summer times. But every year as mentioned above it gets worse, don't know why and I don't care much about the reason even, plenty of these players stick with the game and find lots of followers when it comes to promoting "their" style of game.

It's sad to see but that's how the gaming world works. You either have to ignore/tolerate it, find a other game you can enjoy till the crowd catches up on that one, or be more toxic and rude than your counter part. Not that this is going to help the overall behavior, but it might make you feel less frustrated if you "won" that keyboard battle. I know for some of my friends that's the only way to react, without it they would have quit already years ago.

It was just a matter of time that it effected the forums as well, however it isn't new, I've mentioned it so many times in the past, saying that some people just argue for the sake of arguing, and if they don't like the answer they are given, they are very quick to report your post.

Others just respond in the new trendy way, if you're not familiar with it, let me show you some word/sentence examples as in "git gud, scrub". Back in the day we had the words l33t or 1337 and other terms, they weren't funny in the 90's but somehow now they are picked back up, and younger generation thinks they are funny or "powerful", when in reality it's nothing but annoyance and a reason we older gamer's retired these words and behavior already back in the day.

Another example are some streamers, and I am not saying all of them, started off as good information given to beginners or even veterans and being a very valuable addition to the community itself. But hey money and sex pays/sells in every industry correct, yep this one too, now these people turned into let's bash others because my subscribers/patrons are the ones I talked about above, and it will swap more and more into the game, thinking that this is a good way to communicate. Deep down they know it's wrong, in fact I talked to some of them just recently, and they don't want to be like that but that's their job, they get paid for streaming or sponsored content reviews. Sometimes you have to make the decision what's more important in life.

Never ending circle, and yes I am rambling again and I might even get banned for it again, because somebody couldn't accept the truth. Needless to say, if nobody says something, this bs is going to go on and will eventually get worse. Some F2P games have less toxicity in comparison, and these games actually have content that's worth competing about lol.

In general, maybe people should keep in mind that while it's the internet, you can have different opinions and even if you're not agree with each other, there should be some kind of basic respect. You won't behave like this in IRL, because the outcome would be very differently, but somehow the internet makes common sense disappear, along with manners and general social interactions.

Edit: Before somebody starts the argument again about looking at other games and compare them, I am not interested because I don't play other game at the moment, I am playing this game and therefore I will look at this forum or in game behavior, also the excuse is getting very old on top of that....

[Zarabeth]

Snip

I've found that simply turning off shouts removes 98% of that toxicity from my life. I absolutely love being on Leviathan and think we have a great community.