The Official Forums is an EXTREMELY poor example of a "Good Community"

[FireMage]

"The Official Forums is an EXTREMELY poor example of a "Good Community"

Given you're a prime example of the issues with it, no duh

[SassyAssassin]

I don\\\\'t even know who that is. All I know is I agreed with Aveyond with his story post and I got called his alt, just like you think I\\\\'m defending this random dude alts.
I recall Titanman and Damian but that\\\\'s it. I just don\\\\'t go out on a crusade on someone I dislike and start harassing them like others like to do. If the dude is a troll then you could just ignore but you can\\\\'t. Instead it\\\\'s 20pgs of people makin fun of him like 3 year olds. I don\\\\'t know the local trolls nowadays but y\\\\'all keep him in your prayers way too much lmao. It\\\\'s actually sad and funny.

And man, my name ain\\\\'t that long. Spell it right would ya?

Maybe you could have not brought him up on a thread that had literally nothing to do with him? Funny you say people are obsessed with him but you try to bring him in a topic that concerns him zero.



Yes yes Renalt didn’t pat him like many do but that doesn’t make Renalt’s original post any less valid or any less of a good advice, so if you want people to let it go, start with yourself.

[Lunalepsy]

Bit of a disclaimer here...This is going to be a LONG post. Probably 2 posts so please hold any and all comments till I say I'm finished at the bottom. Of course you don't have to...but I'd like that. Also this rant ( Yeah a rant kinda ) is coming from a place of love. I love you guys and that's the honest truth. I've made a lot of friends on these forums and I appreciate you guys, but I am worried about some of you. I'm about to disclose some personal things about myself that is going to explain why I handle things the way I do. I hope you can learn what I learned just from my story and not in the way I learned it.

Immediately the TL;DR here is gonna be - People? Come on. Chill out.

Ok so I've been here for a little less than a year but most of you know me and know I'm practically here every day and hitting post caps quite often. You'll also notice for the MOST part I really don't take part in...heated "discussions" and if I DO join in...I usually say my piece and that's it. I also just make jokes...about everything.

However this post here is going to be pretty serious.

Ok introduction over. Time for the meat of things. The Official Forums is a poor example of a good community. Why would I say this?

People are so ANGRY on here. I feel like any thread I go into I should wear a helmet and low crawl so I don't take a stray right to the dome. Even posts just about sitting animations devolves into a rage fest. I'm not saying "Hey suck it up buttercup" or anything of the sort. This is how things get fixed. You have an issue, you lay out what that issue is, you might give a suggestion or two, you may or may not get some like minded individuals to agree and validate the issue OR maybe disagree and have a counter point, but then leave it at that.

However...it usually ends up with people getting offended or try to make it political somehow. Take the sit poses thread for an example. One side will be like, "Hey all races should have all sit animations" while the other side will be like "That defeats having races feel different from others."

Both have valid views but both sides REFUSE to take a moment and even consider the other side. It's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to please everyone. You can try your best but you will fail at one point or another. Fix one thing and break two in the process. I've tried coding before. I DO NOT have the patience for it. I feel like coding is nothing short of writing spells and "Bam"...the magic happens and things are done. Just you reading this post is...mindboggling if you think about it. I'm clickity clacking away on a keyboard that is just on circuits, chips, and electricity and it becomes letters somehow. Anyway I digress...

Part 2 incoming

Because this community has been known for being so kind and wholesome. o3o

[Jybril]

Maybe you could have not brought him up on a thread that had literally nothing to do with him? Funny you say people are obsessed with him but you try to bring him in a topic that concerns him zero.

Perhaps if you could read past the last page then you could see I didn't bring him in it at first lmao.
I'm just pointing out you guys act weird on these forums with people.
It's creepy. I hope I don't say anything too out there so I don't have a damn cult behind me like he does.

[Hurlstone]

This forum is very… passionate to say the least. We cannot judge a community based on one place alone, but across the board I would not pick any forum to be a bastion of fan civility.

When I started playing back in 2014 these forums where relatively like every other MMO forum. As in, mostly a smal minority of players complaining about things from game breaking bugs to the change of a tooltips font. I did not interact much with it when I started playing again in late 2020 until Endwalker was released, when I wanted to find more lore discussions about this world that had helped me a lot over the last few years. As someone who really enjoyed EW and loved the character of Venat, you can guess my surprise when I entered the debates and saw that many here… are not fans of either. Which was fine, at first I enjoyed reading other peoples opinion on the matter. Whilst it did not change my mind, it did open my eyes to some things I had not considered and I am a staunch believer in the idea that storytelling, like all art, is subjective with no right or wrong way to enjoy it. What wore me more down eventually was just how with some people, that level of passion leads to hate (hehe Star Wars) which feeds into other areas of the lore and even gameplay. Some add a level of spitefulness to it that I just do not understand. It made debating things and digging into lore a chore when you may be casually called a genocide supporter or mummy simp for topics that barley involve the character/issues.*

* Disclaimer, I know many people on the opposite side of the debate have received similar opposition and drawbacks when commenting their views elsewhere, and that sucks, but I am talking mostly about this forum in its current/recent state over the wider community.

I did have to use the ignore feature a while back, which is somthing I try and avoid doing. Not because of said lore debates though. You can disagree with everything I love about the game but in the end its just a story made up of pixels. Getting angry at people for lore differences is just plain silly. No, a few months back someone posted a thread regarding LGBTQ+ opinions (I think they where just a troll trying to stire trouble) and lets just say I HAD to ignore some people, otherwise I would likely have been banned for the things I wanted to say haha. Like I said, when it comes to lore or gameplay opinions thats all fine and dandy… attacking people in real life is just plain stupid.

Anyway, despite what I said there are some great people here and I have really enjoyed many of the discussions about topics I have seen/been part of. I am also likely a hypocrite who has probably also let their emotions guide them too much in said issues, and the fact is I do still keep posting and coming here so… take that whichever way you want!

[Atelier-Bagur]

The forums are just another form of reddit mixed in with everyone acting like characters from Yiik.

[ThaCa]

I think a lot of the "angry" takes are because people feel like they aren't heard.

There's been a lot of feedback on multiple things over years, but the english community seems to be sidelined most of the time and getting very little aknowledgement for things they bring up.

This leads to a loop of frustration and eventually people just shouting into void.

[SassyAssassin]

It's creepy. I hope I don't say anything too out there so I don't have a damn cult behind me like he does.

Nah don’t worry, neither of you are as important as you made yourselves believe.

[Gemina]

I'm really sorry to hear about your family situation, OP. Regret and remorse are virtues that teach many of life's most important lessons, but you can't allow them to weigh you down. We fall so we can pick ourselves up. I do hope you find peace if you are still seeking it.

As for the forums, the anonymity granted by the internet allows us to see who people truly are. They say the things that would never leave their lips in a RL conversation as there is no repercussion or consequence for it. I'm not talking about a ban from the forums, or even in game. I'm talking about degradation of character, and allowing RL people to see who they are under the mask they wear in society. Bear in mind that this falls on the laps of both the toxic, and the righteous. The latter is not exempt because many people are afraid to speak the truth when they know they will be punished for it. These people can handle facing heat and contempt on the forums opposed to things like losing their job, social status, or even a loved one. But make no mistake; they wear masks as well.

Ultimately, even though FFXIV is a game, it is still something that people invest a great amount of time into, and people will defend what they feel is right whether they are among the toxic or the righteous; or are unknowingly mutable of the two. If this is where people come to let go of that negative and/or aggressive energy, I would much rather have that happen in a thread like the one in question, than people harming others.

That is all I will say regarding this matter, other than I truly do love this community.

[Connor]

I feel like the forums is a very poor representation of the actual community in the game. If you based it on the forums you’d expect people to be mean spirited, aggressive, and vindictive. But after playing since 1.0 I’ve rarely ever seen people argue or otherwise abuse each other in-game. It happens of course, but the general vibe is nowhere near as volatile as it feels on the forums.

Honestly it feels like the forums are some kind of weird black hole of circular arguments that get stretched out ad infinitum but never actually go anywhere. But since it’s all inside this black hole, it can’t leak out into the game lol, so you have the forum community looking like a spaghetti while the in-game community is still an amorphous blob.

Basically, the forums to me seem to give an entirely different impression of the actual ffxiv community. But then, considering it’s the internet, I guess it’s unfortunately inevitable that there’d so many ‘troll posts’ (for want for a better word lol)