These forums are weird

[TowaIsBestGirl]

snip

Honestly, the prevailing forum headcanon around here is so supremely intriguing to me. It's like people have forgotten that this forum is the only viable place to actually voice feedback, to the point where the devs themselves all but informed us to post said critiques specifically here. And yet despite this obvious truth, somehow all the less positive posters are mere hecklers? Strange.

If you were Genuine in giving feedback for the game, you wouldn't insult people who Love the game as "white knights". People who use that insult are here just to fight and bring the mood down.

It is literally always used as an insult unless you're praising them for their chivalry. When you call people white knights, you're calling them blind contrarians. Yes, that is very much an insult. Don't lie about it. Either own the fact you're insulting people or stop insulting people. You VERY CLEARLY don't mean it as a positive or praise.

You possess the temerity to prove how the calling out of "White Knights" is any different than the calling out of "Negative Nancies"? I'll highlight the difference for you, to your benefit. Morally, there is no difference. The difference lies in that one is called out with relish and frequency (and rightly so), while the alternative is ramping up rapidly due to going unchallenged. I can see the unfairness of what is actually occurring here on these forums in regularity with ease, why am I seemingly unique in this? The achievement poses no difficulty.

VERY few people are saying the game is perfect. They're saying the hyperbole is just that, over the top hyperbole, and they're pointing out the good parts of the game and measured changes needed to improve it.

For all their fabled negativity, all the legitimate critique I've seen posted here thus far has come from the "Negative Nancies". The rest pose things they may not have liked, but they segue into declarations of liking Final Fantasy XIV in spite of what they didn't like and thus their critiques are drowned out and forgotten about. It sometimes does begin to resemble wishy-washy poor-faith posters who have no clear grievances they actually wish to air, but that's naught more than a hunch on my part I'll freely admit.

People who want to be mad and salty also want the illusion that they are an unchallenged majority. Many also want to bring other people down to their level to join them - "Misery loves company...even if it has to make it." This, they think, improves their chances of getting the changes they want. It also means they will attack and attempt to run off or silence dissenting voices, since that breaks the illusion that their positions are universal and unchallenged, and those voices of dissent would imply they need to compromise and reach neutral ground with those they disagree with, something they very much don't want to do.

So they get into personal attacks to try and drive off those people and/or silence them. Ironically, these are the same people that will defend their toxicity as "well, we've just been ignored and silenced, so that makes what we're doing understandable and okay".

See, this right here is a picture perfect example of the Men of Straw I've come to expect seeing from some of the more famed members of the segments of posters here accused of white knighting. When presented with such an inaccurate and poor representation of themselves, is it any wonder at all some get fed up and begin to simply snap their jaws at people? Everyone has a limit to their patience, and perhaps it might behoove you to examine the possibility that the reason boundless negativity you find so prevalent is as such because it was intentionally baited to occur.

"Forum culture" is what the moderators make it. Allowing people to openly criticise the game itself is not the same thing as allowing personal attacks on those who disagree, or allowing the same person to flood the forum with multiple threads on slightly different versions of the same complaint.

Active moderators could be managing the forum so much better without having any impact on people's ability to post criticism of the game itself.

Honestly, I'm not entirely convinced active moderation would change these forums in as drastic a manner as some feel it would. Or if it did, they'd suddenly find themselves unsatisfied with the outcome and wishing for a return to how things used to be. Specifically, I do believe a good portion of posters here aren't actually as familiar with the typical definitions (and of course, how to properly differentiate the two) of critique and personal attacks as they ought to be.

Simply put, I do not believe there's any way to properly satisfy all or even most parties. Not with the way Square has intentionally designed these forums to operate.