I must say, I love visiting which ever class forum I happen to be playing. Mostly because it entertains me, but also because I sometimes read a tid bit of information that will help me play my class better or think differently about the classes abilities. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you are) the forums are often filled with tons of fluff, spam, mis-information, personal attacks, or other revolutionary things such as “first” and “L2P”. The thing is for me, I find the posts that aren’t useful to be entertaining, as such I really enjoy the forums even though only 1 out of 10 posts gets me any useful information.
As I was thinking about Class forums I started thinking about the different type of posters there, and how those posters are viewed by others. So I started a little list:
The Troll
This person posts something ridiculous and claims it as truth (or extremely exaggerates what is a truth). The purpose is to insight conversation and anger in the class forums to get attention or who knows what else. This person will post half truths or come to conclusions that they know will make the others that enjoy and play the class mad, or they will come in and start claiming x or y is overpowered and that the class needs to get nerfed. The problem for the people that read the forum is, they don’t want the devs to read x or y is overpowered (even if it is) so they feel the need to feed the troll and explain why he’s an idiot. In any case, these are usually quite funny, tho mostly not very informative posts.
The Fan Boy
This person will reply to other topics for information or concerns that others might have in a way that has no thought behind it. They are simply a fan of the class and as such can’t see how anyone else could have a problem with said class. They love to reply “Learn To Play” if all other arguments fail, or that said issue isn’t a problem for most people just the poster. Not all people who post replies like this are actually fan boys, sometimes the original poster really is a bad player or troll. But even so they will come out looking like one if the person who has a question ended up being genuine or really not understanding how the class played.
The Elitist
This is the person who has played x class like a full time job since the game came out. Rushed to the MMORPG cap, and claims to know all. This person will diss any opinion that is conflicting with theirs. Often this will be the person that doesn’t care if you have issues at level 10, 20, 30 or leveling in any way, they will simply say your opinion is not valid if you are not at the cap. Unfortunately in some ways they are right, that person doesn’t have any idea what the game is like at the cap and developers can’t really ever “perfectly” balance a game at every stage all the way to the level cap, so they usually concentrate their efforts there. Still, dismissing others concerns because they are not at the cap is silly, though the person not at the cap must also admit they are not sure if the issue persists later.
The Legendary Poster
This person has posted so many times and helped so many people they became “famous” in a way for posting on that very forum! When they post, people automatically assume its truth. Sometimes these people are also elitists but not always. Sometimes these people are very cool and helpful to the community, but whenever anyone says anything that crosses them that other person is automatically considered wrong (even if proven right later). I wonder sometimes if these people are just really helpful, or don’t have anything better to do, or a combination of that, or something else. I usually like Legendary Posters because most of the time they are either helpful, or extremely entertaining as they verbally joust with those who oppose them.
Why am I classifying posters in game class forums? I don’t know really, but it was just something on my mind. I’ve read a lot of class forums for games I play and every one has several of the above types. There are lots of regular posters too, helpful people who come in and try to answer questions. Others who have legitimate questions they hope to have answered. Its just an interesting dynamic to see that every single class forum is somewhat the same. Different questions sure, but there are always Fan Boys, Trolls, Elitists and Legendary Posters at one point or another. And I think most everyone thinks that they are the only unbiased opinion in the forum (and anyone who happens to agree with them on a post) which makes it all the more interesting.
Do you enjoy reading the forums for the class you like to play? Do you go mostly for the entertainment or the information? Do you like to go into other classes forums so that you can express how overpowered you think they are?
5 comments:
You can't forget the subtype of a class fanboy: the specific spec fanboy.
Or the offshoot of the Troll - the hater, who complains that everything to do with a class is crap and laughs at them because of it.
You forgot "The Old Schooler" which is kinda rare but the person who insists on comparing every new game to older games they have played.
And in turn the go into a long drawn out mind numbing story about past experiances and how the new games are dumbed down for the masses instead of realizing its not made easier, its just made better due to new technology and better coding.
And yes.....this type is who I am :)
Haha I should have put in some of those :-) I especially like reading posts by haters lol, very entertaining.
Also you have the attention seeker, most of the time is a girl (or claims to be) and lets people know this to gather attention.
It is quite funny when you see a large number of gamers in person as you can pick out the kind of forum person they are. I was sat next to a hater who spent the whole time slagging off the "Pro Gamers" as being rubbish - as if he could ever beat a South korean at Stacraft, those guys are machines and that game is a religion for the whole country.
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