Yes. I feel absolutely fine posting on the forums. Nothing anyone says or does really would make me stop posting here.
I have never been afraid to share my opinion, as others here can probably attest.
Your friend is right about the negativity, though that’s an issue with a lot of fandoms in general, not just WoW.
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I think these forums are like any other moderated forum. They can only enforce their standards after-the-fact. So just like anywhere, immediately after expressing your opinion on a subject the hostiles and trolls will still pounce. It’s what they do for entertainment. They may even completely agree with what you posted but it’s the game they play.
I had a real-life friend in another game who was absolutely terrible to other players, it was embarrassing. He was a ganker and everything he wrote was profane. He kept getting forum banned and was completely despised all around. But in real life he was a college-educated father of two. He and his wife worked for the U. S. State Department and spoke multiple languages. They were a mixed-race marriage with a mixed-culture household. In real life he was sophisticated, professional, self-controlled. But online he was completely unhinged. We’d be on voice chat and he’d be laughing at the reaction he was getting out of people.
That taught me not to take seriously anything I read online. The person on the other end is possibly just being hostile and trolling for sport.
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I don’t feel threatened here if that’s what you mean. Though I’m not so sure that the WrA forums are a haven of tolerance or civility either. I mean, folks here get pretty passionate about pretend.
Still only a few have given me real pause about the forums or community at large but they had issues that extended well outside the space of WoW and as far as I am aware, no longer play.
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I think I made one post on WrA, one time, many years ago. Don’t remember what it was. I don’t feel the need or desire to post much. So on a personal level, it doesn’t pertain to me. I feel like the time I have IRL to devote to Warcraft, is better spent playing the game than being on the forums.
I used to post in GD off and on, but stopped doing even that back in Cata I believe?
Sometimes when I read the forums I feel like I should post more considering how long I’ve been on this server, but then I just never bother.
I, too, get this feeling your friend has. There are a number of posts by people that don’t currently enjoy the game who express this through hyperbolic/sensationalist comments and minor attempts at converting others/validating others with similar view points, sometimes.
While I personally find those kinds of actions distasteful, I don’t feel threatened or unsafe because of it. Its the easiest thing in the world for me to walk away from or avoid toxic behavior on the internet.
I also don’t fault WoW’s detractors for their general sentiments. A lot of them have very reasonable points, regardless of how those points are expressed. They can like or dislike whatever they want. I wouldn’t presume to dictate that.
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De forums be much better dan dey useta be a few years ago. P’raps ja friend who be rantin’ about dem experienced some bad mojo from den? I only been back t’dis place recently but I been around de game for 13+ years. In dat time I be havin’ many of de same experiences as Enekie - been stalked, been harassed, been t’reatened. Dere always gon’ be bullies whenever ja get people talkin’ to one another from beyond slappin’ distance. But folks now seem nicer den a few years ago here. So, de forums seem safer den dey usesta be.
I’m not exactly feeling threatened by a bunch of folks whose words and intrusions I can shut off at any given time, but as it whether I feel at liberty to give vent to everything here?
No, I don’t. Mainly because I have learned, through hands-on experience, that people can be very vengeful, haughty and lacking in both tact and self-control.
It’s mainly why I don’t frequent the forums anywhere like I used to; why go where I’m not welcome or at risk of being hunted by the mob looking for a witch to burn?
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I’d consider it more Euclid, IMHO.
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I haven’t been threatened or stalked via WoW in a while and I’m pretty sure neither had to do with my forum snark.
I agree with Zunde.
The main difference between the argument of Critics and Optimists (for lack of a better term at this moment) is that the Critics cite arguments, point to shortcomings and criticize out of a desire for the game to do better. The counter to this is usually “oh you just hate the game” or some other dismissal rather than engaging with the argument.
Aside from being demonstrably false, the other telling factor is that optimistic threads are fairly often left alone, whereas critical threads usually receive an influx of hysterical defenders of Blizzard popping up to scream about haters and the like. Criticism being an argument in nature, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a far cry from the idea that support for Blizzard is unwelcome here.
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Pardon if I just missed it but what the hell is the “WET Forum”?
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The official fan fiction and RP forum.
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Ohhh. World’s End Tavern. I thought it was some off-site thing like… Wyrmrest Entertainment… Trainyard.
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Imagine WRA forums but as uh, that one train show thing.
This is also fair. I’m mostly worried about people being ableist for realsies.
*Punching broken quotes.*
In my view, there may be some jabbing at the storytelling lately, but I never felt more than the tiny slice of posters “hate” the game.
There are a lot of blanks to fill to arrive at that “hate” assumption.
I’d say there are probably a lot of people who feel the way the friend does, because there are a lot of people who will read a group of strangers talking and feel they’re not in “the circle” and start resenting/making assumptions. That’s a cycle of negativity very much within the lurker.
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As a mostly off-server lurker for a few years now I gotta say I do feel pretty safe, though as some others have said I’m not sure I’d use the word. Maybe ‘welcome’ or ‘at home’. The only things I wouldn’t feel safe voicing my opinions on here already get toxic fast as hell regardless of where the conversation takes place.
As someone who’s been complaining non-stop since the War of Thorns, I most certainly do not hate the game; if I did I’d stop bothering and go do something else. What I’ve found from most people who are highly critical is that we really really like and are invested in Warcraft, which is what makes it upsetting when it seems like the game’s actual creators care about it less than we do.
At the risk of turning this into a grievances thread, I complain mostly because I’ve never seen community engagement so low. This is the first expansion I’ve been having trouble getting asses into seats when it comes to getting content done, with several people just confessing on the down low they might be back for 8.1 but aren’t sure.
Maybe that’s the current story, maybe that’s the current leveling / gearing model, maybe it’s just indicative of the larger Alliance “brain drain” problem, maybe we’re just tapped out as an RP server but my friend’s list (and guild list) looks about how it does when there’s a year long content drought, not a mostly fresh expansion drop.
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I’m honestly just very disinterested in 8.0 content. I genuinely think 8.1 and beyond looks really cool, and I sincerely plan on being more active, and believe I’ll enjoy it. I just think they really flubbed up a lot in 8.0. Namely, that the expansion starts, but nothing really happens. You can do mythics, you can raid, but in the story, nothing has really happened yet. It feels like a larger version of War of the Thorns. It seems like we’re still waiting for the expansion to start.
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