A lack of any REAL game discussion on the escapist.

[DPeteD]

So I?ve been regularly reading the escapist for a few years now and while the escapist has a good deal of content that brings me back, I?ve noticed that amongst the community there?s often a lack of proper game discussion amongst the forums and comments and such, were it quite often just boils down to butthurt complaining, rageing at the latest releases (instead of suggesting other games to play) and groupthink, and if not that its endless "what did you think of this game" ad infinitum.

Now this could be down to the way the escapist is structured (It?s difficult to get a discussion going amongst a small group of people as all your posts are lost amongst other comments, I prefer the way reddits threads are done, much more easy to get a discussion going) or it could be a vocal minority ruining it for others, that happens anywhere in life.

Now don?t get me wrong, I?m not leaving the escapist anytime soon, but I just wanted to see if others had the same opinion and instead of complaining, is there any way we could fix it?
(like ignoring therds with sensationalist titles)

And for goodness sake we don?t need a flame war and if you?re not going to contribute to the discussion you don?t need to say anything at all, now... make your voice heard Escapist.

Edit: So I created a new user group, the game lounge, for anyone that feels similar (or doesn?t) to how I do about this topic, feel free to join, just make sure to be polite and contribute in any way you can and keep things at a relatively high level of quality.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Sorry, when you say "discussion", is it a different kind of discussion to what the word generally means? It's an open forum, people talk about what they like. Start some insightful topics yourself.


People talk about what interests them at the moment, if they're interested in talking about how the new book for Mass Effect 3 sucks, how they don't want any new Halo releases or the usual "here's why I like MW3/BF3 instead of BF3/MW3 despite my not having played both games" that's absolutely fine unless it falls outside of the code of conduct.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I don't know I've had some decent discussions on here otherwise I wouldn't have stuck around. The only complaint I would have is that threads tend to repeat a lot because the front page moves so fast.

 

[PotluckBrigand]

Yeah I would disagree with you, I'm afraid. There are plenty of things BESIDES games that people here talk about, sure, but I have never been left wanting for gaming content.

But, then, I'm a relative newblood, and I think this post JUST puts me at 50 total posts, so my experience is limited.

All told, I think it strikes a good balance, and I've actually found the majority of people here to be more like actual PEOPLE than in other places on this vast, filthy Internet of ours.

 

[DPeteD]

Sorry, when you say "discussion", is it a different kind of discussion to what the word generally means? It's an open forum, people talk about what they like. Start some insightful topics yourself.


People talk about what interests them at the moment, if they're interested in talking about how the new book for Mass Effect 3 sucks, how they don't want any new Halo releases or the usual "here's why I like MW3/BF3 instead of BF3/MW3 despite my not having played both games" that's absolutely fine unless it falls outside of the code of conduct.

I?m fine with people talking about what they like but my problem is that it?s generally the same few topics always coming to the same tired conclusions, never branching out, rarely (but not never) getting into the nitty gritty details, not often going against popular opinion on the site and nearly always on the much more main stream titles, there?s a plethora of games out there if you?re willing to look a bit harder.
For example the lack of know stealth games is often bemoaned and yet people never mention sites like Sneaky bastards, a site dedicated to the genre of stealth games.

My point is that we could do so much more, but thanks for weighing in, I do release that this is all about opinions.
And here?s the URL for the stealth game site I mentioned gives it a try.
http://sneakybastards.net/shadesofgrey/inheritance-of-a-thief/

 

[DPeteD]

Yeah I would disagree with you, I'm afraid. There are plenty of things BESIDES games that people here talk about, sure, but I have never been left wanting for gaming content.

But, then, I'm a relative newblood, and I think this post JUST puts me at 50 total posts, so my experience is limited.

All told, I think it strikes a good balance, and I've actually found the majority of people here to be more like actual PEOPLE than in other places on this vast, filthy Internet of ours.

I find the non-gaming content to be even worse, so many posts are about people complain on how they recently lost their faith in humanity or how they met the latest idiotic person (although those can be funny too), as well as suffering from many problems the gaming content does too, but any way, were talking about videogame discussion on the escapist as this is a gaming site.

Also welcome to the escapist new blood, report down the hall for your paddling ritual.

 

[LilithSlave]

I would at least agree that I don't find the video game discussion here all that fantastic.

Of course, a lot of that comes down to my subjective taste. The funny thing is, I don't indeed hear too much discussion on video games as people... whatever it is we talk about.

Of course, all that matters to me is that people make a thread about a game I actually care about.

Spoiler

Really, it's amazing, though. I probably care about or at least have some interest in about %75. And yet how often I can come to the video game section here and not see a single video game topic that interests me on page 1.

 

[BaronIveagh]

LOL I hate to say it, but yes, any serious discussion of videogames tends to be drown out rather rapidly by derpery or people wanting to chat about whatever popular trend is crossing their minds at the time.

This could be solved by better structure of the forums.

 

[Smooth Operator]

There is a lot of discussion it's just very fragmented due to the size of this community, when 100+ people comment on a topic you really can't get much of a two way dialogue.

 

[DPeteD]

LOL I hate to say it, but yes, any serious discussion of videogames tends to be drown out rather rapidly by derpery or people wanting to chat about whatever popular trend is crossing their minds at the time.

This could be solved by better structure of the forums.

Tell me though, how would you change the structure of the forums? Like I said in my original post I enjoy the way reddit does it, were you respond to someone and the response appears below that post regardless of the amount of other comments below that one, although reddits isn?t perfect as things tend to get all clustered and it?s hard to tell the difference between individual threads.

 

[DPeteD]

There is a lot of discussion it's just very fragmented due to the size of this community, when 100+ people comment on a topic you really can't get much of a two way dialogue.

Well that falls under my point about the structure of the site, in which case something should be done about it, although I am aware a major site redesign like that isn?t going to happen anytime soon, ah well.

And yes I am going to respond to as many people as possible.

 

[Hyper-space]

LOL I hate to say it, but yes, any serious discussion of videogames tends to be drown out rather rapidly by derpery or people wanting to chat about whatever popular trend is crossing their minds at the time.

This could be solved by better structure of the forums.

Tell me though, how would you change the structure of the forums? Like I said in my original post I enjoy the way reddit does it, were you respond to someone and the response appears below that post regardless of the amount of other comments below that one, although reddits isn?t perfect as things tend to get all clustered and it?s hard to tell the difference between individual threads.

The Escapist is actually a bit better than most forums when it comes to games discussions, its just that (as with everything) only about 10% of it is actually good.

Believe me, the Escapist is like a refuge in the ocean of the internet. You just have to venture outside of it sometimes to get a better view of how good it actually is (if you want to see the worst that the internet has to offer in gaming discusssions, go to 4chan.org/v/).

 

[BaronIveagh]

I'd divide up the 'Gaming' section a little more, maybe by genre and then have a 'general' one for everything else.

 

[Erttheking]

I kind of agree with what you say, it seems like it's all about tearing things apart nowadays.

 

[DPeteD]

LOL I hate to say it, but yes, any serious discussion of videogames tends to be drown out rather rapidly by derpery or people wanting to chat about whatever popular trend is crossing their minds at the time.

This could be solved by better structure of the forums.

Tell me though, how would you change the structure of the forums? Like I said in my original post I enjoy the way reddit does it, were you respond to someone and the response appears below that post regardless of the amount of other comments below that one, although reddits isn?t perfect as things tend to get all clustered and it?s hard to tell the difference between individual threads.

The Escapist is actually a bit better than most forums when it comes to games discussions, its just that (as with everything) only about 10% of it is actually good.

Believe me, the Escapist is like a refuge in the ocean of the internet. You just have to venture outside of it sometimes to get a better view of how good it actually is (if you want to see the worst that the internet has to offer in gaming discusssions, go to 4chan.org/v/).

You may be right about that, and I have seen the worst the internet has to offer, in some ways worse than 4chan's /v/ and /b/ (but not all of 4chan is so bad, just most of it) but we can make things better we shouldn?t just go, hey is better than most let?s leave it at that.
Also could someone tell me how to hide the contents of a quote box unless you click on it, I hate it when I make my posts too big.

 

[scorptatious]

I agree.

Over the past few months I've noticed this forum is usually almost nothing but complaining about how bad FPS's are, how terrible EA is, and nitpick about everything that's wrong with games like Skyrim.

I've tried to post a few topics focusing on particular games like ICO and it's story connections to Shadow of the Colossus. Or Dark Souls and whether or not it was harder than Demon's Souls to someone. Unfortunately, those threads die off pretty quickly in my experience.

Don't get me wrong though, there is the occasional discussion I find interesting. But if I need to have a more focused discussion about the games I enjoy, I'd frequent a forum dedicated to said games. That or an Escapist Group.

 

[dyre]

What do you mean, "REAL" discussion? Like, on whether gaming's art or not? You can only have those discussions so many times. It's expected that these forums concentrate on the latest events, whether it be Bioware allegedly ruining Mass Effect or SOPA being evil.

Also, if you want to see more threads on less popular titles, that's nice, but remember those threads, by nature, attract less attention because most people haven't played or heard of those games.

 

[geK0]

I find myself getting stuck in more ethical debates than actual game discussion...... that's probably more my fault than anyone's.

 

[Scrustle]

Yeah I see what you mean. Occasionally you get the odd enlightened discussion going on here but usually it's people complaining about stuff they hate. The Extra Credit's own forums are a bit better for serious discussion of the type they stir up in their episodes, but they are pretty quiet. Also there's so many categories on there that some of them are pretty much identical for all intensive purposes.