Large communities and jerks.

[BathorysGraveland]

Eh, I'm the opposite really. I'm a jerk yet I'm more or less quiet most of the time. A kind of shut up unless I have something I wish to say kind of person. I'm generally a loner, so that could be why. I know the kind of people you're talking about though, the Mount and Blade: Warband AU community is full of 'em.

I would imagine a lot of assholes are attracted to large communities because they aren't actually pricks in real life - they're just getting some kicks online and that is easier when there is a lot of people around to get offended etc. Then you just have people who can't help but voice their opinions.

 

[Blobpie]

The larger the community is the more jerks you are going to have over all (as there is a larger population)

Now jerks have a natural magnetism to one another, thus they all tend to clump together in the worst place possible

 

[Eric the Orange]

"Oh, look at these people, they're so mean". Grow a thicker hide and learn to argue your position. The fact that you mention Blizzard forums makes this sound like Diablo 3 haters offended you dearly.

I'm hearing something.

Um, what? I think you must be confused at what the topic is about. It's not about arguing any thing at all. It's about people who insulting others and making forums and games a more negative hateful place to be.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Um, what? I think you must be confused at what the topic is about. It's not about arguing any thing at all. It's about people who insulting others and making forums and games a more negative hateful place to be.

Okay, cool. Why do you get insulted by random idiots?

Well generally I ignore/mute them, but even then the effects can still be felt. Others who are normally fine people may have the poor sense to be goaded into falling to there level. Then the thread, game, whatever gets dragged down with them. I've seen many a match or thread turn into a flame war.

In a perfect world everyone would ignore them, but that's just not how it happens.

 

[Folji]

Communities where everyone's all nice and polite and "oh no my good fellow, I do indeed insist" are just a drag to hang around. They're probably be pretty quiet as well, since nice and polite people seem a lot less inclined to be vocal compared to the "jerks". When you don't give two shits what people think about what you're saying, not to mention when you're in a situation where they can't really touch you or stop you (like most of the internet, haha), why not deafen others with the sound of how loud you can be.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Well generally I ignore/mute them, but even then the effects can still be felt. Others who are normally fine people may have the poor sense to be goaded into falling to there level. Then the thread, game, whatever gets dragged down with them. I've seen many a match or thread turn into a flame war.

In a perfect world everyone would ignore them, but that's just not how it happens.

It had been a little while since I first posted here and I forgot. This isn't exactly what you were talking about in the OP. You were specifically talking about whining and bitching and how you can't stand it, that's where my original comment came from. Now you're talking about flame wars and insults. I don't find this a topic really worth talking about.

So, people are pricks. Learn to deal with them, both emotionally and intellectually, and stop turning this into a bigger problem than it should be, because it's one of those things that's only as big as you make it.

First off The "whining and bitching" is usually part of the insulting. like for example in a multi-player game the kind of person complains over every little mistake is also the person who will insult them for making the mistakes.

Second, the "point" of this topic was to see if people thought that the increase of these people in larger communities was due to there simply being a higher population or do some communities actually have a higher ratio of people like this. Not what should be done about people like that.

Third, if you feel this thread has no point why did you comment in the first place.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I'm not sure if size is a cause or an effect. Communities around stuff like literature, RTW historical realism mods, roguelikes, and so on seem to be much friendlier. It might be because they are smaller, but I suspect it's more a function of the sort of person who likes that sort of thing.

 

[shrekfan246]

I think these "jerks" are just attracted to anywhere with a form of competition.

Well that may explain MobA games and XBL, but It doesn't explain Blizzard fan forums.

Well, you see, the thing about the Blizzard "fanboys" is that the majority of them are the elitist/purist type who believe that WoW has been going downhill ever since Burning Crusade.
(Protip: 40-man raiding in Classic WoW sucked. Only one class could actually tank, only one class could actually heal, paladins were used for little more than buffing, and half of the damage classes couldn't damage enough. That's not even counting the number of times you could actually get 40 people from the same guild online all at once, assuming you're not in a massive guild that was almost singularly dedicated to raiding, or the number of times you'd need to PUG half the raid and end up wiping the entire night because the people you picked up didn't know what to do.)

Now, my personal feelings about the game aside, most of these people get outraged every time a new content patch is brought up or game changes are addressed, because change is a very bad thing, you know. Cries of things like "RUINED 4EVAR!!!" and "Worst thing to happen since WotLK LOL" are not all that uncommon. People are saying that WoW is jumping the shark by including pandas as a playable race - Despite them having had anthropomorphic cows and blue space goats and reanimated corpses along with the classic two styles of elves, humans, orcs, trolls, gnomes, dwarves, etc. for years and years.

They also seem to have forgotten that Starcraft II was pretty overwhelmingly received positively, short of the lack of LAN play (Was there any outrage over being locked out of the skirmish mode if you weren't connected to Battle.net? I can't remember). Again, my personal feelings aside (I'm not a huge fan of the RTS genre), SCII was an incredibly well-put-together game, with a computer AI that has a learning curve like trying to run up a solid brick wall with your head.

But they're owned by Activision, so obviously it's impossible that they could ever release anything more than mediocre ever again, right? Diablo III is obviously going to suck, because Diablo I&II were some of the most lauded dungeon crawlers ever created!

But it requires a constant online connection, it must be spawned by the devil himself! Do I think you should be allowed to play the single-player campaign or whatever it will be even while you're not connected? Yeah, sure, but I'm not going to get outraged over the same DRM they've been using for years. It's not like it has that much of an impact on my life - if I can't play Diablo III I'll play something else until I can again if I really want to that badly.

It has an optional Auction House for real-money transactions, how dare they! This isn't a F2P game! I haven't really been paying any attention to the complaints over the last few months, so I don't know if it's the same as it was when the AH was first announced or if they've changed it by now, but my understanding of it was that it was a completely optional addition that allowed players to put gear they found in the game up for sale to other players who might want it. I could be wrong, but I assume that means that it would have little-to-no effect on anyone who doesn't wish to participate in that particular part of the game. They're not forcing you to buy anything.

Er. . . am I still on-topic? I don't know, I'll stop now. I really think I just need to take a break from the internet, all of the hatred and complaining is really just making me tired, and it's the internet so it never ends.

Captcha: (After three reloads): "know your rights" - I do, Captcha. That's why I made you reload away from those stupid car ads.