Hi everyone. It's me, Finale Fireworker. You may remember me for making threads with long OPs hardly anyone reads. Let's continue that tradition together. Please do not use this thread to air your grievances about the old forum. Such points of contention could not be more against what I am asking for herein.
The inception of this forum was a momentous opportunity to reflect on ourselves as netizens, and as we resolved to preserve the essential qualities of our longstanding community, we also acknowledged our potential to improve. The first few weeks of this forum were defined by our collective interest in being more articulate in our emotions, taking things seriously while also treating them with care, and not falling victim to the habits and pratfalls of our predecessor forum. I think most of us here really cared about creating a community that was more welcoming, less judgmental, and was able to regain our ground as an influential hub of the hobby by releasing our deathgrip on all things negative. After all, we are on this forum and contribute to its existence because we love video games – not because we hate them.
And for the most part, I think we have done well at this. We make positive threads with positive messages. We make threads that cherish the medium that brings us here. And when we’re critical, we attempt to be so thoughtfully. Most of the threads that attempt to spotlight issues within our hobby do so with detailed OPs and provide room for disagreement. I’ve liked that. This is what makes this place feel lighter, brighter, and like home.
But Nothere’s prescient meltdown thread was foreboding to me. I am not averse to a fan frenzy – it’s the nature of any enthusiast forum. A big reveal or a major launch or a significant controversy is always going to dominate discussion. These “meltdowns” cannot be avoided and aren’t inherently bad online events. But I think the danger of these meltdowns is how dramatically they predispose the community to overreaction and hyperbole. It normalizes the stress that these subjects incite. It spills into other threads, endures indefinitely, and then animosity and antagonism become common.
In my first thread on the forum, something I attempted broach to members was mitigating our inclination to exaggerate. When we are on full blast all the time, it affects the way we talk to each other. It makes everything either the best or the worst thing that's ever happened and it disintegrates the possibility for nuance. Members, including myself, mirror and replicate the energy of the threads they participate in. This is how dogpiling happens. This is how circular threads of enormous volume dominate the front page. This predisposes us to more and more meltdowns. This turns the whole forum into a ticking time bomb providing only brief respite between detonations.
Right now, our community is being shaped by the controversy surrounding Battlefront II and EA’s implementation of lootboxes. This was our first meltdown. And, truth be told, it’s not a bad meltdown to have. 2017 is the Year of the Lootbox. It is a time where the industry is experimenting with how far microtransactions and games as a service can go. These experiments are bound to incite consumer response, and that response is important, because it will affect the direction of future games. I don't make light of this at all. What is currently happening is an industrial conversation between creators and consumers and this is inevitable and vital to the survival of any industry.
But it is also a test.
I am not what anyone would call a gentle poster. I am extremely political. My relationship with the games I love are personality defining. Being part of this forum is less of a routine of casual visitation and more an act of lifestyle. I have no right to cast stones at people for being heated because I am a heated poster too. This thread isn’t a reminder for a specific subset of people. This thread isn’t a preachy proclamation about how other people need to behave differently. This thread is for me too. It's for all of us.
Eventually, Battlefront II is going to launch. People are going to buy it, play it, and probably like it. People will want to talk about it and make community threads and not be criticized or lambasted for enjoying it. EA is going to make other video games. Other video games will have microtransactions and lootboxes. What is important is that we move forward without letting our baggage be cumulative. We cannot enter every thread about these subjects or these companies bearing the grudge of every previous slight.
If we are going to survive as a fresh community that does not replicate the mistakes of its forerunner, we have to learn to let go. We have to show some restraint. We have to allow room for nuance.
If we cannot do this, we will have more and more meltdowns. These meltdowns will define us and affect how the industry and other players perceive us. We will be infamous for our inability to handle certain topics, we will be ridiculed for our extremity, and we will lose the plot of why we all came here. I am not recommending that people care less – we are members of this forum because we care about games a lot. But we must reduce the venom in our discourse. We must be conscious of what we contribute to, and how to counteract, one of gaming’s most infamous buzzwords: toxicity.
I ask this community to please be aware of what we’re contributing to. All of our posts are building blocks. They are energy into the zeitgeist of gaming. We shape and morph and reconfigure our forum with tens of thousands of prodding fingers every day. This place is a living and breathing beast that should not contribute to the stereotypes and commonalities that poison our hobby. Do not succumb to the temptations of old habits. Learn to let go, let incidents be isolated, and do not burden yourself or the community with the residue of acrimony.
Post about what you love and treat your fellow member with compassion.
Don’t be a caricature.
Be a Resettler.
Solidarity, 1932 by Kathe Kollwitz. (recolored Purple) Expressionism.
The inception of this forum was a momentous opportunity to reflect on ourselves as netizens, and as we resolved to preserve the essential qualities of our longstanding community, we also acknowledged our potential to improve. The first few weeks of this forum were defined by our collective interest in being more articulate in our emotions, taking things seriously while also treating them with care, and not falling victim to the habits and pratfalls of our predecessor forum. I think most of us here really cared about creating a community that was more welcoming, less judgmental, and was able to regain our ground as an influential hub of the hobby by releasing our deathgrip on all things negative. After all, we are on this forum and contribute to its existence because we love video games – not because we hate them.
And for the most part, I think we have done well at this. We make positive threads with positive messages. We make threads that cherish the medium that brings us here. And when we’re critical, we attempt to be so thoughtfully. Most of the threads that attempt to spotlight issues within our hobby do so with detailed OPs and provide room for disagreement. I’ve liked that. This is what makes this place feel lighter, brighter, and like home.
But Nothere’s prescient meltdown thread was foreboding to me. I am not averse to a fan frenzy – it’s the nature of any enthusiast forum. A big reveal or a major launch or a significant controversy is always going to dominate discussion. These “meltdowns” cannot be avoided and aren’t inherently bad online events. But I think the danger of these meltdowns is how dramatically they predispose the community to overreaction and hyperbole. It normalizes the stress that these subjects incite. It spills into other threads, endures indefinitely, and then animosity and antagonism become common.
In my first thread on the forum, something I attempted broach to members was mitigating our inclination to exaggerate. When we are on full blast all the time, it affects the way we talk to each other. It makes everything either the best or the worst thing that's ever happened and it disintegrates the possibility for nuance. Members, including myself, mirror and replicate the energy of the threads they participate in. This is how dogpiling happens. This is how circular threads of enormous volume dominate the front page. This predisposes us to more and more meltdowns. This turns the whole forum into a ticking time bomb providing only brief respite between detonations.
Right now, our community is being shaped by the controversy surrounding Battlefront II and EA’s implementation of lootboxes. This was our first meltdown. And, truth be told, it’s not a bad meltdown to have. 2017 is the Year of the Lootbox. It is a time where the industry is experimenting with how far microtransactions and games as a service can go. These experiments are bound to incite consumer response, and that response is important, because it will affect the direction of future games. I don't make light of this at all. What is currently happening is an industrial conversation between creators and consumers and this is inevitable and vital to the survival of any industry.
But it is also a test.
I am not what anyone would call a gentle poster. I am extremely political. My relationship with the games I love are personality defining. Being part of this forum is less of a routine of casual visitation and more an act of lifestyle. I have no right to cast stones at people for being heated because I am a heated poster too. This thread isn’t a reminder for a specific subset of people. This thread isn’t a preachy proclamation about how other people need to behave differently. This thread is for me too. It's for all of us.
Eventually, Battlefront II is going to launch. People are going to buy it, play it, and probably like it. People will want to talk about it and make community threads and not be criticized or lambasted for enjoying it. EA is going to make other video games. Other video games will have microtransactions and lootboxes. What is important is that we move forward without letting our baggage be cumulative. We cannot enter every thread about these subjects or these companies bearing the grudge of every previous slight.
If we are going to survive as a fresh community that does not replicate the mistakes of its forerunner, we have to learn to let go. We have to show some restraint. We have to allow room for nuance.
If we cannot do this, we will have more and more meltdowns. These meltdowns will define us and affect how the industry and other players perceive us. We will be infamous for our inability to handle certain topics, we will be ridiculed for our extremity, and we will lose the plot of why we all came here. I am not recommending that people care less – we are members of this forum because we care about games a lot. But we must reduce the venom in our discourse. We must be conscious of what we contribute to, and how to counteract, one of gaming’s most infamous buzzwords: toxicity.
I ask this community to please be aware of what we’re contributing to. All of our posts are building blocks. They are energy into the zeitgeist of gaming. We shape and morph and reconfigure our forum with tens of thousands of prodding fingers every day. This place is a living and breathing beast that should not contribute to the stereotypes and commonalities that poison our hobby. Do not succumb to the temptations of old habits. Learn to let go, let incidents be isolated, and do not burden yourself or the community with the residue of acrimony.
Post about what you love and treat your fellow member with compassion.
Don’t be a caricature.
Be a Resettler.
Solidarity, 1932 by Kathe Kollwitz. (recolored Purple) Expressionism.
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