Hi, Jharii. Nifty post and all!
As someone who is disappointed in Civ5 (compared to Civ4 BTS) but who nevertheless enjoys playing it, I must say that there are some attitudes from "Civ5 haters" that are rather annoying to read through. Phrases like "Firaxis made a game that appeals to dumbed-down console kiddies" may not be a direct insult to any specific person, but is obviously derogatory and condescending to anybody who happens to like the game despite its flaws. I still recall the thread a week ago seriously musing on whether people who enjoy Civ5 must be pirates (as he figured that nobody who paid good money could possibly enjoy the game... and that it was "beyond reason" that anyone prefer Civ5 to Civ4).
No matter the stance or whether they agree with my opinion or not, I strongly dislike either side painting convenient pictures and generalizations of the "other side" with such broad brush strokes. Comments like "Civ5 is a game so dumbed-down, even my 8 year old kid could beat Prince by randomly clicking stuff" or "Civ5 is good if all you care about is shiny buttons and animations" is absolutely unnecessary and remarkably insulting to people who honestly like the game but cannot beat lower difficulty levels.
(Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm ONLY talking about a small-but-flamingly-vocal minority... this is certainly not an indictment of the forum posters here as a whole -- whether they're for or against Civ5.)
I agree with a lot of this post.
I'll admit that I come from a forum where aggressive posting is the norm, and quality control is pretty strict (about spamming, off-topic, and typing without capital letters, making no-content posts), but there's little to no rules about politeness. Being outright mean-spirited and harmful to discussion will get you in trouble, but a bit of sarcasm or a quip isn't going to raise any eyebrows. In fact, you're MORE likely to get called out or made fun of if you start taking things super seriously (especially when talking about video games.
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Civ Fanatics is different and it's taken me a bit to get used to 'how things are done' here. So I have to be careful to not make sarcastic remarks, or add in jokes to my posts or else I'll get an infraction for being off-topic or spamming (even if the REST of my post was on topic). A number of other things like that. It's kind of rough, because the light-hearted or not-so-serious part, along with the sort of sparring with other posters is a lot of what I like.
But I sort of get it now, and I'll have to learn to change my style, and treat Civ Fanatics as a place for 'business casual' discussion, rather than casual.
But as Black Hole pointed out above, when people use phrases like "this game is clearly dumbed down," "it's childish, kiddie Civ," etc. It really does come across as personally insulting to people who ARE having fun playing it, and that really tempts me to come in and poke at someone. I know I should stop that though.
And as Jharii pointed out, the extreme hyperbole in some of the discussion is entirely unproductive and really does a disservice to whatever side of any issue you take. Anytime you start talking about "the worst in history" or "the death of gaming" et cetera, you've become bombastic and over-the-top. It's like when anyone starts to compare a United States president (past or present) to Adolf Hitler; you might think it's a powerful statement, but other people see you as being ludicrous.
When I see that, it says to me that you're either trolling for dramatic effect, or you're taking it way too seriously and have lost perspective. And as I said, the places where I've posted before, that sort of thing invites mocking or joking. So when I see someone making threads where they list the names of beta testers and demand those testers be banned for failing to protect us from Civ 5, it's hard to keep from making a mocking post. But I need to stop that too. Even if it's really fun.
I dunno, this is a lot of rambling, but there's my complete synopsis of why I post the way I do, I guess! Sorry for taking up that much space!
