Retiring from gaming forums now ?

[Lemon Zing]

I will come in and say a quick hello at Christmas on a few select forums. But other than that, I won't be bothering with forums for video games talk anymore.

There's way too many shills and casuals floating around like a bad smell on forums anyway. Especially with Resident Evil. Oh my God. I gave it up for the ghost with them, and I feel relieved. Seriously...

But the biggest gripe I have, is that message boards are really always so inactive. It is a bygone era now, with how social media now has groups in place for any topic, and I think that's where people hang out. Lately, it feels more and more like you're just wasting time, needlessly talking to yourself, because people are either not online using the same forums any longer, or they just aren't interested in your opinions.

However, Facebook lacks anonymity. It's worse than Twitter, in fact. And Facebook doesn't really allow the use of pseudonyms due to their policy. Or maybe you can use a nickname, but they still want your real name displayed, with the alias showing up in brackets next to it. And nope. No can do.

But yeah. Resident Evil fanboys. What can I say about them? You can provide more than enough proof (for years, mind you) that Capcom rips off other games, and copies ideas from famous horror movies. Do they care? Nope.

Do cash grab remakes with cut content matter at all to these so-called fans? Nope. Does doing lame Netflix shows with the race of the characters changed, and the plot being ridiculed, remotely matter? Nope. Not really.

Although I find in general, nobody liked the series with Lance Reddick anyhow, bar maybe a small handful of subscribers on Netflix who just watched it to have something to watch, and don't know anything about the lore in any case. So that's not exactly a point worth making.

But um, yeah. They're an awkward bunch. I've been playing the series since I was 13, and I'm nearly 37. It's simply not for me anymore.

The franchise is absolutely blooming convoluted as well, with how obscure the storylines are these days, and it's becoming almost supernatural. A far cry from those early games which were scientific. It's like Capcom just makes up any nonsense they can to milk it further, and copy other people's ideas. And since I know this already, I see no point in caring. Because at the end of the day, these gaming giants absolutely don't care about you, no matter what they say. Just like the celebrities people worship, don't care about their fans either.

You give them money, and that's where the connection ends.

 

[Slime_Punk]

So, is there anything you actually enjoy?

 

[Misery]

But the biggest gripe I have, is that message boards are really always so inactive. It is a bygone era now, with how social media now has groups in place for any topic, and I think that's where people hang out. Lately, it feels more and more like you're just wasting time, needlessly talking to yourself, because people are either not online using the same forums any longer, or they just aren't interested in your opinions.

Yeah, I can sympathize with this one.

Used to hang out on specific gaming forums myself. Some were better than others, a couple of them held very long-term ramifications for me.

One in particular was related to an indie studio, the one that finally allowed me to achieve a childhood dream (doing some real game-dev work), and I found out only a week ago that their forum actually shut down (I'd not been there in like a year, mostly due to depression). Used to moderate there, too. It was not a happy discovery.

And all of this because of places like Reddit taking over. And Reddit is... well, I dont bother with that. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like any gaming section on there ends up being just this messy pile of memes and such... the only one I ever found even a bit useful was for Factorio. And I'm old-fashioned when it comes to things that resemble forums. Part of why I'm on this site.

But yeah. Resident Evil fanboys. What can I say about them? You can provide more than enough proof (for years, mind you) that Capcom rips off other games, and copies ideas from famous horror movies. Do they care? Nope.

Welcome to mainstream gaming. It aint just RE, most of the gaming community at large is like that. Give them something shiny enough, something that has TEH GRAFIX and some big name behind it, and they'll eat it up regardless of anything else.

And when you've got a series that's gone on as ridiculously long as RE has, well... eventually it's gonna mutate. It's inevitable, really. Those in charge typically dont *really* want to try something new... as in, make a genuinely new game in a genuinely new IP... because that's "risky" in terms of money. But they also reach a point where it seems like the usual IP is becoming stale, and "stale" isnt good for profit either... so they take it and revamp it, and it mutates. Seen it a million times. It can be either story-related, or gameplay, or both. RE seems to have gone with both.

But also Capcom is one of the more unpleasant companies. They arent as bad as Konami (hardly anyone is, really) but still, as with most of these publishers they do not and never really did care about any of their products. To the ones in charge, it's merely business, and that's where their interest ends.


Here's the question though: have you tried sinking your teeth into other things? The horror genre is a huge one, as gaming goes. There's all sorts of things to find. You arent going to find many things like the older RE games... those are, well, old, and definitely show their age a bit... but you can spot their influence in many things, since they were so iconic.

 

[Lemon Zing]

So, is there anything you actually enjoy?

The Last of Us.

Not overrated. Not a movie game. Subjective...

 

[tkcartoonist]

All video games take from something else. Even the really old games did that. Old school video games (pre-PS1) would often take outside melodies for their music (E.G. Yuzo Koshiro lifted Enigma's "Sadeness Part 1" for the Streets of Rage theme). Elements of Sonic the Hedgehog people take for granted now came from Dragon Ball. There are more examples I could list, but I could go on forever. I don't let those things take away my enjoyment of a game.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I know that, but it's definitely evident in every new RE game that they copy things that was released just a few years prior.

I actually noticed it because other YouTubers briefly mentioned this, minus the details. But then I began to notice it myself, and having never played or seen footage of the games at the time, I started an investigation.

Some website I used as a source even started to make a video I linked to a lot, private.

In Gears of War 3, you're in a squadron running around fighting tall ogres, called the Locust. In RE6, you have a team, with one optional co-op sidekick, in Chris Redfield's campaign.

The ogres in RE6 look the same, and so does the areas you explore. They also have it to where you can play around on a kid's slide in a park. So the video was a comparison video about the characters enjoying playing on the shoot.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 has the same type of boss fight as the Bloater, where you, a young girl and one other person is in a room fighting a large thing called a Vulcanblubber. Basically, it's the "Bloater" of the game, that can throw fire at a distance like how the Bloaters use spores to attack you if you're not standing close to them. There are even running infected people that attack you at the same time, and you can use furniture to duck behind. After you kill it, you go through a window on the left side of the room. But that's what Joel, Ellie and Bill did as well.

They also included a dam section, a winter section where you hunt white rabbits while separated from the main character, and there's a girl immune to a virus. The game has the same crafting system, same work bench for doing upgrades, and there's the ability to see enemies through the walls, which wasn't in any previous RE game. They appear to be like brown smoke. So they certainly ripped off Naughty Dog...

Last but not least, Resident Evil Village has a similar house to the one in P.T. and a mannequin can follow you around in the new DLC they released recently. And the Silent Hill games feature mannequins that patrol the corridors. The only difference is that Rosemary Winters is in this world because she's connected to a machine set up by the main antagonist, so she's in a place that feels supernatural, but it's in her mind. But it's definitely a rip off.

 

[Lemon Zing]

Do you think I'm better off giving up forums now?

The reason I ask this is because I'm 37 and just don't like them much any longer. It seems I've actually spent a considerable amount of time on them detrimentally claiming they're not busy enough anymore. On YouTube, it's more or less the same. They watch other people. Not me.

Most gaming forums for example are dead. The only active ones left online are always full of bickering, and shills are present. I don't get anywhere with dating sites either. I think they are scam sites.

I seen someone being attacked in a thread I posted on GameFAQs. The topic is now 38 pages in and they're just saying things to a certain user. I reckon they've got some beef with this guy, but I don't go on forums to see off topic arguing. But when I said the RE2 remake had the crows removed, they just said, "6 little birds in a hallway for a cheap scare doesn't matter" (when it kind of should, because people who are true fans will notice when things are gone).

Another issue is that I myself get abused by this man in Australia. He's spamming on an anxiety forum because the people that ran it have not visited it in years, and it looks to me as if the admin isn't even an admin anymore. Sadly, it's not one of those lousy InvisionFree or Tapatalk forums, so you have to find out the host to make a report, but they use Cloudflare to hide their hosting details. But after sending off a gazillion reports that went unanswered, I was finally provided the name of their host, so I emailed them. They didn't know what I was referring to.

Somebody I was talking to today who is a social worker, thinks it would be a better idea for me to adopt a whole new identity online, and go to all new forums. He reckons I wouldn't be able to quit contributing on them completely, because if you get lonely, there's nobody to talk to in person. Because I explained how that Australian guy made a list of my aliases after I changed the names of the accounts I already had, like on here for example. He has also attempted to impersonate me by flooding a forum with spam with the name I usually go by, because on that forum, I had registered a different name. And I see that when you look up the name on Google, his crap appears near the top, with my name, my pictures, and address mass posted on the site.

I did report the guy to the police in Australia, but they said they cannot arrest him because of their jurisdiction. But why not?

So do you think I should just start over again? To be honest, I don't think this complaining I do about the Resident EVil games is very productive. They don't care anyway. I've noticed they are inclined to get funny when I say things about the newer games.

 

[Shamar]

When you are swimming and discover the water s polluted, you leave. When you find yourself in an area with dangerous fumes, you leave. If you are in a restaurant and discover the food is contaminated, you leave. If you are in a forum that becomes toxic and abusive, you stay. Why is that?

I can tell you. The need to belong and the need to not be alone are very powerful drives. I have been involved with forums since the days of Compuserve and the Commodore 64 (probably half of you have never heard of them). I have left many forums which became abusive or useless, and right now participate in only two (this and Quora). Note that I have been a member of Autism Forums for five years now, and I still participate. That tells us something about this forum.

Right now I am in a toxic marriage. She is offensive, insulting, complaining, and demanding. The most intimate we have been in the past 10 years is when she wakes me up at 6:00 AM and demands I scratch her back, or I nudge her when she starts snoring. Why do I stay? Because if I leave, I will be completely alone, and unable to find a relationship with another person. And being alone is worse than what I am now living. That tells us something about me. What am I going to do? I don't know, but unless things get a lot worse, I will be staying with her.

You are going to have to make a decision about staying with abusive forums or not. There are lots of forums out there, keep searching.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I know how you feel.

A woman once used me to get her an iPod and a PlayStation 3. This was my first girlfriend. When I found her in 2012, I hadn't seen her since 2005.

Paying for the company of women doesn't really do much for me. I know there's sites where you can tip them for their content, but it's just putting money down the drain. They only see these men as suckers.

 

[Rodafina]

I think willingly joining a forum serves the purpose of entertainment, enlightenment, or finding some sort of human support over the computer. If you are not getting any of these things or any other benefits from it, why would you continue? Then again, if there are challenges that you want to overcome that you can do so by being part of a forum, then maybe it is worth it to work through the issues that you are having.

There are enough challenges in life that we have no control over whether we face them or not. Forum trouble seems like a challenge that you could choose whether you want to face it or not.

 

[Lemon Zing]

I think the reason I spend so much time online is because I don't have any association with people offline. That's what I want, but having been kicked down by people, and treated like dirt by social services, my life has been awful for years. Plus, I don't think people would find me to be very normal or interesting.

My mother had a stroke not too long ago. She had another one in September. I think she had a stroke or a heart attack in March last year too. That's when the NHS staff had to put her on dialysis. She's got an aortic aneurysm too, but they cannot operate on her because of her health being so bad.

This agoraphobia has been weighing me down too. There's places I can't go to, just because it's wide open. This seems to be a persistent problem. I didn't have these feelings when I was a kid. But it looks as if the fear is here to stay.

I'm not able to do anything about what's on my record either. No lawyer wants to know. And if you knew how many people I called about what happened with the court and those former support workers I had issues with, you would understand my situation is feutile.

Missing out on all those movie parts too really made me feel weak, because I kept getting people talking about me to soil my name, and then I was the one who got in trouble over it by taken their bait. That's when I accepted, the odds are too stacked against me. I would be as well to be doing nothing.

I'm not keen on the attitude of women today either, so I don't have the foggiest idea how to find a woman like myself for a relationship. Any woman I message on these sites about you probably know what, seem to have an ego higher than the Himalayas.

 

[Angular Chap]

This sounds like some pretty serious stuff, @Orange Chocolate Crunch. You are being doxxed, stalked, impersonated and attacked. No doubts there. This person is a security risk to you. I would say yes, please take steps to protect yourself, adopt a new identity and start over, to protect your personal security and wellbeing from this level of targeted attack.

It might be a difficult thing to do, putting your loneliness to one side in the mean time to focus on your short term security right now but give it some time. See if this person is closer to a long term stalker who has latched onto you, or a shorter term troll who is upset that you insulted their precious favourite video game series and will get bored if you ignore them. Shut things down for now and slowly and carefully ease back into posting.

 

[Lemon Zing]

He denies he's Australian. But yes. That's great advice.