It's usually pretty nice around here. We have several nice, enforcing Mods who do a good job keeping the crazies out. Didn't you see what happened to Zeel? But he's usually the worst it gets.

Its the times around major release when it gets tense around here. Because new releases are ALWAYS overhyped and pieces of shit, am I right fellas?

Say, who here wants a hug? I hear I give great hugs, but alas, I cannot hug myself.

darron13:
Trust me, The Escapist is probably as good as it gets as far as online gaming communities go.
At least most people here have the common sense and courtesy to be polite (most of the time) and avoid blatant uses of those words you so commonly hear spouted on Xbox Live...

I wholeheartedly disagree . Sure we may SEEM nice , but thats because the mods here are so damn good at their job ( tOo good even ). Everyone is afraid of the ban hammer . If ,hypothetically , the mods were o suddenly disappear tomorrow , this site would turn to shit faster than ...( dammit can't find and ending to my sentence , someone help me here?) . So yeah , we aren't nicer , we just got our hands tied .

Although i do encourage all of you to congraulate your opponents when playing online games . I sent a "good game" message to an opponent i beat on UMVC3 yesterday and he replied that i am a good winner .

krazykidd:

darron13:
Trust me, The Escapist is probably as good as it gets as far as online gaming communities go.
At least most people here have the common sense and courtesy to be polite (most of the time) and avoid blatant uses of those words you so commonly hear spouted on Xbox Live...

I wholeheartedly disagree . Sure we may SEEM nice , but thats because the mods here are so damn good at their job ( tOo good even ). Everyone is afraid of the ban hammer . If ,hypothetically , the mods were o suddenly disappear tomorrow , this site would turn to shit faster than ...( dammit can't find and ending to my sentence , someone help me here?) . So yeah , we aren't nicer , we just got our hands tied .

Although i do encourage all of you to congraulate your opponents when playing online games . I sent a "good game" message to an opponent i beat on UMVC3 yesterday and he replied that i am a good winner .

I don't mind that, if the mods keep the place clean then that's all good!
I'm just glad there's a place on the internet where one can discuss something like homosexuality without being called a 'fag' at least 3 times a minute.

Oh, don't get me wrong, not ALL people on Xbox Live are like that, it was just a joke. Now CALL OF DUTY players on the other hand...

RedBird:
What happened, guys?

Well, Mass Effect 3 is coming out in a couple weeks and some people like it and some people don't and THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!!!

While this site is generally more mature than your average gaming site, you can expect all hell to break lose for a few weeks (or in this case, a couple months) whenever a major title is about to be released.

Buuuuut, all is fine and dandy-doo, because you don't have to participate such threads, and for the most part the Off-Topic Discussion forum tends to be void of this.

EcksTeaSea:
Mass Effect is tearing us apart

YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA MASS EFFECT!

Quick, someone set me up for a third movie reference! :D

Mass Effect is tearing us apart

TheYellowCellPhone:
Say, who here wants a hug? I hear I give great hugs, but alas, I cannot hug myself.

Come here you *huggy-hugs*

OT: Well think of it this way, without the asshole portion of the general populace things would get really boring, really fast. Everyone needs to vent once in awhile, everyone needs someone to think "well at least I'm not an asshole like that guy" too, and everyone needs a mortal enemy.

Besides I've been plotting the demise of several people for the past few years, and if suddenly everyone on earth goes "whoops my bad I guess I was being a jerk, here let's all go out for smoothies to celebrate our new BFF status" all my plans will instantly go down the toilet, and I don't think I could handle that.

I find the Escapist is still better than other places. That's why I still stick around.
I'm sometimes a bit stubborn and I'm sorry for that. It's just that when I have a heated discussion, it's hard for me to stop. At least I'm not as bad as my father, can't have a discussion with that man... oh god I'm becoming like him.

violinist1129:
I definitely agree that the forum setup leads to more misunderstandings than in real life, although that may be the fault of text's blank tonality as much as actual rudeness.

I've always thought it would be cool to get a group of people from a decent community like this one and try a voice conversation type of thing. Even the addition of voice with a name helps remove the interpersonal barrier of the internet. I'm not exactly sure how that would be set up though. :(

I was thinking about forming or joining something of a video game version of a book club partially for that reason honestly. While I know most people would say "hey isn't that what forum's like this are for" I long for more analysis and discussion. I believe sitting face to face with people and a game in front of us all would be more conducive for staying on point and help with demonstration of an observation. Since I have a hard time trying to relate to people face to face though, that is not likely to ever really happen.

there may also be a bit of a problem with insecurity as well. Some people appear to take comments that at least seemed to me as either constructive or at least just differing as some kind of personal attack. That could be a contributing factor to the bickering and flame wars.

DigitalSushi:
Yeah it'd be lovely if we could all be nice to each other!

Its not really a phenomenon you find only on The Escapist, the internet in general tend to be quite rude and nasty to each other, which I find strange because you don't act like that in real life due to social norms of what's acceptable behaviour. Maybe its because on the internet your mother isn't here to slap your ears whenever you swear coupled with emotions being difficult to portray on text.... well apart from anger, anger seems easy for the masses to translate in text based communication. YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING MEAN RIGHT?

User was banned for this post. (For giggles) -TimeLord ;)

Banned for giggles? ummm...alrighty then.

Insanity72:
Banned for giggles? ummm...alrighty then.

If he were actually banned the post would be hidden and you wouldn't be able to quote it.

If we had social skills we wouldn't be spending so much time on internet forums. If we were intelligent we would be doing more productive things with our time. Antisocial idiots = flamewars. Besides, even arguments are preferable to getting pictures of cookies or using asterisks to indicate an action.

*Fucks off before someone gets mad*

Wish we could but there's one thing that keeps that from happening = humans..
and sadly that's us.
That's why I tend to stay here and on cracked, I like those 2 sites, people tend to be friendly and share laughs with each other.

pixiejedi:

I was thinking about forming or joining something of a video game version of a book club partially for that reason honestly. While I know most people would say "hey isn't that what forum's like this are for" I long for more analysis and discussion. I believe sitting face to face with people and a game in front of us all would be more conducive for staying on point and help with demonstration of an observation. Since I have a hard time trying to relate to people face to face though, that is not likely to ever really happen.

there may also be a bit of a problem with insecurity as well. Some people appear to take comments that at least seemed to me as either constructive or at least just differing as some kind of personal attack. That could be a contributing factor to the bickering and flame wars.

I would be glad to help try to set something like that up here. Perhaps we could pick a game every so often depending on its length and then get a skype meet-up to analyze and discuss it. After the fact, we could make a post of our "findings" for whole-community discussion. PM me if you have any other thoughts too :)

sky14kemea:

DigitalSushi:

I always use this thread as an example of how nice we can be! :D
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.299902-The-Gayscapist-Escapist-community#11928279
You'll notice some veterans and Sky, Nas and myself dicking about having fun with the newbies

Oh man, I remember that! xD Good times....

I try and be nice to everyone here, I probably use too many emoticons though. That can annoy some people.

May I ask, what is with the Blue Name? The only one I have noticed with that has been TimeLord and I am pretty sure that he only had it recently...

Unless I am completely blind.

Aidinthel:

Insanity72:
Banned for giggles? ummm...alrighty then.

If he were actually banned the post would be hidden and you wouldn't be able to quote it.

Obviously it's not a proper ban, I'm just pointing out it's quirkiness

But getting along is so boring.

As a natural born agitator, it is my job to upset the balance if things get too comfortable and correct it if it gets too chaotic.

Keeps things interesting.

I agree, we should all get along, the really sad part is that no one should have to remind us that we're out of line because we should good to each other regardless. And yes, we have all heard way too many "the cake is a lie" and "arrow in the knee" jokes.

Ah, not being able to meet face to face has its downsides. In an internet forum, we are but text and images representing our opinions. Things can get a little heated when voices are put forth without context such as vocal inflections and facial clues. Things that remind us we are dealing with other human beings.

I'm sure proximity also has something to do with it. People tend to be more respectful and tolerant when the other person can reach over and clean your clock. You are courteous because you don't know the full extent of the other's capabilities. That's a handicap (or luxury, depending on how you see it) not present on the internet. The only thing someone's capable of is typing more text, and everyone knows this. And thus we are more candid with our opinions.

If we were to meet in real life, we'd all just shake hands and go to Dairy Queen or something. Get a milkshake.

Fappy:
The sad part is that the Escapist is generally a more nice and welcoming community compared to most others on the internet. :(

What's even sadder is that plenty of them aren't.

DigitalSushi:

Fappy:

The sad part is that the Escapist is generally a more nice and welcoming community compared to most others on the internet. :(

It'd be foolish, biased and blind of me to say we are the bestest!, The Escapist community is generally pretty cool we do have our bad days (weeks!) but in general the user's here are really nice and welcoming.

I always use this thread as an example of how nice we can be! :D
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.299902-The-Gayscapist-Escapist-community#11928279
You'll notice some veterans and Sky, Nas and myself dicking about having fun with the newbies

What I don't understand is both on Online Gaming and the Net how some people get these knee jerk vitriolic reactions, you don't act like that in real life! WHY ONLINE?

Example;
*gets shot on Call of Duty: Dead Horse*, "YOU FUCKING DICK LAG SWITCHING CUNT, etc. etc."
*gets shot in a Paintball round*, "shit guys, I'm hit, I'm out"

and getting hit in Paintball can really sting, it doesn't hurt per say but it fucking smarts, and you don't start bitching to the guy!

The knee jerk reaction thing probably just goes back to the anonymity factor. Knee jerk reactions can get you in trouble in real life but nothing much happens on a game.

I'd say overall the escapist is pretty good but if you're worried about anger and vitriol then I suggest you run for the hills and hunker down, because March is coming... O god is March coming.

Well a lot of the time you'll get stick from people/mods(?) if a thread doesn't have much in the way of discussion value. There's not a whole lot of discussion in "Hey...let's have a conversation".

Although now that I've said that I suddenly envision a particular forum that's basically one giant GIANT thread where people drop in and out to talk about stuff. Hell, bring it up and see if we can't get a big massive "Conversation" thread stickied in General Discussion or something.

No, we cannot.

/thread

Since we are on a gaming website after all, I suppose this is quite relevant, and certainly makes my point better than I could manage it were I to put it into words.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/495076

We all need to do what we can, and remember that most people are willing to be nice, it's just the ones who aren't tend to be the loudest.

Personally, I always try to understand the opposite point of view in any discussion, even if I disagree with it. A little empathy tends to go a long way.

DigitalSushi:

Insanity72:

May I ask, what is with the Blue Name? The only one I have noticed with that has been TimeLord and I am pretty sure that he only had it recently...

Unless I am completely blind.

As my lovely colleague Skye stated users such in Blue are Moderators, they usually hold the title "Red Guard" on this site, I have Moderator since I have issues with the Red Guard connotations which I wont get into and Timelord is our "Time Guard" because one of the site staff was having a laugh, could be any number of Escapist Site Staff but the one's with the wicked and cheeky sense of humours are Kross, Thynameismud, PaukGruber and the the Mod Squad boss Nasrin herself.

Escapist staff are in Yellow, such as Nasrin, hit a link in her profile to see if you want.

And game developers (which you'll see turn up during March Mayhem) are in Red.

You seem to have mis-quoted me instead of Capitano Segnaposto