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Thoughts On The Sonic Fanbase...


CanofEpicSauce

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Yeah, I'm so cool for noticing how a whole forum acted like babies throughout the whole production and release of Sonic 4 episode 1. While this forum did the same, it wasn't as bad.

I'm a mod in both places. I disagree. It was stupid everywhere. Everywhere.'

EDIT: Oh man, you guys. Bitching on the Internet about Sonic existed before the first Sonic game was even released. This was found in the 1990 Usenet room, "rec.games.video:"

>Sonic, the Hedgehog, Action, SEGA

>[sEGA's answer to Mario and Bonk]

Actually I think SEGA already has SEVERAL answers to Mario and Bonk...

and their names are Shinobi, Wonder Boy, Alex Kidd, and Space Harrier...

There are a bunch of people in this old thread saying the same thing. "SEGA doesn't need a new mascot. Those games are fine. Why are they making this 'Sonic the Hedgehog?'"

Nothing has changed since 1990. It's just more widespread thanks to the amount of blogs, forums, etc. If you guys still don't get it that the fanbase was never "great," I can keep pulling these rec.games.video arguments all damn day.

Edited by Slingerland
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"Exact same thing"? You mean... talk to someone?

No, I mean act in a condensending manner. Let's not go and twist words here.

It's not Brad's problem and certainly not my own if someone perceives a firm, no-bullshit tone as "condescending."

Well, now you've gone and made it your problem, as well as me for getting involved myself.

And it really doesn't make what you said look anything worth taking seriously to other people if you flat out call someone retarded and then proceed to rage on them about it.

Frankly, there's a big difference between a "firm, no-bullshit" tone and a "belittling" tone, even if you manage to mix the two together.

It also doesn't make his point even remotely valid.

I thought his point was just on the tone the topic was sinking towards, not on who's been around longer to know where the split occured. And he's made it clear that he doesn't know too much on it either with him getting into the forum when Sonic 06 made any of the problems in the past even worse.

The only thing "extreme" about my post was taking his snarky, arrogant attitude and slapping him right back in the face with it. Even then, I wouldn't call it "extreme" as much as "well-deserved."

The problem here is that he wasn't being arrogant at first when he said that. It was sarcastic, but not arrogant. And frankly, your response wasn't anything "well-deserved".

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonic
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No, I mean act in a condensending manner. Let's not go and twist words here.

I'm not acting superior to Inferno in any way nor presenting myself as such. That seems to be your interpretation of what I said, which I can't change, but that doesn't mean I was being condescending. Rash and insulting, absolutely, but not condescending. I only acted rash and insulting because that's how his comment appeared to me and to other people I was discussing this thread with privately. I replied on that basis. He hasn't shown through further conversation that he has any intentions of acting differently, so there's not much else I can do about that.

Well it really doesn't make what you said look anything worth taking seriously to other people if you flat out call someone retarded and then proceed to rage on them about it.

Style over substance. It's not my fault if people deny themselves crucial information in a conversation just because they don't like how I say it. That's not my problem--it's yours.

You can hinge on fallacies all you want, but it doesn't make your position as informed or valid as it could be. Think rationally. Don't ignore somebody's point just because you don't like how they say it. What I like to do is acknowledge their words and then send them back with the same tone and disrespect so they get a little bit of perspective about how the way they act reflects towards other people. It's entirely reactionary.

And frankly there's a big difference between a "firm, no-bullshit" tone and a "belittling" tone, even if you managed to mix the two together.

Maybe based on how you define them. From what you've said so far, your criteria for separating the two seems rather confusing.

The problem here is that he wasn't being arrogant at first when he said that. It was sarcastic, but not arrogant. And frankly, your response wasn't anything "well-deserved".

I interpreted it as arrogant and replied as such. If he didn't mean to be arrogant, he probably should have worded his comment in a way that didn't generalize and insult a large group of people based on nothing other than some half-assed observation. Kind of hard to not come across as arrogant and dickish when you're butting in on a conversation just to make bold statements about a website just because a few people who are staff there decide to enter the thread with their own two cents.

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The only reason I had to snap at you was because I didn't like your ridiculous, douchey attitude and generalizations of an entire community based on whatever arbitrary, elitist guidelines you pulled out of your ass. You're not exempt to being called out as a douche just because you think other people are being douchey.

Alright, let's just have everyone on the boards start behaving like you've been, that makes for a happy community, yep. I didn't angrily lash out at anyone.

I found the little squabble between Marco and Scarred Sun rather tame, and like the usual fare around here, then Brad comes in whining about the people whining at the whiners, as well as the people who didn't have the epic privilege of being in the fandom since the stone age. I make an observation of how he and others are acting, he snaps at me, I make another observation and then you come out of nowhere like his sidekick, yelling about how I'm a douche.

Nobody called anyone an idiot until they started acting like one. Trying to refute an extremely valid point about the community as a whole to combat the rampant, blatantly incorrect claims otherwise on the basis of it being a "strawman"--something that did absolutely nothing to actually devalue the validity of the point whatsoever--was overwhelmingly ignorant and the main cause for most of us putting our two cents into this thread.

Judging someone based off their post count is pretty ignorant to begin with. Understand that and move on, both sides are in the wrong here, one for judging too quickly, and one for having a poor argument or whatever.

The number of people trying to claim that the community is somehow majorly different than it was nearly 20 years ago based on completely arbitrary factors is ridiculous; we wanted to clear the air here with some trufax, but people seem more interested in being "right" than actually observing the facts and getting a bit of perspective. It's embarrassing.

You can have all the facts in the world, but that doesn't mean you've gotta be a jerk about it.

My ass! I read the topics--it was just as bad here, if not worse, in terms of how people conducted themselves.

One forum is larger and therefore has a louder voice to be heard. One forum banned all discussion on Sonic 4 because of how bad stuff got, unlike here. One of the forums also seemed to have a thing going on where they were rewarded for finding faults with the game? I don't think that was this forum.

Not like any of that matters--it's just people expressing their opinions about a game and other people, for some reason, being unable to respect other peoples' completely subjective views about a game, good or bad, and separate that from their own opinions and objective fact. That's a problem with discussion forums on the whole. It's not limited to Sonic Retro, Sonic Stadium or any other Sonic-based community.

There is no objective point to which complaints are either "good" or "bad"--they are what they are. Again, the only issue is that people cannot separate their own subjective views from objective fact, nor can they respect other peoples' opinions for whatever reason.

Sometimes it's not what your opinion is, but how you present it. If you go around saying a game sucked, and someone comes up saying they happened to squeezed some fun out of it, and then you shoot them down and call them an idiot, I think that would be reason enough for your opinion not to be respected.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

That's all I heard earlier.

This trend of people making hard correlations between "dirty" language and the validity of a post's content is getting really, really old. You know what that is? It's called ad hominem. The way I express my point and your dislike of it does not affect my point in any way whatsoever. Your laughable attacks on my credibility based on the fact that I don't sugar-coat my language hold absolutely no water. Try again, bro.

It's so cute how you put "bro" at the end of stuff. Anyway, basically, using language in a way that you know would piss someone off isn't my idea of simply expressing your point.

I'm a mod in both places. I disagree. It was stupid everywhere. Everywhere.

See above.

(I reached the quote limit)

Edited by Inferno
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Hello my name is David the Lurker and I've been a Sonic fan since 1991.

I've been on the Internet since 1997.

And I've been on Sonic sites just as long.

And...yeah...the fandom was never good ^^. People were complaining about things all up and down back then. U.S. fans fighting with U.K. fans over the strengths of their comic book. SatAM and Archie fans fighting over which version of Princess Sally was the best. Fans fighting with each other causing the closing of prominent sites (like rat.org. Y'know. The first big Sonic site on the World Wide Web. That closed because of drama). I think that a lot of the fighting that people here are saying "wasn't as bad as when Shadow's game came out" has to do with the age groups who were talking. The people involved with rat.org drama? They were about our age when it all fell apart. alt.fan.sonic-hedgehog was a conglomeration of many groups, and they had their fighting. They had their trolls. When Sonic Adventure came out? AJ Freda had a bit of a shout about Sonic's new look (sound familiar?) and there were people on both sides. Where I traveled back then, I think there were more people against AJ's stance than for it, but that was because we were younger and didn't fully understand what the change meant. That "green eyed Sonic" was nothing more than just "this is cool for kids in 1998 in Japan and not the timeless character we created back in 1991."

When you're younger, you have this desire to be optimistic about things. Like a franchise that you have loved since your childhood and how it can get better. Back when Sonic Adventure 2 came out, some of us started to teeter. We recognized that the game wasn't as strong as it should have been, and that continued with Sonic Heroes. But some of us weren't ready to accept that and become the jaded people we now are. But there were plenty of people who were. I remember reading bad things about Adventure 2 and Heroes. And some of it was not "oh well it may be bad but I will drink tea and not be upset." There were some harsh words passed around. Maybe not at this exact message board. But the community is much larger than the Sonic Stadium.

The only reason the negative aspects are so clear right now in this circle is because we have fallen into the cycle that has existed with Sonic fans for quite some time. That as we get older, we gain a critical eye and realize that things are not as good as they should be, or as they once were. Lots of fan bases have this sort of cycle. And there are still fans who love everything that is coming out, and there are still fans that can be against what is coming out but still consider themselves "Sonic the Hedgehog fans."

hey remember that time princess sally died in issue 47 oh man that was such a thing everyone had a complain and then david gonterman strolled in a drew a really bad comic but some people loved it because it was about sally and then ken penders made her not die because sega told him not to kill her because they wanted to use her in sega in sydny and maybe wanted to make a game with her but then they never did but no one cares about that anymore

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Alright, let's just have everyone on the boards start behaving like you've been, that makes for a happy community, yep. I didn't angrily lash out at anyone.

Just because you don't use explicitly "angry" language doesn't mean there wasn't malice or negative connotations behind what you said. It was a snide, unwarranted comment and it made you look like an asshole. Period.

I found the little squabble between Marco and Scarred Sun rather tame, and like the usual fare around here, then Brad comes in whining about the people whining at the whiners, as well as the people who didn't have the epic privilege of being in the fandom since the stone age. I make an observation of how he and others are acting, he snaps at me, I make another observation and then you come out of nowhere like his sidekick, yelling about how I'm a douche.

Because you are.

Judging someone based off their post count is pretty ignorant to begin with. Understand that and move on, both sides are in the wrong here, one for judging too quickly, and one for having a poor argument or whatever.

When did post count even get brought up here as a factor? Do you even know what this argument is about? Post count has nothing to do with it! It was referencing seniority in the community as a whole in a relevant matter. Unlike most cases, seniority was important here because it gave her perspective that helped her look at this entire debate more objectively. This is not hard to understand.

You can have all the facts in the world, but that doesn't mean you've gotta be a jerk about it.

Again, style over substance. If you're more concerned about the tone of somebody's speech than the actual content or validity of their argument, you need to reconsider arguing on the internet as a hobby.

One forum is larger and therefore has a louder voice to be heard. One forum banned all discussion on Sonic 4 because of how bad stuff got, unlike here. One of the forums also seemed to have a thing going on where they were rewarded for finding faults with the game? I don't think that was this forum.

We banned discussion because we decided we didn't want to read it anymore. Sonic Stadium decided they didn't mind reading it. That's the only difference.

Also, if you're really trying to make a point that Retro is somehow worse in this situation because we decided to make a fun little contest where people point out glitches in a game, you're more inane than I thought you were. People have had contests to find glitches in games from the original Sonic 1 to Sonic Adventure before; it's nothing new, and the people involved had fun with it. It's baseless and completely uncalled for to try and devalue the website as a whole because of something that brought our members together that they enjoyed being a part of. Get the fuck over yourself.

Sometimes it's not what your opinion is, but how you present it. If you go around saying a game sucked, and someone comes up saying they happened to squeezed some fun out of it, and then you shoot them down and call them an idiot, I think that would be reason enough for your opinion not to be respected.

I agree with you! That's... kind of why we decided we wanted to close discussion in the first place! People should be able to express their opinions on a game without getting attacked for it. I don't really see how that's relevant, though; people getting attacked for their opinions on video games has happened on every forum I've ever been on. It sucks, but that's life. Not much you can do about it.

That's all I heard earlier.

Oh man, I just got burned! How will I ever live with myself now?! :( :( :(

It's so cute how you put "bro" at the end of stuff.

:3c

Anyway, basically, using language in a way that you know would piss someone off isn't my idea of simply expressing your point.

Making blanket statements about an entire community in a way you know would piss them off isn't my idea of not being a douche.

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I'm not acting superior to Inferno in any way nor presenting myself as such. That seems to be your interpretation of what I said, which I can't change, but that doesn't mean I was being condescending. Rash and insulting, absolutely, but not condescending. I only acted rash and insulting because that's how his comment appeared to me and to other people I was discussing this thread with privately. I replied on that basis.

Edited by ChaosSupremeSonic
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Just because you don't use explicitly "angry" language doesn't mean there wasn't malice or negative connotations behind what you said. It was a snide, unwarranted comment and it made you look like an asshole. Period.

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Being around the online Sonic community for longer, whilst it does give you more experience, it does not give you more objectivity.

The longer you are involved with something, the more inclined you are to develop a particular bias towards something. It is impossible for you not to form these personal biases (by bias, I'm not referring to bias in the sense of a particular leaning, I mean little things that make your veiw on a particular subject, unique).

Therefore, the longer you are involved, the more subjective you become. The most objective people would be people with zero involvement of the fanbase (but with a general understanding of how fanbases operate) because they have no particular personal biases, because they haven't been exposed to it long enough to have developed any.

Scarred Sun has more experience in dealing with fans and the fanbase, but objective she is not.

Edited by Scar
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However, even then I try to take care not to be too excessive and start jamming said crucial information down someone's in a rash and insulting manner. That right there is a problem in and of itself regardless of who's doing it and who takes offense to it because the person receiving the information only spits it back out and continues the way they were going about and the person giving the information fails to get it across the way they would want.

Edited by Tweaker
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You would normally have a point, but in this case her experience has led her to directly observe more behavior in the Sonic scene in various mediums over the years and draw patterns between them that are virtually identical to behavior expressed by members today. That's concreted further by excerpts from old newsgroups also showing people expressing that same behavior. She is able to look at this from an objective perspective because that's how she's chosen to reach her conclusion--based on facts, experience and citing events that support her claims. In that way, she is absolutely being objective about it. Her seniority gives her the advantage of more information that she can personally verify.

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Acknowledging you were out of line does not make you less credible as a person if that's the impression you're getting. I'd normally ask for an apology, but that requires retracting your view, which I have the distinct impression that you have not done.
Edited by Inferno
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This is ridiculous. A lengthy discussion would have been fine if people didn't have to resort to insulting jabs and cries of childish behavior on the other's part. I'm locking this now before this shit continues.

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