Gaming Forum Annoyances

I don't really visit a whole lot of gaming forums. I learned my lesson by losing precious IQ points after years of reading the drivel on the official World of Warcraft forums. But, there are a few I check out sometimes, and occasionally I'll post my thoughts on an interesting subject. The one thing I've had to learn to do is to hold my tongue when people act like incompetent apes. If only everyone could discuss things they like and dislike about gaming in a civil manner, I'd probably hang around more forums. Unfortunately, this is far from the case, and I've developed a list of pet peeves about these forums, which can stretch to other similar areas of the Interwebs such as commenting on blogs.

1) Just because you don't like a game, does not make it a bad game.
This is perhaps the single most frustrating thing to try to get through the thick skulls of your average forum posters. "I hate [insert issue here], and [insert issue here] sucks, so [insert game here] sucks! I hate it!" We all have issues with games, there is no perfect game, that's a given. And, its ok to dislike parts about a game - a story plot twist, some odd game mechanic that just doesn't work or even the load times or visuals. What is not ok is to declare that the game sucks just because you dislike it. That is rarely, if ever, the case. I can guarantee you for every person who claims a game sucks because they hated it, there's a dozen people who like it for the exact same reasons. So, I guess you've been overruled a dozen to one, the game does not suck, you just dislike the game based on personal preference.

2) You can not in any way, shape or form make an accurate assessment of a game that is not officially released.
All too often people make judgements about games based on screen shots, game play videos, pre-released information or demos and automatically hate the game because of it. Nothing is final until the game is on the store shelves. Even at that, in this day and age its even possible for things to be fixed post-launch via downloadable updates. Get over yourselves and gives the final game a chance before you pull a #1 on us.

3) Play the game you want!
Ever hear something like this on a gaming forum somewhere? "[Insert Japanese RPG here] is too linear, doesn't let you make decisions that really matter, you can't do anything you want anytime you want, it sucks!" To that I say - go play a western RPG you dimwit, because that's what you're describing. I wish people would stop trying to make a game something its not, and concentrate more on enjoying a game for what it is. If you really want to play another genre so bad that you're trying to turn everything you play into that genre, then go play game from that frakking genre!

I might note here that game critics and reviewers often fall into this trap, as well. Games need to be reviewed based on their own merits or, perhaps if they're part of a larger franchise, directly compared to its predecessors, but nothing else. I'm tired of seeing an otherwise great game get low review scores because its "not innovative enough".

Those three things right there are enough to keep me away from most gaming forums. The cries of fanboys (or girls) on forums everywhere for anything from which console is best to which shooter is more "leet" are just dripping with my three biggest pet peeves. I'm glad I got that off my chest. ;)