The Official Rant Thread

[NabMaster]

Oh, my bad. I thought when you said "anonymous" I thought you meant THE Anonymous

[Metalheadz]

Alright, PVF may not be my favorite forum in the world due to the multiple issues I've had with some members, but I will admit you guys are much nicer and cooler (<- applies to Silver, too) than the immature Pokemon freaks of the forum Smogon Community. Also known as the only website I dislike more than 4Chan.

Smogon Community is a forum with 40,000 competitive battlers, including me, but sadly, only 3% of all the members get the respect they deserve. I joined yesterday because I knew many concepts of competitive Pokemon battling and I thought I'd fit in with some of the players there. However, since I'm not that serious into Pokemon, I would just ask a few questions on the Smogon forum and what do you think I usually get as a reply? Many of Smogon's members are too good and cocky at playing Pokemon that they think they're so awesome so every long-time member always reply to my posts, with crap like: "**** YOU, NOOB! Why don't you know that?" or "Learn to play better, noob," or "I could probably kick your *** in a battle" and worst of all "You don't belong is this forum, new guy. Grab your **** and play with the little kids. hahaha."

Honestly, their insults don't just involve Pokemon. But it's as if the game has drilled into their heads deep enough that they've dedicated their whole life into playing the simple game. A majority of them are 10-year olds who take gaming too seriously, but for those members who post pictures of themselves turn out to be college dropouts, 40-year olds, and possibly even drug addicts. And no, this is not stereotyping, they really do post lots of pictures of themselves at Pokemon tournaments and such.

Comparing the administration. Josiah and Silver are much better admins than the moderators of Smogon. A lot of them don't care about the trolling and flaming that go on in the forum, they're actually the ones causing it most of the time in some threads. The ones who do care about the rules often fail to glance at some of the trolling going on in the forums. They'll stop some of the trouble in the forum, but the rest is left to the members to deal with.

Since a majority of people on this forum are Pokemon players. I will advice you not to join that website unless you taking Pokemon playing seriously enough. Yes, the game is fun, but the Smogon players with asperger syndrome apparantly don't see the fun in playing the game. I plan on abandoning that account for the 2nd time to avoid the hurtful things some of them say.

[Faustgy]

Well, it's harder to regulate the forum when there are so many members. It's difficult to compare PVF to Smogon for the simple reason that PVF doesn't have nearly as many members as Smogon. Also, PVF is more of a place to have fun while Smogon, as you said, focuses on competitive battling. Smogon members are bound to be a lot more critical than PVF members when it comes to competitive battles.

Anyway, if you have a question about competitive battling, why not try asking here first? There should be some fairly competitive battlers around here, or at least, people who know about competitive battling. ...Or I suppose you can Google your question. I usually find the answers I want on Google.
If you're looking for people to battle, maybe you can go on Youtube and advertise your Friend Code in a video or search for other people's FCs before asking for battles. That's what a friend of mine does, and it seems to work pretty well for her.

Don't let the insults get to you. Chances are, those people who were bashing you aren't much better, and it's not really worth getting upset about.

(Sorry if I sound insensitive, but I have some trouble replying to rants. I only replied this time because I actually know the website you're talking about. Usually, I have no clue what other people are saying.)

[BionicleMandi121]

I've had to deal with a bit of Internet snobbery lately too, because of the MMORPG Mabinogi.

Our guild won the castle for one of three housing areas on the server. It's a greatly coveted position, because we can build houses for other players to bid on, and tax them for a month so they may continue to use their houses as personal shops to sell items. This generally makes the guild with the castle very rich. Whether because of this, or not, people started making accounts on our guild forum and saying nasty things about us.
(WARNING: the following material is unsuitable for anyone...say, 16 or above, so I've censored it a bit. It describes some of the verbal abuse we've taken, but it's not for young viewers. If it's still considered too nasty, either tell me and I'll remove it, or Josiah or a moderator can delete it right away, and I apologize in advance for putting it up in the first place.) They would impersonate an existing member and claim they were gay and offer "discrete gay sex," or they call all of us gay, morons, or weaklings. One pretended he wanted to join the guild, then laughed at us and called us assholes. Another ranted on and on about his level 1 character could kill all of us. Others impersonate other players and flame us, saying we're stupid, our guild leader is stupid, and they're now going to join a guild specifically named "Anti-(our guild name)." Still others go on to claim our guild leader (a girl) is really a guy with a 3 mm ******, is gay, her boyfriend is gay, she has sex with anything she sets her eyes on, offers blowjobs at her house, and so on.
Once, all of the moderators online began locking and deleting the threads these people made. They retaliated with even MORE threads challenging the moderators, claiming they were deleting the threads because what they were saying was the truth. We finally got an admin on, who deleted the flamers' accounts and turned on member verification.

Personally, I find this whole experience hilarious. Mabinogi is a game. The guild I'm in is a collection of people that generally don't know each other. The people flaming us don't know who we are either. And yet they can say all that stuff. I told some of my fellow guild members to ignore them; "they're just petty, immature adolescents who have no better way to express themselves other than insulting people they don't know in highly unimaginative ways." I'd say the same would apply to Smogon. Just ignore them, because whatever they have to say isn't worth paying attention to.

[Doodleshark]

*Cough.* Speaking as someone who has been diagnosed with "Assburger" Syndrome, trolls don't bother me mostly because of my pessimistic outlook on life. I figure that most people are idiots, and seeing and experiencing so many moronic antincs such as that only reinforces my disdain for humanity. Also, stupidity makes me laugh. So yeah, I'm a bit of a misanthrope, but I try not to let that show on T3h Forums because I come here to have fun, not to help anyone else here experience my depression.

[Metalheadz]

Well, the cause of most of the dweebs on Smogon University? Well, I will tell you a fact about them. 90% of all the jerks who cuss you out on any website will be a kid below 12. No joke...

It won't be everyday some kid will kick you in the shin for no reason, since they all come and go. But since they can't really prove they're all high and mighty in real life, why not the internet? The 10 year olds will always either: Cuss you out, threaten to harm you in rl, spam/troll you, act like an annoying creature, or all of the above. My list can go on and on for hours, but today I just happened to be a victim of THREE of them...

*sigh* They can claim they're about 20 or older, but nah... A real tough dude wouldn't even have the time to care for forums and trolling anyway. Also, they lurk just about everywhere. Marley has had experience over Xbox Live, I have over Shoddy Battle and Nintendo Wifi, and where else can you find them? Here on PVF could be one of those sites, but meh... At least the forum has great moderation and we won't see them for a while.

[Blastotoise]

The little kids on Xbox? Those kids are hilarious. Just tell them it's past their bed time and they'll shut up.

[Josiah]

There's are some teens and twenty somethings who are just as bad as the little kids, but yeah. We have had a couple of those types on the PV forums but they got banned pretty quickly.

[Silver]

Has anyone actually been banned? We usually just run them off by not putting up with them. Warnings have been given, but I didn't think we actually banned anyone.

All the same though, it's not like it's hard to just ignore those people. Or troll them back. Sure that can just make things worse, but it also teaches them to back off usually. The N00b's method is surprisingly effective.

[Josiah]

Most of the troublemakers we've had here left before getting three warnings, but there were a couple people I actually had to ban.

[Metalheadz]

Well, looks like I'm really screwed... Today my wicked little brother had stolen my SoulSilver game and another CD and hid it under his bed. I was smart enough to go look under his bed (since he can't find a better place to hide it.) Well, guess what? This time he didn't hide it there. I asked him and he nonchalantly watched his Youtube videos while ignoring me. I yelled at him asking where it is, he screamed in my face and I decided to just leave him be. I would've loved to punch him in the face, but I didn't wanna get into trouble with my parents. So I spent about 2 hours looking the entire house. And I STILL can't find it... I got my mom involved and she asked my little brother where he hid it. He claims he forgot, mom told me to settle things with him myself in a formal conversation, and he began laughing when she was out of the room. Will I ever find it? I hope so... As of now... FML

[Doodleshark]

I need to say something, so I may as well put it here.

I like roleplaying. I particularly enjoy roleplaying on this forum. However, due to my below average mental well-being I tend to suffer from frequent, crippling episodes of writer's block. Because of this I feel like I let other people down in RPs because either I can't keep up with what's being posted, or everyone else is waiting on me to post. This fuels a lot of self-hatred, which in turn makes the writer's block even worse. During my earlier years in the Forums I would make RPs myself, only to abandon them partway through when I ran out of ideas. I feel extremely guilty and shameful in these situations, and I hate myself for my writer's block becoming a liability to others who wish to enjoy the Roleplay. I feel as if I am the absolute worst human being that has existed and ever will exist. It may sound like I'm overreacting, but this is honestly what I think of myself.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

[Kaida]

I need to say something, so I may as well put it here.

I like roleplaying. I particularly enjoy roleplaying on this forum. However, due to my below average mental well-being I tend to suffer from frequent, crippling episodes of writer's block. Because of this I feel like I let other people down in RPs because either I can't keep up with what's being posted, or everyone else is waiting on me to post. This fuels a lot of self-hatred, which in turn makes the writer's block even worse. During my earlier years in the Forums I would make RPs myself, only to abandon them partway through when I ran out of ideas. I feel extremely guilty and shameful in these situations, and I hate myself for my writer's block becoming a liability to others who wish to enjoy the Roleplay. I feel as if I am the absolute worst human being that has existed and ever will exist. It may sound like I'm overreacting, but this is honestly what I think of myself.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

Really? I don't see why you should think that badly about yourself, sure writers block can be annoying, I've had it forawhile, thats while I dropped off the face of PV for awhile. I love roleplaying and this is the only site I've found recently that I enjoy it simply because of the other people here who rp.
Best thing for writers block is really to just wait it out, something will come to you. And the more you try to get rid of it the worst it's gonna get. Everyone gets it, seriously, I've heard from Robby who got told by the japanese guy he works with that after 13 year Oda-sensei had run out of ideas for One Piece. Aparently thats why he went on holidays (the 4 week haitus), but still nothing.
I bet you'll find that no one here thinks you've let them down, everyone has probably done the same of something similar in rps. Weather its cause of writers block or they just get busy with school or life in general. I certianly don't think you're the worst human in existant, and I've met plently who are just plan a**** and could be considered some of the worst people in existance depending on the situation, trust me in the hospitality industry you meet a lot of em and you are not one of them.

[Metalheadz]

I'm sorry, Doodle. I don't care if you have writer's block or not, I still look at you as a very important member to the forum. Even I, myself, fail to make my sprite comics partly because I just lack the taste every once in a while. But don't hate yourself for it, a lot of people here still love you even if you don't participate in the roleplays.

[Faustgy]

I understand that feeling, Doodle. I myself have been rather slow at posting in some role plays. In fact, I took nearly a year and a half just to post in one RP. (No exaggeration.)

I agree with Kaida, though. You're being rather harsh on yourself. Everyone gets writer's block, and besides, role playing is for fun. Real life should always come first. I'm sure everyone else understands if you aren't in the best state to role play. If the role plays you're in seem to come to a halt, chances are that the others are having the same problem, or they've lost interest. None of that is your fault, so don't blame yourself, alright? Try not to worry so much about slowing other people down. You've made your own contributions in the role plays, and it's nearly impossible to be constantly active.

My suggestion for fighting writer's block is to discuss the role play itself with someone else. You might gain enough new ideas to come up with a new post. Talk about the characters or ask questions about the plot. I'm not sure how well this method will work for you, but as someone who also frequently has writer's block, I find that I can usually make posts of decent length after talking to another role player.