An Honest Rant

[Wyldercat]

To be honest, I agree too. I wanted to post something like this 1 year ago, but I felt that it would ruin my image for some reason. I sometimes also do get the feeling that people are a bit fishy, that's why I try to distant myself but always try to give a hand. I always prefer to be the silent type who does good deeds. Before I even saw your post, I stared around the site for a few minutes and thought, "people have never been this nice around here, what's happened?", but I'm not sure if it's linked to this. The point is, that I have felt what you are feeling for my entire life, but I was too afraid to speak up because of the abuse that people have given me... physical....mental... it's heart breaking. I'm just glad you posted this, and too finally get people understanding the truth.

I feel ye, Rita. I too am worried about my reputation now for speakin' my mind. I'm so sorry that all that abuse happened to ye, though.

[Rizzla]

Let me first just say that I love this thread. I've been waiting for a long time for someone to say something about this- I would have done so myself but I could never find a way to put it, so thank you for posting this, you've taken the words right out of my mouth.

Since I agree with the majority of what the others have said I'll make my post brief, and instead add on to a couple things.
Someone earlier mentioned that a lot of the userbase is younger, yes? If you consider the lives of most younger people nowadays it's not really all that surprising. For example, back when I was super active here I was quite a bit younger, and that's when my behavior was like that. I did it because I didn't have a whole lot of friends around that time (both offline and online), and so I wound up on games like these. After a couple months of puttering around ingame I ended up on the forum. I spent some time observing people, and saw that there was a certain few who were very well-liked and had a lot of friends. Now, being the 'lonely' person I was, I thought, "Wow! This user has so many friends, and people talk about them a lot! What can I do to become like that?" Over time I learned that that kind of recognition was earned by posting on help-threads whether you know what you're talking about or not and spamming threads with an insincere compliment that you just posted on another thread. So, you see, some of this is taught to newbies... or so that's what it was like in my circumstance. Not all of them are necessarily fakes, perhaps just looking for friends- not doing so in a very good way, but they mean well. I don't know what to say about the rest of them, though. Some people are just nasty.

[Legendary~Grace]

I don't see the point in it all honestly. Why can't everyone here just love one another and all be equally as helpful and loving without an undercurrent of lies and just wanting to be "the special one"

This is exactly how I feel, people should be good to the community just to be good to the community with no other intentions. After all, helping others is a true reward in itself.

I second this very much so.

I can agree on this.

I'm probably really late, coming into this rant conversation right now and I try to avoid rants and complaints on the forum but I wanted to give my input on this topic since I happened to notice some of this going on. I'm also touching on a subject I believe wasn't talked about, if it was, my apologies, I tried to read through the conversation.

Honestly, I feel like everyone is just competitive and do wish to be the "special one" like many of you said. Now, I may be completely wrong and I'm no scientist but I believe human nature causes us to become competitive with one another, to see who can be the best out of everyone. That's only natural but I believe that the internet just adds to the fire. The internet brings everyone from everywhere together. Naturally I'd think to see competition, a sort of pecking order for everyone. I guess that's a way we all keep order.

People want to get as a high as they can in this "pecking order" and in this specific case I think that many would love to become FeralHeart staff and fake a good personality to look good. I also think the whole post-count, out of personal experience drives the whole "be the best" pecking order. I'm guilty of this and I'm sure some of you are too. When competition rises, it's only natural for conflict to occur. Things like jealousy, specifically of maybe someone's popularity or post count on the forum can make you want to be better. And I believe that people start thinking that quantity over quality is better. Whatever you believe, that's your choice. But, I think those of us who think quality is better get mad when people who think quantity is better starts "winning" in a sense. It goes both ways and I think that's what might be causing this.

This might just be my personality talking since I'm a pretty laid back person, but I don't think we need to take sides and fight over this. Yes, this might be just discussions but I'm personally getting the vibe that we're slightly angry at each other. There is no need to get upset at people who "fake" and ego for themselves, that's their decision and yeah I can agree it lessons the meaning of compliments if you keep complementing everything but I see your point Twisted and I see everyone else's point. For me personally, I try to stay out of people's business and think about their point of view. Someone wants to fake an ego and be the nicest person on earth, then fine, let them do it. They might be thinking differently then you. I also don't see the harm in having a lot of positivity going around even if it's not as strong in quality. I would rather take this then have mass chaos and negativity. But, in all truth, the world isn't perfect. Life is unfair and you just got to deal with it.

I'd also like to note that this rant wasn't a bad thing to do, it's good to get it out.

I wrote this fairly quickly, hopefully I made myself clear. And take note that this is all my opinion.

[WolfQueen]

i came back after a bout of no activity and i can honestly say i'm glad to see this post. this thread is pretty pretty old now and discussion might have ended, so i'm not going to get into much detail. pretty sure many things have been mentioned and i don't feel like looking like a bozo and mentioning them again. to sum it up, recognition and respect has to be rightfully earned. if you act mature, you will come off as a respectable person. if you don't, then you will come off as intimidating and people will probably hate you. acting "cookie-cutter" and fake doesn't cut it. it's bothersome and it actually keeps people (like me) from being around. every member should be considered equal and no-one should act like they have the power and respect over someone else, no matter who they are.

Although, back on topic, I really want more people to witness this, and try to strive against it. I don't want to be a "Monopoly community" in which the opinions and "direction" of the forum is dominated and controlled by a minute top percent like some past communities I've been in.

EXACTLY! I've seen this happen so many times in other places. it throws away any sense of self expression and you are treated like trash if you are any different than the "default" direction of the community, even without being blatantly disrespectful. yea, this does happens in the real world, but having this mentality present in a place that is a form of escapism and free expression is not right.

can i just say that i agree with you 200%? especially about the help threads. A+

edit: i'm starting to think that i came off a bit nasty with this post. this isn't a personal attack on anyone, more of a general opinion of the topic. no hard feelings.

[Senrova]

Wow. This is all very true and I personally agree with this. I used to post here often sometime ago and then went in a long hiatus because I had other stuff to do. I can't remember what age I was when I first posted, must have been around 10 or so. Back then I was quite immature and a whiny little brat. I made mistakes on this forum I greatly regret. Back then I never really was trying to be 'perfect'. I was more or less trying to have fun. That's what this forum's for. Not for trying to be the popular one. I already suffer a reputation for being the quite goody-two shoes in my school. Some think I'm socially awkward (I'm not believe me). If people are the same here, who's gonna want to post here? Being falsely nice doesn't make you human, it's making the mistakes and learning from them. Basically, being who you are and better.

In short, people should be honest and respectful.

[Morgra]

[hellensilverwolf]

Oh. Thank you for saying this. Not sure if this has been discussed before but you did a right thing by posting this. It does seem super fake sometimes and yes it doesn't feel good.

But it's still hundred times better than what happens on other game forums. Been there, seen that... The disrespect towards each other is unearthly. Haters can be fake too, they can hate on people just for the sake of looking kewl and edgy, not realising how stupid they actually look. So yea, fake and nice is better than bad if I have to choose