Why are gamers such big whiners?

I don't want to discus any particular Guild War issue, just gamer whining in general.

I like to read message boards for every game I play, and I've noticed for every game (especially online games) there are plenty of people whining. If these games are so bad why are so many people playing them?

Perhaps it's just me, I rarely complain about anything. I either like something or I don’t, accept something for the way it is or attempt to change it (for the things I can – like me not having a job at the moment).

I find this game and many other games very impressive. There are many ways for me to appreciate and enjoy it.

I had some problems with CoH, I would lose my connection every .5 hour and it had a real grind. So I stopped playing it, no big deal. I still appreciate many aspects of the game (the travel powers are the greatest thing ever) and I never posted a negative post on their message boards. Why you may ask? Well it's not my game; it's their game. They made it the way they wanted to and if I don't like it I don't have to play.

Could it be that I make a good amount of money (when I'm working) and I don't care if I waist $50. Or perhaps it's because I'm a computer programmer and an amateur game maker and I respect the work that goes into game making.

Is it just gamers or are all people a bunch of wining crybabies?

That depends.

What you percieve as a whining crybaby some percieve as having a good point and vice versa.

And yes, $50 is a little hard on some people. They expect something and they want it.

Right now the game is advertised with no grind. Some people percieve it has grind and that their 50 was wasted and some percieve that the advertisement holds true, that there is no grind.

It's all about perception.

It's not gamers, it's just people. Gotta learn to deal with it.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the game IS updated often, and some of the changes come from user suggestions. Whining probably sin't the most efficient manner of getting your point across, but it has worked in the past for 'em

By some definitions, threads like these would be considered whining.

Also, while your points are indeed valid, this must be thread #550983098 on this exact topic.

I don't see how the "love it or leave it" argument is valid. It has never been a valid argument in any discussion in history.

There's a saying, only idiots deal in absolutes.

Something like that.

Am I the only person seeing the irony in a thread whining about whiners? =P

What gets me is when people complain about a game, but still register for a forum and post in that forum about how much they hate it...

If I pissed off about a game, I move on to something that doesn't piss me off... cuz, well quite frankly, I don't enjoy being pissed off. It's just the whole nature of the emotion.

For those of you who don't understand I was tying to start a semi-intelligent discussion considering the sociology of online game players. The question is do they complain more about games, than they would about other things?

As far as the "love it or leave it" argument not being valid. That's taking my philosophy a little to simplistically. What I'm talking about is respecting a game designers game for what it is and appreciating human creativity. I prefer to put my feeling of dislike to a more creative purpose (my own game designs or other creative endeavors).

hmm, then perhaps you should use another word in place of whining. You see, whining has taken on quite a negative connotation on these forums and from given the context of your post, it seems to have implied that you're "whining" about the whiners.

But ok, let's have a frank discussion about your true intent for this post. Guild Wars is both a game and a product put out by a company looking to make money by selling to customers (gamers). Those customers have paid for the game and thus have a right to note problems with their product. It's the american way. Even if one were to ignore the pvp issues with guild wars, there are still far too many bugs in this game.

Also, however the complaints may be delivered, you will find shreads of constructive criticism that would be invaluble in making the game/product better. It's not like people (and certainly Americans as a society) to sit idly if there was a problem that affected them.

*insert penny arcade comic here*

LOL.

I’m like the original poster, if I don't like it, I leave it.

Nothing in this world is perfect even in a game such as MMORPG or for Guild War CORPG. That’s why it gets updated and gets patched once a while.

I'm sure the programmer and developer is doing their absolute best to make it as bug free as possible, but anyone that does any kind of programming knows, fix one bug sometime cause another bug to happen!

But at the end, it's only a game... if you want to make the game better, whining, complaining and moaning about problem you see, usually won't fix the problem. Why not rather, report the bugs and issues you have?

If you have the issues, here is a big chance someone out there that have the same issues too!

Peace

There's nothing wrong with complaining. If I were a developer, I would rather hear what you didn't like than not know what I'm doing wrong and go out of business.
That's probably why a lot of developers have their own forums where they specifically ask for complaints to be posted.
In fact, I would not be surprised if developers frequently visited independent forums (such as this one) to get more feedback.

Actually, I don't think you're doing anyone any favors when you don't tell them that you don't like something.
Professional game developers aren't hobbyists. I can't imagine that they would be sitting in a room and thinking "let's just make the game that we want to play, and if no one likes it then screw em, they don't have to play it."
I think they probably want to know what you liked and disliked about their last game or other games.

Why are YOU whining against whiners...Huh...Play the game and dont worry about what everyone else is doing. Help people along the way, make friends and ignore the idiots

WRONG WRONG

Only the Dark Side deals in absolutes.--Obi Wan

Stop complaining about our complaining.

If no one complained, games would never get any better. And why do people complain about on line games? Because they can be changed quite easily. If I buy a sucky console game, well... I just wasted 50 bucks. But I can't do anything about it, can I? If I buy an online game, and there is something that I don't like about it, if enough people don't like it, we can complain and get it changed for the better. It is to your benefit.

Do you really expect people who play games to be mature?

hahah, class call

rawr! we dont whiine , ahhh noobzo0r

I keep hearing this and I wonder WHAT IS "grind" has it been defined?

Who has made the the standard for "grind"?

And where on the GW box, site or any other advertisement has it been stated that will be NO Grind?

Isn't "grind" just a usefull negative "catchall" term that is overused and not understood?

Isn't "grind" JUST:

I think it has to do with the aninimity allowed by the internet. As flamin as flames get they can't actually burn you, and so people have a certain degree of security online that they might not have in real life if faced with actual people and their arguments.

the box said LESS GRIND not eliminates it

besides, I think most gamers just likes to complain, moan, and whine about things. if it's not PVP vs PVE or it's the skillpoints, or its the drops, or its the difficulty, or the henchmen.... you get the point.
I just play the game as is. I expected grind coming in the game, and I expect nothing else that's not certain. Only Grind is certain in ANY game whatsoever.

Again this is not a true statement, this is part of the problem, neither the BOX nor for that matter any official release from AN says ANYTHING about "grind"

"Grind" could mean any number of a thousand things, to some it could mean 10 hours to others it could mean 100 hours and to some it will have NO meaning what so ever.

There is only one "truth" about this game and that is for most people it cost about $50 to buy, after that the game IS what YOU make of it.

you're right my bad, but my other points are valid

Games, especially lately, are really hyped yet often don't live up to expectations of many people. I think it's only natural in these trying economic times to be critical of games, especially when they are looking forward to a long term gaming experience.

I've played many a MORPG and there are a few absolutes:

There will be people who will always find ways to exploit a game,
people who "whine" about the game (albiet legit or not), and
people who think they are above everyone else and can't respect anothers citisism.

My personal thoughs are that if you can't take people who complain to ignore them and thier views. If you have a reasonable argument against thier complaints then that's cool...that's the great thing about forums.

I have some reservations about this game, yet after reading several posts I'm starting to get in the spirit of things. But having said that there are several flaws (maybe not flaws but gameplay issues) with this game that make me wonder if it's worth investing the time to play.

Because they paid for the game and in their heart of hearts when ever you spend money you have the god given right to complain about what ever caused you to part with your cash.

I just don't like it when people buy the game, think something's wrong, and they go post something like

"God Anet really messed up here, the box said NO grind, the game has loads of grind it is not skill over time played, waste of $50!

GG Anet!"

That sort of thing pisses me off. THAT is what should not happen, if you have a problem with a game that you bought, why not just say something SOMEWHAT decent,

"A suggestion for future updates and releases would be to try and even things out for hardcore PvPers who don't want to unlock their skills and what not, as of right now it seems that PvPers have a disadvantage."

It's not a problem when people express their opinions in hopes that they can be of benefit to the game developers in trying to improve their situation. The problem is when people come on with a "I payed $50 dollars for this piece of *$*%, why the hell isn't it exactly what I wanted it to be1!1!, fix it NOW!" sort of attitude that's the problem.

superb a whine thread about whine threads

Hey, it's 5:46am and I've not slept. Need to "wake up"...now actually, we're bored people.

Its 11.48am and i have been twiddling my thumbs for 3 hours at work after my glorious bank holiday weekend with sun, beer and bikini clad women....
Well 2 out of 3 aint bad

Irony aside, the thread-starter's title summarizes my thoughts completely. The actual people I play with don't whine so much. Some of the posts here disgust me... they are totally transparent. People would like to have more doing less, and yet somehow disguise these whines as legitimate suggestions when all they really want to do is reach lvl 20 without doing anything at all.

Most gamers are spoiled kids used to instant gratification. Just look at how the games change over time, there are less and less challenge, and more meaningless rewards.

Yeah, man. Speaking of which, Tetris is hard! I just keep going and going, but it never tells me I've won...

Its rather simple, Western Society in general has evolved from bearing extreme hardship, short lives and misery with the minimum of fuss, indeed giving thanks to a higher being simply for food on the table, to a want it now society of immature and frankly sickening children who kick up a holy row at the slightest hint things are not going their way..

I dare you to disagree with me...

I blame the parents

quite a nice absolute statement there, mr. self-proclaimed idiot :P

I think that was the point... it's kind of like: There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think they can neatly categorize others and those of us who know better.

Myself I like the game. The only thing I whine about (and admit it) is the overwhelming bile coming out of the nasty cake-holes of idiots who need to flame others and attack others to feel better. Yes I realize the irony in me attacking them, but oppressors need to be attacked... and I'm not even being preemptive or claiming that they hide weapons.

I'm also a programmer myself (not games, but applications)

When a new application is released, there are complaints about it. But there is no "whinning" and people say: ok, tested it, don't like it, got to throw it away. When people like the application or a few aspects of the application, they start to suggest new features.

But with games, there is a completely different community behind. I for example can see the reasons why people complain about a grind for PvP players, but I can also understand why it this 'grind' is there. I see the whole picture.

And that is the difference - most Gamers don't see the whole picture - i'm not sure why, maybe because it is a competition and you are focused on yourself...

So I think the reason lies in the mentality of the community. I haven't seen one game that was praised by everyone - there was always some whinning - sometimes more, sometimes less.

People have to understand that making a product consists of tradeoffs. For example the 'grind' for PvP players. It can't be taken away, but it is bad that it exists. People have to understand that that's the way it is.

You always can sell a game on ebay and getting some money back. But why not wait before you buy a game and read articels, reviews and online forums about it and then decide to buy it? To buy something just because it was advertised as the perfect product is silly. Would you buy a car just because you like the advertisment? I surely won't.

After you bought it, you have to live with the tradeoffs or just throw it away/sell it on ebay/give it to a friend/etc. and move to the next game.

The community is one reason why I am glad to be an application developer and not a game developer. I know a few people that develop games, they say sometimes you feel like noone appreciates your work (but gladly there are also times where you feel like a god - for example when your game is praised by people, or is number one in the charts, or good mods are released, etc.). As an application developer, there are fewer ups and downs and I'm quite happy that my customers are mainly companies that know what they want.

That is not an insult to gamers. I'm a gamer myself. But the community around games could be much better.

And I also don't say that you shouldn't critize - critics is very important in the software industrie, because you, the customer are the target group, so getting feedback from you is very important. But whining is not a good way - it makes the developers feel sad. Just say what bothers you and try to bring solutions up.

For example, instead of "taht gRinD suxors" you could say "it would be much better if I could get more skillpoints, maybe through quests or the xp needed from lvl 21 to 22 should be equal to the xp needed from lvl 100 to 101"

Such crititc is much more appreciated. Maybe you developed a solution noone else thought of, or maybe enough people support your idea, etc. Just try to look at the whole product and not only from your point of view.

For example a "unlock everything after I ascended for my PvP only char" isn't the last solution. Because you forgot about the PvP people that like to do PvE. They are screwed up. Of course, they could use their PvP only char, but why did they complete the whole PvE part, explored every last spot and customized their char for a few thousand gold when they have to PvP with another char? That's a tradeoff - none way is better than the other, they are just different and anet chose the way which they hoped would upset less people.
See - there is nearly always another point of view - just try to see them and don't get mad at people just because they don't think the way you do...

No game is perfect, so there is always room for improvements. Some of the threads here look quite interesting and I think anet is reading most of them to get new ideas what to include in feature updates/expansion sets. So every kind of fair comment is much appreciated.

If there was the perfect game out there that everyone liked in the whole world it would be perfect.

But you know what, there would still be someone out there whining about why there are no other games out, now this perfect game has been produced because the developers all went bankrupt. There will never be the perfect game, such as there will never ever be the perfect anything. THe world moves on and things always improve and get better.

As Human nature goes, we can't win. Everyone has there own opinion on what is and isn't a good game/thing what should and shouldn't be done to improve or change things etc etc. The list can go on.

As for me, i try to live with the game as it is and i look forward to see what things are to come. If I get severely bored though, I'm not going to go on about it, I'll move to something i enjoy.

Bikini Clad women by the Pool with a Cold Beer.