Here's why I'm hostile:
It feels good. It's cathartic. If there's somebody I disagree with, then replying in a hostile tone is pleasurable. Unfortunately, catharsis is addictive, so I keep doing it.
As part of that catharsis, I'm rewarded for it by the structure of the board. My reputation is very high given my post-count. If you were to click through that reputation and examine it, you would find that most of those boosts come directly in response to a hostile comment. That could be because it's witty, it says something that people agree with, or because they just like me and want me to post more in general, I don't know. But the hostility is what gets me points. Tiny little ego-boosts to surprise and brighten my day. Somebody likes it when I'm a shithead far more than when I'm constructive or writing IC fiction, and I don't think I'm the only person for which that's true.
To be clear, I am not excusing my hostility as the fault of the reputation system, nor am I excusing anybody else's for the same. Reputation facilitates and rewards, but I would be hostile without it - though probably to a lesser extent.
Carrying on, I find it to be something to post when I don't feel like there's anything very useful or interesting going on in the boards in general, and in the pre-expansion lull, that's been quite a lot. I prefer substantive discussion to fun threads or hype speculation. I don't hate fun threads, and I will post in some of them myself, but in some of the forums I prefer, like Character Development, they dominate the discourse. I don't consider them circlejerks as other posters have insinuated, but I don't want to see them be the primary mode of discourse.
It's a useful way to shift conversations which are going down the same roads they always go. I recognize that there are new roleplayers every day, but there are not so many new roleplayers, not just to FF14, but to RP in general, that we need to have regular threads that end with the same non-conclusion of "It comes down to trust and communication" whenever there's any thread dealing with the possibility of character or player conflict. The conversations always stop there, at this uncertain point which is technically true but functionally useless as roleplaying advice, and it's no wonder they devolve into arguments. I admit my complicity in this, but at least hostility is interesting to read.
I also don't like forced positivity. I would rather be honestly critical in my own voice than be falsely positive. This can lead to people ignoring me, as I believe one person mentioned in this thread, and I completely understand that. I don't take it as a slight, and I would rather be ignored for my voice than chastised into changing it.
So that's some of the reasons.
It feels good. It's cathartic. If there's somebody I disagree with, then replying in a hostile tone is pleasurable. Unfortunately, catharsis is addictive, so I keep doing it.
As part of that catharsis, I'm rewarded for it by the structure of the board. My reputation is very high given my post-count. If you were to click through that reputation and examine it, you would find that most of those boosts come directly in response to a hostile comment. That could be because it's witty, it says something that people agree with, or because they just like me and want me to post more in general, I don't know. But the hostility is what gets me points. Tiny little ego-boosts to surprise and brighten my day. Somebody likes it when I'm a shithead far more than when I'm constructive or writing IC fiction, and I don't think I'm the only person for which that's true.
To be clear, I am not excusing my hostility as the fault of the reputation system, nor am I excusing anybody else's for the same. Reputation facilitates and rewards, but I would be hostile without it - though probably to a lesser extent.
Carrying on, I find it to be something to post when I don't feel like there's anything very useful or interesting going on in the boards in general, and in the pre-expansion lull, that's been quite a lot. I prefer substantive discussion to fun threads or hype speculation. I don't hate fun threads, and I will post in some of them myself, but in some of the forums I prefer, like Character Development, they dominate the discourse. I don't consider them circlejerks as other posters have insinuated, but I don't want to see them be the primary mode of discourse.
It's a useful way to shift conversations which are going down the same roads they always go. I recognize that there are new roleplayers every day, but there are not so many new roleplayers, not just to FF14, but to RP in general, that we need to have regular threads that end with the same non-conclusion of "It comes down to trust and communication" whenever there's any thread dealing with the possibility of character or player conflict. The conversations always stop there, at this uncertain point which is technically true but functionally useless as roleplaying advice, and it's no wonder they devolve into arguments. I admit my complicity in this, but at least hostility is interesting to read.
I also don't like forced positivity. I would rather be honestly critical in my own voice than be falsely positive. This can lead to people ignoring me, as I believe one person mentioned in this thread, and I completely understand that. I don't take it as a slight, and I would rather be ignored for my voice than chastised into changing it.
So that's some of the reasons.
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
