# Are MMO Message boards universally terrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 29, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309 "2012-02-29T02:57:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/1 "2012-02-29T02:57:30Z")
My only experience with MMOs is City of Heroes and SWTOR and while CoH is not quite as bad, both message boards for the games seem to be full of two flavors: 1. People who hate everything about the game but continue to play and complain. 2. People who will defend everything the game has done with their last breath. There is a spectrum but these two types seem to dominate every conversation eventually. I suppose you can chalk it up to “Welcome to the Internet, nice to meet you.” but I was curious if other games were like that. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/2 "2012-02-29T04:20:57Z")
Are you talking about the official boards? Because yes, those are terrible. Some of the niche boards are fine. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/3 "2012-02-29T04:25:33Z")
The word-of-mouth I get is that other game boards are actually much worse than CoX’s board. People say that they often can’t ask questions about builds and so forth and get answers besides lots of insults about “noobs” ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/4 "2012-02-29T04:43:00Z")
The short answer is yes. CoX boards aren’t even as bad as most other MMO official message boards. I don’t bother with any of them, I have other places if I need some MMO information. Internet tends to be a seething cesspile of bile if left unchecked so those message boards just reflect that. Also as **Snarky\_Kong** said, some niche boards are fine, either because they are out of the way and have a real community, or because they have heavy moderation, or both. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/5 "2012-02-29T05:14:57Z")
The CoX boards are the only ones I’ve ever been able to stand visiting regularly, even when I was playing other games. (The WoW forums, in particular, are a bottomless pit of suck.) There’s a lot of thoughtful, constructive criticism and suggestions in the beta forums, for example (in addition to the wailing and the brown-nosing), and some of it even gets acted on. It’s also possible to get actual, useful help there. People may squabble over the fine points of build advice, but at least they usually provide it without insulting you. You can also find help testing obscure things (though that’s less of an issue now, with the power stats available in-game) or troubleshooting problems. It’s true that the fanboy/naysayer contingents on the City boards are loud and persistent, but at least it’s possible to find reasonable people in between them. The trick is mostly in learning who to tune out. The other boards I’ve been on–WoW, LotRO, Tabula Rasa, and Champions among them–if you tune out all the obnoxious, useless people, you’ll be left talking to the crickets most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/6 "2012-02-29T05:39:36Z")
Universally terrible might be a bit strong but my personal experience with MMO forums hasn’t been all that great. There were a lot of people on the WoW forums who were convinced that verbal abuse from other players was simply part being a tank. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/7 "2012-02-29T06:11:22Z")
Video game boards are nigh-universally terrible, not just MMOs. Except maybe those of niche games that nobody’s ever heard about. At least that’s true of the official ones - it’s always 99% trolls, fanboys, nazi (or astroturfing) mods and ANGRY FUCKING PEOPLE WHO HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING ARGH but can’t shut the fuck up. Or quit playing. In fact, many will keep bitching and poo-pooing the game, and any change made to the game, long \*after \*they’ve stopped playing it. It’s truly flabbergasting. Honest to Aïsha, I wish I had that kind of free time. Or that amount of freewheeling seething hatred. Third party sites are hit-or-miss, it really depends on the game’s community. There are some great little nooks out there for just about any game. But the first Google results for “Name of the game forum” & “name of the publisher forum” are always utter shit. Always. Also the Steam ones. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/8 "2012-02-29T11:39:52Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Video game boards are nigh-universally terrible, not just MMOs. Except maybe those of niche games that nobody’s ever heard about. > > At least that’s true of the official ones - it’s always 99% trolls, fanboys, nazi (or astroturfing) mods and ANGRY FUCKING PEOPLE WHO HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT EVERYTHING ARGH but can’t shut the fuck up. Or quit playing. I’ve heard that both on the forums and in-game there are also people hired by rival games/companies to badmouth everything. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/9 "2012-02-29T14:11:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve heard that both on the forums and in-game there are also people hired by rival games/companies to badmouth everything. WHAT?!?! No _corporation_ would stoop to acting with cynical immorality to advance its own interests – that’s why we made them our overlords! ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/10 "2012-02-29T14:30:58Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > WHAT?!?! No _corporation_ would stoop to acting with cynical immorality to advance its own interests – that’s why we made them our overlords! Maybe it is just the George Soros funded ones. That is what i think I heard on Glenn Beck anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/11 "2012-02-29T14:55:55Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve heard that both on the forums and in-game there are also people hired by rival games/companies to badmouth everything. I’ve no idea if this is true or not but, in my experience, there’s enough cranky people on the internet to make this unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-mmo-message-boards-universally-terrible/614309/12 "2012-02-29T16:35:32Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve heard that both on the forums and in-game there are also people hired by rival games/companies to badmouth everything. One the one hand, that’s pretty poor behavior. It makes me think of negative campaign ads funded by anonymous corporations or millionaires. But on the other hand, where do I sign up for a job playing an MMO all day and complaining about it?