MMO Tribalism - The DANGER In Loving a Game Too Much 

Total biscuit had many a rant about fan boyism nothing really changed we call it tribalism now but it’s the same principle Dedication to a product regardless of what they do with it is never healthy for the product, criticism and need to adapt to waning interest is what pushes development to improve. when products don’t need to change is when they start cutting quality and ramping monetization

It is very obvious in the foods industry how often do some of your favorite frozen foods seem to get smaller in quantities and slowly seem to lose quality only then to be replace a year later by another version of the exact same product by the exact same company with a different label and the cycle to repeat

He better not fucking ruin it like he did SL

I wish they would allow you to be rude asf. But no seriously, they need to have thick skin and take the harsh points that their about to face, if they're willing to allow the person to just say stuff thats raw and on point. Ofcourse, it has to be contrstrucive and has actual basis.

@@WritesFantasy In what way did HE ruin it?

I actually notice this tribalism a lot more outside of the game. In-game it's typically in reference to social media sentiment. What's your experience on this? Would you say that the tribalism is more visible/vocal on social media or am I somehow lucky to not notice it too much ingame (the train wreck that is novice network aside)?

@@Celis.C i think in general its just internet crazy. Nobody irl has these "game tribalism" conversations xD Its just bored, terminally online freaks

@@ich3730 Fair point. It wouldn't surprise me if those who spend sufficient time on any game (mmo's in particular) will start to identify with their in-game personality. Since IRL sucks anyway, you might as well get drawn into games/mmo's and 'live' there. I know that I'm guilty to some degree. The next leap to borderline religious zeal for a particular game title is readily made...

@@Celis.C True, They get overly attached to the game as well which is weird af as a video game should never define your personality. This is coming from someone that loves the game a lot.

Based mr happy

i feel the exact same way, rly sad that i can't watch him live :(

100% this I've followed his channel since he taught me how to play mmos back in Cataclysm and I'm just overjoyed to see him enjoying his job again. I don't care what he plays as long as he's happy and doing well

Every business owner seems happier when their business is booming

@@Yrzi money is not all in live. you can have a lot of money but if your job is bad, it will make you sick.

Hard not to be happier when you are not forced to constantly cover the unending stream of dogshit WoW gave us since bfa

Speaking as a recovering alcoholic/addict, this is 💯 💙

The world is just a very negative, unhappy place these days. I know video game tribalism has always been a thing, but real world events are certainly not helping lately.

Look at politics. So extreme either way. The world is definitely not worse than ever though. Read about history, it’s mostly people being taken advantage of or murdered en mass. We’re in the most peaceful time in human history

@@magdabrownis265 you're not wrong, but that doesn't mean things are so much better now that they are bearable. if anything they're less bearable due to the news cycles and connections each of us has to one another now, there's no escaping the negativity. Hell I'd even argue much of what you mentioned from the past still happen now.

I truly don't get hate watching content either or even playing wow or whatever game if you don't like it. Just idk don't? Theres people you find commenting on videos about wow that haven't played wow in years, just to complaint. I wouldn't do that about games I don't play, I just stop.

played it in the PS1. Aeris has been stuck with me forever.

Ha, ha, ha and don´t skip cutscenes... srsly... *comes-face-to-face*... don´t skip...

My PC can beat up your PS4 🤣

@fumanchu168 who uses fax anymore?

Tribalism is necessary though. It is how communities are built. Humans are social creatures and very pack-mentality driven so it is going to happen regardless. You can still be an individual within Tribalism though.

@@handlerone5172 I agree, to a point. The problem is people LOVE teams and can't handle being on the "unpopular" team, so they lash out nonsensically... misplaced frustration sucks for everyone. Playing games should be just that, nothing more.

Tell that to ladies buying $20 worth bags for a price of a house and relentlessly dissing ones that do not follow proper fashion trend. It's not gaming and gamers but people investing themselves in things and acceptance of an ingroup.

This is the thing i want the most of. Its why i am no longer playing wow.

I wouldn‘t even need intricate guides for every class, but I really miss the occasional tdp‘s where he explains the spec he is playing in the vid or talks about random stuff

Definitely check out limit max’s channel if you want class previews. They can run pretty long but his discussions with knowledge members of the community have been a great watch!

@@Kenv_ the round table stuff is long but often has some good content

@@Kenv_ yeah I've been listening to them all lately, it's good hearing all the other content creators in there too

I'm glad he actually likes FFX. It is super campy at times, but man is it a legendary game. But yes, WoW has pissed him off so much I think he is going to fully switch soon! Jk of course.

@@handlerone5172 dude the campiness of FFX sells it, the VA for Tidus has such jarring reads, if you don't enjoy the bad voice acting and the campy tropes it's not going to do anything for you haha

@@handlerone5172 I tried FF - spend nearly 50 quid on it. Just couldn't hit the same spot as WoW I don't like the art style. Amazing community though, WoW Classic is the only thing saving MMO's for me right now. Fully understand why people like FF but the artstyles too happy anime (it's a Japanese MMO I know). WoW dragonflight looks like dogshit too - Wrath here I come.

@Z Ah, I see you attempted to get a rise out of me. I was joking around, and you took it seriously, my condolences.

@@zetton1374 he didn’t read ahead in the script, all his reads are mostly his genuine reactions to that part of the story

Some MMO players totally treat it like it’s meant to be a commitment though… it’s what they’re used to and what the games they played molded them into

It's bizarre and a little sad. I'm not trying to sound condescending but when someone goes all-in on just one game like that to the point where it ruins things for other games - and yet they still aren't having fun with their main game? They have to ask themselves why they're doing what they're doing. I'll admit I was like that for 16+ years in WoW. Tried FFXIV half-way through Battle for Azeroth. Tried playing half an hour every night for a week (which is all I had time for) and was deeply offended by the graphics, the slow GCD, the fact that I was just level 18 and still only had a rock spell and a wind DoT. I was like, "How the hell am I going to get to level cap so I can enjoy the end game content? This is dumb, I quit." I realized about a month before Shadowlands prepatch dropped that I was still carrying a torch for nobody. All of my friends had left he game in WoD and I think some small part of me kept playing, hoping that they'd come back. Because for me, the game was more about the people than the game itself - I was just too dumb to realize it at the time. So I unsubbed and uninstalled a month before SL's prepatch. Dove headfirst into Cyberpunk 2077 and as flawed as that game was, it reminded me that I could have fun with other games. I reluctantly went back to FFXIV when I saw they were doing free trials again and created a Gladiator. This time, I didn't have WoW brain. I took my time. Didn't skip through cutscenes, didn't dismiss quest text right away. I read everything. Absorbed as much as I could. Winding down at the tail end of ARR, I thought the story was cool but I was ready to let it go. Wasn't planning on doing Heavensward. Then I experienced The Parting Glass, and I was absolutely stunned. I didn't realize how much the game sucked me in until that. I subbed and bought all of the expansions right then and there. Now I'm an omni-crafter, pushing close to a true omni 90, and I finally have a small plot and I'm slowly building up my interior design. But I know that I can play other games. WoW has this toxic thing regarding fear of missing out. While FFXIV does have some of those mechanics, it's only with peripheral content and not MSQ stuff, not for the things that really matter. I haven't had this much fun in an MMO since I played City of Heroes. I realized that WoW was never fun for me without friends. FFXIV is by no means a perfect game. But it feels like home in a way that WoW never did. FFXIV doesn't demand my time and turn into a part-time job where I pay for the privilege and then punish me if I cheat on it by playing other games.

@@RokkitGrrl You bring up a huge point about the WoW community that a lot of people don't address enough. Many people who play WoW have or only ever play WoW. Retail does a horrible job of telling the player to enjoy the journey. Just enjoy the moment you're in. End game is everything. Rush rush, go go gimme my reward. The process of actually playing the game is a chore until you get to end game raids and PvP. Maybe I'm a different type of player but man do I miss old WoW where the world was an adventure and things could kill you if didn't pay attention. It adds so much value to every task you perform in the game. Now, it's a lobby game spitting out one token at a time for rushing trough a dungeon as fast as possible. What memory does that create? The current WoW community seems to consider actually playing the game a nuisance.

thumbs innit m8

That was a thumb.

Definition of nitpicking

@@Hawkenwhacker or it's just meant as a humorous remark

@@Znagol you know a thumb is also a finger right?

Some of the FF fandom is fucking WILD when it comes to being incredibly over-critical of any game in the series that isn't their personal favourite. My introduction to mainline FF was FF13 and fucking I love that game, but a lot of the FF fandom memes on it being terrible because of a few specific design choices, like it being linear and the combat system having an "auto-battle" function (which really only automates the least important part of battling). Cue my confusion when I go back to play a "good FF game" like FF10 and... it's also extremely linear. And god forbid you enjoyed FF15 and it's heretical action combat with nary a turn-based battle in sight. That game had plenty of problems of course, but it was still very good. You quickly realise that a lot of people aren't so much FF fans, but more a fan of the nostalgic rose-tinted memory of their childhood favourite, with massively unrealistic expectations for the newest title to transport them back in time to when they were an imaginative kid that didn't fully understand the limitations of a video-game.

@@NabsterHax Because it's relative. Comparatively FFX is nowhere near as linear. And relative to combat systems across the series 13's is objectively uninteresting. It's really annoying when people can't accept that things are actually truly quantifiable and objectively measurable. It doesn't mean it can't be your personal favorite but stop acting so shocked and victimized when other people don't like it for the clearly obvious reasons. Game systems are measurable and comparable as are the opinions of the masses that played them. This constant drive people like you have to try and level every game out as if they're all as good as each other is a huge reason why so many garbage games that come out now are accepted and the bar for quality has fallen so low. Some games are just worse than others and that's completely independent of your personal favorites. We all like bad movies too, nobody white knights like this for horrible movies. It's so toxic.

@@NabsterHax XIII has so many other issues aside from the linearity starting from the completely inane Crystarium system and the fact that everyone else that hasn't gotten into the franchise a week ago had to wait TEN years for that piece of shit to come out.

@@derpderpin1568 "Comparatively FFX is nowhere near as linear." I don't really know how you can say "nowhere near." It's an extremely linear game. I'll concede one major difference is that FFX allows you to waste your time going the wrong direction if you really want to (there's no reason to, though). FF13 is extremely on-rails, for the majority of the game, but this plays to its strengths, allowing players to focus on enjoying the story and combat with no pointless padding. "relative to combat systems across the series 13's is objectively uninteresting." Yeah. This just tells me you haven't played the game or don't understand how to make the most of its combat system. 13's combat is really, really good and one of the best action/turn-based hybrid systems. As soon as you get paradigm switching, there is a massive amount of technique opened up to you. For example, did you know that switching paradigms after waiting for a full ATB charge gives you another instantly for free? And do you know how role bonuses work, allowing you to take advantage of things like triple-ravager to build stagger insanely quickly, or triple-com to dish out massive damage, or split-second switching to sentinel in order to massively reduce AOE damage? Do you take full advantage of your TP abilities like Quake as an AOE com-style attack (that massively reduces stagger decay). Have you tried actually timing your attacks to interrupt enemy abilities or scourge finisher when the stagger gauge is almost empty? But I digress. Needless to say, I find your characterisation of "objectively uninteresting" to be laughably misinformed. "This constant drive people like you have to try and level every game out as if they're all as good as each other" I have no such drive. For example, I firmly believe a game like FFX is objectively worse in many ways. The voice acting/direction is atrocious and putting long, unskippable cutscenes before tough boss fights is an unforgivable game design sin. Of course, it's a product of its time, but this is part of the issue I'm talking about with the FF fanbase. They'll forgive all the sins of their favourites without blinking an eye, but then insist that someone else is wrong for forgiving the sins of their own favourites. I'm not white knighting for anything. If anything, it seems like you're the one with some emotional issue around me saying I like a game and don't understand people who go out of their way to tell me I'm wrong, ironically proving the point that it's impossible to vocally appreciate a game like FF13 without someone jumping in to tell you how bad it is.

@@karellen85 "inane Crystarium system" How is it inane? It's pretty linear at first sure, but you still have some control over which nodes to prioritise. And later on in the game, especially when you unlock all roles for every character those choices are more pronounced as it takes longer to earn each node. I do like how you can eventually max out every character's stats, though. I'm not a fan of systems that let you make your characters comparatively weaker by choosing the "wrong" way to level up (e.g. I dislike that XIII-2 requires you to plan out your levelling if you don't want pointlessly less powerful endgame characters.) "the fact that everyone else that hasn't gotten into the franchise a week ago had to wait TEN years for that piece of shit to come out." See, there it is. The inevitable "I've been a fan of the franchise longer so my opinion is more valid." This sentiment perfectly demonstrates the issue with the FF fanbase, though. I see it with 13, and I saw it with 15 and I see it with the older games too. "I waited years for this game and it wasn't what I was hoping for so that makes it a bad game." Keep in mind, basically every single new FF game has been vastly different from the previous ones, and yet people keep assuming each game will continue to scratch the same itch. It's a nonsensical expectation, and every time a new game is released there are loads of people who can't enjoy the game for what it is because they're too busy being upset for what it isn't, and what they'd been hyping themselves hoping it might be. The ironic thing is that I think I'm a far more impartial judge of a game like FF13 having played it before playing other FFs than anyone who's making nostalgic comparisons to older games, or who hyped themselves into disappointment. There's clearly a lot of emotional bitterness surrounding a game like FF13, which I can understand, but it's still amusing to me as someone who enjoys the game.

It's true, people love emotionally attaching themselves to brands. Not just video game but look at comments in Sony vs Apple Headphones. It's very interesting thing that will never end, its like Ford vs Chevy of the modern day, and people get just as heated and stupid over it as they always have

Lol mike just salty he wass missing out on the alpha and beta moneyz. He suckes blizz bigtime for an alpha invite

The Bioware community is so incredibly tribal! I've met some of my best friends there but I've pulled away because it's super toxic for a number of reasons.

I think he's already played 4, 5, 6, 9, 10

@@sauceinmyface9302 I don't think he played 5. He started 7 though, but then stopped due to toxic chat

@@___IG Based.

So tru. Bro right before covid my friends were still making fun of me and calling me weeb in a judgmental tone because i played ff14 and watched anime. Today they also play ff14, genshin impact, watch anime and even vtubers and deny ever making fun of me.

I have not seen media portray JRPGs specifically and exclusively as inferior. The superiority complex of people has always gone both ways. You can find just as many articles saying the opposite, you just may not always speak the language.

@@tezeroth4905 they are not friends

The accuracy.

This is a remarkably insightful and well articulated comment. Well said.

i mean if people play a game its because they like the game, i remember a couple years back a youtuber that came from wow quit the game complaining "there was nothing to do after a while" because he just raided and the devs didn't output enough content to keep him engaged. Its like those people that come to a hobby and start demanding it changes to cather to their likes, if square started developing the game and focusing on just outputing endgame content it would just turn into another wow and people already have a game if thats what they want and the people that don't then don't want ff14 to become another wow. All things said there are definetely parts of the game that need and should be improved but people wanting to change fundamental things and the focus of the game because its not what they like its flat out stupid.

All WOW fanboys have today is shitting on other games. Because WOW is dead and gone, noone with any sense is going to ever take it seriously as an MMO again. It's a shame because WOW was once a good game. I played it myself for 11 years. But Blizzard is dead as a company, and it was time to move on. During Legion I actually played both games.

Fascinating aint it? The different almost cultures people form while in different games.

He covered that in the "end of an era" video. The legacy videos falls under drama time that it is more player driven so he wants to finish them.

no it IS his fault. he fosters and exacerbates that sort of behavior and then acts shocked

@@Sneedmeister a big part is Asmon's very attitude. He firmly adheres to the "I'm right, and everyone else is stupid if you disagree" mindset. Which is incredibly toxic and that permeates through his audience. Everything simply because an Us vs Them attitude.

@@SuperRamos619 i've also found that like a lot of twitch streamers, in the end he is a slave to the algorhythm and what;s easy, and whenver its pointed out he gets huffy about it. Remember, if you see blatant clickbait. avoid it like the plague, lets train the dogs to stop their bad behaviour again.

It's not his fault that he has a large viewerbase. That will naturally attract a lot of nonsense on its own. It's just the Fame Monster at work. But it is his fault for refusing to enforce limits to his community's behavior *based on principles of common decency*. Instead, he's made it clear that the barometer for good or bad in his domain is "things that entertain me and don't challenge my self-perception/worldview". The people reflect the leadership.

@@jaylee9372 Stylizing your content intentionally to appeal to those people like he does is literally only his fault.

It has nothing to do with games-as-service. It's been a thing since the beginning of time to hate the thing you not doing. Also this ain't even as bad. Go look up console fanboys if you want to see real tribalism in gaming.

@@TheAssirra Games-as-service is not the only cause for tribalism but it sure as hell is one. Console Wars/Platform Wars are yet another great example of how dependency created by manufacturers and developers leads to people feeling emotionally and financially invested and that automatically leads to a sense of identity. All that time, money and effort has to count for something, right? And anybody who acts or says differently is living proof that it doesn't actually matter. But our monkey brains don't accept that. There's a cognitive dissonance and it creates emotional outbursts. "Make *their* bananas go away so I can go back to *my* bananas and pretend I won the lottery." And big companies want you religiously buying their product while refusing rival product. With regular consumer goods, there's one benefit: You eat the bananas, the bananas are now gone and your pantry is empty. When you next go grocery shopping, maybe you buy coconuts or some other bananas because the onew you usually buy are sold out. Services never sell out and the client is installed on your hardware. Force of habit lets you check that game first before anything else, if at all you play something else that day. No barriers means even more opportunity to become invested and thus more sunk cost to reaffirm our identity.

@@TheAssirra Both GaaS and console fanboyism seem heavily related to sunk cost though. Which would make GaaS part of the problem. Can't have all that time/money being spent on (something perceived as) the wrong choice. It seems to come down to a mentality of being on top or being trash.

@@Vrynix I know it's the same thing but people talking like it's GaaS issue when it existed for long before seems wrong. I remember watching videos of people buying "the bad console" to then smash it to make a point. Fanatics are fucking scary.

He still plays, he just doesn't cover it. I don't think he's going to be full WoW coverage again so I hope that's not what you are wanting. He seems to enjoy streaming and making content for a mix of games now and that's healthy.

@@melissas4874 Making videos on WoW doesn't mean quiting every other game and only play WoW again. Preach repeatedly said that he wishes he can play WoW for a bit and then come back later like he does with other other games such as POE.

The community outside of FFXIV is definitely fairly toxic, while inside is not that bad Sadly this outside community can be also be fairly loud. The addon witch hunt drama following the 6.1 ultimate has me not wanting to play, as somebody who relies on certain addons to be able to play the game at lower stress levels. I'm not a streamer or content creator, so this doesn't affect me at all, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth

Yes, and it's the same for any game. He also pointed this in this very video.

The official forums is a complete hellhole, a big part of that is also because of the awful moderation.. There's a small group of people who are like dedicated haters who are just excessively negative and riled up about EVERYTHING, and they ban together and report people who disagree with them. The problem is that the bans get handed out way too easily, even just saying something like '' grow up '' can get you banned for being '' aggressive '' and a list of other things. It has gotten worse in recent years because normal people just get banned or don't have the energy to put up with it, so this small group of people have just taken over the whole thing. The official forum is like a completely different universe than ingame.

@@Feast_ I also think it's just for example Reddit or Twitter being toxic places too. Most of the people on Reddit and Twitter are Redditors and Twitter users, they just happen to play FFXIV or WoW too. It's not that they're toxic because they play those games or anything, it's just that they exist on platforms that are a certain way and also play the games.