I used to belong to a very prominent gaming forum. In fact, I was one of the admins there and spent a great deal of my time scrolling, reading, trolling and generally wasting alot of precious gaming time with idiots I could have avoided. That said, not all gaming forums are bad places and supposedly, the more time you spend in them, the more likely you’ll fit in. Right? Well, not always. I’ve had some interesting experiences in online forums and out of all the forums I’ve participated in, I’ve had some of the best and worst experiences in the gaming forums.

Why do you suppose this is? Is it because of the people who frequent it? Does it really come down to what kind of geek you are or do you believe there are morons in every corner of the planet just waiting for you to show up? It’s great when you’re part of a group of people who belong in the forum. If you manage to join a clique, you should find that you’ll fit right in. The positives of this are: if you screw up in the forum either by bad-mouthing another gamer or flaming an admin, your buddies will (or should) come to your rescue or your defense. The flipside to this of course, is if you fall out with so-called buddies, you’ll likely find them trolling and flaming you until you feel too victimised to stay.

It pays to have a tough skin in online forums and gaming forums are no different. I’ve had people throw all sorts of profanities at me without ever meeting me simply because I chose to disagree with them. I’ve had people flame me on other forums thinking I didn’t know and then try to be nice to me IRL LOL! I’ve even had people harrass me, stalk me and do all they can to victimise me and still I returned to this sacred gaming mecca I called my home (well, sorta).

Well along with changing my views on how I write this year, I’ve also stopped doing alot of the things that were going nowhere and doing nothing for me. Hanging around in forums where you’re clearly of no value is a waste of time, effort and emotion that can be otherwise spent pursuing more pleasant things such as blogging That said, I joined a new forum recently but I don’t know if I will ever fit in. You might be surprised at the level of competition (read: hatred) that exists underneath the exterior between gaming communities. I was once flamed out of one forum by everyone there because I was staunch enough (or stupid enough lol) to admit to being an admin in another forum. I was trying to do some research on an article… my bad for thinking that I could pursue the views of gamers without prejudice.

So what are your experiences of gaming forums? Do you like them and why, why not? Could you recommend any good gaming forums to look at if people were wanting to expand their horizons a little? Why would you recommend them? I find in general, that gaming forums can be great sources of information and for a games journalist, that’s an important asset to have access to. I suppose it all comes down to exactly how involved you wish to be in your chosen online environment.

Speak to me people!

Xenith out.