The Asmongold Effect

[TheRevenantHero]

This thread is sad. Its really obvious Asmongold is very popular. Its really obvious MMOC is dying because it is drowning in toxic behavior. And now we have a bunch of hyper toxic people on MMOC attacking Asmongold.

Asmongold is an always has been an utter piece of shit troll with an exceptionally toxic fanbase. Talking about how he's a piece of shit doesn't suddenly make someone toxic. That would be like calling someone toxic for pointing out all the bad things a politician has done.

[Drindorai]

Can't believe people took the very obvious bait of @RobertMugabe seriously.

The one thing I've found that has seemed true is that the toxicity has noticeably increased around the discourse of this game ever since Asmongold and his...followers...joined the scene. But while I find him pretty loathsome, the toxicity isn't really from him or them. But rather WoW players and WoW players only and are throwing a tantrum about it every chance they can get. Or people claiming things about the game (Like this conversation about difficulty) when its so obvious that they haven't actually played the thing they're pretending to have.

Is that Asmongold and his followers fault? Still, yes. They cultivated the toxicity that pretty much everybody sees them as. And even if they aren't the ones being toxic, it's not exactly a stretch to see why some FF14 players wouldn't want that kind of madness in their scene. However I would say the most...I don't know...pathetic? group are probably the ones who are contorting themselves to find any reason to hate FF14 they can find.

I don't remember the exact quote but Square Enix was out there saying that preorders for Endwalker were increased over Shadowbringers by something like 150% and I remember reading this before Asmongold even got involved in playing the game. Sure he's brought more eyes to it, but to pretend that he's responsible for its success is just absurd on its face.

[Necromantic]

Asmongold is an always has been an utter piece of shit troll with an exceptionally toxic fanbase. Talking about how he's a piece of shit doesn't suddenly make someone toxic. That would be like calling someone toxic for pointing out all the bad things a politician has done.

Your view on this streamer (while I do not personally disagree) simply proves Kokolums's comment correct.

Calling anyone a "piece of shit" is toxic. While I get your mindset is "I'm just calling a spade a spade", it's still what Koko was talking about.

The flipside are those who are just disproving all the ridiculous claims that some of his apparent fans in this thread are unsuccessfully trying to get people to believe. These are not insulting comments.

- - - Updated - - -

Can't believe people took the very obvious bait of @RobertMugabe seriously.

When it comes to his followers, it sometimes seems like bait but they're absolutely serious. When they say "he's done so much for this game", any rational person will smile, shake their head and look past it but they really believe these things.

[TriHard]

It was actually over 2 million unique views on the first FF14 stream he did, that is a shit ton of people.

[scelero]

This thread is sad. Its really obvious Asmongold is very popular. Its really obvious MMOC is dying because it is drowning in toxic behavior. And now we have a bunch of hyper toxic people on MMOC attacking Asmongold.

You need to unlearn the word 'toxic' You're throwing it around willy nilly like as if it actually pertains to this discussion. Stop breathing life into the concept by acknowledging it. Don't throw the crap back at them, instead bury it so they can't keep catching it back and throwing it at someone else.

[TheRevenantHero]

Your view on this streamer (while I do not personally disagree) simply proves Kokolums's comment correct.

Calling anyone a "piece of shit" is toxic. While I get your mindset is "I'm just calling a spade a spade", it's still what Koko was talking about.

The flipside are those who are just disproving all the ridiculous claims that some of his apparent fans in this thread are unsuccessfully trying to get people to believe. These are not insulting comments.

- - - Updated - - -



When it comes to his followers, it sometimes seems like bait but they're absolutely serious. When they say "he's done so much for this game", any rational person will smile, shake their head and look past it but they really believe these things.

He has gleefully told people to troll others in the past. Now he "disapproves of it" but the damage has already been done. His entire career was built off being a troll and encouraging his fans to be trolls. People in FFXIV are already frustrated with Asmongold fans making things difficult in game. Thankfully SE is pretty good about banning trolls.

[Necromantic]

He has gleefully told people to troll others in the past. Now he "disapproves of it" but the damage has already been done. His entire career was built off being a troll and encouraging his fans to be trolls. People in FFXIV are already frustrated with Asmongold fans making things difficult in game. Thankfully SE is pretty good about banning trolls.

You're not wrong in any of that, trust me. I know how he is, which is why my brain cannot compute why people STILL not only watch this guy but reference him, give him free money and take what he says as gospel. I honestly (and I mean that sincerely) do feel bad for these people. There is naive and then there is this level which goes well above and beyond.

The point I was making was that Koko was just talking about people insulting him but it was mostly people pointing out how many of the claims about him are simply not true, such as "he's done so much for the game." Lol please, the game had over 10M subscribers before he was even an entity and it's only been on a decline since his existence.

Sycophant: B..b..b..but... the population went up a lot at the beginning of the expansion, RIGHT AFTER he made a stream talking about the expansion!

Everyone else: ... it's a new expansion... many people come back to try it. That's why the population spiked.

Sycophant: Noooooooo! It's because he talked about it!

[Diatribe]

So, what we've seen in this thread is a couple things:

A) People who hate Asmongold will call anything positive about him as toxic and a bunch of other derogatory things.

B) People who like Asmongold will defend anything he says or does from those who hate him, regardless of what he's said or done.

C) Both A and B realizing that both can be both right and wrong in their stances at the same time, but often are too stubborn to accept thus.

I'm not really a fan of him per se, but I do find him somewhat entertaining at times and honestly feel that he's been a positive thing for FFXIV and his presence alone will draw in a healthy amount of people to the game. The proble is that we get into some subtle elitism as a result, as it starts to get into the "Country Club Golf Course" style viewing from some folks who will look as some of the new players as "not our kind of people we want here" and turn their nose up at them. Naturally, they'll deny that's not how they're acting and will resort to lengthy retorts of denial or simply result to insults. Still doesn't change the fact of how they are.

Personally, Asmongold helped push me over from "kinda sorta maybe thinking about it" to actually paying for the game and having an active monthly sub now.

[KrayZ33]

Honest question:

Did Asmongold behave in a toxic manner whatsoever while he was playing?
I really couldn't care less about what he did in the past and in other games tbh.
People lose their shits about how easy it is to ban a player when he acts like a dick and stuff - but now all of a sudden, they fear about their "safe place" or something?
Jeez, if some Asmon-fanboy is acting like a dick, report him and be done with it.

Can't really say Asmongold himself acted like a dick when he was playing, but that might have been youtube cherrypicking the good scenes of him playing FFXIV.

Can't help but think that once again, there is this minority of mouthbreathers who think they are more important than others and they own a really loud keyboard.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Did Asmongold behave in a toxic manner whatsoever while he was playing?

No, it's a meme that keeps getting regurgitated by people who don't even watch him because some people don't like that he's popular. He's unironically chiller than many people on the official FFXIV forums.

[Graeham]

I've stopped caring about the term 'toxic' because it's laughably overused and generally pushed by those who make an effort to go out of their way to be offended by things because they're either uptight or extremely manipulative and ready to weaponise such terms in an effort to benefit themselves.

I'd also note, the FFXIV community has a major issue with gatekeeping. Asmongold being as popular as he is makes it impossible for him to be shut out of the community, however - which I suspect is why there's a lot of grumbling about him from certain parties.

[Necromantic]

No, it's a meme that keeps getting regurgitated by people who don't even watch him because some people don't like that he's popular. He's unironically chiller than many people on the official FFXIV forums.

I'm sure it's a meme for the video of him joining FFXIV but in general, he's not good. And surely people don't like that he's popular. There are people in the world who are popular because they've actually done something. There are also people in the world who are popular for the wrong reasons and probably shouldn't be such as him, Bhad Bhabie or the Kardashians

And anyone is chiller than people on the official FFXIV forums. I've seen people there give newer players death threats for simply saying they're not comfortable doing DPS as a healer.

[Farora]

I doubt getting a swarm of drooling 14 year old twitch kids is a good thing for a community.

[Graeham]

To be fair, the official forum is probably the most civil out of all the FFXIV related platforms for discussion about the game. For starters, it actually has moderation.

Reddit, Twitter and Discord do not. I had to leave the FFXIV Reddit Discord due to death threats and active harassment because of a handful of nutters who could not handle the idea that someone liked Garlemald and the Ascians and argued in their favour in a lore discussion. The same individual is not only a 'mentor' in the channel, but the head moderator refused to intervene even when approached privately with evidence of the mentor in question contacting friends of mine in order to try and get identifying information about my real life identity and family.

Then again, this is the same Discord community that turned a blind eye to inappropriate artwork of lalafell being distributed in a secret NSFW channel for as long as it could get away with it, so...

Ironically, I've had very few issues within the game itself. The worst of the game's playerbase seem to drift towards third party locations where they're often given free reign to do as they please with zero consequence.

[kaminaris]

That wave started before bald guy started playing, he simply rode that wave making it bigger.

[Necromantic]

Thank everyone

To be fair, the official forum is probably the most civil out of all the FFXIV related platforms for discussion about the game. For starters, it actually has moderation.

I’m not sure if you’re joking or not…?

They have moderators but they’re not smart. They cherry pick what they moderate more than here.

Twitter never gets moderated. Reddit has moderators and they can be hit or miss. Discord… no point in moderating.

[Graeham]

Thank everyone

I’m not sure if you’re joking or not…?

They have moderators but they’re not smart. They cherry pick what they moderate more than here.

Twitter never gets moderated. Reddit has moderators and they can be hit or miss. Discord… no point in moderating.

I've been posting on the official forum for years. The moderation isn't perfect, though if people overstep their boundaries they'll be punished - the same cannot be said of Reddit and Twitter.

The lack of consequences on those two sites make them far more horrid, not in the least due to the utter insanity on display. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of beef with the official forum and how it's run but at least I don't get death threats there.

[Necromantic]

I've been posting on the official forum for years. The moderation isn't perfect, though if people overstep their boundaries they'll be punished - the same cannot be said of Reddit and Twitter.

The lack of consequences on those two sites make them far more horrid, not in the least due to the utter insanity on display. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of beef with the official forum and how it's run but at least I don't get death threats there.

Maybe we're looking at two different official forums.

I've been on there for a long time and the official forums along with Reddit are by far the worst places to have a conversation about the game. I feel so bad for all the newer players I've seen berated and harassed. I browse a lot of subreddits and I'm also a moderator in one of the biggest subreddits... the FFXIV one is the most downvote-happy one I've browsed. And it's not even by a little bit.

[Kapaya]

We cant deny, while XIV is an amazing game

I deny this

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As far as places to talk about FFXIV go:

FFXIV thread on Spacebattles > Gamefaqs FFXIV forum = MMO Champions FFXIV subforum > FFXIV Official Forums > FFXIV threads on 4chan v/ >>>>>>>>> Something Awful threads > r/FFXIV subreddit > Twitter

The good FFXIV communities

• Spacebattles has indepth discussions of the story. Users post in good faith and don't strawman each other or anything. From what I've seen, most of the best breakdowns and criticisms of the story and writing from here. Also has good recommendations for gameplay for newcomers. Little to no discussion of the gameplay.

• You will find honest discussions of FFXIV in threads on /v/, namely the gameplay (but also sometimes the story). Don't bother going to the XIV thread on /vg/ as no one actually talks about the game in there, it's just people posting their glamours. The drawback is that this being 4chan, threads are deleted after a few days so it's cumbersome digging through archive sites if you want to find discussion on a specific topic.

• The Gamefaqs forum for FFXIV also has good discussions (namely the gameplay but sometimes the story) but people don't reply to each other as much and there aren't as many indepth discussions.

• The FFXIV Official Forums has some indepth posts on both gameplay and story, but the back and forth discussions tend to not go anywhere much because there is strawmanning and people missing each other's points. There is also a lot of official forum users who are hardcore FFXIV fanboys/cultists.

• MMO Champion has a lot of discussion about the game, little discussion of the story.

FFXIV communities you should avoid

• Something Awful is filled with hardcore fanboys and cultists. The one guy there who doesn't think FFXIV is god's gift to mankind is regularly mocked and derided by many of the posters in that thread. The moderators will also ban you for wondering why Soken's assistants didn't step up to create more songs to fill in the gaps while Soken was incapacitated.

• The r/FFXIV subreddit is just fanart and memes being posted and cultists pretending everything is nice and happy and that there are no problems. Anyone who bothers trying to make an indepth discussion or doesn't go along with the consensus is downvoted and ignored.

• Twitter lol. Only good for following fanartists (the best ones are Herodio2013, Falcon_xiv, kuroimori_twee, and Q6Q6TIKIN)