The Depressed Veterans Club 3 (Pseudo-Farewell)
Jul 16, 2024 18:57:54 GMT -5
Cdr. Crimmins, Eradicator1, and 3 more like this
Post by 079 on Jul 16, 2024 18:57:54 GMT -5
Hey all, it has been quite a while, has it not? I have been thinking to write this for about 2 months now, but just have not had the willpower to, for reasons that will probably become obvious. I did not think at first I would make a third one of these threads, but the last couple of months have been rather interesting for me and my relationship with War Robots. Plus, I am a big fan of moviemaking, so having these threads make a nice, rounded-off trilogy is kinda satisfying to me. The first thread was about the out-of-control meta eroding the basics of skill and tactics in the game, the second about uncertainty in a era where Pixonic will not hesitate to turn anything and everything on its head for money, and now the third will be about what I long had as the final bastion of War Robots enjoyment: the fanbase, and how it is not exactly that for me anymore. This game has changed a lot over the years, and now, so have I.
As the year 2024 started and went on, I found myself being just... done... with not only War Robots itself, but also the fanbase. Done with the constant complaining about the same handful of topics with nothing new to say, done with wet blankets turning normal discussions into rants, done with witch hunts aiming to villainize any content creator who at all enjoys the game, and done with the strange cope mentality that a lot of veteran players seem to have (more on that later). A couple short years ago, it was easy to filter out parts of the fanbase you wanted to ignore: you had Adrian Chong for positive YouTube content, Manni for negative, and Predator for balanced takes, Reddit and Discord had less internal friction, and this forum had a good separation between the General Discussion and Rants & Revelations sections. Nowadays though, it all just feels like everything is one amorphous, negative blob, with people trama-dumping about the game on the daily and others seemingly trying to make one feel bad for liking the game (think about that for a second). I have been voicing my dissatisfaction with this for about 2 years now, but it seemed like for a while things were just continuing without me, and I felt pushed away from the fanbase, including this forum. As someone who in real life has stress and self-worth problems, being a moderator on a forum that was slowly becoming a hub for people to have self-therapy on their robot mobile game became an unnecessary weight for me, so I disengaged for a while. Logging on to just to make sure that nobody had blown a gasket and shot their way out of town or was promoting super lowly behavior make the forum into a chore for me, not entertainment. I want to make it clear that I am not blaming any one person or group for this (you can go anywhere in the War Robots fanbase and find these things), I am just stating how I felt and still feel. I just wanted to wait to say it until there was a good takeaway from it, and I think I have one now.
Around 2 months ago, one of the most impactful events in my War Robots career occurred: I lost access to my account for a period of around 2 weeks. At first I was distressed about losing one of my most-played games, but after only a day or so, I started to think much better of it. I was free of this manipulative and taxing game, and could enjoy other activities that were not begging me to play them liked War Robots was. When I got access to my account back, I was just lukewarm about it, mainly only happy to have 6 Pack and the Time Drops back. For the first time in probably 6 years, I had rebuilt the mental barrier between myself and the game, recognizing it as nothing more than such. I did in fact miss the free Ultimate Destrier promotion, but I only felt a little sad about it, as I had now learned to not care about something that really did not matter (I almost only play 6 Pack, and Ultimate Destrier is a pushover anyway). I do not mean to get existential with nothing mattering or anything, I am just laying out how I learned not to let the fear-of-missing-out tactic that Pixonic loves to use get to me anymore.
With that said, I would like to now circle back to the veteran player cope mentality I had mentioned earlier, as I think this is a really understated issue among longtime players at the moment. I think it is best summed up by a comment I remember getting in response to a post where I encouraged people to play other mech games, and it said something like "Until a true War Robots analog comes around, I am happy playing the Stockholm Syndrome victim", which beautifully illustrates my point. Us veteran players like to pride ourselves on being above Pixonic's manipulation, but I have found myself questioning that for a good number of people. The way a lot of these rants are written makes it sound like the person's very livelihood is built on this game, and that ranting endlessly is the only way out, which I say is blatantly not true. Some players are simply taking this game way too seriously, while others are living in self-denial of how much control this game has over them, and while the former usually learn sense, the latter are what I want to focus on. Ask yourself, are you logging on to War Robots only because you want to, or at least in some part (if not entirely) due to some sense of obligation, like not wanting to miss freebies or needing to maintain some sort of grind, because reasons? If you are logging on because you "have" to, I would go as far as to say you are as under Pixonic's thumb as the whales are, because Pixonic can do anything it wants to the game and you will always find reasons to keep playing. Pixonic wants you to be trapped in more than just the meta, they want you to be trapped in the game itself, putting in so much time and effort to get progress that it becomes genuinely unhealthy for your mind and you rationalize it. I would know because this used to be me, and luckily I had my parents and friends to keep me in some state of moderation before I learned sense for myself. So what did I do to break the loop? I expanded my horizons when it came to entertainment: I played other, less needy mech games like World of Robots or Battle of Titans, and I played entirely different games, because believe it or not, the customization-based territory control gameplay of War Robots can be replicated in games that do not have giant robots at all. I dusted off old classic mobile games like Plants vs Zombies, Kingdom Rush, Minecraft, and My Singing Monsters, played some of the new Nintendo Switch games like the Mario RPG remake, and tried some completely new games like Lethal Company. I found these games to scratch the itch that War Robots does shockingly well, and the only way you can see for yourself is if you try them for yourself. Take Mech Arena for instance, a game that a lot of us love to be very judgmental towards, as is it really that much more cartoony than War Robots? Mech Arena may have more simplistic graphics yes, but it does not have mothership light shows, a bazillion different shield types, tons of robots that float around or walk like they have pogo sticks in their legs (cough Crisis cough), cat girl pilots, or weapons that shoot through walls, so is it really that bad? There is only one way to find out!
Now, I do not mean to label everyone here is a hypocritical Pixonic zombie-player, I just think there is a not-insignificant amount of people who may have needed to hear this. Unlike Pixonic, I will leave it to you to decide what is best for you. Did my words of wisdom resonate with you and a change of digital scenery sounds nice (even if it is only temporary, having a break and playing a more relaxed game that is not trying to be more than it is is surprisingly refreshing), or am I plain out of my mind? You can decide, as you are the only one who is in charge of you. Just, if you think you are fine and then find yourself stressing over how to make more time tonight to grind War Robots, maybe reconsider! I also want to say, if you are playing the game a ton and are genuinely loving every second of it, that is fine too. Just know when enough is enough and ease off the gas petal before you burn or stress yourself out. We need more people who enjoy this game and can spread that love to others, so if that is you, then keep doing you!
**********************************
I would like to end this off on a hopeful note, something that I actually was not expecting to upon sitting down to write this. I expected this to be my final thread and my formal farewell, my going out with a bang if you will, but after looking around this place a little bit, it seems people are already starting to come to my point of view. More balanced threads in General Discussion, threads promoting moderation within the community, and some of the more problematic users having moved on, which I will say was a surprise to me. So, I think I will downgrade this thread to a pseudo-farewell, in that I will still be around but officially in a diminished capacity compared to the years prior. I would say my days of writing long guides are behind me, and this will be last big thread for a long time, possibly ever honestly. But I no longer plan to fully leave the forums (and even if I did, I would not delete my account or anything, because you never know), and will maybe try to comment on things here and there now. Well, here is to a brighter future, and may I see you all on the battlefield as well as the message boards, commanders!
P.S. I figured now would be as good of a time as any to lift the curtain and spill the beans on what my profile picture avatar is (the distorted computer face) for those not in the know. It is a character in a giant online creative works project called Special Containment Procedures (SCP), which details an alternate reality in which a covert government agency captures and studies various anomalous objects (which are given SCP classification), both to contain as well as understand them. Linked below is a video detailing the SCP that my avatar is from, and hey, if this tickles your fancy, there is a lot more out there, easily enough to distract you for a few nights or even weeks to take a break from War Robots!
As the year 2024 started and went on, I found myself being just... done... with not only War Robots itself, but also the fanbase. Done with the constant complaining about the same handful of topics with nothing new to say, done with wet blankets turning normal discussions into rants, done with witch hunts aiming to villainize any content creator who at all enjoys the game, and done with the strange cope mentality that a lot of veteran players seem to have (more on that later). A couple short years ago, it was easy to filter out parts of the fanbase you wanted to ignore: you had Adrian Chong for positive YouTube content, Manni for negative, and Predator for balanced takes, Reddit and Discord had less internal friction, and this forum had a good separation between the General Discussion and Rants & Revelations sections. Nowadays though, it all just feels like everything is one amorphous, negative blob, with people trama-dumping about the game on the daily and others seemingly trying to make one feel bad for liking the game (think about that for a second). I have been voicing my dissatisfaction with this for about 2 years now, but it seemed like for a while things were just continuing without me, and I felt pushed away from the fanbase, including this forum. As someone who in real life has stress and self-worth problems, being a moderator on a forum that was slowly becoming a hub for people to have self-therapy on their robot mobile game became an unnecessary weight for me, so I disengaged for a while. Logging on to just to make sure that nobody had blown a gasket and shot their way out of town or was promoting super lowly behavior make the forum into a chore for me, not entertainment. I want to make it clear that I am not blaming any one person or group for this (you can go anywhere in the War Robots fanbase and find these things), I am just stating how I felt and still feel. I just wanted to wait to say it until there was a good takeaway from it, and I think I have one now.
Around 2 months ago, one of the most impactful events in my War Robots career occurred: I lost access to my account for a period of around 2 weeks. At first I was distressed about losing one of my most-played games, but after only a day or so, I started to think much better of it. I was free of this manipulative and taxing game, and could enjoy other activities that were not begging me to play them liked War Robots was. When I got access to my account back, I was just lukewarm about it, mainly only happy to have 6 Pack and the Time Drops back. For the first time in probably 6 years, I had rebuilt the mental barrier between myself and the game, recognizing it as nothing more than such. I did in fact miss the free Ultimate Destrier promotion, but I only felt a little sad about it, as I had now learned to not care about something that really did not matter (I almost only play 6 Pack, and Ultimate Destrier is a pushover anyway). I do not mean to get existential with nothing mattering or anything, I am just laying out how I learned not to let the fear-of-missing-out tactic that Pixonic loves to use get to me anymore.
With that said, I would like to now circle back to the veteran player cope mentality I had mentioned earlier, as I think this is a really understated issue among longtime players at the moment. I think it is best summed up by a comment I remember getting in response to a post where I encouraged people to play other mech games, and it said something like "Until a true War Robots analog comes around, I am happy playing the Stockholm Syndrome victim", which beautifully illustrates my point. Us veteran players like to pride ourselves on being above Pixonic's manipulation, but I have found myself questioning that for a good number of people. The way a lot of these rants are written makes it sound like the person's very livelihood is built on this game, and that ranting endlessly is the only way out, which I say is blatantly not true. Some players are simply taking this game way too seriously, while others are living in self-denial of how much control this game has over them, and while the former usually learn sense, the latter are what I want to focus on. Ask yourself, are you logging on to War Robots only because you want to, or at least in some part (if not entirely) due to some sense of obligation, like not wanting to miss freebies or needing to maintain some sort of grind, because reasons? If you are logging on because you "have" to, I would go as far as to say you are as under Pixonic's thumb as the whales are, because Pixonic can do anything it wants to the game and you will always find reasons to keep playing. Pixonic wants you to be trapped in more than just the meta, they want you to be trapped in the game itself, putting in so much time and effort to get progress that it becomes genuinely unhealthy for your mind and you rationalize it. I would know because this used to be me, and luckily I had my parents and friends to keep me in some state of moderation before I learned sense for myself. So what did I do to break the loop? I expanded my horizons when it came to entertainment: I played other, less needy mech games like World of Robots or Battle of Titans, and I played entirely different games, because believe it or not, the customization-based territory control gameplay of War Robots can be replicated in games that do not have giant robots at all. I dusted off old classic mobile games like Plants vs Zombies, Kingdom Rush, Minecraft, and My Singing Monsters, played some of the new Nintendo Switch games like the Mario RPG remake, and tried some completely new games like Lethal Company. I found these games to scratch the itch that War Robots does shockingly well, and the only way you can see for yourself is if you try them for yourself. Take Mech Arena for instance, a game that a lot of us love to be very judgmental towards, as is it really that much more cartoony than War Robots? Mech Arena may have more simplistic graphics yes, but it does not have mothership light shows, a bazillion different shield types, tons of robots that float around or walk like they have pogo sticks in their legs (cough Crisis cough), cat girl pilots, or weapons that shoot through walls, so is it really that bad? There is only one way to find out!
Now, I do not mean to label everyone here is a hypocritical Pixonic zombie-player, I just think there is a not-insignificant amount of people who may have needed to hear this. Unlike Pixonic, I will leave it to you to decide what is best for you. Did my words of wisdom resonate with you and a change of digital scenery sounds nice (even if it is only temporary, having a break and playing a more relaxed game that is not trying to be more than it is is surprisingly refreshing), or am I plain out of my mind? You can decide, as you are the only one who is in charge of you. Just, if you think you are fine and then find yourself stressing over how to make more time tonight to grind War Robots, maybe reconsider! I also want to say, if you are playing the game a ton and are genuinely loving every second of it, that is fine too. Just know when enough is enough and ease off the gas petal before you burn or stress yourself out. We need more people who enjoy this game and can spread that love to others, so if that is you, then keep doing you!
**********************************
I would like to end this off on a hopeful note, something that I actually was not expecting to upon sitting down to write this. I expected this to be my final thread and my formal farewell, my going out with a bang if you will, but after looking around this place a little bit, it seems people are already starting to come to my point of view. More balanced threads in General Discussion, threads promoting moderation within the community, and some of the more problematic users having moved on, which I will say was a surprise to me. So, I think I will downgrade this thread to a pseudo-farewell, in that I will still be around but officially in a diminished capacity compared to the years prior. I would say my days of writing long guides are behind me, and this will be last big thread for a long time, possibly ever honestly. But I no longer plan to fully leave the forums (and even if I did, I would not delete my account or anything, because you never know), and will maybe try to comment on things here and there now. Well, here is to a brighter future, and may I see you all on the battlefield as well as the message boards, commanders!
P.S. I figured now would be as good of a time as any to lift the curtain and spill the beans on what my profile picture avatar is (the distorted computer face) for those not in the know. It is a character in a giant online creative works project called Special Containment Procedures (SCP), which details an alternate reality in which a covert government agency captures and studies various anomalous objects (which are given SCP classification), both to contain as well as understand them. Linked below is a video detailing the SCP that my avatar is from, and hey, if this tickles your fancy, there is a lot more out there, easily enough to distract you for a few nights or even weeks to take a break from War Robots!
