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John Layfield
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 Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:55 am Post subject: |
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| I've seen a lot of "well all fandom is like this". But is it?' |
For the most part, yes. The very nature of the Suikoden community, seeing as it's a community united by an interest in a fairly cult game series and that was very much an extremely cult series up to the release of Suikoden III, may make the community more close knit than, say, any Final Fantasy variant but my statement stands.
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| I don't necessarily agree with the fact that Suikoden fandom, because it has a higher number of females, is more intellectual or mature. There are plenty of female fans in many RPG series... and so on |
I agree that the number of female fans has no bearing on the intellectual prowess of a community, nor does it have any real bearing on the maturity of a community.
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| Not long ago, there were a handful of good Suikoden sites and decent forums, but that number's consolidated dramatically, and now there are three forums that I know, off-hand, that run --- SuikoX and Suikosource make up two of that three. |
I don't see what it has to do with the original claim, but, sure. Of course, there are a lot more than those two but just because you don't know them and don't rank them in the top three doesn't mean they don't exist.
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| I've never seen as much /specific criticism/ against Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Shadow Hearts, .hack, FMA, you name it. I've seen general criticism. |
Which is very weird because I've seen numerous specific critcism thrown at fans of a lot of these series. Everyone knows the opinion of Final Fantasy fans that runs along the lines of "less intelligent and only buying into Square-Enix's juggernaut based on sales alone". Almost every smaller RPG managed to get classified as elitist morons who only play it to be different. Star Ocean gets the 'elitist' tag hurled at it a lot simply because its fans defend the use of 'MP death' in the latest installment.
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| But the criticism against (some) Suikoden fans is different because it's a specific trait: they are called, firstly, a fandom that whines too much. |
There's a lot to whine about. I have yet to see someone produce a topic in which several fans complained about something that couldn't be taken as important within the context of the series.
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| I've never heard members of Tactics Ogre fandom or Grandia fandom complain about the poor quality translation of those games, for example. |
I have, but it doesn't happen in such great numbers as it does for Suikoden. I assume this is because 1) the translations of the games listed are better than Konami's haphazard attempts at translation and 2) the lack of Japanese publications and the like along with a lack of large information sites like the one here mean a lot of mistranslations go unnoticed.
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| While all generalizations are false, they tend to have some reflecton of truth in them. |
Which is why it's also ok to generalise racial and ethnic groups as well as social groups. :roll:
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| <Yaoi/Yuri/Hentai rant> |
Meh. It's legitmite fan art in my eyes. Boo hoo, it represents acts and scenes that aren't cannon and are inconsistent with character development as shown in the main game. So what? It's fan art, by its very nature it is immune to such regulations if the artist desires it to be so.
That particular tangent is like complaining that the collage of characters on the Suikoden cases is a detriment to the series as there is no canon proof that all those characters ever grouped together and posed in such a fashion at the same time.
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Sophita
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| Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 5:25 am Post subject: Re: The Suikoden fandom is full of rabid, pretentious whiner |
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| Arcana wrote: |
| This is probably a bad place to post this. A lot of criticism, for example, is levelled specifically against the designer and maintainer of this site, SARSadmin. The Suikosource site gets a lot of flak, too. The rest of the gaming community looks from the outside-in, and sees near-hero worship of this community's big name fans, and they roll their eyes at this. |
Every fandom on them thar internets has their big name fans. SARSadmin is probably the biggest in the Suikoden fandom, that's true. But honestly? I have to say the hero worship here isn't as bad as it's been in other fandoms I've been involved in. There's very little of the "Oh let's praise (x hero)!" spirit here, I would say. Or at least, not much I can detect. Suikoden's only made it onto fandom wank about 3 times (all pretty much likely dealing with the same person), so that's a plus in our BNFs-ness, too. It doesn't bother me as much as it has in other fandoms, but then again, I don't pay much attention to BNFs in the first place. *shrug*
But honestly, how aware is the gaming community in general aware of Suikoden? I mean, it seems to be a fairly cult series. Can anyone find numbers on how much any installment has sold in the US?
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| look at the recent "King says Suikoden translation is good" thread for an example of what people in this community are *beep* off about. They're mad about freaking misspellings in the games. Isn't that a bit much? I can understand some of the annoyance and anger about blatant misnamings and presentation of incorrect facts, but writing Cyndar as Sindar or whatever it is really isn't as much of a crime as people make it out to be. |
That threads been pretty calm, IMO. Only a few people are genuinely angry about it. As far as if spelling matters - imagine a book where half the book is written in American English, and the other half in British English. Along the way, a couple characters/organizations are renamed, without any warning. Even if it's a great book, it just smacks of sloppy product and makes the book more difficult.
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| So what do you think? Do you think that people outside of the community here look inside and think that we're all whiners? |
I believe that every fandom is, to people not involved in one, full of whiners, overthinkers, pretensious people who look down on them, and, at best, a whole truckload of geeks who couldn't otherwise fit into society. So yes, I doubt the community has the most sterling reputation outside of itself. (That said, I kind of doubt that most of the outside world is aware of Suikoden. Or fandom in general.)
But, that said, I don't harbor those feelings. Every fandom has it's good and it's bad, and you're never going to be able to find a perfect one. Suikoden fandom has some bad spots - the canon obsession, the proclivity for hero worship, the Yuber/Pesmerga/Jeane obsession - but it's got it's good points, too. There are more women in Suikoden fandom then there are in any other RPG fandom I've ever frequented - this is probably the only RPG forum I know of where I could post "Where can I find comfortable high heels?" and actually get a nice answer. The fandom seems to skew older - most Suikoden fans are in their very late teens or 20's - than other fandoms, leading to an eloquent memberbase (seriously, how many times to do see "Troy rox he iz so cul" or the like here? Not that often, compared to say, Final Fantasy). Suikoden fandom does have the occasional pretentious thought, but I would say there are other videogame fandoms worse for this by far (FFVII, Xenogears). Overall I would say this community is extremely unique.
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| Changes are, most of you are going to say, "Who the fck cares about them", but is that an attitude that should be taken? Is it okay to be viewed as a fanbase that is pretentious, that is full of whiners, that is extremely rabid? |
Depends: How much do hypothetical people's opinions matter to you? I only have 3 friends I see in my daily life who are into Suikoden, and if I said "Hey, what do you think about the Suikoden fandom?" to the rest of them, I believe the answer would most definately be "Sooey-wha?" or "what's that?" or the like. And of the other 3, 2 don't post online at all about it, and one used to, but hasn't been active in the community.
Hypothetical people also may think bungie-jumping is cool. Would you become a bungie jumper? If you are a bungie-jumper, and they think it's not cool, would you still do it?
It honestly depends how much opinions - particularily social impressions - make one you. Do you not make friends with "preps" because some of your friends have a stereotypical vision of people who associate with that group?
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| Really, the catch is that, when speaking with people, I've never seen as much /specific criticism/ against Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Shadow Hearts, .hack, FMA, you name it. I've seen general criticism. You know.... the "all fans are stupid" kind of criticism. But the criticism against (some) Suikoden fans is different because it's a specific trait: they are called, firstly, a fandom that whines too much. Secondly, they are seen as elitist. While the second criticism really is forgiveable, since any tight-knit group you participate in is going to be perceived as elite, the first, being so specific, and so often repeated, makes me sit down and wonder exactly why this is. |
Really? I've heard complainds about FF, Shadow Hearts, and .hack (I've never even looked at the others, so...). FF gets criticised for it's games and obvious dominance, the Sephiroth fanboys, the intelligence of the games fans...I would say it's probably equally loved and hated. Each game is so different it really depends on which games fandom you're talking about; FF8 fans are a wholly different beast from FFT fans, and so on. .hack, regretably, skews AMAZINGLY young (13-16, I think, on average; it certainly seems that way at any forum I look at) and it seems impossible to have a discussion that does not involve:
a) How good Balmung looks
b) How cool G.U. looks
c) How hard Balmung rocks
d) OMG IS HELBA A GUY?!
e) Kite/Orca OTP!
f) OMG TSUKASA IS A (spoilers) GUY? DOES THAT MAKE SUBARU GAY? (end spoilers)
It's very difficult to find anyone with interest in the non-teenaged characters. (Dude, seriously, anyone like Lios besides me? Anyone? Or Helba? ...Am I the only one who thinks those are the two most worthwhile characters? And dislikes Balmung? Strongly? *whimper*) I've never found a good place for .hack.
Shadow Hearts...well, what communities are there? There's a group on LJ and....what? No, seriously, what? Is there another major English speaking comm? I've never seen it. And I've been actively looking. It's rather invisible.
...You know, thinking about the elitism/whinyness thoughts, the same things for the Xenogears and even Valkyrie Profile...Both of which, I think, tend to skew older for a videogame fandom as well. Perhaps related?
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| As for yuri and yaoii, I've heard a lot of criticism levelled against both. I tend not to favour the yuri or the yaoii much, myself. I've also seen the criticism levelled against hentai coment before, too. I mean, let's face it. There's some pretty bad hentai out there. But the irony also is that a lot of those who criticise yaoii are not males, but actually other females. Also, comapre the amount of Suikoden yaoii there is out there to the amount of Suikoden yuri. For every ten ridiculous yaoii pairings, you'll probably find one ridiculous yuri pairing. That may influence the perception. On this topic, someone directed me to this RPGamer editorial on the topic of Bishounen. Take a look, if you like. |
...So what? By their very nature, fanfiction/fanart is against canon. The best fanfic/fanart writers/artists are probably trying to conform to canon, but they can never be it, so...Not canon.
Most of the people in fanfiction are female, and Suikoden fandom is no different in that regard. Most slash/yaoi (male/male) writers are women.
For some reason, femslash/yuri is harder to find - across the board - and especially in Suikoden fanfiction. So generally, yes, for 100 yaoi fanfics, you will find maybe 1 yuri fanfic. Hard to find. But that's not representative of quality, necessarily. Luc/Sheena fics are hard to find - that doesn't mean Luc/Sheena is the best thing EVAH.
Hentai is ...in a realm of it's one. One I'm not entirely sure the board would appreciate us going down. ;)
(For the record, I'm fairly neutral. I'll read any pairing if I think it sounds plausable. Like Switzerland, but with more freetime.)
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Parallax
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| Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Arcana wrote: |
| I've seen a lot of "well all fandom is like this". But is it? |
No. But all fandom has just as many negative qualities as Suikoden's might. As Sophita said, for example, .hack fandom may not be full of pretentious whiners, but it's full of 13-16 year olds with a limited scope of interest, and that will drive away people who are older than that, and might want to talk about something else, pretty much immediately. .hack's fanbase, and the fact that they ceased making games when the new one was released, but that's a side issue, is one of the reasons why I fell out with those games.
Final Fantasy has its own set of problems, with Sephiroth fanboys (which I think I mentioned before)...). It's fair to say that the Final Fantasy Tactics fans, which is a group that includes me, can be awfully pretentious. Almost without variation, they consider FFT to be the finest tactical RPG of all time. I know I do. :) Or how about the fan base of Final Fantasy XI? I've seen some of the stuff that gets tossed around on the Ifrit forums, and I can tell you that's not a community I would be prepared to jump into. Ever.
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| I don't necessarily agree with the fact that Suikoden fandom, because it has a higher number of females, is more intellectual or mature. |
I've had a lot of experience with groups of people who are entirely male. I absolutely believe that having a mixed gender group improves things in a number of ways. That's just my opinion though, and you're welcome to disagree.
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| While the age may be true, one must recall also that SuikoX is not necessarily the entire community (although it may as well be so). Not long ago, there were a handful of good Suikoden sites and decent forums, but that number's consolidated dramatically, and now there are three forums that I know, off-hand, that run --- SuikoX and Suikosource make up two of that three. |
In that case, a contemporary complaint has an awful lot do with us here at Suikox, I should think.
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I should actually be more clear. A lot of the people 'looking in' are actually people I know who've participated in the community, and then decided to stay out of it. I'm in this community. I'm not looking to out myself, nor am I walking into the biker bar and CALLING you all pretentious whiners. You can say that I might be suggesting it, but why not suggest it and play the devil's advocate? The fact of the matter is that even if you don't see it, I do, and perhaps consider that there's something to discuss, here. |
I can see how some new people might be weirded out by how seriously Suikoden gets taken here. Some people could easily perceive some of the threads, especially the ones in the Suikoden V section, as 'over the line', for the casual fan. That's a far cry from making us all pretentious whiners though. Of course, we have some, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, nor would I cite them if I could...but I don't think it's a predominant feature of the community. I see pretentious whiners everywhere.
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| Really, the catch is that, when speaking with people, I've never seen as much /specific criticism/ against Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Shadow Hearts, .hack, FMA, you name it. I've seen general criticism. You know.... the "all fans are stupid" kind of criticism. But the criticism against (some) Suikoden fans is different because it's a specific trait: they are called, firstly, a fandom that whines too much. |
It's fair to say that I hear more Suikoden-related whining than I do regarding Final Fantasy. It's also fair to say that I spend an awful lot more time with Suikoden fans, particularly here, than I do with ones who are big fans of Final Fantasy. Still, as I said, Final Fantasy fans and fans of other things each have their own set of issues. Character-worship from Final Fantasy is kind of disturbing to me. I realize that lots of folks around here would like to see the return of certain characters, like Viktor and Flik, Yuber and Pesmerga, and so on...and I'm sure there are people who like those characters a whole awful lot, like me. :)
But it's just not quite the same as the Sephiroth fanboys.
You mentioned anime, so it bears reminding that hardcore anime fans are among the most elitist people on the planet. All fan groups can be perceived as elitist though...that's part of the quality which makes them fans.
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| Secondly, they are seen as elitist. While the second criticism really is forgiveable, since any tight-knit group you participate in is going to be perceived as elite, the first, being so specific, and so often repeated, makes me sit down and wonder exactly why this is. |
Because it's probably true. It's just tough to accept a stereotype being branded on you without arguing your view.
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Arcana
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:00 am Post subject: |
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Perhaps it is the case that there are problems with SuikoX, specifically, although I must be honest and say that I find the community at SuikoX much more friendly than the community at Suikosource, which, considering (and this *is* my opinion here, take as much offense to it as you want) that many members at SuikoX take themselves waaaaay too seriously.
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| That's a far cry from making us all pretentious whiners though. Of course, we have some, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, nor would I cite them if I could...but I don't think it's a predominant feature of the community. I see pretentious whiners everywhere. |
I should clarify, because I've been misquoted for most of the first page and a majority of the second.
The topic title is, "The Suikoden fandom is full of rabid, pretentious whiners." I did not say that "all Suikoden fans are pretentious whiners". I did not say that "every Suikoden fan is a pretentious whiner".
I think there's something to be said about the "reverse generalization" that's being presented here, that works like, "Most fans are pretentious whiners. Suikoden has fans. Therefore, most Suikoden fans are pretentious whiners." The real shame here is that the Suikoden fandom is so tiny. It's not comparable to Final Fantasy's fandom, whose fans probably outnumber Suikoden's twenty to one. In the case of Final Fantasy's fandom, you have so many people there that it's practically pop culture. It's difficult to quality Final Fantasy fandom as a whole because it's so gigantic. However, the Suikoden fandom is tiny. John says that just because I don't know about other Suikoden fan sites doesn't mean that they don't exist, but honestly, can he say that there are any other Suikoden communities that make a blip on the radar when it comes to the number of regular visitors? Between Suikosource and SARS, you've probably covered at least 60% of the Suikoden regulars. When you have such a tiny fandom that's been fandomwanked a few times, it suggests that there's a disproportionate ratio of wankers to fans.
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| I can see how some new people might be weirded out by how seriously Suikoden gets taken here. Some people could easily perceive some of the threads, especially the ones in the Suikoden V section, as 'over the line', for the casual fan. |
I'm unfortunately hard-pressed to recommend deeply that anyone post on this forum. The nation system is set up such that casual conversation gets relegated to the nation boards, and so if I invite a friend, and he gets sorted into another nation, the chance that I'll get to meet minds with him on a silly topic elsewhere decreases dramatically. However, this is more of a SuikoX-specific issue, and really does not have any effect whatsoever on the thesis that Suikoden fandom is filled with pretentious whiners.
What gets me is that the forum really does take itself much too seriously, which is why I tend to stay away from a lot of it. Chalk it up to personal preference, although I must confess that I don't necessarily shy away from serious discussion, nor do I think that Suikoden fans are so confrontive and arrogant as to be truly repulsive. I've acquired 800 posts in this forum over the span of a year, and I am not planning to leave.
The other factor, and I'm turning back to the title here, is that I am a Suikoden fan, and I see a lot of criticism against it, and I find myself, even though I'm a part of the fandom, agreeing with the criticism. I used to stand up and defend SuikoX a bit, but I've stopped doing it and have accepted the fact that many on the Internet see me (and most other people) as pretentious whiners who are a part of the Suikoden fandom. Maybe I'm too sensitive about this issue, but, maybe, I'm like SARS, and I'm seeing something here that I think can be changed. SARS likes to pull the "Howling Voice edited the Suikoden III manga" card. Sure, the fans are thankful for that, and it's good to know that consumer advocacy is alive and well, but if he's allowed to do what he thinks is right, I'm allowed to express some displeasure in how this community is perceived.
I mean, we can stop there. We can say, "Yeah, Suikoden is like any fandom. It's filled with pretentious whiners." We can all complain about the Japanese games that never made it to the U.S., the games that never made it to Europe, the fact that there's no Card Stories CCG brought over, or anonymously post protests in the art director's blog when he speculated on a fact that he wasn't quite qualified to talk about, but I really think that it reflects on us as a community when these things happen, and consequently, when these things get around. Not that I think anyone should really censor their thoughts, or what-not. We're not politicians who are sitting under the eye of public scrutiny, but honestly, to complain about Suikoden's translation, when you can't even get something ridiculous of its text like, "You spoony bard!" and "Father? You mean my dad???"? I don't know.
In any case, I'd rather NOT be regarded simply as "yet another fandom". We can be elitists --- nothing can be done about that since the train's missed the last stop long, long time ago. But if we're going to be elitist, then we may as well be stylish about it and present it as an inclusive community, instead of an exclusive one that is regarded as a group that complains too much.
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Parallax
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:32 am Post subject: |
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| Arcana wrote: |
| Perhaps it is the case that there are problems with SuikoX, specifically, although I must be honest and say that I find the community at SuikoX much more friendly than the community at Suikosource, which, considering (and this *is* my opinion here, take as much offense to it as you want) that many members at SuikoX take themselves waaaaay too seriously. |
I haven't had the experience of hanging out with the Suikosource crowd, but this place generally seems to be pretty friendly to me. I think that the forum does tend to take itself pretty seriously...but that has its own set of pros and cons. I suppose it's a question of degree, and if you really feel like members and the board itself take themselves too seriously here, that's a fair criticism.
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| The nation system is set up such that casual conversation gets relegated to the nation boards, and so if I invite a friend, and he gets sorted into another nation, the chance that I'll get to meet minds with him on a silly topic elsewhere decreases dramatically. |
This is more true than I think a lot of people, myself included, would probably like. Of course it's better in the long run to randomly sort people into nations, avoiding all kinds of other rather messy problems. Still, it would be nice to have some random, casual conversation, other places than on the nation boards. Of course, the nation boards can take themselves pretty seriously at times too. You're right though, that's not really relevant to the overall topic.
So far as changing things here, I would say that it would be nice to have a section of the board that's devoted to more lighthearted discussion. Not everyone wants to talk about serious issues all the time, and some people would like to talk to their friends who have been sorted into different nations. I've seen those kinds of sections get to be pretty ugly on other boards though, and to an extent, I feel like "spam" type areas almost distract from real discussion. If I had to pick between the two so far as forum content is concerned, I think I would tend to stay the course with the more serious-topic oriented setup that we have here.
On the other hand, though, I would rather involve myself in a completely casual conversation than confine myself to reading topics about Suikoden V which are by now reaching pretty desperately for genuinely new, and valid information, which people want to know. Since I like to keep most of the game a surprise for when I play it, even those threads have limited appeal to me. People can take as much offense to this as they like, but I find some of the speculation discussion threads for Rhapsodia, and now for Suikoden V, to be pretty ridiculous, stretching entirely too little material over too much distance. I don't think the Suikoden community is alone here in complaining about poor translation. I hear complaints about bad subtitling and poor translations all the time, in the anime and imported film communities as well as in the community of imported games.
However, we very well may be taking discussions about Pesmerga and Yuber and Flik and Viktor and the fact that they haven't appeared in any of the more recent games too far. Final Fantasy fans (other than the Sephiroth fanboys, of course...) are oddly content with seeing their favourite characters confined to a single storyline. It's probable that Konami doesn't know why Viki and Jeane are in every game and seemingly immortal, or what Yuber and Pesmerga are, and why they're fighting. In a way, the Suikoden fans have been spoiled by having so many characters that have provoked that kind of interest from people. Viewed in that light, it does seem a bit strange to complain about it.
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fuji
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 1:56 am Post subject: |
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Who cares what people think about Suikoden fans.
Do you think you are a pretentious whiner? I don't think I am so I'm not going to get all worked up about someone on another Internet forum calling me names.
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Maximillian
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 2:50 am Post subject: |
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Yep, only dumbasses care about what other people think. If you don't like this community, make your own damn community, I say. All this sounds like a "the world must change for me!" whine.
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Aurelien
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:39 am Post subject: |
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Hmm ... lots of text to read since I missed this thread before. So yeah ... slowly but surely, I'll try to cover as many as I could that I want to cover.
| Arcana wrote: |
| Have you heard this generalization of Suikoden fans? Do you agree with it? Do you think it's really just fans who love the series, or do you believe there's some justification in the idea that the fans love the series so much that they *beep* their way around in the fandom? |
Well I just heard this generalization for the first time in this thread. And I disagree. I think Suikoden fans are mostly different than most of other games' fans. Different how? Different in the reason to love the game. I think we can all agree that most of Suikoden fans love the series because of the storyline. When you're a fan of a game based on the storyline, you become more attached to the series than if you're a fan of a game because of gameplay (which is what happened in other series due to lack of connection between the games in series compared to Suikoden). So it's only normal that Suikoden fans do expect more than other fans. Not because they're whiners, but because they are passionate and they care about the series, wanting the best quality possible.
| Arcana wrote: |
| The rest of the gaming community looks from the outside-in, and sees near-hero worship of this community's big name fans, and they roll their eyes at this. They think it's totally retarded. They read the forums and feel that everyone's spinning their wheels with silly speculations, begging for answers from these big-name fans, when, in all likelyhood, Konami itself has no clue what this whole Pesmerga-Yuber war is about, or why Jeane never ages, or why Viki appears in every game. There's praise from within the community, but that's probably matched with equal vitrol from outside. |
Hmm ... I think this is quite twisted. I'm not exactly a "big name" but I think the "big name fans" here are the people who do know more, and who do have the respect by most of the members. They can be wrong (and believe me, they HAVE been wrong in the past), so no one really expect them to be always-right. But the fans do know that these "big name fans" know a lot about Suikoden series.
And not only that, I do think that some of the "big name fans" have TONS of knowledge outside Suikoden series that get my respect as a human being too. So it's not only because they know a lot about Suikoden, but when you know that they are intelligent people, you would try to run things through them.
I'll just use an analogy. If you're a member of The Beatles World Fanclub and you want to ask some questions about The Beatles, would you prefer to get the answer from the president of the fanclub or just a fellow member? Most likely, you'd prefer to get the answer from the president of the fanclub because you would assume that he'd know more and he'd know what he's doing. From the outside of the fanclub, the president of the fanclub is a nobody. But from the inside, from the ones who interact with the president, the president is probably the most knowledgeable Beatles fan.
| Arcana wrote: |
| I can understand some of the annoyance and anger about blatant misnamings and presentation of incorrect facts, but writing Cyndar as Sindar or whatever it is really isn't as much of a crime as people make it out to be. |
I actually simply think that it's a matter of different opinion on whether Sindar/Cyndar is important or not, but the fact still remains that it shouldn't have happened if Konami put more effort in the translation. It is very avoidable. So maybe that's why most fans are really ticked about that. Not because of the Sindar/Cyndar issue itself (though it is still annoying), but because of what's seen as lack of effort by Konami USA too.
Or just a simple analogy. Say you read Harry Potter series, and in the first book the school's name is Hogwart, and in the second book it's called Hogward. Sounds the same, but they're different, and it would affect the enjoyment of the series.
Also put into factor that Suikoden series is really connected to one another unlike in most of other series. Hence, coherency between connected things become more important than other series (which leads to higher expectation by Suikoden fans than other series fans). What about if in Final Fantasy Tactics, Cloud's name is Claude instead? I bet Final Fantasy fans would be complaining too despite there is no real big issue with it.
| Arcana wrote: |
| Maybe it's a few bad apples inside ethat make it all bad. Maybe it's a few bad apples on the outside who propagate this misinformation. |
Well to be honest, like I said before, this is the first time I heard such thing. So I think we need to know how many apples there are outside, and how many bad apples there are inside. Then compare.
| Arcana wrote: |
| The reason I've singled out Suikoden as a potential target for being filled with (and filled with, meaning that there is a perception that is radiated from the community that makes the fandom seem more critical than it really is) pretentious whiners is because a lot of people I know, who play Suikoden, who enjoy the games, specifically STAY AWAY from Suikoden fandom because of the nature of it. |
And how many people are we exactly talking about here when you said "a lot of people"? Really, I'm interested to know.
| Arcana wrote: |
| they are called, firstly, a fandom that whines too much. |
I admit that there are "whiners" in Suikoden community, but at the same time I bet there are "whiners" in every community, not just Suikoden. Frankly speaking, there are times that I want so bad to say "Just suck it up and stop asking for too much" to these whiners. But in the end, it's not worth it to do so.
If these whiners are the ones who turned off your friends to get involved in the community, I think your friends are making a big mistake. I'm annoyed by the whiners too, but I survived simply by ignoring the whiners. I think we can agree that generalization is never right, so it's quite stupid to generalize that Suikoden fandom is full of whiners when you know that not even half are whiners.
Do keep in mind that you are not to confuse "whiners" and "people who have (high) expectations due to logical reasons". Both could complain about the same thing, but that doesn't mean that both are whiners.
| Arcana wrote: |
I should clarify, because I've been misquoted for most of the first page and a majority of the second.
The topic title is, "The Suikoden fandom is full of rabid, pretentious whiners." I did not say that "all Suikoden fans are pretentious whiners". I did not say that "every Suikoden fan is a pretentious whiner". |
Well you did say the following
| Arcana wrote: |
| Do you think that people outside of the community here look inside and think that we're all whiners? Do you think that the Suikoden community is pretentious, or do you believe this view is unjustified? Do you feel that everyone in the community is a whiner, after being on the inside? |
So maybe those (the bold parts) are the ones that they were referring to.
| Arcana wrote: |
| but if he's allowed to do what he thinks is right, I'm allowed to express some displeasure in how this community is perceived. |
Of course you are allowed to express your displeasure, but at the same time, what do you really expect out of this?
| Arcana wrote: |
| But if we're going to be elitist, then we may as well be stylish about it and present it as an inclusive community, instead of an exclusive one that is regarded as a group that complains too much. |
Man, I'm going to say it to you bluntly. It's not going to happen. If the outside views us as a group that complains too much, it's not going to change even if we stop complaining. And in the end, it's generalization, a bad generalization. They know that not all are whiners, but they treat us as if we're all whiners anyways (as shown by their decision to stay out of the community).
Personally, I think they miss out a lot. If they don't like the whiners, by all means avoid them. But to not experience being in a good quality discussion, that's something to be missed if they're really enjoying Suikoden series.
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Vextor
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:03 am Post subject: |
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As far as the nation system goes, there's probably some pros and cons about it but I have no intention to change how people get sorted into nations. This site itself started more as a "side project" for me a long while ago while I was running suikosource, so that I can do whatever I want. Also, because I have no plans to share this site's management with anybody else (that is, root access), there is a natural capacity limit to how many members I can handle. The current system ensures that this site remains "not for everybody." The result is the current mess I have here, but it's a rather comfortable pile of mess for me personally, I don't aim for perfection. It'll probably continue being the same way because I tend to do things in whatever manner I wish, otherwise I won't bother running this site (it would be too much of a hassle).
The current problem I see with the English-speaking Suikoden fandom (to distinguishi it from suikoden fandoms in other languages) is the lack of fan communities. There have been many suikoden sites that came into existence, but many have expired. The main reason other communitues have expired is because the maintainer simply disappeard or lost interest in the series (souleater.org, for example). There were some sites that were doing very well, and it's really unfortunate that those sites no longer exist. In the case of souleater.org, the maintainer, Odessa, was an excellent admin. I believe she is still being talked about in a near-mythical way. The site's design was also quite advanced for it's time (2000). The other site that was very promising was gensonline (I think that was the name, too long ago). It was an extremely active site with many enthusiastic people who were sort of tired of the fandom dominated by suikosource. However, the site suddenly disappeared without a trace, and to this day I have no idea what happened.
I pretty much agree that there needs to be more diversity in terms of community, because I myself know that I go for a pretty specific crowd and I certainly don't care if people dislike this site. I've had people say that new communities are hard to make as long as I exist (due to me being bi-lingual, having access to source materials, being able to code stuff, and simply by having existed for so long), but that's not entirely true. It will not be very hard to out-do suikosource or suikox if you know what people want out of a suikoden site. Suikosource is more or less a shell of it's former glory right now (maybe V will awaken it), and suikox is basically "Sars' playground." If people are going to make another site (as Maximillian suggested), I'd be pretty happy. I'm sure a boatload of people will be happy as well after years of dominance by suikosource and suikox. Hopefully Suikoden V will spark enough new people into bringing more new blood into the fandom.
So far, attempts by various people to make new suikoden sites have not been very successful. I'm not particularly sure why this is the case--it's probably a complicated mix of reasons. There are many small suikoden communities out there, but those communities won't likely expand because they tend to be dominated by one clique (one reason I have the nation system--to destroy old cliques); it's gonna need a lot more fuel to ignite the yet un-joined members into joining.
I know a few people here are in planning phases of making new suikoden sites, and best wishes to them. Just make sure you don't open your forums until you have a good portion of your site done. Otherwise, you'll never be able to "take off." Running a forum takes a lot of time, and the more successful you are, the more people will join, and it'll take more of your time. That, and don't erase your site out of anger, or let it die. It takes a while for a site to gain enough credibility, anyhow. Suikosource wasn't created overnight, and suikox didn't have this forum for about 9 months (the site opened in August 2003, but this forum was put into place in May 2004).
Oh yes, and don't forget unique content.
In the end, I think the suikoden fandom is fading, and is pretty weak as far as fandoms go (as evidenced by the lack of up-to-date info posted on both suikosource and suikox). There really is n "mainstream suikoden fan culture" now, because it's basically gone. I can see this by how most of the casual fans have left the communities after being sucked into other games or MMORPGs. This results in only the "hardcore" suikoden fans to remain. It's a tendency seen with most any series that is "fading out."
Hopefully, Suikoden V will change this trend.
Last edited by Vextor on Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Arcana
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:19 am Post subject: |
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| Black Pesmerga wrote: |
| Hmm ... lots of text to read since I missed this thread before. So yeah ... slowly but surely, I'll try to cover as many as I could that I want to cover. |
You, good sir, do bring up some points worth talking about.
| Quote: |
| Well I just heard this generalization for the first time in this thread. And I disagree. I think Suikoden fans are mostly different than most of other games' fans. Different how? Different in the reason to love the game. I think we can all agree that most of Suikoden fans love the series because of the storyline. When you're a fan of a game based on the storyline, you become more attached to the series than if you're a fan of a game because of gameplay (which is what happened in other series due to lack of connection between the games in series compared to Suikoden). So it's only normal that Suikoden fans do expect more than other fans. Not because they're whiners, but because they are passionate and they care about the series, wanting the best quality possible. |
It may just be the case that I happen to hang around people who complain a lot, if there are so many people here who have not heard that the Suikoden fandom complains too much. But I know a lot of people who used to be in various fandoms, and have dropped out simply because they lost patience with people in the fandom. Suikoden's one of them.
I should confess that using the phrase, "Outsiders looking in" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's more like people on the inside who decided that it wasn't worth being on the inside, and then, consequently, letting their friends know that being on the inside really isn't as good as it sounds. That goes contrary to your comment way at the bottom of your post that says you believe that the people who avoid the community are missing out.
I've had some people ask me about SuikoX before. I've also advised some people I know that they might not be that happy here, and to be careful. It really is not a fandom for everyone.
| Arcana wrote: |
Hmm ... I think this is quite twisted. I'm not exactly a "big name" but I think the "big name fans" here are the people who do know more, and who do have the respect by most of the members. They can be wrong (and believe me, they HAVE been wrong in the past), so no one really expect them to be always-right. But the fans do know that these "big name fans" know a lot about Suikoden series.
And not only that, I do think that some of the "big name fans" have TONS of knowledge outside Suikoden series that get my respect as a human being too. So it's not only because they know a lot about Suikoden, but when you know that they are intelligent people, you would try to run things through them. |
I won't beat around the bush, here. The most well-known big-name fans in Suikoden are SARS, who's gone by various names, and Howling Voice of Suikosource, who's been mentioned in the thread. There are apparently a couple of others that perhaps SARS can name, but I haven't had any interaction with them, whereas I have interacted with both SARS and Howling Voice in the past, to varying degrees.
There's something in common with all of these BNFs, as the acronym is called. The common trait, as SARS has said alluded to already, is that they're knowledgable in Japanese and have strong exposure to both North American and Japanese cultures. As far as I know (and certainly I will stand to be corrected on this), they're also willing to spend a lot of money to acquire what are considered rare materials on the source seriese (Suikoden, in this case).
Subsequently, the knowledge of obscure facts ends up propelling them above the rest of us, who do not know Japanese and who do not have access to these materials. The BNFs are more knowledgable not because they're lifted up by the fans, but because they acquired and researched different sources. From there, the "BNF" title gets applied. It, of course, helps that SARS and Howling Voice both run web sites, because that means that they are regarded as an unofficial source of authority on the subject. I do not think I am overstepping my bounds by saying that, outside of Komani's employees, SARS and Howling Voice are the most knowledgable people on the face of this planet when it comes to Suikoden. In fact, it may very well be the case that the two of them combined have more knowledge of the series than the majority of Konami's developers.
I think it's a bit of the polarizing effect, here. When SARS's knowledge simply dwarfs the rest of us, then a lot of the new people end up looking to him as an authoritative source. If he speaks, "Suikoden", everyone looks up and listens.
That's really how the phenomenon came about in Suikoden, in my opinion. We happened to have two or three extremely knowledgable fans who were willing to research the subject thoroughly. Between SARS and Howling Voice, you could probably put together a Suikoden museum with every trinket ever put out by Konami (and I have to confess, that would be pretty damn cool).
Another thing I think contributes to the BNF phenomenon is that there's so much material on the Suikoden games that simply never makes it to North America (and I'm sure if it did, fans would complain that it was poorly translated. :D). As a result, those who don't have access (people like me) have to look up to people like SARS and Howling Voice and so forth for advice or information regarding the Suikoden canon.
The unfortunate reality is that the Suikosource and the SARS pages pretty much have a monopoly on unique content, which makes it extremely difficult to create a site that fans will take seriously. There's no way I can start up, for example, a fanfiction project that won't borrow resources from SARS or Suikosource. If I want something that's not on the pages, then I need to ask SARS directly for information and hope he knows and will relay to me what eventually becomes canon, because, despite all of the work that you do, it's still a fan translation and it's not official unless Konami says it is. It rather depends on how sticky one is on the whole canon issue, but many, many Suikoden fans have been raised on canon, and some may have the tendency to criticise a site that tries to follow canon, but ends up making mistakes.
Another problem is that, before you can create a new site, you need to have an existing site to "borrow members" from until you get a few of your own.
There's a bit of irony in Max's statement, because I actually did start my own Suikoden community. It never took off; interest waned quickly and people who expressed an interest never followed up on it. I didn't have much to do by myself, so I simply ended up back here to post. If you look at my signature, you'll see that the link is still active.
| quote wrote: |
| Also put into factor that Suikoden series is really connected to one another unlike in most of other series. Hence, coherency between connected things become more important than other series (which leads to higher expectation by Suikoden fans than other series fans). What about if in Final Fantasy Tactics, Cloud's name is Claude instead? I bet Final Fantasy fans would be complaining too despite there is no real big issue with it. |
Although your example is telling, the fact remains that even if they named Cloud Claude in FFT, fans would be more drawn in by "If you don't beat it, you don't get any" (which is written in the tutorial) than a change in the man's name. :)
Other than the ridiculous gaffes in Suikoden II (which ARE worth complaining about, because they rank up there in terms of horrible localizations), I don't think there's a substantial line that has grown to universal mockery in the video game community. :)
| Arcana wrote: |
| Well to be honest, like I said before, this is the first time I heard such thing. So I think we need to know how many apples there are outside, and how many bad apples there are inside. Then compare. |
There are bad apples on the inside, for sure. If you want, you can label me as one, although I hardly believe that people outside of the Suikoden community care what the hell people inside the community are like. I hear more complaints from people who used to be in the community, but now won't touch it with a ten-foot pole.
| Arcana wrote: |
| And how many people are we exactly talking about here when you said "a lot of people"? Really, I'm interested to know. |
I'll say, probably about seven, in my close circle of maybe 20 or 30 friends; more if you count the past few years. Seven people who played Suikoden, enjoyed it, sampled the community, and then got themselves the hell out of it.
It's not a lot like in the hundreds. When you get into the hundreds, you're starting to reach the limit of the community's total size.
| Quote: |
| Do keep in mind that you are not to confuse "whiners" and "people who have (high) expectations due to logical reasons". Both could complain about the same thing, but that doesn't mean that both are whiners. |
No, you're absolutely right. There are people out there who set themselves an opinion and back it up with reasons. There are also people who set themselves an opinion because other people have one.
| Black Pesmerga wrote: |
| Arcana wrote: |
| But if we're going to be elitist, then we may as well be stylish about it and present it as an inclusive community, instead of an exclusive one that is regarded as a group that complains too much. |
Man, I'm going to say it to you bluntly. It's not going to happen. If the outside views us as a group that complains too much, it's not going to change even if we stop complaining. And in the end, it's generalization, a bad generalization. They know that not all are whiners, but they treat us as if we're all whiners anyways (as shown by their decision to stay out of the community).
Personally, I think they miss out a lot. If they don't like the whiners, by all means avoid them. But to not experience being in a good quality discussion, that's something to be missed if they're really enjoying Suikoden series. |
I'll just say that I tried. It's unfortunate that I see people who don't like this community, who try it and leave, who are advised against it. Sure, you have stupid people in every community, but I really do think that this community treats itself quite seriously (and it comes out when they start speculating on topics, or expressing their displeasure about certain elements of the games). You (pl.) can interpret this whole thread and my responses in it as a "Waah, I want the world to change for me" whine, or you can interpret it as "Waah, I care what other people think." The fact is that it becomes more and more difficult for me to defend the community against the people I know who trash it, so I just stop doing it.
But another thing is that we don't get a lot of new people either, and it always hangs in the back of my head. I rather wonder why a lot of people leave. Of course, out of 100% of newcomers, 90% never do anything with their account, but even then.
If I truly cared about what people thought about me, then you wouldn't see me posting a thread like this, honestly. I think that's where a lot of the accusations fall flat. Sure, you can view this entire thread as a whine. Whatever. I just think that it's an unfortunate attitude to take: "What, people think we're whiners? Well, screw them."
EDIT: I know the "screw them" attitude is definitely a way to defend your (pl.) way of working. When you're as well-known as SARS is, you get at least as much criticism as compliments, and I'm sure that the guy has to swallow a lot of bitterness from people who visit, take offense to him, and then do whatever. I don't know what I'm really saying with this paragraph. This whole post has kind of evolved into some empassioned rant about how the community (Suikoden, not specifically SARS) could be so much more, but yet, it's so difficult to change. And don't tell me that I haven't tried, because I did, and failed. :P
It really is too bad that there aren't more fan sites around.
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Aurelien
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:21 am Post subject: |
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| Arcana wrote: |
| It really is not a fandom for everyone. |
I think you hit jackpot there. It is definitely not a fandom for everyone. So is every other fandom in this world. That's the point. And the point of a fandom community is that the community has their own identity that made them unique to each other. Not everyone is going to enjoy every fandom because everyone is unique. So in the end, I don't think you have anything to worry with what your friends considered as "Suikoden fandom is full of whiners" because it only shows that your friends have different taste than you (or others who do stay in the community). It's no big deal, at all.
| Arcana wrote: |
| The unfortunate reality is that the Suikosource and the SARS pages pretty much have a monopoly on unique content, which makes it extremely difficult to create a site that fans will take seriously. |
Well personally, I think the idea of creating a site is not *that* difficult. What you have to do is simply offer something different. Suikosource and Suikox are both pretty much known for information source (and Suikox also for this wargame thingy). Do something that they don't do, and you will be able to make your own community (assuming that what you offer is something that interest the people). The biggest mistake that I've seen in most cases is that they try to put content/info while they don't have the source (other than Suikosource and Suikox)... why bother, really? Unless you have your own source and knowledge, you're not going to win, and you'd end up second/third-rate compared to the existing sites.
Be different, and be interesting. Then you'll be able to form your community. Oh by the way, this is "you" in general that is, not you personally, Arcana.
| Arcana wrote: |
| I'll say, probably about seven, in my close circle of maybe 20 or 30 friends; more if you count the past few years. Seven people who played Suikoden, enjoyed it, sampled the community, and then got themselves the hell out of it. |
No offense intended, but really, why do these seven people's opinions matter that much? You got seven friends who tried the community, decided not to like it, and left. They labeled us as whiners. Okay, fair enough, they have the right to have their opinions.
On the other hand, we got hundreds of members who tried, and actually liked the community. So seven of your friends don't like, but hundreds of people like. If ten of the hundreds left the community with the feeling of satisfaction, then you can't really say that "we're seen as whiners" anymore since 10 out of 17 who left were actually happy.
I'm sorry, but seven people (or a few more) who don't like the community are not significant enough for you to try to make it as if there is an idea of "we are seen as whiners by outsiders" in general.
| Arcana wrote: |
| but I really do think that this community treats itself quite seriously (and it comes out when they start speculating on topics, or expressing their displeasure about certain elements of the games). |
I agree, but at the same time, you have to realize that "seriousness" comes into play so much in Suikoden community because of two main things. One is the connection between the games (hence, you can't really expect you'd survive trying to pitch in the "Yuber is really Kika" theory even if you try) and two, the rich relation between Suikoden series and our real world (unlike in most other games where the world is totally "fantasy"). So people do take things more seriously in Suikoden fandom because there is a reason why we need to be more serious.
| Arcana wrote: |
| Of course, out of 100% of newcomers, 90% never do anything with their account, but even then. |
Well you have to factor in that there are people who enjoy more of lurking than posting. They want to know the information but not interested in joining in to the discussion. And it's perfectly fine. Then of course, there are the jerks who created multiple accounts to create chaos. Last but not least, also the NPC accounts.
| Arcana wrote: |
| The fact is that it becomes more and more difficult for me to defend the community against the people I know who trash it, so I just stop doing it. |
It comes down to the fact that you and your friends have different priorities. So what you consider as tolerable might be something that they can't tolerate. Hence, the difference in opinion on whether this place is worth of trashing or not.
I'm not saying to get rid of your friends, but I think in such case, the best solution is to simply agree to disagree and move on with your own lives accepting that you have different opinions but still have other similarities to keep on being friends. Unless they're jerks, in which you should smack them down.
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Maximillian
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:40 am Post subject: |
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| Arcana wrote: |
But another thing is that we don't get a lot of new people either, and it always hangs in the back of my head. I rather wonder why a lot of people leave. Of course, out of 100% of newcomers, 90% never do anything with their account, but even then.
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Well lets see... Just looking at the memberlist, 76 new members joined this site in the last month. That's a lot of new people, contrary to your claim. I don't see where in the hell you get the idea "we don't get a lot of new people. Do clarify, oh please do. Especially after your "whole lot of people" who whine about suikox ended up being a whopping 7 people.
And your "out of 100% of newcomers, 90% never do anything with their account" is a load of hooey, too. Just looking at the 76 newcomers in the last month, 41 of them have posted something, and 15 have made more than 10 posts (they're repeaters). Now, I may not have any fancy diploma being a lowly worker, but I can sure as hell tell you straight in your eyes that a whole lot less than 90% of newcomers don't do anything. I fact, out of 1390 members at this site, 76% of the people have made at least one post. So you may want to alter your "facts" or stop pulling numbers out of the air, because it seems to me you're taking yourself so seriously, you have to make things up to prove your point (because what's "hanging at the back of your head" is a crock of BS). That's probably why nobody stuck with your site.
I also disagree with you Sars, that this community is only for "hardcore members." I just checked the entire member list for the heck of it... well, 180 members were "active" at this site in the last day (based on their away days), and these are people who joined in a wide array of time periods. Old members, moderately aged members, and new members are all included in these "high-activity" brackets. Expanding this to the entire week, we have about 300 active members. That is pretty damn good for a site dedicated to a single fandom, and that certainly doesn't show that interest is fading. Just look at the fact that 76 new members joined only in the last month, that's actually an increase in trends.
Ignore my comment if you all want because I refuse to hide behind diplomatic words. I'll say what I gotta say, but I'm at least saying it with facts, and that's a whole lot better than speaking out of your you know what.
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Admiral Ackbar
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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I really don't think that the issue you brought up in the beginning of this thread actually exists. We're not whining...we're worrying. And we're only worrying to such a degree right now because a game is about to come out, and we want the localization and translation to be good. The Suikoden series is known for it's bad localization and translation work.
And the Suikoden community is no more elitist than any other video game community. We only look elitist because there are so few devoted sites and message boards at the moment.
Like SARS has pointed out, the Suikoden community has been falling apart. It started crumbling after Suikoden 3 was released. Message boards started dying, sites disappeared, and people just stopped coming. It's sad that most of the people I became friends with just faded away during that time, but it happened. And when SuikoCastle was shut down after looking so promising, I myself almost left for good.
Suikoden 5 could change all of this. It could either revive the Suikoden community, or kill it off entirely.
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Himuro
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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In many ways I agree, but at the same time, every game series has fans like this.
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She knows stuff. |
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John Layfield
Last Literature D-Line
Joined: 22 Jan 2005
Post Count: 6231
Location: Saint Dragon
509933 Potch
9300 Soldiers
3525 Nation Points
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| Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject: |
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Regarding comments made about the Suikoden community as a whole, rather than Arcana's continued changing of view which has changed from "pretentious whiners" to "downright unfriendly" to "the fans engage in excessive fanwank" and back again, which is being ably fended off by Maximillian.
The Suikoden community in terms of sites is most certainly smaller than it once was even if overall membership continues to increase as Maximillian has pointed out using those weird little 'fact' things. Sars has correctly pointed out the reasons why, people can get bored of the series after a while. Maybe if Sars never created Suikox as an outlet for himself without being resticted by all the precedents that built up over Suikosource then he'd have left the community himself, talked about in hushed tounges in dark corners of the internet.
My own site that myself and a number of regulars here continue to work on is unlike to directly address any of these concerns, however. I have little interest in creating an all-inclusive community. I have little tolerance for 'stupid' or 'pointless' posts, which I freely admit I define by my own arbitrary criteria. I also have no tolerance for excessively bad English, especially when it comes from native English speakers. I have no desire to, and will not attempt to, make such people welcome on my site or board. This will instantly restrict the possible community that can be founded on my server.
However, by going in the opposite direction, I feel Suikosource has become a much less desirable place to be. I posted there a long long time ago under a different name at the height of it's fame and it was a great place to be. It had intelligent discussion, speculation and all the rest with the bare minimum of pointless posting. I eventually had to leave due to those brilliant health problems, I was younger then so it took longer for me to recover and when I did, I didn't really bother posting although I checked in from time to time.
Years later, a good while after Suikosource brought in the new board rather than the old EZboard version, I rejoined the forum under another different name and only lasted a week or two due to sheer amount of excessive stupidity and horrible grammar I was forced to endure while finding the average of two threads a week that I could be bothered posting in. I joined Suikox at the same time and within a forthnight, I simply stopped visiting Suikosource entirely.
Suikosource's problems stem from the following: it's incredibly stagnant. I honestly have no real solution to this. Maybe it's because it has generally looked the same for years with only minor tweaks. Maybe it's because it still leans heavily on Sars-authored content for Suikoden I and II as well as geographical without ever updating old entries with new information. It also seems to have an air of superiority about it which it could have claimed at its peak but didn't.
Meanwhile, Suikox is really a 'fan page' rather than a 'web site' at heart and that's the way Sars wants it to be, I think. It's a page that Sars runs by himself because it's not really intended to be a cornerstone of the community, it's just supposed to be 'Sars Suikoden Page'. It's his name and the community as well as his access to Japanese publications and the like that has really made Suikox larger than the sum of its parts.
My own site, Their Star, aspires to Suikosource arrogance simply because I'm arrogant at heart. My site is supposed to fill gaps in information, not community, if it somehow does both, then that's great. Most likely it'll accomplish neither.
Sars dismissed his role in the community, seemingly tossing aside his "being bi-lingual, having access to source materials, being able to code stuff, and simply by having existed for so long" as irrelevant when that's not so.
I can't really be expected to write an entry for example on the "Matilda-Highland Border Village" because I have no access to source materials and having no knowledge of Japanese. Arenegeth may have some of the materials (well only two Shinso volumes and Axiose has the Suikoden Encyclopedia) but he doesn't have the language capabilities. Sage knows some Japanese but is far from being able to translate passages with real accuracy and without the help of Japanese language teachers, dictionaries, and so on. That means if I ever put up an entry on such a location, it would have to be literally purlioned from this site which is something that I, obviously, cannot do.
The fact is, at the moment, it appears that no site can match Suikox (Yes, because of all of Sars capabilites) or Suikosource (Which can still call on experienced help based on weight of name alone to achieve a balance between itself and Suikox) in terms of information, community or sheer size. People say 'start small and work your way up' but it's not as easy to adhere to that when everyone also acknowledges that there is more than enough room for a 'third site' in the community if only one stepped up with the content and enthuisasm to do so.
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One day, I shall come back. Yes, we shall all come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. |
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