Bloated, PR paste-bin |OT|s are a plague on these boards

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Most OPs that were posted as examples of good OPs in this thread are either of:

1.PSN/XBL games
2.DS games
or
3.ironic OPs

I like them just fine, but is it so outlandish that games with a huge following and sprawling storylines (love them or hate them) might get a different treatment?
 
Agree with OP. I don't understand who actually dedicates time to make these monster OPs or who thinks they're good, or uses them. And using images instead of text is mindboggling. Smaller more effective OPs is the way to go.
 
I don't have a problem with big OT's, personally. There are two important things that must be considered, for an OT to be 'good' though:
  • Make sure the basic info all comes first. Release date, available platforms, trailers, etc. all should come before any of the other extraneous stuff like controls and series history.
  • All text should be text. My problem with that Assassin's Creed OT is that the vast majority of the text is in image form. That's horrible. It makes searching for info even harder while also greatly increasing page load times.

I realize why a lot of the formatting features native to VBulletin have been disabled, but it'd be nice if EviLore could re-enable them for OT OPs only. Much the same way pools are disabled but mods still have access to them. I think that would help to reduce the need to use images to keep a layout. Hell, maybe even allow them to embed HTML (though that would require more work on the mods since they'd need to read through it and check for malicious or malformed markup).
 
Metroid Killer said:
Yeah pretty much what I was gonna post next. MGS4 was a special case in that it was the first of its kind. I think we are getting a reaction to big OTs as we have had so many this year alone and they start losing the value of being big for special occasion.

But then again via the discourse on the subject the latest months it seems like most people get what gaf wants in an OT. (see bruceleeroy :p)

PS. I left PokeGaf as I just didn't have the courage(read: time) in me to pick up another Poke game. Motivation to post in poke threads kinda disappeared when most of the discussion was about new titles. I will return someday though :)
Click to expand...

Well the Community thread is like a melting pot for the whole series, you should definitely try and give it a peek every now and then. 95% of the discussion so far has been non-BW.
 
Wow, now I've tried to access assassins creed op with my smartphone. Thank god I am charging it now. I can't see most of the images in the first post, the rest are a mess for me. The only things I can actually read are some tidbits about characters or other games/factions. And I see no index whatsoever (maybe it was an image as well).

I love fan ot, but proper format is better than images. This is not a written magazine where you can fit what you want even if it's not a good idea, this is an online forum so I think indexes and mostly text should be the
'norm'.
At least don't put text in the images like it was an advert. Chances are, it will be uncomfortable/unreadable for some people, and you can't go back and ctrl f some info as well.
 
Something a user does out of the goodness of their heart AND FREE for your satisfaction, and you have the balls to whine and bitch because it's not concise enough for you? Get real dude.
 
OTs should really just use text for everything but screenshots or art, really. Having a 900px x 900px image that uses the game's font for a bulleted list of information is just stupid. You can't easily search for what you want. Plus, I can't be the only one who disables images on this forum when I browse at work.
 
If an OT goes beyond two posts, it is very unlikely that I will read it. The best OT are the ones that concisely tell me everything I need to know for the game, not every piece of info they could find. And that Assassin's Creed OT is hilariously long.
 
XeroSauce said:
That OP probably spent a good chunk of his time making everyone beautiful and lined up. It's takes a lot of work to make a good looking OT.

If you need something like like a god damn release date, go Wiki it, it'll be the first link in Google.

OTs are made to be the embodiment of the entire series and given that there have been multiple OTs before this with the same type of 8-page information overload, I don't see a problem. I think it looks fantastic.
Click to expand...
Cool idea. If you need info about a game, go fuck yourself. We don't do that here.

And no OTs aren't made to be the embodiment of the entire series. They are meant to be about the stated game. There are series OTs that are there to be the embodiment of the entire series.
 
FINALBOSS said:
Something a user does out of the goodness of their heart AND FREE for your satisfaction, and you have the balls to whine and bitch because it's not concise enough for you? Get real dude.
Click to expand...
You paid to read OP's post? Uh oh.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
In fairness, it's probably just as copy-paste as the game itself, so at least it's thematically appropriate.
Click to expand...

Wow.

Could have said this about pretty much every game released or releasing in the next few months.
 
pakkit said:
On the whole, I think this thread points to some organizational issues with NeoGAF that are starting to make it feel antiquated on the internet. I love the community, but it's getting harder and harder to sift through all the fluff.
Click to expand...

What fluff? I'm curious. Because I don't seem to have this problem ... well, besides the appearance of whiny threads like this one.

Seriously, what fluff are you sifting through?

notworksafe said:
Cool idea. If you need info about a game, go fuck yourself. We don't do that here.

And no OTs aren't made to be the embodiment of the entire series. They are meant to be about the stated game. There are series OTs that are there to be the embodiment of the entire series.
Click to expand...

I must have missed the Official Thread Making Guidelines ... can you direct me to them?
 
plagiarize said:
says you.


says you.


says you.

the only point i'm missing is where you're getting the idea that OPs are *supposed* to be one thing or the other. i'm not saying every games op should be like the MGS4 op am i?
Click to expand...

I'm not really sure what you're getting at. Taking all of my opinion aside, my point is that at the very least OPs are designed to covey information to the reader, and some OPs do a bad job of that. If they don't exist for that, then why do they exist? And please don't think I was attacking you specifically, I was just responding in general to this thread since the "if you don't like it, ignore it!" argument seems to be pretty common.

Lord-Audie said:
That would be a valid point of the AC |OT| was disorganized...but it isn't.

Everything is titled and organized. There should not be any problem finding the information that you want.

The fact that people are complaining here about scrolling down to look for information.....

Those are first world problems man... "MAH SCROLL WHEELZ FINGERS HURTS!!!"
Click to expand...

It's organized to an extent but it's still extremely overwhelming and spends a lot of time beating around the bush (I'm sorry but I don't think most people who are looking into this game want to know the history of greek fire) instead of being concise, and the gameplay section only goes into improvements for Revelations instead of giving any general overview of the gameplay whatsoever.

Also the locations section has pictures all over the dang place to the point where I don't know what image is corresponding to what location in some spots.
 
Loved the Revelations OT, I've played all the AC games, and I liked then, but I'm not the biggest fan of the series. I learned a lot of in there, isn't this the objective of a OT?

People will bitch about anything and everything. As soon as OTs start to get concise and minimal people will bitch that the OP is not putting enough effort. This is the internet, there's no way to satisfy everyone.
 
JJD said:
Loved the Revelations OT, I've played all the AC games, and I liked then, but I'm not the biggest fan of the series. I learned a lot of in there, isn't this the objective of a OT?
Click to expand...
No.

JJD said:
People will bitch about anything and everything. As soon as OTs start to get concise and minimal people will bitch that the OP is not putting enough effort. This is the internet, there's no way to satisfy everyone.
Click to expand...
No.
 
What makes me chuckle are the responses to that "best OT" thread and how absolutely none of them mention the quality of discussion therein.

Also, as has been mentioned the 5 pages of "GRATE OT AWESOME JOB" is almost more nauseating than the OTs themselves.
 
Mega OTs like the Assassin's Creed thread are pretty clearly "viral" marketing.

edit: I mean come on it even has huge chunks of space that are just ads for random AssCreed merchandise you can buy, how is it not obvious to everyone?
 
Sickboy007 said:
Most OPs that were posted as examples of good OPs in this thread are either of:

1.PSN/XBL games
2.DS games
or
3.ironic OPs

I like them just fine, but is it so outlandish that games with a huge following and sprawling storylines (love them or hate them) might get a different treatment?
Click to expand...
There's that too.
And again, in 11 months ,we've had like 4-5 "big OTs". Saying it's a plague it's really reaching. If 4 out of 5 OTs were that big, then yeah; but 4-5 out of how many 20? 40?

FINALBOSS said:
Something a user does out of the goodness of their heart AND FREE for your satisfaction, and you have the balls to whine and bitch because it's not concise enough for you? Get real dude.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that we're seen as corporate chills, get paid, receive gifts, etc. The irony is that a few around here go to E3, Penny Arcade Expo, at some point meet and took pictures with well knwon developers and people from gaming, exchange messages online (forums, Facebook, Twitter); yet someone from Puerto Rico that made a big Mortal Kombat OT is suddenly a corporate chill with an obvious agenda. :p

I'm all for criticism, but if people are going to accuse some of us as been "obvious" I'd love at least some evidence of that. XD
 
flyinpiranha said:
What fluff? I'm curious. Because I don't seem to have this problem ... well, besides the appearance of whiny threads like this one.

Seriously, what fluff are you sifting through?
Click to expand...
Well going by the AC thread, lesse...

Every weapon in the game posted for no reason, the entire history of the AC series including overviews of phone games and Facebook games, the preorder specials of every game, an overview of every game's soundtrack, avatars, wallpapers, the DLC for each game, and multiple paragraphs about every section of the city in the game.
 
EmCeeGramr said:
No.


No.
Click to expand...

Says who? You? Because I'll disagree. People will bitch about everything, this thread is proof to that.


notworksafe said:
Well going by the AC thread, lesse...

Every weapon in the game posted for no reason, the entire history of the AC series including overviews of phone games and Facebook games, the preorder specials of every game, an overview of every game's soundtrack, avatars, wallpapers, the DLC for each game, and multiple paragraphs about every section of the city in the game.
Click to expand...

Scrolling is hard. You're seriously bitching about scrolling in a thread as "this is what is bringing NeoGAF down and why it's antiquated" ....

OK.

There have been like ... 5 or 10 OT threads that are even remotely like that. And they are usually huge series with a huge following. So, out of the 100's of threads on NeoGAF posted almost every week, 5-10 threads in the past couple years has caused the site to go downhill?

Really? Because I think the quality of the replies or more telling than anything. It's easy as shit to skim through that or maybe I'm just "internet pro". The userbase is to blame, not the VERY RARE really large OT. In the grand scheme of things those threads make up such a small percentage of NeoGAF in general.
 
FINALBOSS said:
Something a user does out of the goodness of their heart AND FREE for your satisfaction, and you have the balls to whine and bitch because it's not concise enough for you? Get real dude.
Click to expand...

Just because somebody does something for free in no way should give them a pass on negativity towards their work.
 
flyinpiranha said:
What fluff? I'm curious. Because I don't seem to have this problem ... well, besides the appearance of whiny threads like this one.

Seriously, what fluff are you sifting through?
Click to expand...
I'm going to be taking the thread off course with this, but I'm mostly referring to how forum systems like reddit (post Reddit Enhanced Suite) allow conversations to be prioritized and read in a coherent manner, whereas here (and with other forum sites) you have to pick out the quotes or figure out who is talking to whom. There's a lot of talking going on at once, and, as many said, the first few pages of an OT are usually filled with "great title," "can't wait," or "nice OP" and, I don't know about others, but I'd prefer a system that could bypass all that noise.

Someone could write a great post, but if it's post number 2300 chances are it'll not make it to the next page and will get looked over.

Being able to see your post history back in the day made managing conversations on GAF way easier, but that feature is gone. Google (and subscribing to threads) allows me to dig up some of the things I said, but it's not nearly as exhaustive.

I understand that the main inhibitor to these changes are money and man-power, but I still think they're issues that can be acknowledged, even if they aren't immediately addressed.
 
EmCeeGramr said:
That's pretty terrible logic.
Click to expand...

Not really. You're bitching about something that is completely avoidable. That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
 
The bloated information OT only becomes a problem if the poster doesn't include links to skip all of the content that certain people are not interested in. Luckily the AC thread has that feature.
 
flyinpiranha said:
Not really. You're bitching about something that is completely avoidable. That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
Click to expand...
Like you're crying about this?
 
I really say I wish there was some mandate that the majority of text in an OP had to actually be text, and not part of an image.
 
Sp3eD said:
Just because somebody does something for free in no way should give them a pass on negativity towards their work.
Click to expand...


Not being concise enough for you is not a negativity. These OPs of these OTs are supposed to be for information. Sure, the AC one is long as fuck, but it's got everything I ever wanted/needed.
 
If only we allowed user signatures on this forum. Those aren't tacky and excessive, pointlessly getting in the way of discussion, they're a creative outlet of fannish expression and enthusiasm that people make for free out of the goodness of their own heart. They're a selfless a caring commitment to the love of video games. If only the cynics on this forum weren't such whiny crybabies, we could all celebrate our love of gaming with animated GIFs of Master Chief and Nathan Drake winking in every post.
 
flyinpiranha said:
Not really. You're bitching about something that is completely avoidable. That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
Click to expand...

we're on the internet.. in 2011.
 
Personally, for what it's worth (nothing), I could certainly do without these information-overload threads, as they actually make information I might see as pertinent more difficult to find. I personally would rather see OTs that provide highlights of why I should care and be excited about the title in question with links to other posts (preferably in a different thread somehow) that really delve further into the minutiae of the details.

However, it doesn't ultimately matter. I'll just find what I'm looking for somewhere else if I care to and happily just click to skip the first page. As such, I don't really care to invest too much into fighting the good fight here if there really are people out there who love their monstrously large OTs. If that's your cup of tea, then rock on I guess.
 
Sickboy007 said:
Most OPs that were posted as examples of good OPs in this thread are either of:

1.PSN/XBL games
2.DS games
or
3.ironic OPs

I like them just fine, but is it so outlandish that games with a huge following and sprawling storylines (love them or hate them) might get a different treatment?
Click to expand...
Good non-PSN/XBL/DS OTs posted: Skylanders, Skyrim, Cursed Crusade, Neptunia, Kirby Return to Dreamland, Street Fighter, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, LOTR, Mushihimesama Futari 360, Unreal Development Kit, Street Cleaning Simulator.

Yep. Mostly PSN/XBL/DS in this thread.

And why should method of release matter in the first place?
 
OPs that consist of nothing but images are a bad thing.

Just make a nice little banner, give us some basic info about the game and its release, link to Wikipedia for those people who want to read up more (or, shock-horror, to the actual official game site so that you keep a paid PR person in their job) and then let conversation commence.
 
JJD said:
Lol, put some effort in this minimal and concise reply. Am I supposed to just take your word for it?
Click to expand...
The point of an OT is to give concise information about the game: an overview of plot and gameplay, release dates, system requirements on PC, different SKUs, a sampling on media like screenshots or major trailers, and some previews reviews. It's not about 300MB and 20 posts of every bit of series minutiae imaginable.

Furthermore, I don't think I've seen ANYONE ever complain about a thread being too small unless it's a troll thread. Most people seem to LIKE concise yet informative threads. This whole "BUT THEY'LL BITCH ABOUT IT ANYWAY" is an illogical and ignorant attempt to make everyone who disagrees with you into some kind of collective hypocritical hivemind.

flyinpiranha said:
Not really. You're bitching about something that is completely avoidable. That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
Click to expand...
That's insanely bad logic. All crows are black.

I dislike something, because I honestly consider it bad and I've given reasons why in the past. You're dismissing all arguments to the contrary as "bitching" and "hating" as though there's no reason for it, because you're an intellectually dishonest coward who retreats behind a slightly more sophisticated form of "haters gonna hate."
 
flyinpiranha said:
Not really. You're bitching about something that is completely avoidable. That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
Click to expand...

Well, this is a thread dedicated to discussing that specific issue. Given that context, you're actually the one bitching and crying.
 
flyinpiranha said:
That pretty much proves that the only reason the OT's are a "problem" is because no matter what, somebody will cry about something.
Click to expand...
As Emcee said, this is really faulty logic, just think about what you said. Or take a Practical Reasoning course.
 
I like how even liking a game is now worthy of derision and accusations of viral marketing on GAF.

Keep rebelling against the man.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
Like you're crying about this?
Click to expand...


How is this crying? I'm not advocating any change or making a thread about stupid shit that could be avoidable. I see what point you are trying to make and I guess that just supports mine.

pakkit said:
As Emcee said, this is really faulty logic, just think about what you said. Or take a Practical Reasoning course.
Click to expand...

There's no need for a college course as I've been done with college for years. It's a simple statement that somebody will complain no matter what the situation. You can tear it apart or create an argument out of it all you'd like.

My point is that threads such as this one are more detrimental to GAF than any large OT that happens. And those large OT's happen very rarely.

And yes, people will bitch about anything, and yes, I realize I'm bitching about the bitching. It's not that I don't care about the persons opinion, I just disagree with what is being said.

TL;DR I like the large OT's because with games I'm interested in or on the fence about they are helpful without having to google every question I have.
 
EmCeeGramr said:
That's pretty terrible logic.
Click to expand...

Ignore the terrible logic. He's basically right in this case. Do you remember the people who complained in the Uncharted thread before it changed? Do you remember the many many people who complained in the Bayonetta thread?

There is a sizable constituency for the bloat on this message board. People will complain if things change.
 
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