SandTrout's Forum Debate Theory

[SandTrout]

I've been a part of these forums for about a year, and have been a member of various other fourms for the better part of a decade, and I think I have found some paterns in gameing forum debates/arguements.

A) Most serious debates are started by an extreamly inflamitory statement about the the game that was posted by JoeN00b within the newbie's first week or so of being registered on the forum.(Example: Some guy that made his first post a rant about how gimpy the Gauss is lead to a debate about the reletive power of TR and NC MAXes and HA weapons.)

B) Most "flamefest" arguements are started in a reletively un-imposeing post that is loosely connected to what the thread was originaly about. These will lead to polar arguements with both sides calling each other stupid or n00bs, and repeating the same arguments with gradualy greater used of all-caps, bold, and italic.(Example: the Thread about a second pistol slot for the infiltrators.)

C) The majoraty of the time, the debate/arguement will only end when enough new threads so that the arguement/debate thread falls low enough on the page before the 2 sides return to it to not be noticed, or is compleatly pushed off the page(Mostly happens on the OF)

D) Occasionaly the sides will agree to disagree.

E) Very rarely, someone will admit to being wrong either by saying that they missunderstood something, or they admit that they were wrong and change their mind.

F) To win a debate you must present evidence that just compleatly beats down every point that the other side made the the last round of posts. Said evidence must be true and either repeatably anticdotal(IE: Try it yourself, you'll see what I mean) or numerical(IE: the Lasher does X damage per bullet at Y range, and fires Z rounds in a second, giveing it a TTK of K). The evidence must also be so overwhelming that the opposeing side cannot respond.

This is an uncommon occurance with MMOGs because of the near compleat lack of documentation concerning them. I suppect that Prima gives the companies a small kickback from guide sales so that they are the only relieable sourse of numerical information for the game. Therfore, people that wish to realy win a forum debate must either expiriemnt on their own of buy the guide.