What brought you to System Wars?

Also, what were your first impressions of the place? And what makes you stick around?

Yes, I know this isn't "SW material", lock it if you must, but I think it could make for some interesting stories.

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Me? I had already been visiting Gamespot and Gamefaqs for a while. Think I started visiting this site in the late 90's maybe? Believe it or not, I actually used to come here for shit like reviews and cheat codes haha. When I did start posting, I stuck to the Playstation boards and game specific boards.

Anyways, one day in 2004 I went on an "Xbot" rant on the Playstation boards. A mod told me to take my shit to SW, in nicer words of course. I knew what SW was, but felt like I was above posting in a place like this lol. Curiosity got the best of me though, and when I stopped by I saw everyone laying into hermits over the Doom 3 review. "Flippity Flop" and all that good stuff. I loved it, just had to get in on the action!

It was strange really. I owned a PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and a decent enough PC at the time and I enjoyed gaming on all of them. But for some damn reason I felt compelled to go full on cow when it came to my posting. I'd be in the middle of playing some Splinter Cell or Halo on Xbox, then jump on the board and dump all over lems. Weird.

As for first impressions I was lost. I was like wtf is a AAAE? What, only GS scores count? Why the **** do we use these animal names? I think everyone finds that last bit to be stupid as **** at first, because it is. Even now I still feel silly calling someone a lem.

Why stick around? I just love this place in a weird way. People always tell me about better forums, but the entirety of my experience posting on gaming boards is Gamefaqs and Gamespot. If I'm not surrounded by gutter trolls, corporate slaves and just plain idiots, it doesn't feel right. At least once a week I'll be in total disbelief of some of the "arguments" I see. Beyond that, there are just some cool peeps to shoot the shit with and I enjoy being able to discuss all kinds of platforms and games, even in a hostile manner at times, without worrying about catching the boot.

Awesome thread. Keep this shiznit opened, charizard!

I actually came to GameSpot boards just to talk about games but quickly realized that all the action was in SW. So I came here and being the argumentative person I am, I got roped into taking on fanboys.

I thought it was absolutely crazy that people can be so passionate about a console (it's like being passionate about a VCR IMO) and I still do (tho I see why people get passionate about certain developers and games), but I've gotten used to it.

I stick around because underneath all the cringeworthy fanboy idiocy, there are some cool people here and some good discussion about games that goes on here.

The actual GS website for a year or so just looking at news, then poking around found the forums

Yeah man, the urge to argue is absolutely necessary to being a SW poster. You don't even have to be good at it (obviously lol), but the passion must be there.

I've seen so many sensitive types melt down and leave over the years. They almost always come back, but still. You gotta have thick skin posting in this place.

I started lurking here around the end of the sixth generation of consoles. For a long time, these boards were really fun to be a part of, and I've just sort of stuck around ever since, even during the rough periods. Just a hard habit to break I guess.

There's still a handful of users I like here, but it seems like every day there's less and less reasons to stick around.

Dont forget to post with FACTS and with Live, LEarn and Love!

You brought me here. :)

Just kidding, I forget how long ago I started coming to GameSpot (for reviews really, starting with Pikmin 2) and then I think something Skyrim related got me to create an account. So didn't do anything until like 2013, when I started commenting or something like that and I think at the time I was looking for a new forum to post on, so I think I started off at Nintendo Fan Club or something in 2014? I don't really recall, but eventually I wound up here and so I began my crapposting here. :P I didn't really understand much of what was going on here and then everyone was so vicious in a precarious way, but not unlike the last forum I frequented so yeah, just more vulgar language on here. Not much of a story. :< I still think some people here actually mean what they argue and use trolling as an excuse or people are really good "actors" if you can call them that lol. Anyways, I like the speed of the news here and there are some pretty cool people on here that aren't totally mean. :P

The hope of a better life.

Created an account in anticipation of Uncharted 2, posted on its board when it was combined with GameFAQs, gave my friend my account, he used it for like two or three years, I took it back.

I couldn't think of a name, Blab came to mind as something generic enough, -adon was because your mom.

@Blabadon: That dude was a really nice guy.

I was like 13 or 14 when i started visiting gaming boards online, mostly to get walkthroughs and hints and tips. I used to post on other sites, like UGO and Supercheats, before I eventually stumbled upon Gamespot. I lurked on the site for a very long time, but then I signed up to write my own user reviews and participate on the Nintendo board. Eventually realized that the more general game discussion that I was interested in happened on System Wars, so I got redirected to the board, and...

Well yeah, the rest is history, really.

It's funny, I sort of grew up with this board.

Couldn't have said it better myself Heil. These are the true pillars of System Wars.

In an alternate universe.

I completely called it quits after the site change. I think I was outta here for about 6 months maybe? Could be wrong, but it was a long break.

Somehow I still came back though. And it seems like the user base is slowly growing again. For a while there it seemed like it was just 15 regular users, it was weird. It'll never be what it was in the past, but hopefully this place can get some more traffic.

I was extremely hyped for games like Super Mario Galaxy and Bioshock, and I wanted to discuss them with others. GameSpot was the site I was most familiar with since I had been lurking the forums since the fiasco with Twilight Princess. Before that, I only came to the site to look at upcoming video games.

you know, in hindsight, I didn't really "discuss" much.

@PikminWorld:

I dig the hostility of this board lol. It used to be different before insults, cussing, etc.. were allowed, people had to be clever about it, but it was still very much a hostile place. Shit, I can't even remember when new rules went into effect.

I'd really like to see this place regain just a fraction of its former glory. It does seem to be picking up a little bit of steam here lately.

Trying to get us to flag each other over petty sh*t like "driveby posts", a reference to the updated 'System Wars Survival Guide 3.0' isn't helping though. I realize they want less idiocy and more legit discussion, but I don't think that's the way to go about it (especially with the current karma system).

You did, CoSto.

Really.

@Bigboi500:

Yeah, I don't know how the new survival guide will pan out. It's good to try and improve things, sure, but the community ultimately decides how things work and you can't just run them all off.

That warms my heart, CoBo.

I was a Sony fanboy in the 6th gen. I was in high school at the time, probably 15 years old. Came here because, at the time, Gamespot was probably the most active video game community in the world. System Wars seemed a natural fit.

Now I run this shit. Funny how that works.

Man, do you remember when PC was on the edge of non-existence on this board? I remember at one point people would actually say "PC doesn't count on SW".

I can't remember who made the sticky, maybe Subrosian(sp?), but he actually had to explain that PC discussion is allowed lol. Crazy how much things have changed, now PC is up there with PS4 as the dominant platform on this board.

Honestly, I'm surprised the rules you guys have created have subsisted for almost a decade, if not more. Didn't even really realize how old the forum was haha, thought it sprouted up between 2006 or 2007. Early 2000s feel so long ago now, I can only imagine what it would be like to be apart of a forum and see its changes over so long a period. I don't really mind the hostility to be honest, I try to avoid it as while I know it's part of the forum, I like the more conventional arguing even though I'm not very good at that. It's just fun to discuss games and attempt to play games with others, even though that literally works like once in a blue moon haha. Anyways, it's interesting to go back to like threads made in 2007, (okay I clicked on the last page available) about Oblivion or something. Just wondering, what was this Dark Age of new rules you mentioned that have soiled the forums in an irreparable way? Was that like years ago, in 2008 when the whole global economy like fell and forever was the superpower of System Wars destroyed? :P

@Wasdie: You run nothing, boi.

@PikminWorld:

Yeah, crazy how long SW has been around. Would be cool if it's still here 10 years from now, but I highly doubt it.

As for the TOU change that allowed insults and cussing, I can't remember exactly. It wasn't as far back as 2008 though.

I remember people would actually try to argue that PC wasn't a "system"

Yeah. Until about 2010, PC fanboyism in general was pretty low. It wasn't until the middle of the 7th gen, when you could get a decent gaming rig for not a lot of money, and Steam's library was massive, did PC gaming really take off. Before Steam, PC gaming was very small in relation to the consoles. Pre-Steam, things like indie games and whatnot weren't really a thing to even your average PC gamer. The distribution methods were terrible. Steam revolutionized the indie and small studio scene like nothing before it. Steam alone has made PC gaming the far better choice for any dedicated PC gamer. Many people do not understand how much Steam really brought to the table when it came to PC gaming.

At the time, the Sony fanboys were the most dominate by far. The PS2 was a widely successful console. The Gamecube was a flop by Nintendo standards and the Xbox was the new comer and had a decent fanbase for such a new entry. It was much different back then. The consoles weren't basically identical machines and there were tons of console exclusives that never made it to the PCs and tons of manufacturer exclusives.

Today System Wars is boring because everything's a multiplatform title and available on the PC. All of the kids back in the day have bought gaming PCs (because it's the logical move for gamers) and the whole console war is just petty. Back in 2006 you could own just one console and have more than enough to play that was fun and unique to your platform.

Times have changed. Overall gaming has improved and the dominance of a non manufacturer exclusive platform is a good thing (the rise of PC gaming is just good for gamers in general), but it's made System Wars boring by comparison.

I was suspended on Nsider when I first made my account. Made a shitpost on here, was young and stupid, but largely wasn't active in the community until the tail end of the SW Bets days. I've largely gone unnoticed since.

In a really dumb way, it's probably what sparked my fire for writing in the way I do.

Exactly bro, that shit was ridiculous lol.

The only thing that's really changed is that the various platforms have all kind of merged into one ball of modern gaming. Multiplatforms took over and PC gaming rose to the giant it is now. This has really killed the fun debate.

Back in the day, System Wars was much more about pros and cons of your platform. The Xbox One and PS4 are basically the same console with minimal differences. The PS4 may be a bit more powerful, but it's nothing like the PS2 compared to the Xbox. Those were the days when exclusives ruled. Developers could get away with developing exclusives and still being profitable. That's just not the case today. Game development costs have increased by so much due to a large number of factors that making exclusive games is no longer really profitable for a developer or publishers. This has forced most games to go mutliplatform and take away a lot of the fun arguing there once was.

There was once a time where console gamers wanted to separate Mac games from Windows games so they could win the meta. If they could get OSX to count as a separate platform, they could discount a few PC exclusives and the PS3 would win. It was hilarious.

Needless to say, that shit ended quickly when I found out.

By golly that's all we can ask for. :P

I used to argue in the GS comments sections for graphics comparisons between 360/PS3 and also Wii articles always defending the Wii. Some fanboy told me I would get owned in System Wars which I had no idea what that was, so I went to SW in 2008 and the first post I made was dissing ND over some stuff they were claiming about the PS3. lol. Good times.

Man, so much nostalgia. I remember playing like OG Xbox games at a friend's house, playing Battlefront 1 and 2 and having a blast. Then there was Double Dash, Melee, freaking Digimon Rumble Arena blasting my socks off, then like NBA Mario or some weird crap like that, Mario Jam is what it should have been called. Good stuff. PC was fun to play around with games like Baldur's Gate, Never winter Nights, Doom, Serious Sam, and Star Trek games. My dad was a real PC nerd so I picked up those traits. I even remember the gimmicky NASCAR joystick and pedal lol. I don't recall being much of a fanboy as a kid, wouldn't say I am one now even if I lean more towards Nintendo and PC. Yeah, before SW I never really cared for the console/PC fanboyism or any such stuff, saw it all the time, but ignored it for the most part.

@Wasdie:

Yeah, spot on man. These days we have the twin boxes which are dumbed down PCs, and then Nintendo skating by with the occasional good exclusive. Then PC is the monster in the room. It's still kind of fun to debate which platform is best, but only jokingly so. By any realistic measure the PC all out decimates these consoles. With the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube, legit arguments could be made all around, but that's just not the case anymore.

@ConanTheStoner: Pre about 2010, a legit gaming PC that would last you more than 2 years was going to run you well over a grand. Between the large libraries of the PS2 and the huge cost difference, the PC just couldn't dominate like it does today.

Thanks to the consoles we kind of hit a wall in terms of computational power we need for gaming. PCs can now last for much longer, much more reliably than they could, for cheaper. It's just not really fair. PC advancements outpaced game's demands on the hardware. It's kind of weird.

Haha, yes, people used to say that shit. It's like System Wars was the bar for fanboy quality lol. The place were fanboys become gladiators.

Game info, and back then system wars was the biggest video game related board. I actually liked IGN better, but they either didn't have a forum, or it just sucked and I don't remember, so I made an account here after about a year of lurking.

@ConanTheStoner:

It was on the same level as getting invited to fight club. Like you could come in and get wrecked by a badass fanboy and never be able to show your face again. lol.

More views per thread compared to other forums on the site.

In 2007 i wasnt sure how to upgrade my PS3's hard drive so i asked a question in google and it took me to a forum topic that was already created by someone on the PS3 forums so i made an account to ask more questions about switching hard drives of the ps3 then i noticed the PS3 section had a lot of active people talking about games and whatnot

i started to really enjoy being on the ps3 forums and got used to making threads about jrpgs i went on for like 2 years (if i remember correctly) being addicted to the ps3 forums heck i was named the JRPG king back then (good times) due to how many JRPG threads i was making and i witnessed a lot of great threads on the ps3 forums (like the i drew solid snake thread not if anyone here used to be on the ps3 forums back then) then you know how the off topic lounge thats available right now on system wars started? it all started on the ps3 forums and i was among the first for its creations heck i was one of the people to petition to make an off topic thread called the "lounge" to be re-opened since it was closed for being off topic by the mods and it became a success that still goes on (forgot the persons name who actually created the lounge but he had a wolf avatar

Now in the lounge i remember one user posted a link to a thread from system wars saying it was a funny thread for everyone to check it out and thats when i found out that there are other forums beside the ps3 forums on this website lol and clicking on the system wars forums i noticed there were a lot of gaming news being posted here alongside people arguing about ps3 and xbox 360 then little by little i started to really like SW because of how highly active it was back then i mean the ps3 forums were active but the SW forums? boy they were like double the times active back then so yeah thats how i was introduced to SW while i started slowly to leave ps3 forums now the ps3 forum is empty lol

EDIT: the topic i spoke about earlier i drew solid snake? LOL i found it!! good times this is ladies and gentlemen how the off topic "lounge" was created it all started with this thread on the PS3 forums

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/playstation-nation-1000002/i-drew-old-snake-26731463/?page=1

going to be fun going through this thread

I wanted to meet and communicate with more weaboos to understand why they like the terrible games they like.

Also the other forums are really uninteresting and are filled with boring people.

And Off-Topic is frequently filled with racists and bigots.

I joined back in 06 or 07. This place was hilarious. So many sheep were crawling around and damage controlling their "two GC taped together". Great times. I also remember being banned every few days lol

I started posting on here back in 05, I was 13 and loved to argue about games. The reviews are what i orignally came here for but seeing the crap people would say on SW made me come here all the time. I was gone for a few years, but this is what pulled me back in. All you crazy people.

Weird as it may be, system wars on gamespot was and is one of the best locations for aggregated information on games. I can browse the major headlines on gamespot on my way into the site, and then system wars has news articles on more obscure topics, like opinion pieces, small news, screenshots, videos, and preview material. And what's better is there's a discussion on it almost immediately because this forum is so popular.

Is it always meaningful discussion? No, barely ever in fact, but at least the ball is rolling. Sometimes we get a mildly interesting nugget of insight on here to go along with the topic.

After the site reformed, the popularity took a nosedive, but it's still one of the fastest and most popular forum boards in gaming related media.

And then there's the trolls and shitposters. They're like the icing on the cake, especially in the old days. Used to be we had some really clever ones. Then the ToS took a nosedive, which was fun for a while, but every ding dong who could set up multiple emails was staying forever, and it got old fast. I'm glad it's a little returned to form now. We'll always have hotheads and dicks here but at least genuinely disruptive posters aren't keeping it up.

Had already been posting on GS for like 6 years. Then GS deleted the greatest UCB of all time, The Lounge, and OTB was pretty much dead so I just started coming here because going to GS was just a habit for me.

this idiot over here >>>> @mjorh

Nice thread!

I've been here longer than Kevin VanOrd lol.

Originally, my main reasons for visiting GameSpot, much like yourself, were to read reviews and check cheats and walkthrough and the like. I started reading some of the individual game boards, made a few threads that provoked interesting, aggressive, violent and funny reactions (to be precise, those threads were "Resident Evil 6 will be disappointing" and "Final Fantasy 13 will be disappointing") and I enjoyed it. Soon, I moved over to Unions, which is where most of my activity was found. Some of the unions I was most active on were PUSH (I miss that place) and the Reviewers' Union (not many people may know about it here, it was an awesome place).

All this time, I used to lurk around SW. There would often be surges of activity for me here on SW, but I was never really a consistent poster. What hooked me in was the ridiculous amount of activity here, and how entertaining this board could be, thanks to a wonderful mix of very clever, very funny and very stupid posters. Then the revamp happened and I left, and didn't come back for like a couple of years. Again, though, i wasn't really a consistent poster, there would be minor surges in my activity. Only became consistently active a couple months back, but thanks to PUSH, I know plenty of people here, so there's plenty of familiarity that helped me settle in real quick.

What makes me stick around is... mostly, it's force of habit. GameSpot's forums are the only ones I've ever been active on, and System Wars has been part of my gaming life for a long, long time, always in the background, so it would feel weird without it. Plus, it's stupidly entertaining sometimes, even when something outrageously stupid makes me come along and lose my shit with childish insults and whatnot lol. The urge to argue and the actual practice of arguing gets honed perfectly here, I love it. Also, there's plenty of cool fellows here who I enjoy talking with, listening (reading?) to, or argue with. Some of the characters here, even with their stupidities (or because of their stupidities, in some cases) are awesome.

Also, sidenote- thinking back on my allegiances, arguments and the way I conveyed my arguments makes for a good montage of how I've grown and change. The blind, hatred-inducing fanboyism used to be strong in me lol.

@finalstar2007:

lol those drawings in that thread are epic.

Well, you must feel pretty fucking stupid now.