What would you consider "good fans"?

[Chiki]

I personally don't think being skillful has anything to do with being a good fan.

The least skilled FE player in the world could be the best fan if they memorized the script, bought every FE merch, was nice to fellow fans, and so on.

The most skilled FE player in the world could be a horrible fan if he was really mean to others for having different opinions on how to play FE, not liking FE's story and only liking it for strategies, and so on.

Edited December 12, 2013 by Chiki

[Jedi]

A good fan is one who remains loyal to a series no matter what, even if there are games in the series they don't particularly care for, others will care.

Do not state your opinions as fact, be calm and collected and if someone insults you for your tastes, ignore them.

[dondon151]

I fail to understand why skill would be measure on being a good or a bad fan.

That just doesn't make sense to me.

Being a good fire emblem player (which might be measured in other ways) isn't the same as being a good fire emblem fan, for example.

in no way was i saying that proficiency is the sole requisite to being a good fan. i was hoping that good fans would have a level of proficiency (or an understanding of proficient play) at the game. please do not misrepresent me.

it's hard to label oneself a fan of american football without an understanding of what makes a good player or team, or to label oneself a fan of chess without an awareness of openings, endgames, etc. i mean, if you go declare yourself a football fan because you just like watching men inflict injuries on each other, or you declare yourself a chess fan because you think garry kasparov is hot, you're going to raise some eyebrows. it's the same as if you called yourself a fire emblem fan while discarding the strategic component of the game.

[Rehab]

I've seen some people call themselves fans of things for those reasons (football for buff men in tights and personalities, for example). Didn't see a problem with it at the time.

[Chiki]

FE isn't as simple as chess though. There's a lot more to like about FE, for example the story, the characters, etc.

It's hard to be a chess fan without being good at chess but it's much easier to be an FE fan while being bad at FE.

[LuxSpes]

I personally don't think that making fanart, digging up obscure news and owning hard to get goods are characteristics of a good fan. Same with the skill level. Some people just don't have what it takes to draw good fanart, but that doesn't stop them from liking the game. Someone could a great artist and player but hate every game in the series except the one he says allows to show your true skill and think that anyone that disagree with him is a scrub and not a true fan.

Everybody play game for different reasons. Some may play it for the challenge, others for the hacking and some just for relaxing and having a good time.

For me, a good fan is someone that dedicates a lot of his time to a certain activity and has the desire to discuss this interest with other people who share it. He respects that everybody may have different opinions and that even things he likes can have flaws.

[Nobody]

in no way was i saying that proficiency is the sole requisite to being a good fan. i was hoping that good fans would have a level of proficiency (or an understanding of proficient play) at the game. please do not misrepresent me.

it's hard to label oneself a fan of american football without an understanding of what makes a good player or team, or to label oneself a fan of chess without an awareness of openings, endgames, etc. i mean, if you go declare yourself a football fan because you just like watching men inflict injuries on each other, or you declare yourself a chess fan because you think garry kasparov is hot, you're going to raise some eyebrows. it's the same as if you called yourself a fire emblem fan while discarding the strategic component of the game.

I see the equivalency of what you said more as "a good football fan has to be good at playing football or a good chess fan has to be good at playing chess". You can understand the principles of those sports without being good at them, and like to see good strategies being put into practice without being able to replicate them.

Being bad at a game is not the same as discarding the strategic component of it. A person might be terrible playing football but understand it quite well. A person might be pretty bad playing fire emblem but enjoy the strategic component of it (and I'm sure plenty of people, even on this forum, are like this).

Edited December 12, 2013 by Nobody

[Loki Laufeyson]

LTC is a pretty objective measure of skill...

Sure, but a good fan acknowledges that this is not the only way to play FE. (No one likes Stop Having Fun Guys, after all.) I like the LTC players who dont tell me im doing it wrong if i dont finish a chapter under 5 turns, ya know?

Irrelevant: One definition of "fans" I've seen a lot of is that how good a fan one is of something is measured by how much trivia about it one knows, or how much merchandise related to it one has. Kinda glad nothing like that has reared its head here yet.

(no offense to anybody with a prodigious trove of FE swag) (or to anybody who knows where Shouzo Kaga lives)

Well, thats kinda bollocks anyway. I know a guy in New Jersey who owns a replica of Jon Snow's Longclaw but is too embarrassed to buy a House Baratheon shirt because...reasons. He doesnt have loads of swag, but hes the biggest Game Of Thrones/ASOIAF fan of the character Stannis Baratheon ive ever seen. One neednt own the Iron Throne to be a good fan of that series. Id argue that the guy who has spoken with the author of that series, isnt the best fan of the work in the world. /shrug I have a ton of Zelda stuff but my collection is dwarfed in comparison to some other collections ive seen. I dont immediately think the owner of that collection is automatically a better fan that me. In Zelda, its all about how long youve been a fan! lol just kidding.

I laughed at the last part about Shouzo Kaga. xD

If anything it wouldn't be surprising if Vincent would be the one that knows the most trivia about stuff in the FE fandom, as he manages the site and, naturally, any and all news about things getting posted or FE goods and such will go through him first.

Going off that tangent, the definition of FE fan I'm looking for is more "general". LTC and such as a measure of skill is definitely in there, considering how you have to understand so much about the mechanics of the game.

But there are also people that make fanart... contribute news from obscure sources... or have goods that are only usually available to Japanese fans.

Each person has their own contribution to the community... good or "bad". My question was how to define "bad"... such that sometimes, there are those fans that contribute into helping others with their gameplay questions or such within discussion, but *still* have that "holier than thou" attitude.

Or sometimes what I'm guilty of... a lot of the times having that unpopular "elitist weeaboo" opinion when it comes to localization.

Vincent is a good fan to me, because hes helpful and welcoming and engages with newbs and oldies alike without getting his wand in a knot. There are plenty of other members on this very forum who fit said criteria. They may not know as much as Vincent, but they contribute in a positive way to the fandom. Vincent's contribution is obviously this site. Without him, we wouldnt be having this conversation. So a good fan is one who can bring people together in a positive way. They dont have to own a website to do that either.

As for the weeb thing, you arent the only one that does that. (and you are by far, one of the more benevolent examples of such. Seeing how you can own up to it.)

but what if series is not game

Yeah. Theres this. This kinda goes up with Rehab's mention of collections of merch and junk. A fan of...lets say..Amon Amarth...may think himself "superior" cuz he got into the band before Versus The World came out. Or he has followed the band on tour all over Europe, met Johan Hegg and maybe even emptied a drinking horn with the guy. But the reality is that hes not "better" because he takes pot shots at newer fans. Or he makes a stink if Amon Amarth tours the US. If that guy is a big ol' jerk, he isnt "better" than Joe Arkansas who got into the band later and hasnt seen them live yet, because Joe Arkansas isnt an asshole.

The fandom you may be thinking of is (obviously) Marvel's Thor. (using hypotheticals here...) Jimmy Houston has collected all of the Thor comics since 1978. His whole house is filled with Thor so much so, that his wife is annoyed by the Lady Sif lithograph/cel framed and hanging in the living room. Hes got autographs from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Jimmy Houston looks like the Ultimate Fan. But he hates that theres this new influx of fans that came with the movies. He hates it that there are women among them! (Stop the presses!) So he goes on reddit and posts about all these shitty "newfags" who dare come into his Sacred Cow and enjoy it. Jimmy Houston is not a truly good fan. Annie Wisconsin got into the comics through the films. She likes looking at Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. Her favorite characters are Loki and Heimdall. She posts on tumblr about how awesome Heimdall looked in the new movie. She went to Comic Con last year and squeed hard when Hiddleston appeared in Loki costume. But while she may gush and squee, she isnt a jerk to people in her fandom. Annie Wisconsin is a nice girl who has other interests and isnt hung up on quibbles like Loki's costume in Issue #65 and doesnt flame people on the internet for preferring the comics over the films. She would be a "good" fan in my opinion. Doubly so if she stayed out of the "omg Heimdall is black!" arguments.

So yeah. I do know people who arent very good at playing Mario but love Mario. Does this mean they are bad fans? No way. The person who likes the Harry Potter movies isnt worse than the one who prefers the books. I know a lady who loves ASOIAF but does not like the show, Game of Thrones. Shes a good fan because she does not pick on people who do love the show and doesnt act the elitist.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Loki Laufeyson

[dondon151]

I see the equivalency of what you said more as "a good football fan has to be good at playing football or a good chess fan has to be good at playing chess". You can understand the principles of those sports without being good at them, and like to see good strategies being put into practice without being able to replicate them.

Being bad at a game is not the same as discarding the strategic component of it. A person might be terrible playing football but understand it quite well. A person might be pretty bad playing fire emblem but enjoy the strategic component of it (and I'm sure plenty of people, even on this forum, are like this).

then you're ignoring what i was saying earlier, which is that a significant portion of fire emblem fandom either doesn't appreciate or actively spurns LTC and efficient play.

So yeah. I do know people who arent very good at playing Mario but love Mario. Does this mean they are bad fans? No way.

again, you are either misunderstanding me or purposely ignoring a critical component of my statement.

[Phoenix Wright]

Now, responding to dondon. This might be a little controversial but I think it's true: more intelligent people tend to get looked down upon by the masses. I think this is a common real life trend. The people who play LTC well (not just LTC, but other difficult styles too) are clearly much more intelligent than the average FE player (not saying that LTC players are more intelligent than every average player, but most). LTCing tends to take a lot of thinking and it takes intelligence to solve some low turn problems. It's just like how people who are good at math are generally more intelligent than people who aren't. It's a rule of thumb which is true most of the time.

Basically, the average people tend to look down upon people who are more skilled and intelligent, in general. For example, see this: http://summitcenter.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/GiftedandBullied_GEC_Spr2012.pdf

Intelligent people stand out for being more skilled, more sophisticated etc. which is why we get a lot more crap. I think it's due to jealousy, but it also might be due to other factors. People tend to dislike people who are not similar to them, and people tend to like others who are similar to them. It's like white people being racist in the past. They didn't like anyone who wasn't white. Similarly, average people don't like anyone more skilled than them.

;)

I personally don't think being skillful has anything to do with being a good fan.

The least skilled FE player in the world could be the best fan if they memorized the script, bought every FE merch, was nice to fellow fans, and so on.

The most skilled FE player in the world could be a horrible fan if he was really mean to others for having different opinions on how to play FE, not liking FE's story and only liking it for strategies, and so on.

why does a good fan have to memorize and purchase useless crap? i mean, i agree with the latter part, to an extent, but come on.

A good fan is one who remains loyal to a series no matter what, even if there are games in the series they don't particularly care for, others will care.

Do not state your opinions as fact, be calm and collected and if someone insults you for your tastes, ignore them.

see, i have a problem with the whole loyalty thing. the last fire emblem, in terms of story, really sucked. loyalty, especially on the level your post, implies fanboy/girlism where the devs can never do wrong. this makes for an obnoxious, terrible fan. i don't want rabidly loyal fans, i want fans that can recognize a bad game or a bad component to a game when it's obvious that it's bad.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[Chiki]

why does a good fan have to memorize and purchase useless crap? i mean, i agree with the latter part, to an extent, but come on.

Common sense. Most people think buying a lot of merchandise and knowing the story of, say, an anime is a sign of devotion and therefore, a sign of a devoted and therefore good fan. By common sense I don't mean simple reasoning. I mean intuitions which people have, like thinking torturing children is wrong.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Chiki

[Phoenix Wright]

Common sense. Most people think buying a lot of merchandise and knowing the story of, say, an anime is a sign of devotion and therefore, a sign of a devoted and therefore good fan. By common sense I don't mean simple reasoning. I mean intuitions which people have, like thinking torturing children is wrong.

i like nasa, so in order to be a good supporter of nasa i should buy their $25 2GB flash-memory stick that looks like a space shuttle? huehuehue

"knowing the story" and "memorizing the script" are two very different things. although i don't think either of them are necessary to be a "good fan," just a knowledgeable one, the latter being a requirement for being a good fan is ridiculous.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[Chiki]

Most people would agree that buying merch helps but it's a minor part. Unless you buy a lot of merch.

Note I never even said " memorize the script." I said know the story, i.e. be knowledgeable. There's a big difference.

I think common intuitions would agree that being a devoted and knowledgeable fan is a sign of a good fan. What other criteria are we gonna use? Penis size?

Edited December 13, 2013 by Chiki

[Phoenix Wright]

Most people would agree that buying merch helps but it's a minor part. Unless you buy a lot of merch.

Note I never even said " memorize the script." I said know the story, i.e. be knowledgeable. There's a big difference.

I think common intuitions would agree that being a devoted and knowledgeable fan is a sign of a good fan. What other criteria are we gonna use? Penis size?

The least skilled FE player in the world could be the best fan if they memorized the script, bought every FE merch, was nice to fellow fans, and so on.

"never even said it," he says.

criteria:

--not be an ass

--show true interest in the subject, a willingness to learn about it

+derived from the second, strive to become knowledgeable

--recognize faults of franchise

Edited December 14, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[Chiki]

Okay, it's been some time since I posted that and I remembered what I said wrong. But I think memorizing the script is a sign of devotion and knowledge, which are signs of a good fan.

What I think would make the perfect FE fan:

1. Maturity (which most regular users here lack)

2. Calmness (not getting angry at others for expressing opinions)

3. Skill (I retract what I said earlier. I think skill is somewhat important).

4. Devotion (already mentioned)

5. Knowledge

6. Be enthusiastic about FE

I think these sound like pretty good criteria to use.

[Phoenix Wright]

Okay, it's been some time since I posted that and I remembered what I said wrong. But I think memorizing the script is a sign of devotion and knowledge, which are signs of a good fan.

What I think would make the perfect FE fan:

1. Maturity (which most regular users here lack)

2. Calmness (not getting angry at others for expressing opinions)

3. Skill (I retract what I said earlier. I think skill is somewhat important).

4. Devotion (already mentioned)

5. Knowledge

6. Be enthusiastic about FE

I think these sound like pretty good criteria to use.

haha, it's been 48 hours (+/- a few hours).

1. i disagree, i think a goodly amount of users here are mature, or at least mature enough, until the topic of relationships comes up (waifus and husbandos. goddamn i hate those terms). it's those that continuously point out how much more mature and intelligent and cool they are that seem to be a real problem-o here. ;)

2. i think this is just a derivative of "don't be an ass," but i agree.

3. not sure why skill matters at all but okay.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Phoenix Wright

[blyegg]

I think this is why the Doctor Who fandom is so friendly. They get it!

Uh huh, sure.

Some guy at school almost punched me because i said 10th doctor is best @-@

But yeah, a good fan is someone who, isnt, basically, a dick.

[dondon151]

1. Maturity (which most regular users here lack)

i would almost suggest that the less subjective a discussion tends to be, the more conducive it is to attract mature users, or at least bring out mature behavior. compared to another gaming forum that i frequent, i agree that the maturity level on SF as a whole is pretty low.

[Refa]

a good fan keeps me cool all summer, even during heat waves.

EDIT to stay mildly relevant: i'd expect fans to be at least somewhat proficient at the game, but a respect for proficiency doesn't seem to be a quality that most fans of this series in particular possess.

Yeah, I'm honestly going to agree with you here.

A lot of the responses I've read amount to "be rational" which is actually kind of stupid, actually! Like seriously, what does that have to do with being a fan, I could copy and paste most of these responses into a thread called "How to Not Be A Dick On The Internet". I mean it's great that you're all like WE SURE DON'T LIKE DICKS but I am pretty sure the OP already knew that before he made this thread...That came off more harsh than I intended it too. Just kind of annoys me that people are giving the same canned responses that everyone saw coming from a mile away.

Each person has their own contribution to the community... good or "bad". My question was how to define "bad"... such that sometimes, there are those fans that contribute into helping others with their gameplay questions or such within discussion, but *still* have that "holier than thou" attitude.

Or sometimes what I'm guilty of... a lot of the times having that unpopular "elitist weeaboo" opinion when it comes to localization.

Bad fans are people who discourage others from playing the games or actively lessen their enjoyment of certain aspects (like all of the shipping wars, for example). A good fan is the opposite, of course.

A good fan is one who remains loyal to a series no matter what, even if there are games in the series they don't particularly care for, others will care.

That sounds just like a good cash cow. :0

[Loki Laufeyson]

Uh huh, sure.

Some guy at school almost punched me because i said 10th doctor is best @-@

But yeah, a good fan is someone who, isnt, basically, a dick.

Im sure even the Doctor Who fandom has its shitty people. That guy sounds like one of them. I rarely if ever encounter a really shitty Doctor Who fan to be honest. Tenth Doctor is Best Doctor, yes. Hes just buttmad cuz you were right lol.

Bad fans are people who discourage others from playing the games or actively lessen their enjoyment of certain aspects (like all of the shipping wars, for example).

Stop Having Fun Guys. Even non-gaming fandoms have these jokers.

[Refa]

Well, yeah, but I'm also referring to people who are like SUPER OBSESSIVE about certain aspects and ruin them for everyone else.

[dondon151]

Stop Having Fun Guys. Even non-gaming fandoms have these jokers.

i think that this is a categorization that needs to stop. skilled players who look for meaningful discussion are automatically lumped into this category as if it were a bad thing.

for example, i can't name a single person here who would fit into this category (though i suspect that there are many who would designate me a SHFG without hesitation).

Edited December 14, 2013 by dondon151

[Chiki]

Use some thought experiments to determine which fan is better.

Think of the most calm and respectful possible, fan A, who is the same as fan B in all other respects. But fan B gets angry very easily at others for expressing their opinions. They're both equally good at the game, they both have the same amount of knowledge, they both are equally devoted, etc.

Obviously fan A is better.

[Loki Laufeyson]

i think that this is a categorization that needs to stop. skilled players who look for meaningful discussion are automatically lumped into this category as if it were a bad thing.

for example, i can't name a single person here who would fit into this category (though i suspect that there are many who would designate me a SHFG without hesitation).

SHFGs arent just skilled players. They are the morons who tell other people that they are playing the game wrong. The ones who discourage other fans from playing the game because "they just cant do it right." and forcing their opinions on others. Thats the SHFG. There hasnt been one of those here in a good while, yes, but there used to be. You are the one thinking people drop the SHFG bomb on "skilled players."

[Phoenix Wright]

i think that this is a categorization that needs to stop. skilled players who look for meaningful discussion are automatically lumped into this category as if it were a bad thing.

for example, i can't name a single person here who would fit into this category (though i suspect that there are many who would designate me a SHFG without hesitation).

i lurk those fire emblem forums a lot...and i have to agree with loki. no one (that comes to mind) places you even remotely in that category. it may just be the way i read peoples' posts here, but generally when conversations about you come up, it's about just how damn good you are at the game, not putting you down for how you play. i'm silent about it, but otherwise technically i'm one of those people. i can never put the time or effort to do what you do, and i find your videos to be a real treat. why do you think people are putting you and others like you down all the time?

Use some thought experiments to determine which fan is better.

Think of the most calm and respectful possible, fan A, who is the same as fan B in all other respects. But fan B gets angry very easily at others for expressing their opinions. They're both equally good at the game, they both have the same amount of knowledge, they both are equally devoted, etc.

Obviously fan A is better.

who are you even replying to and why did you even feel the need to say this.