pinata242

Not that I'm campaigning for a regime change, but I'm just kinda curious what everyone's feelings are about when spoilers in a game thread are no longer necessary to hide. I figure since a good portion of the members here don't go into the Mass Effect 2 thread where I originally asked the question:

Now, keep in mind nothing happened in the thread to necessitate the question. There's no fight, nobody posted anything recklessly, nothing like that. I elaborated a bit more with my next post:

So, what are your thoughts on this? Should there be rules or guidelines set in place for this forum like the other places? Or do we just continue spoilering everything to keep the people that can't resist reading new posts safe from themselves?

JasonF

Unlike with TV and movies, VGTalk threads seem to contain a mix of people who have played the game and people who want to find out more about the game before plunking down their money. Spoiler tags are easy enough to use, so I say keep using them. Of couse, I suppose it could get ridiculous -- I'm not suggesting people need to use spoiler tags in 2010 if they want to post "WTF!? I just got to the end of world 1-4 in Super Mario Brothers and it turns out it's not the right castle!!?!"

pinata242

But that's the crux of the debate. When is that line drawn? Sure they're easy to use, but they're annoying to have to click every single one just to read what's there. 50% of the thread looks like this:

Liver&Onions

lordwow

6 months.

/thread

fujishig

Right, Mass Effect 2 hasn't even been out for a month yet, and it's an RPG (well, kinda) that takes around 30 to 40 hours to finish. I think especially for RPGs, there should be some lag time.

And I also agree that tv shows/movies are slightly different. It's not very often that you watch a third of the movie, then go discuss it before finishing it.

nickdawgy

OMFG! Thanks alot, n00b!

DeanoBKN

When I click on a discussion thread on a certain game, I know from experience that once I reach page 4-5 and beyond to read at my own risk, as people who have beaten the game or are very far in it will discuss plot points and the final levels.

Personally, I don't care. I don't play many RPG's, so most of the games I play have little to no story, or the story is shit, and i'm playing for the gameplay only.

Enough random thoughts...just use spoilers. It doesn't hurt anybody to click all 50 of them.

Raul3

I'd say two months.It's also easier if you are late to the game. If you start your game two months after it was released and there's a thread with 10+ pages for that game, it will be harder to find the information you are looking for if there is a lot of information hidden in spoilers.

So yeah, between 2 and 6 months. 6 is the extreme, maybe for longer games like RPGs.

Chris_D

I tend to avoid threads about games I'm planning to play, regardless of whether the thread is tagged as spoiler or not. Even people who are just posting their initial impressions will often unintentionally spoil small parts of the game.
Better just to steer clear IMO.

Groucho

Perhaps we can start two threads on the more popular games? One for open spoiler game-related discussions, the other for general questions and answers from people who haven't played the game.

flashburn

That's how some other forums do it. I'd be all for that.

Tscott

I recently finished Psychonauts (2005) for the first time. The game I've been playing most lately is Titan Quest (2006). Also, I've been giving S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) a go. One of these days I'd like to get around to playing Jade Empire (2005)(2006 for PC). Infamous is sitting next to my PS3 waiting to be played. Not everyone rushes out to buy every latest game and finishes in two weeks.

Having said that, I'm fine if I'm reading a thread on a game I'm playing to read fairly general spoilers on the gameplay or reference to a level. So if it's something like "OMG, the zombies in the mausoleum level are freaking me out!" or "The fights with the Revenants are tough" or even "That boss sucks, he took fifty shotgun blasts to the face and still wasn't dead" it doesn't really bother me.

If it's a plot specific spoiler though it's best to keep it in spoilers always. The final moments of Half-Life 2: Episode 2. The possible fates of Morrigan, Alister and others at the end in Dragon Age Origins. Details leading to the end of the main quest in Fallout 3. What happens when you meet Andrew Ryan in Bioshock. Etc. Keep all those sorts of details in spoilers at all times.

Some spoilers may be a little iffy. "I can't believe they captured me and took all my weapons halfway through the game" for example. That's a fairly common game device, but I generally don't like to know about it before it happens in a game. Also specific tactics to beat a boss like "Shoot out it's eyes then wait until it does its freeze attack, jump out of the way and shoot the blue weak spots on the belly of the beast." or game exploits "I found if you lead it into the hall, it gets stuck and can't turn around and you can get out your knife and hack it from behind for 5 minutes and not lose any health or ammo" those sorts of things should probably be spoilered just to be safe.

Michael Corvin

I don't think two threads for the same game is necessary, and sounds more like overkill. In the specific game thread, I'd say all bets are off the day it is released. I got Bioshock 2 on release day but haven't stepped foot into the thread since because I'm soldiering on with Borderlands still. Most games have demos, well for one platform anyway , so you can get a good feel for a game that way without continuing to read a thread past a game's release.

However, spoilers outside of that specific thread should be held much, much longer since a lot of us wait to get games cheap. i.e. posting in the general PS3 thread how you can't believe Nathan Drake killed Illana in Uncharted 2, without spoilers, a few months after release would be wrong. Where is the line drawn though? When a game's SRP hits $20? A year later? Once a sequel is announced? Personally, 1 year is where I would draw the line. If I haven't gotten to the game in that 12 month span, that's on me.

You must not watch Lost or 24 where people seem to think a running commentary adds to the forum in some fascinating way. "OMG! I can't believe Jack just did that!"

Groucho

When I game comes out, I stop reading the thread until I finish it. Once I do read the thread, I'm surprised by how many deals for the game are posted. "Hey, this is $24.99 at Amazon!" Deals that people are missing. Two threads solves that problem as well.

Michael Corvin

Which is baffling since there is a VGDeals thread, a Target Clearance thread, and and Amazon Deals thread. Not to mention people post deals in the general system threads as well as the XBLA/PSN threads. There is no shortage of places to post those deals.

Tracer Bullet

I am in favor of this idea. I doubt that it will add much clutter to the forum.

fujishig

Yeah, I forgot about those. But still, this doesn't really affect the people who are afraid of spoilers, as they're not watching a little bit, then checking the thread and getting spoiled.

But even in the movie forum, people don't just post spoilers without warnings or tags the day the movie is released, do they?

Chew

There must of been a half-dozen Lost threads in the TV forum leading up to the premiere. There were tons of Dark Knight threads.

I think we can spare the forum space for a whole two threads per game.

Groucho

Generally only the really hot games will have two threads, and the plot-related threads will likely die down after the first couple weeks.

pinata242

As I put in my first post, that's really the difference between tv/movie threads and games. Games aren't 30 minutes - 3 hours long. You don't play a game in one sitting. Everyone has a different rate of progress.

But in the tv/movie threads, there's a realistic expectation of "once it airs/releases" that you stay away from the thread if you care about spoilers.

Even for games, like others have already said, I will stay out of a thread if I care about spoilers in that game if I haven't played it yet. I'm not asking the participants of that thread to censor themselves on my behalf as I think it unnecessary.

That's not to say that someone who knows they're way ahead of the curve on the rate of progress shouldn't be decent and keep the endgame out of the on-going discussion. But eventually it's obvious when all the regular participants have finished the game. Then I think it's time to open it up.

Decker

While that's generally true and I don't really have a problem with starting a second thread for cetain games, see below:

pinata242

Fucking Hard? Fuck no.

Fucking necessary? Fucking debatable.

fumanstan

I don't understand why someone would be compelled to read 10 pages of discussion on a game they haven't played yet that has been out for a month already and not expect spoilers of some sort.

Sorry, but there are a billion reviews for the game online if you want to know people's thoughts and review of it. Or 3-4 pages of pre-game release discussion.

Groucho

What I'm proposing is a spoiler-free thread where I can post general questions like "How do I change my default control configuration" without accidentally seeing something like "Samus is a CHICK OMFG!" in the post right above mine. Two threads elegantly solves this problem.