I learned the hard way a loooooong while ago last year. Glad i stop wasting my time lurking a snobby community like GAF.
I had just heard of them like 2 months ago. I'm sure I had read the name before that but glossed over it. There's some actually decent stuff there. I go there for the gifs. Not gonna lie, they have some funny people there. Some of the OT's there are fantastic. Just amazing. L/RTTP's are always nice reads at work. I won't pull a NeoGAF and focus entirely on the single nugget of negativity.
But, they are in goddamn denial over the hive mind thing. That hive mind, btw, is inevitable in any site with any sort of exclusivity. This isn't the first time I've seen it. I come from a baseball related site that's even more elitist and the same phenomenon happens. Standards are kept by the core, and people are naturally encouraged or discouraged to conform within acceptable common standards. This ultimately leads to opinions grouping up like a flock of birds in flight it just happens. No conspiracy, no secret agenda, just a natural flow. We're no different here, this is a generally positive board because the louder voices at the core don't tolerate shitposted negativity, making this place more attractive to positive-minded people, leading to a more positive hive mind. I don't deny it, and it's not something to get defensive about. It always happens.
And it's happening on GAF. And that mind is absolutely overwhelmingly distrusting of all things FFXV. And specifically FFXV. Not Final Fantasy in general even, but very specifically this game. There is 100% a prejudicial bias against this game specifically. There are also plenty of birds flying against the flock (our own Koozek being one of the better examples), but theres still a biased core. I have my theories as to why, buy I'm here to report, not speculate. The bias is 100% real, and recognizing emotional patterns in crowds and how to discern the truth within would be what my thesis is based on if I gave a fuck about getting an actual doctorate.