WTF is going on here?

[SoulBlazer]

Okay, to start with, I'm not posting this to cause any problems. I'm honestly curious. I'm a gamer, not a collector. I don't know care what system the game is on or who made it, I just care if it's a fun game. Most of my retro playing these days is done by emulator. I've only played a few Jag games.

 

I'm just really wondering about something, that I've been noticing over the last year or so, whenever I poke my head in here (as I do with all the sub forums here in AA):

 

What is it about the Jaguar scene that causes so much drama, name calling, inmature behavior, and locked threads?

 

I don't see the same ratio of this happening anywhere NEAR this level on the other sub forums here like the 2600 or the Intelivsion.

 

I don't really understand what makes the Jaguar so different, or special, as to cause all these problems.

 

Can anyone enlighten the damn curious with a serious and honest response?

Edited September 18, 2012 by SoulBlazer

[+Gemintronic]

I assumed it was residual negative vibes from other Jag specific forums. I can't back that up, though. Everyone here seems knowledgeable to me.

[Shamus]

I always assumed it was the fumes from the plastic.

[ggn]

The experts agree: "It's all in the Jaguar's plastic".

[Christos]

I third the fumes. Minimizing your exposure to them by a. turning on the jag as seldom as possible b. having good ventilation. can improve things drastically.

 

Jokes aside, I like to see the jaguar community as players in an MMORPG. Some of them have invested a lot of time in accumulating jaguar stuff and in making a name for themselves. When this fails they do a Leeroy Jenkins and that's what you see.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

To the OP. I been wondering that myself. To be clear I do not own a single Jag related item. I have always been curious and as a collector and Atari fan I certainly hope to do so one day but I admit it is no longer a priority, in fact I have it pushed down pretty far on the list at this point and would only consider if I stumbled on an incredible offer which is highly unlikely in my small Canadian city. I had always heard rumor about the "Jaguar Community", Of course not currently having any of the related hardware I rarely ventured in the forums or sub forums on the subject. Curiosity though does sometimes pull me in, when a new game is announced or some Jaguar related discovery pops up I will take a peek just to get an idea what I might be in for if I ever take the plunge. I would say your observations and points seem pretty much the same as my own. I have noticed from some a real defensive attitude regarding the Jag, some others very snobbish and certainly there is some ego that seems to be involved and as you mentioned though all this can and has been observed regarding other platforms it certainly is nowhere near the levels that I have seen when dealing with Jag fanboys.

 

Sorry I cannot explain it though. Perhaps not having the system I have not been involved enough in the related communities to "get it" and really until I have one of my own I I will try to tread carefully (for the most part) in those threads, it has already been proven to me first hand you can not even ask a simple honest and polite question about a new Jaguar title without either getting a smart ass reply or someone getting way overly touchy and defensive. Not saying there are not good people involved who are just as much victims of the a-holes, of course their are but sadly their are many who do seem to ruin what should be fun and informative when it comes to the Jaguar. I do not recall ever playing a Jaguar so I do want that experience someday, we'll see how it goes.

 

The only other platform that I have heard much controversial or problems with is the TG16 / PCengine (NEC SYSTEMS I GUESS) though not to the same extent I have witnessed some craziness. I wonder if there might be some relation to this and the Jag platform? I don't see it but who knows?

Edited September 18, 2012 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[+DrTypo]

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE JAGUAR COMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

 

(Disclaimer: this post is a joke)

[high voltage]

Jaguar is not different, it's just another Atari ace console....

[+Sauron]

You're asking a question that contains many answers, none of which would really fully sum up what goes on here. The Jag community has been like this since day 1. There's always been something going on, whether it be just random trolls, developers who bark a little too loudly, touchy feelings amongst the members, etc. I've been in the community since the very beginning, and even I really can't explain it effectively. It's easy to point fingers at one group of individuals, but that really doesn't do it justice. The fights in the past were between different people arguing different subjects.

 

In other words, it's all in the plastic.

[+Gemintronic]

Everyone likes Super Maryo World and no one expects more out of that opinion. Try explaining to someone your taste for Club Drive in a rational manner though. I guess you have to be a bit more opinionated to dig the Jaguar.

[+Stephen]

I think it's left over anger from finding out the Jag isn't really 64-bit, but just 2 32-bit processors running in parallel I will second what Sauron said. I have had my Jag since 1995, and the scene has never been any different. SSDD - same s**t, different decade.

[sh3-rg]

I've been noticing over the last year or so, whenever I poke my head in here (as I do with all the sub forums here in AA):

 

What is it about the Jaguar scene that causes so much drama, name calling, inmature behavior, and locked threads?

 

I don't really understand what makes the Jaguar so different, or special, as to cause all these problems.

 

Go all the way back to the demise of Atari or possibly even earlier... Take a few over-inflated egos. Toss in some mighty chips-on-shoulders. Sprinkle with a few mindless kids with nothing better to do than stir up trouble to get in the good books of those mentioned previously. Now throw in tens of thousands of forum posts across multiple sites. Add in a little Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt regarding piracy, the evils of accurate emulation and evil foreigners with fake cartridges, ROM-dumping machines and eprom burners and keep on stirring and stirring and stirring the pot... keep on stoking the flames... and you have the perfect recipe for a fractured group of individuals who are beyond paranoid and twitchy about every little move another makes... waging their own pathetic kind of holy war over a f***ing open-platform games console of all things!

 

It's not something unique to the last 12 months, in fact it's been fairly calm compared to the previous few years, bar recent events... go way back and you'll see the same kinds of basket cases and trouble makers you see today doing the same old mud slinging and hate-mongering... forcing people who should all be working together in friendly rivalry into fighting pathetic playground wars with each other, second-guessing and inventing motives for the most innocent of actions. The only people this serves are the mindless lamers whose only contribution is to further their own notoriety and smugness by manipulating the players in their games.

 

Meh. They're right. It must be in the plastic...

 

Damn, Stephen just summed it up nicely - Same Shit, Different Decade

[Atari_Owl]

It's the plastic

 

The names and the faces change but the s**t remains the same

[doctorclu]

I think the Jaguar got the user base that the advertising was trying to reach. If you look at the ads, the Jaguar was advertised to be a powerhouse, in your face kind of system. You had teachers screaming at people "DO THE MATH" and the later ads of "Once you have experienced Jaguar some things just aren't the same anymore." Those ads featured a monkey getting it on while thinking of a Jaguar, and a guy with a blow up doll (sitting next to it) thinking of a Jaguar.

 

During the time the Jaguar came out it was all about fighting games and mascots with attitude as well, not to mention first person shooters. Lots of Wolfenstein and Doom were advertised when the Jaguar was being hyped.

 

In short, when you look at the light the Jaguar was presented in, verses the way other platforms were advertised, the user base makes a lot of sense to me.

 

Atari 2600 - picture shown of family gathered around the 2600 for family fun, everyone happy and getting along.

Atari Jaguar - Closest thing to family togetherness was a hand of a mother brushing the shoulder of her son... a hand held by an Alien.

 

Do the math.

Edited September 18, 2012 by doctorclu

[Tyrant]

As Sauron said, there are many causes and far to much history for anyone to want to remember.

 

However, in my opinion, the underlying problem is really simple. The Jaguar is not a popular system -- it wasn't popular when it was commercially viable, and it isn't popular now -- and therefore the community has always been tiny when compared to other systems and interests. There seems to be a law of social dynamics that means that the smaller a community is, the more fragmented and split it becomes. I don't know why this is, it just happens.

 

There really isn't any ideological or other difference between the various Jaguar camps; it's just that each group dislikes the others and generally thinks that they're jerks, for whatever reason it might be that week.

 

I think it can best be summed up with this XKCD strip: http://xkcd.com/1095/

[Tyrant]

SSDD sums it up nicely, even if that does read as Single Sided Double Density to me.

 

Also images are worth words to some flucuating exchange rate.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Tyrant

[jaybird3rd]

It's an interesting phenomenon that I call "Jaguar disease". It might make a good topic for a sociology thesis someday, but in the meantime, here is my "analysis" ...

 

I think there are several possible factors at work here:

• People who are "into" video games in a serious way tend to gravitate toward games that reflect some aspect of their own personalities, and so they identify strongly with platforms that offer more of those types of games than others. They also choose platforms for nostalgic reasons: the systems they grew up with, or that they admired and always wanted for themselves, or that their friends had. That kind of highly personal attachment is a double-edged sword: it can motivate you to spend a lot of time and money building and enjoying a collection over a period of years, but it can also make any kind of negative feedback (such as a discussion of the system's shortcomings) feel like an attack on you, which isn't likely to leave you in a mood for rational discussion.
  
• Because the Jaguar user base is so small, and because the pool of developers with both the interest and the skill to create games for the Jaguar is even smaller, it seems natural that those who are doing creative work on it would develop a sense of ownership of the Jaguar; after all, they're the ones who are "keeping it alive" through their work. It takes a special kind of person to maintain that level of involvement without becoming territorial, or becoming suspicious of the interest and participation of others, especially when there are personal or philosophical differences involved. These differences are magnified by the fact that these people are choosing game development on the Jaguar as one of their leisure activities, and are more likely to have stronger feelings about how it should be done than someone who's doing it for a paycheck.
  
• If you're enough of a contrarian to like a video game system that was as completely and decisively rejected in the marketplace as the Jaguar was, you're probably not the kind of person who cares very much about other peoples' opinions or about getting along with everybody; in fact, you probably think that you know better than the majority of the population, because you can see something worthwhile in the Jaguar that almost everyone else in the world missed. This might be one reason why the Jaguar fan base has more than its fair share of highly abrasive and belligerent personalities.
  

Mix all these ingredients (and probably a lot more) together with the mental derangement that any online community is vulnerable to, and you have what I sometimes call "Jaguar disease."

[bennybingo]

I just purchased my first Jaguar with games...it is being shipped to me as we speak. Do I need to purchase a gas mask in order to play this thing without the risk of contracting a nasty case of thread-lock-itis?

[Cobra Kai]

I blogged a little about this the other day: http://www.atariage.com/forums/blog/75/entry-9530-atari-jaguar-i-just-want-to-play-and-talk-about-the-games-man/

 

IMHO, in this forum, it mostly started with the jackassery from trollish members that openly hated the Jaguar, but spent nearly all their time in this forum. Bashing it relentlessly, every day basically, and every thread, getting a rise out of the fans of the system and making most of us very defensive. Those guys fortunately have left us, but the programmers/homebrewers have brought their own special drama to the scene, and the original defensiveness has carried over to that.

 

This whole forum is mostly about coding and developing games on the Jaguar, which isn't really healthy I think, because there doesn't seem to be many actual Jaguar gamers here. You want proof, just look at the topics list on the first page, nobody talks about the games really. There's the HSC though, which is a good thing, but there's not much strategy discussion in there, just pictures of scores.

[jaybird3rd]

I just purchased my first Jaguar with games...it is being shipped to me as we speak. Do I need to purchase a gas mask in order to play this thing without the risk of contracting a nasty case of thread-lock-itis?

Just buy one of Jerry's and Barb's deluxe Jaguar dust covers to keep your Jaguar covered up while you aren't using it, and you should be safe. If you ever notice Tourette-like symptoms while playing the Jaguar, you might need to replace the old plastic case with a nice, white, Haterade-free replacement case:

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 110804896487

[+CyranoJ]

I just purchased my first Jaguar with games...it is being shipped to me as we speak. Do I need to purchase a gas mask in order to play this thing without the risk of contracting a nasty case of thread-lock-itis?

 

If you turn it on and play the games you'll be fine. It's the ones who just keep the boxes on the shelf who have the fumigation problems

[GroovyBee]

This whole forum is mostly about coding and developing games on the Jaguar, which isn't really healthy I think, because there doesn't seem to be many actual Jaguar gamers here. You want proof, just look at the topics list on the first page, nobody talks about the games really. There's the HSC though, which is a good thing, but there's not much strategy discussion in there, just pictures of scores.

 

I'll counter with the thread views. If you look at the new game related ones they are in the 1000s (or 10s of 1000s). If you look at back catalogue game questions they are quite low in comparison. Combined with the number of downloads of the free game binaries and homebrew carts and CDs selling out in no time flat then I'd say that people are very interested in new games. Mind you some don't actually play them .

 

Nah... Its the plastic.

[Jag_Slave]

Jaguar elitists in a small niche of the gaming world protect their baby cub with veracity. Some are here to push your buttons, others are here to watch the carnage, and some just want to play or make something to play. They key is to do all three, but just make friends with the mods first

[+Sauron]

Definitely have to agree with GroovyBee. Like I said before, this all goes back to the very beginning. The Jag just never had an impressive library to begin with. I was there back in the old days when everyone was starved to play just about anything on the Jag, even if it was a simple crude 2600-style game with graphics to match. Within the last few years, behind the release of the Skunkboard, there's been an absolute avalanche of homebrew games in comparison. People still like the old games, sure, but new games are what's going to keep people coming back to the system. If you go look at JS2, the threads aren't all that different. Some of the guys over there have been trying to make a push to bring some homebrew devs of other systems over to the Jag. I think that alone says enough about how much people want new games to play.

[sh3-rg]

This whole forum is mostly about coding and developing games on the Jaguar, which isn't really healthy I think, because there doesn't seem to be many actual Jaguar gamers here. You want proof, just look at the topics list on the first page, nobody talks about the games really.

 

Healthy is what comes from as many people as possible enjoying their Jaguar in the way they prefer, not restricting that pleasure or the sharing of it to any one flavour of fan. If the AA jag forum was only for discussion of 20 year old games and nothing more it'd just be like three men a dog and a whole load of tumbleweeds rolling by...

 

The so-called "Jaguar Community" doesn't need to purge itself of new developments to improve - those are probably important factors in new people learning about the Jaguar all the time over a back catalogue of quirky games and mostly inferior ports. A burning of books attitude will breed nothing healthy... the more new developments that occur the more people will take notice and the more the user-base has the chance to grow - both gamers and devs.