What do you think of the fanbase?

SNES, HM64, BTN, STH, A Wonderful Life, Another Wonderful Life, AWL:SE, Magical Melody, Puzzle de HM, Tree of Tranquility, Animal Parade, Frantic Farming, Hero of Leaf Valley, My Little Shop, Seeds of Memories, Lil' Farmers, Light of Hope, Popolocrois: SoS, and Doraemon: SoS.
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Post  Posted:

I know that we're a pretty small fanbase, so I don't think we have a lot of drama here. Besides that I don't know much about us.
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Kam
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Post  Posted:

that's pretty much it. pretty small, not a lot of drama, pretty nice and helpful, etc. ymmv on the focus on shipping and bashing of rivals (though that has died down a lot since the rival system was removed), but all in all it's one of the better ones
ChaosAzerothCat
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Post  Posted:

Depending where you go on the internet, it can be kind of hard to be a Natsume Harvest Moon fan in my experience tbh. It's not quite so bad here, but it's been hard to find information and discussion some other places without running into a ton of misinformed and flat rude attacks on Natsume/their games/even just people who like their games. (Keep in mind, I don't think disliking something is rude or an attack. I don't think disagreeing is an attack. I don't even think getting annoyed is an attack per se. It's a bit hard for me to explain the difference between the two right here off the top of my head, sorry. Its one of those things where when I'm reading it picking up on/reading the intent?)

A lot of the issues with the SoS fandom have died down. I think the biggest drama was with the first SoS regarding Iris and Mistil tbh. I find it upsetting that rival marriages became such an issue, and even more so that even though they took them out people still got jealous in the case of Iris.

There has been a little bit of dislike for some characters in Trio, and people disagreeing, but I'm not sure if there's really been drama about it so much? We don't have to all agree, if everyone was exactly the same life might be 'easier' but it'd also be boring and static. If that makes sense?

But for the most part people either don't talk about Natsume's HM, or there's a lot of nasty things they have to say. I've met quite a few people who either like them, or are at least fair about it. But for every person who isn't throwing out insults it feels like I run into 2-3 who are.

I've had to stop following blogs before because they started throwing out the worst accusations. I may not agree with everything they've done (I don't tbh, I even find myself somewhat agreeing with some of the stuff in some of the worse complaints but not the intent/overarching conclusion), but I think some people are attributing malice where it's just plain ignorance. While one can argue intent doesn't matter, I personally feel in some cases it at least matters somewhat.

It's definitely not the worst fanbase in general, which I think makes the issues a bit more noticeable when they are 'louder'/'worse' to be fair. Especially when it's a game you really enjoy, you're of course going to probably notice bad a bit more than you should in that case to be fair.

I think though in some ways a fandom experience is what you make it. Not fully, it's not like you can control how much of what kind of content there is. But to an extent, at least, you can cultivate your experience. I feel like a lot of people I run into are much better at that than I am, which is why my thoughts/views/experience seems so different than theirs in some ways. It's not that I'm one of those people who read things knowing it's going to be bad, so much as I try to find things and end up getting shocked and sucked into some things despite the fact that neither should be occurring by now. :lol:

I do agree there are a lot of really nice people, and if you stick to some places the drama is very minimal. I think some of the 'drama' is just people having a disagreement more than some of the 'full on drama' as well. People are people, and I have to say my thoughts on that are that everyone is going to come across more blunt or argumentative than they mean to at some point. Text is an awful medium for conveying tone a lot of the time, and when it's something that people have strong feelings about it gets even harder. So it also somewhat depends on how one even fully defines drama I think. I've seen things I felt like were an (albeit mild) argument, but it seemed to me that few people if anyone else saw it that way. And the other way around.

(I'm so sorry for rambling, I have 2 modes. Not talking and not shutting up. :lol:)
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venus14!
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Post  Posted:

ChaosAzerothCat wrote:Depending where you go on the internet, it can be kind of hard to be a Natsume Harvest Moon fan in my experience tbh. It's not quite so bad here, but it's been hard to find information and discussion some other places without running into a ton of misinformed and flat rude attacks on Natsume/their games/even just people who like their games. (Keep in mind, I don't think disliking something is rude or an attack. I don't think disagreeing is an attack. I don't even think getting annoyed is an attack per se. It's a bit hard for me to explain the difference between the two right here off the top of my head, sorry. Its one of those things where when I'm reading it picking up on/reading the intent?)

A lot of the issues with the SoS fandom have died down. I think the biggest drama was with the first SoS regarding Iris and Mistil tbh. I find it upsetting that rival marriages became such an issue, and even more so that even though they took them out people still got jealous in the case of Iris.

There has been a little bit of dislike for some characters in Trio, and people disagreeing, but I'm not sure if there's really been drama about it so much? We don't have to all agree, if everyone was exactly the same life might be 'easier' but it'd also be boring and static. If that makes sense?

But for the most part people either don't talk about Natsume's HM, or there's a lot of nasty things they have to say. I've met quite a few people who either like them, or are at least fair about it. But for every person who isn't throwing out insults it feels like I run into 2-3 who are.

I've had to stop following blogs before because they started throwing out the worst accusations. I may not agree with everything they've done (I don't tbh, I even find myself somewhat agreeing with some of the stuff in some of the worse complaints but not the intent/overarching conclusion), but I think some people are attributing malice where it's just plain ignorance. While one can argue intent doesn't matter, I personally feel in some cases it at least matters somewhat.

It's definitely not the worst fanbase in general, which I think makes the issues a bit more noticeable when they are 'louder'/'worse' to be fair. Especially when it's a game you really enjoy, you're of course going to probably notice bad a bit more than you should in that case to be fair.

I think though in some ways a fandom experience is what you make it. Not fully, it's not like you can control how much of what kind of content there is. But to an extent, at least, you can cultivate your experience. I feel like a lot of people I run into are much better at that than I am, which is why my thoughts/views/experience seems so different than theirs in some ways. It's not that I'm one of those people who read things knowing it's going to be bad, so much as I try to find things and end up getting shocked and sucked into some things despite the fact that neither should be occurring by now. :lol:

I do agree there are a lot of really nice people, and if you stick to some places the drama is very minimal. I think some of the 'drama' is just people having a disagreement more than some of the 'full on drama' as well. People are people, and I have to say my thoughts on that are that everyone is going to come across more blunt or argumentative than they mean to at some point. Text is an awful medium for conveying tone a lot of the time, and when it's something that people have strong feelings about it gets even harder. So it also somewhat depends on how one even fully defines drama I think. I've seen things I felt like were an (albeit mild) argument, but it seemed to me that few people if anyone else saw it that way. And the other way around.

(I'm so sorry for rambling, I have 2 modes. Not talking and not shutting up. :lol:)
I wonder what that means too... That Word has been so overused it can be Hard to know what it even means anymore... :-| Originally it just referred to Theater Pieces... Even Comedies... :| These Days i feel like that Word is often used to dismiss people but i also see it being used with a Serious Respectful Tone especially when describing unfortunate things that happens in the News... :mrgreen:

Why are people so fond of using such an Ambiguous Word to define like every single little thing? :-| :| :mrgreen: :?:

The Harvest Moon Fanbase has some really great folks by the way! :)
CallieCat
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Post  Posted:

I just got into this fan base and so far it isn't really any better or worse than any other fandoms of its size from what I've observed.

As for characters, simple dislike is not the issue. If someone says "I don't like this character" that's fine as long as they're civil. However, rarely are people civil online. It's severe flat out character bashing that fans have issues with. Like wishing death and writing text walls about how much they hate a fictional being. And don't get me started on this recent trend where if you like a fictional character that does anything remotely bad then you're a terrible person that endorses *insert name of -ism here.* Just because somebody likes a character doesn't mean they condone their actions.
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Blue Rose
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Post  Posted:

This fandom is wild. We get all up in arms over farming games and some of the « Cow Poopoo » that goes on here is « Snuggly Bunny » hilarious. Right now it's super dead cause of no games + reddit/tumblr/other social media places. But yeah, it can be « Snuggly Bunny » wild. Love it.
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Kikki
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Post  Posted:

All fandoms are nutty, ime, even ones like Animal Crossing...just see those who think homebrew or even powersaves is worthy of burning someone at the stake, for example. 'Playing wrong', pfft. Ridiculous. If you're having a good time and it's not hurting anyone else, you're playing right. I don't understand why anyone would get so very invested in how someone else is playing their own game. (I don't use homebrew or powersaves with AC myself but I think homebrew towns can be super cool.)

If a fandom like that can be full of dissent, then they all can. So of course the bokumono/harvest moon fandom has drama as well.

As for the forum itself, I've found this one to be very peaceful. Sure, there are lots of different opinions, but among regulars, people are pretty mature about discussing what they like and dislike, unlike, say, comments sections on most gaming articles, where it's just bile and juvenile insults and a bunch of people calling each other 'fanboy' every other sentence.

While most fishies are just the same as members in behaviour, we do occasionally get anons who seem to post just to stir up trouble, deliberately posting contentious things or being overtly combative...but they don't count, imo. Trolls are everywhere. That's a common hazard of any forum that allows anonymous posting. I don't normally see much drama between members of the UnoT forum, even though all the different opinions exist even within just the regular registered members who've been around for years. Of course, the minute I see notable unpleasantness, I leave that thread behind and don't look at it again, so my impression may be lighter than most.

Outside of here, it can get very ugly, though, when it comes to the Natsume-made Harvest Moon games. I'm more a fan of Story of Seasons, but the levels of hate Natsume gets is horrifying and totally unnecessary, imo. Those are also arguments I won't touch with a ten-foot pole. I still see it a lot on places like Facebook and Twitter but if it was once more contentious here, I missed most of it, and I don't find how things are now to be overly unpleasant. Unless a lurker with an axe to grind hops in, of course.
CallieCat
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Post  Posted:

Don’t forget Reddit, which is probably the worst of the bunch. Many times I will see a discussion thread involving HM/SoS (usually the ones concerning the Natsume post split games) on there and the topic tends to devolve into-

- Blind bashing of the Natsume post split games from people who never played them.
- A variation of the above with fans who keep bringing up said split and telling people that SoS are the “real” HM games.
- The hardcore nostalgics who rant about how all the new entries from both sides are terrible and refuse to like or play any post Wada era games. I even saw someone on Tumblr say that the post split Marvelous games (when it was renamed to Story of Seasons that is) are awful yet when I spotted them on Reddit they openly admitted that they never even played SoS and Trio.
- The “ugh just play Stardew Valley instead” posters. These are probably the most annoying because at least the above people are talking about HM and SoS. I also notice that some SDV fans will derail topics about other farming and non farming sim games to plug the game like this.

Honestly you could make a bingo card for these kinds of topics.

Of course not every topic is like this, most of the time the Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons subs are pretty civil. It’s when you venture out those subs into other ones that involve gaming or Nintendo where fans seem to get hostile.
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bara_no_uta
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Post  Posted:

I've always found the fanbase to be, compared to other fanbases I've been in on the same websites/website formats, a pretty nice community overall. Even with the different opinions on ships or "s/he belongs to me," I don't see things getting aggressive like a lot of places. I have seen a few people say things like "If you like the Natsume Harvest Moon games you're wrong and you should feel bad," which isn't great and I personally do think is unnecessary to say, but uh, looking at pretty much every other fandom that I've seen on Tumblr which gets full of "you ship X/like character Y/think Z, you deserve to die" sorts of sentiments, I feel like that's pretty mild. Though I do remember there used to be a LOT of bashing of certain characters -- usually the rivals for the most popular bachelor, particularly Mary -- but I actually haven't seen that in quite a while. Even the Stardew rivalry seems to have mostly settled down now.

The thing that annoys me is the people who always feel the need to talk about how in their opinion, everything after AWL or so is a steaming pile of garbage (aka, "they changed it, now it sucks," as TV Tropes would say). It's fine to feel that way, but why the need for it to be stated a dozen times over with the release of every new game, among the people who are expressing their excitement?
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