It was funny for a while.
But that was a while ago.
This really isn't just about -that- question though. It's about a lot of questions that newcomers tend to show up and ask. They're just wee littles. They didn't know we had an FAQ for the game. They didn't know someone asked the same damn question in the discord chat two hours ago, and they didn't know that was a known bug. Cuz honestly, who's gonna scroll through walls of text and topics if you just want a quick answer so you can keep playing your gosh-darned pocketmans?
I'm not saying that it's ideal for users to not look through pre-existing topics, or that we shouldn't encourage them to use pre-existing resources..... but not everyone is going to think to do that in the first place. And so, for those times when someone does end up asking a common or should-be-obvious question, I'd like to ask you all, as veteran/senior/senpai members of the site, a favor:
Please be patient with others.
It very well may be the seventh person today to show up asking if Mega Evolution is in the game yet. I understand that after so many times of seeing that question, it gets frustrating. It's like how have you managed to not see the answer to this yet when someone probably just said it half an hour ago and also eight times yesterday?? ...But is it really that person's fault? It may be obvious to you but for someone who just found the game two hours ago and has been having fun but was curious and just wants to ask a hopefully-friendly community for a quick answer (and they might even be a bit nervous about speaking up at all)-- getting a snappy reply back can feel really bad. In fact, it can be the difference between them fucking right off, or hey, maybe they like it here and end up being someone who sticks around to help other newcomers too.
Whenever I talk about this, I'm reminded of a certain comic. Many of you are probably intimately familiar with it:
And if you haven't seen it before, then I guess you're one of-- oh. nevermind. I won't go for the low-hanging fruit.
But that's just things that everyone knows-- let alone things no one knows (including me!!) like when is episode 17 going to be out.
And when someone is asking something like that, it's usually not out of impatience so much as it is a genuine excitement or curiosity. It's something people can look forward to.
After hearing that question so much as regulars around the site, I totally get how it would become grating over a while.
But you know what?
I've been doing this-- answering those kinds of questions-- a lot longer and a lot more than most of you.
And if I can still be patient with those people-- and I can-- then you can too.
I would love to lead by example in that regard, and I hope that some of you have seen that when I can, I do. But I definitely can't always be there. I can't always be paying to the chat or all the forum topics-- There's just not enough time, and even more limiting, I only have so much energy to spend towards such things as well.
...Which is also exactly why I need everyone else to step up.
And also? I get it-- maybe you don't have the energy to type out a pleasant response to the same question for the 100th time total. It happens. In that case... rather than typing something passive aggressive or that makes you sound annoyed with another person, just-- don't. That's preferable. It's like that old platitude-- if you don't have anything nice to say......... let someone else say it instead.
But let's make sure that, whatever we say, we can be proud of it as a community.
It would really mean a lot to me to see people come together on this more.
Thanks for listening.