Akun

Same as me. I found VGR on a google search about 6 months after @DC built it.

You sound almost identical to me. Sure our life experiences have been different, but they have also been the same. If that makes sense. So let me give you some advice:
You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.

Hey everyone!
Over the past years, I am so proud of how much VGR Forum has grown. We now have more than 18,000 members and more than 164,000 posts. That is all thanks to the ongoing contributions of each of you.
But what really makes VGR unique is that even with our size, our core is consistent. Our dedicated members have been with us for years, and have created a warm, welcoming environment that feels like an online gaming family.
We would love to keep adding to that family. So, I am asking today for you to help spread the word about VGR and invite your own family, friends and co-workers to pay us a visit and consider signing up.
I just want to say thank you again to all of our loyal members! Your contributions are what have made VGR what it is today, and we look forward to getting to know the new members you introduce. 

Same here

Oh come on!  I already don't give a shit about trophies!  I don't need yet another gimmick to not give a flying fuck about!

Marvel Heroes 2016 was free when it was still around, which was one of the reasons it was one of the best superhero games for me because, for a free game, it had a decent storyline and decent gameplay. It had a few problems, especially in regards to people stealing your kills and you have to wait for the drops to spawn again, but that's to be expected from a free online game. The only thing that I paid for was the costumes, and they were amazingly designed because of the different famous voice actors hired for each costume, with my favorite being Christopher Daniel Barnes reprising his role as the Symbiote Spider-Man from the '90s cartoon.
I also remember playing Marvel Future Revolution for a while during its initial release, but got bored quickly and forgot about it.
I've also played Uno Online on CrazyGames.com, which is a decent time-killer and very addictive, but I feel like most of the opponents were bots...
Tried my hands on Pokémon Showdown and Pokémon: Trading Card Game Online. The former is just not for me because you really need to be an expert on Pokémon moves to win. The latter, I've played it for about a few years at least. It's very addictive, especially because of the theme decks and how you could just use them to win matches easily in Theme Matches. It's a shame that they haven't bothered to release new theme decks for a long time now. I might download it again if there's ever a new deck in the future.

Congrats @Akun and very well deserved! I have awarded 500 Points to your account which can be used towards redeeming Bid for Rewards. PM me if you have any questions.

July 5, 2018. I am the sole creator and owner of VGR.

How long have you been part of the forum? Are you the creator or involved with its creation?

I Googled "video game forums" when I was looking for a community to interact with. 🙂

Prey, I'd enjoyed it quite well and would recommend it.

@Akun What's the single best piece of advice you ever received?

The Mass Effect trilogy, specifically Mass Effect 2. I love games where the players' choices have very clear impacts on the plot (instead of the cheap "we mention your choices but it's irrelevant to the plot"). Mass Effect 2 had quite a few important choices that get carried over to the third game, specifically your decision on the genophage cure and killing or rewriting the heretic Geths. Your squad mates who didn't survive the suicide mission also don't appear in the third game, but I feel like that's kinda a superficial consequence because squadmates appearing won't affect the plot as significantly as the above two options I mentioned, and your sacrifice of those squad mates for whatever reasons wouldn't get questioned.
But such a game mechanic is also why I love Detroit: Become Human, because it has dozens of unique and distinct endings very different from one another depending on your choices. I feel like a lot of studios that want to do games where "choices matter" could learn a lot from Quantic Dream's design for DBH.

Ironically, I only played ROM-hacks to decrease the difficulty of a certain franchise: Pokémon. All Pokémon readily available on a single version without trading, easy IV/Egg Move-breeding and EV-edit.
I've also played Pokémon: Ash Gray that was a really cool hack that faithfully adapted the entire plot of the Indigo Stadium saga from the first season of the anime. It's far faithful than Pokémon Yellow, right down to reenacting entire scenes from the anime. Such a great tribute for fans who grew up with the anime. Unfortunately, it never got finished past the Orange Islands, but thankfully, it was completed till the point where you revitalize Charizard the way Ash did to win his trust.
There were also a few other Pokémon hacks I played for the interesting story, such as the Pokémon Adventures hacks that finally brought the far superior story of the manga to the games. I don't think those were completed either, which is a shame, because I could see them as successful JRPGs of their own with the unique and emotional storylines.

Alright, I'll bite since everyone's got a thread. Shoot and I'll answer. 😄

Bragging about never crying.
You can't win with people sometimes. People criticize toxic masculinity, but when you start to express that you cry while enjoying the more trivial things like video games and thus being in touch with your emotions, people sometimes call out on that even in 2022. It's like, which is it? Should I be in touch with my emotions or not? It's why I just can't deal with people anymore because they have this twisted narrative that I'm just not sure how to go along with without stepping on someone's toes. I'd rather just shut up about it most of the time.

Bragging about never crying.
You can't win with people sometimes. People criticize toxic masculinity, but when you start to express that you cry while enjoying the more trivial things like video games and thus being in touch with your emotions, people sometimes call out on that even in 2022. It's like, which is it? Should I be in touch with my emotions or not? It's why I just can't deal with people anymore because they have this twisted narrative that I'm just not sure how to go along with without stepping on someone's toes. I'd rather just shut up about it most of the time.

"Look!  I can play Dragonforce Through the Fire and Flames on Guitar Hero on Expert!".  Whatever pal, play it a real guitar then I'll be impressed. 

Getting laid

I’d disagree about it being more of a WRPG problem than a JRPG problem.
A large chunk of JRPG’s tend to have one ending and that’s it. You could have been super lucky with only playing ones with multiple endings, but most of the big ones have just a singular ending. Franchises like Final Fantasy, Dragon Wuest, Tails, Ys, Legend of Heroes, etc, have one ending.

Time

I could care less about your conspiracy theory's. Gay people exist, and if you can't handle that reality, find your own way to deal with it. One think I won't allow though is homophobia on the boards. There are people (including staff members) who grace these threads who are on the spectrum, but even if there weren't, hate has no place here. Consider yourself warned.

More people are identifying as LGBTQ because it is likely an intentional push (via the media machine and their cohorts) by the left. I don't watch any Matt Walsh, but I would imagine he is probably pointing out Captain Obvious type stuff, whether people want to hear it or not.
 
 

People like him have fallen into an obsession of homophobia and they use this exact talking point to praise dictatorial leaders who they think are strong. All these culture wars from republicans are for only one purpose, to demonize their opponents and try to get in good grace with religious groups. Cause we all know religious people are the only righteous ones in existence, right? (SARCASM). Every holiday, republicans go on offense how liberals try to take it all away. Republicans cuddle the American flag in one hand and the confederate flag in the other while trying to overthrow an election with their brothers next to them holding Nazi symbols. Their actions speak for itself. Every law they pass is a direct attack on people of color and the LGBTQ community. 
As far as the survey goes, people can lie in surveys; surveys can be biased; and the baby boomer generation, every generation for that matter, has their share of LGBTQ but the baby boomers grew up in an age where they have to be closet gays. Conversatives think they are the population of heterosexuals but you can never tell. 
Russia for example, is the epitome of how republicans want this country to be like. Russia has cracked down on the LGBTQ community. Transgender people aren't allowed to drive in that country. They have passed the 'gay propaganda' laws. They have tv shows demonizing gays. At the same time, in such a masculine society, there is allegations that Russian soldiers in Ukraine are raping grown men and boys, including women and girls. So a country that is hell bent on punishing the LGBTQ and pro masculinity are raping grown men and boys? Is gay jail rape a masculine endeavor to the far right wingers too? 
So let's not get caught up in any extremism. Republicans have their equal share of gays who most likely are closet gays. Toxic masculinity is not good and treating your 4 year old boy as a girl is not good. As far as that goes, we can't reach too far into it because we don't know their personal story. Was it fun and games? Or something else? When I was a kid me and my sister raided our mom's makeup and painted each other lol. So fucking what. I would still beat the hell out of most kids in my neighborhood and in school for that matter. I got kicked out of first grade for kicking everyone's ass all the time. I was a bully when I was younger. I even hit girls too. I even attacked grown ups and run off. I just didn't care. Me and my friends played dodge ball using knives to throw. Then I grew up. I embrace my femininity now. I'm not afraid to be one with nature and that whole thing. At the same time I am willing to defend my country if there is a call for arms. I will protect those that are in need. That's masculine enough as far as I'm concerned. There are far too many grown males who need to grow up. You can't call yourself a man just because you have a job, money, degree, and a family while throwing tantrums on planes for having to wear a mask. And that is one example of many that I can go into. Long story short, grow the fuck up republicans!!!
I have a couple other points to make about false masculinity and the so called strong man. Take a look at the Neanderthals who were much stronger than homo sapiens. But we are alive today because we were more intelligent. The physical strength didn't prevent the Neanderthals from going extinct. 
Spartans supposedly has a myth where they would weed out weak boys and train the rest to be strong as hell. Where are the Spartans today? Why don't they have their own country and empire? You get the point. Toxic masculinity is a recipe for failure. Nothing good comes out of it, except for abuse and violence.
You can't brainwash the testosterone out of males. If you are so concerned about losing testosterone levels, then protest and complain to the food manufacturing companies that packages food in plastic containers. Because that plastic is full of estrogens that leak into the food. And that includes bottled water. So get off your manly asses and complain to them. What's wrong? Don't want to piss off the corporations? Huh? The industries leaking estrogens into the food? They get the green light, so you instead attack the gay community? Fuck you bigots. Straight up. You homophobes are idiots. 

I’m not sure what’s really exhausting about acquiring a physical copy of a game. If it’s a popular title, I can easily get it from a store, and if it’s not popular, I just order it on Amazon. It doesn’t take much of my time to get a game physically.
If the game was brand new, it was a very rare issue to see the disc scratched. I also own hundreds of used disc based games, and none of them were too scratched to not work. I could be super lucky.
I get the convenience of not having to wait for a game to be delivered, but the exhausting nature of physically acquiring a game is completely foreign for me.