I don't think anybody is shitting on anyone It's a public forum and we're all allowed to say what we think How shallow would the discourse be if we were limited to only talking about things positively?

It doesn't matter what you think. Try posting something positive about starfield - even in the Starfield community. You will get shat on. A lot.

The problem isn't that negativity doesn't have a space, its that positivity doesn't have a space. If someone posts something positive and gets shit on, they're going to be less likely to post positive things in the future. Or react to negativity with their own positivity. That's how psychology works. We do a thing and get a shock, we'll be less likely to do it again.

But more importantly, a lot of negative nancies on the internet love to defend yukking on other's yums with lofty goals around "discourse" and "free speech". But they seem to forget that's not how the real world or human psychology works. This post isn't looking for "discourse". OP is just saying " wow this game has cool vistas" maybe hoping for some stories or reinforcement or fun conversations with other fans and you all are responding with "game sucks". What is this "discourse" supposed to accomplish other than, at best piss off OP, and at worst tear down his enjoyment of the game.

I mean think about it. What if someone were showing off a coat they brought and like with some randos, and you waltz in and are like "that coat's fucking ugly and you should feel bad about buying it." What kind of discourse would you expect other than "the hell? Who asked you? Fuck off".

Sure, we're all entitled to post and reply what we want, but it won't stop us from calling you an asshole. You want to shit on a game? Go for it, there's plenty of hate circlejerks you can join in on.