Pretty solid. Explains why i stopped liking online-games which i was so damn passionate about 20yrs ago.
Anon is a nostalgic gamer
Submitted 1 month ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/609fc7a1-f1eb-4a27-8664-2c31918f4f63.jpeg
Comments
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
kameecoding@lemmy.world 1 month ago
For me other than the lack of time it’s the toxicity, if you have say one hour to play, do you really want to listen to some no-life cunt who has been playing all day screaming at you because they are tilted as fuck and need to blame everyone else but themselves? Well I certainly don’t need that shit in my life.
LotrOrc@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Honestly there second someone starts talking during a game I just go and mute them. 99.9% of the time it’s really annoying. Once in a while you get someone who actually knows what they’re doing and talking about, isn’t a dick, and actually gives good advice or help. But that happens so rarely it’s not worth it
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Oh right… I totally forgot about the toxicity. That also was very different “back then”. Even though we weren’t much less anonymous
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I don’t listen to any cunts in online games, voice chat is off. For some reason the kids these days think you can’t play a game without a headset and mic on. I don’t even own one of those dumbass headsets. I can still be competitive in FPS games without any of that too.
invalid_name@lemm.ee 1 month ago
But thats also a design decision. Quarantine servers and moderation used to exist.
icanwatermyplants@reddthat.com 1 month ago
I remember playing TacOps back in the day. Some Sundays were literally just me team speaking with the guys (and some girls) while sipping a beer and casually playing our doing team practice. I learned a lot about the different international cultures before I set my own feet out of the country.
Psythik@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You can still still be competitive, you just have to be a bit clever about it.
I recently started playing mobile shooters… in an Android emulator with a mouse and keyboard. Destroying touchscreen kiddos with a proper input device never gets boring.
Some games are even smart enough to detect the mouse and keyboard and only match you with other players using external input devices, like CoD Mobile. That’s one of my favorites because it’s basically CoD: Greatest Hits. All the best maps from the old games are there. And new modes come out every week. It’s so much better than modern CoD; takes me back to the days of playing CoD4 and MWII on the Xbox 360 when I was a teenager.
sploosh@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You know it’s not really competition when you give yourself a massive advantage, right?
You know that you’re a grownup cheating to beat children, right?
You know that’s sadder than playing a fair game and losing, right?
Right?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I don’t even want to be competitive, but stat tracking forces the issue. When you found a regular hangout place for a some team based game, you didn’t need to worry about tracking every kill. You could just be helpful to your team in ways that K/D ratios can’t track like throwing yourself at the opposite team when they’re chasing your team member who has the flag for instance. Just not being a ragging asshole could get you a positive reputation.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Winning this way wouldn’t give me something. It’s like fighting unarmed babies in full gear
Being accused of being a cheater (while ypu aren’t) or people dropping the server when you show up, that’s fun 😁
GenitalHurricane@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This basically describes my experience with counter strike pre-1.6… like 1.3 thru 1.5, circa 2002-2005. Lost thousands of hours of my youth negotiating knives-only rounds and doing stupid totem pole camping on de_dust while 1 guy on the other team tried to AWP everybody. Am I old?
mctoasterson@reddthat.com 1 month ago
So much scoutzknivez and iceworld
GenitalHurricane@lemmy.world 1 month ago
he_glass
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 month ago
I am a bit younger so chicken & waffels and a few other CS:S servers were that for me. Also Day of Defeat Source was underrated.
Also, the minigame servers… The mini games people came up with!
1 person shooting cubes at platforms whole others had to stay up, The prison, Piratewars, Multigames (the original fall guys), Prop wars, The one where there were like different power ups behind walls and then have different abilities.
But also battlefront 2 was like that for me. SMD clan with its almost mythical figurehead. Glitching servers, shooting the shit with other people trying to find new glitches. Those were the days.
While matchmaking is good for some games like Rocket League, it has really broken a ton of communities. I think that’s why there aren’t really "clans’ anymore, because people aren’t together enough to organize.
Adix@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Great, the loss of community now extends to video games as well
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You ate being isolated so no one will miss you when the government/corporations/they/whoever get y
invalid_name@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Engineered. Often you can’t even communicate with people; cheaper than moderation.
affiliate@lemmy.world 1 month ago
we have successfully urbanized online games. the days of a small town feeling in new online games are over
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 month ago
I don’t think urbanised is a good word to describe that alienation. The urbanism movement has as one of its key goals the creation of more vibrant local communities. It’s more like suburbanism.
affiliate@lemmy.world 1 month ago
what i meant by “urbanized” is that these days, playing online games feels like living in a big city where there are a ton of people but it’s hard to feel like you know everyone. you can still make a group of friends and find “local communities”, but i think that’s distinctly different from the feeling of a small town where you know a lot of the people there.
all that being said, there are advantages to living in a big city instead of a small town. in this context, that would look like faster matchmaking times, making it easier to find a full server, etc. but i still wish games gave you the option of picking a community server. i miss having the option of joining custom servers and getting to know the locals.
imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
The urbanism movement exists to help remedy some of the downsides of urban living. One of which is social alienation and isolation as a result of the scale and diversity of cities.
BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Corgana@startrek.website 1 month ago
For years I had thought I got old and don’t have friends who play games as much anymore but this meme made me realize it’s that I wasn’t making new gaming friends.
PugJesus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Nostalgia might be pushing a bit hard here. Even playing obsessively on relatively small games on a limited number of servers for hours every day, I never got to recognize people just by being there. Occasionally someone would friend you, but otherwise, you knew people for 4-5 rounds at a time, and then never saw them again. Internet, even back then, was a big place.
Sylvartas@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Idk that was pretty frequent for me on TF2 community servers
Corgana@startrek.website 1 month ago
I had basically one TF2 server I would play on because that’s the one I knew the people. It was like the community basketball hoop. If people weren’t playing. sometimes I would text a friend and try to get a game going or more often than not just try again later. It felt natural and low-stakes. This meme hits hard.
brachypelmasmithi@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Hell, it still is pretty frequent for me to see a couple regulars on the TF2 servers i play on
Siethron@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Well the post is 6 years old so it’s actually referencingthe internet 21 years ago. This kind of thing did happen back then. I’m remembering Halo 1 pc servers and recognizing names.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 month ago
Online gaming in 2004 indeed had much less people available overall. On the FPS front, it was mostly Counter Strike and Battlefield 1942 I guess.
Maalus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Naaah. I made like 40 longtime steam friends because of playing on the same gmod server. Was lucky to find a server that had the most insane creators on it. You went onto any other server, they used what we made on that one. Drunk Combine, tanks, jets (including working VTOL), we had artillery that worked the same way it did in World of Tanks. 95% of the players there were insane at Expression 2 - which was a scripting / programming language that let you interact with the physics of the game in awesome ways.
I put the best 750hrs of my life into that server. It was called “Unsmart’s” after the dude that hosted it. Closed down after a few years when the people moved onto other games. There was a shortlived revival, but it was more of a “reunion” than anything else. Still have everyone as friends and could probably get them together by pinging the group if I wanted to.
108@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It was pretty regular for me. You find a server and usually the people hosting were usually always in there. Especially if it was a clan. That’s how I got into ever clan I ever joined.
You join a server and get to know the usuals and become friends. Still play with people I met back with the OG call of duty came out. We still play games together today. Never met half of em in real life.
el_abuelo@programming.dev 1 month ago
When is “back then” for you?
I played counter-strike during the beta days and team fortress when it was “classic” not “2”
I definitely had a handful of favourite servers (1-2 favourites, 2-3 backups) that I would play on and knew the regulars like an old country pub.
Now things are set up so that it’s almost impossible to develop relationships with random folks online. Not just matchmaking but also more closed-off (hard to discover) groups on Discord etc…
CS1.6 and TFC was the golden age of online gaming and it’s been downhill since then. Literally nothing has been improved upon and the community has become immeasurably more toxic.
We’ve lost IRC and dedicated servers and replaced it with matchmaking and Discord. Both objectively worse.
vithigar@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
This absolutely happened to me in Battlefield 1942.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yeah, the early BF games were where I found servers that were communities. We’d even host events like stunt flying or trick shot challenges where we’d throw a pssword on the server for a few hours so nobody could troll us.
Or for certain days of the week, we’d be running the Desert Combat mod. It was a different time in online gaming.
Another thing I miss from those days is friendly fire. I get why it had to be removed, but it allowed for big, overpowered thing like artillery strikes and naval bombardment that were as likely to wipe your own team as help without coordination.
tweeks@feddit.nl 1 month ago
I also actively remember seeing someone from the same “clan” as you in a random free for all or capture the flag game. Always a great feeling.
inv3r510n@lemmy.world 1 month ago
My dad (would be 71 if he were still alive) used to play an online flight simulator WW2 game back in the late 90s / 2000s until he passed in 2012. He made a bunch of online friends through that game who he’d have long phone convos with outside of the game. My mom had to call them up to let them know he passed. I think he might of met a couple in person over the years too.
I was never a gamer, although during covid I put an emulator on my Mac so I can play PS2 and N64 games. Last night for the first time in a long time I played THPS2 on my Mac. I’ve beat the game multiple times but it’s just fun to play. Never got into online gaming.
atmur@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The last good public multiplayer experience I had was DiRT 3. Simple lobbies, small player count, people randomly joining and leaving and everyone was chill. You’d occasionally get that guy who was stupidly good, perfect lines through every corner, and the entire lobby would try so hard to keep up. Loved it.
One time I stumbled into a lobby where the host was “hacking” but instead of cheating for an advantage, he was selecting weird car class and track combinations for the entire lobby. Stuff that the game wouldn’t normally allow. Shit like trailblazer cars on rallycross circuits. So much fucking fun, one of my favorite memories from that game.
That must’ve been what, 4, 5 years ago? DiRT 3 released in 2011, so…oh my god DiRT 3 came out 13 years ago…
rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Quake ]I[ was the last real multiplayer game.
Fite me.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
nice observation by anon.
i miss making friends in games and couldnt quite put my finger on why matchmaking was much worse and unfun than old multiplayer and this is it.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That first bit is a pretty accurate description of a lot of early online gaming.
Hackworth@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I knew most of the good bards on my EQ server in '03. Half the reason I bothered to develop my character was to try and keep up with them. Now pretty much the only thing that’ll keep me playing online multiplayer is casino gamification, so I don’t start.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
long live (classic) EQ :)
Donkter@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That was a big pull of WoW. You type “lfg” once in all chat and that could send you on a 20 year relationship with a guild with people who end up becoming your best friends.
DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Definitely describes my early Team Fortress Classic/TF2 time back in college. I’m actually still steam friends with folks from that time and I definitely still rock my “clan tag”! Sort of lame if kids don’t have a chance at the same thing…
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
kids are missing out on a lot simply because the number of PCs in private households has shrunk by ca. 90% - consoles just don’t give the same gaming experience / definitely not the sense of immersion.
dreugeworst@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
yup, sounds like my experience playing Unreal 2:XMP back in the day
Leviathan@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m playing a mobile game that’s pretty much exactly like that first part.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
“but my community used to be made out of 12 people!”
Well too bad. That’s why you’re here on Lemmy now. You dislike strangers and love familiarity. I on the other hand love strangers and chaos. That’s why I was on Reddit.
Croquette@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I mean, we can have both. Community servers and official matchmaking servers.
But for the sake of money, community servers are gone.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Enshittification is very real, but also, some games just aren’t feasible as community servers. Lol?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yup. Matchmaking is very lonely
rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Quake ]I[ was the last real multiplayer game.
Fite me.
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Counterstrike Source was later and still had these tight knit communities on the gun game and surf community servers. There wasn’t any matchmaking in the client either.
fuzzzerd@programming.dev 1 month ago
Surf servers were the best, especially with actual rounds and weapons. Pure surf got boring, bit cs mechanics in a surf world was pretty fun.
Jesus_666@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think Rainbow Six 3 might also qualify.
Then again, nothing will ever compare to the Rocket Arena 3 scene where every kill was due to skill. You’re a complete noob who got a few lucky hits with the rocket launcher? Skill. The other guy jumps in front of you just as you happen to pull the trigger? Nice air rail, well played. I never saw anyone ever complain about losing.
That community was just so refreshingly positive and welcoming, probably because there were no stakes. A match was over in maybe thirty seconds and then you’d watch until your next turn. And that was it.
In modern competitive games people have a ranking and they feel stressed when a game goes badly because they might lose precious Elo. This goes to the point where you get yelled at by your own teammates for not knowing the meta because they can’t make it to the next rank if you pay like it’s a game.
Klear@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’ve been playing it VR lately. Feels like old times. There’s only a handful of players, of course (unless you play with flatscreen people which is possible, but too scary for me).
50MYT@aussie.zone 1 month ago
Cpm mids for days
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
The last bit is what killed world of Warcraft for me. When it changed from a world with the same people in it everytime, to automated group finders combining every possible world anyone could be in.
Not only will you never see those people again, for a while it was literally impossible to talk to them or friend them.
When they put out classic wow again, they updated it to have all these “new quality of life” features.
Thank god for private servers.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
There’s some rose-tinted goggles there.
Pugs for 5-mans used to be a huge pain in the ass. Especially for lower-level dungeons or for DPS classes (and especially the boomkins, the fury warriors, and the ret pallys).
Remember spamming city chat, LFG BFD?
And if you were a warlock, you were expected to run all the way there (remember not getting mounts until 40?), and wait for two other people, so you could summon the last two?
I haven’t really played much since TBC, or at all since LK. LFG was a huge improvement. It had flaws, for sure…it did break the community a bit, as you said…but it made the game playable for people who didn’t have hours to commit to getting ready for a 5 man dungeon.
TassieTosser@aussie.zone 1 month ago
Yeah I don’t miss the days of trying to get a group to do Scarlet Monestary then running the gauntlet of griefing assholes.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
As a solo player in the early wow era, lfg was a massive pain in my backside. I literally couldn’t progress without completing certain dungeons, and I couldn’t complete those dungeons unless I grouped up. So I was painfully and perpetually stuck in a never ending loop of LFG.
It’s the reason I left.
If you don’t have a group to play with, or preferred to play solo, utilizing pick up groups when necessary, the game became an unplayable mess halfway through the level progressions.
They’ve “fixed” most of this now, but I have a hard time caring about the game now. I went back to it for a short while a few years ago, and while it’s easier to nab a group for progression, the onslaught of go-fer quests numbed my brain to any lore that was being spouted by the quest givers, and it became a grind fest.
No sorry, just action.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 month ago
ESPECIALLY when things like the DPS Priest build was the best for leveling but the HEALING Priest is the one everyone needed for dungeons.
rumba@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Everybody has different experiences. For me the game was okay but it was secondary to the friends that I met and played with. That shitty LFG experience pushed people to make and join guilds.
There’s definitely a way works both ways.
Crashumbc@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yup and if you were on a low pop server or mature one with not many leveling. Forget doing dungeons at all.
DF and RF have their issues but it wasn’t all fun before.
As a feral who needed random blues, I spent days trying to get groups for less popular dungeons, just to have the item not drop or get ninja’d
olicvb@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Use to play alot on a CS:Source minigame server, such good times. Was exactly like this, where you’d recognize players and make friends. I’m glad i was able to live this.
Godric@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I HIGHLY recommend Holdfast: Nations At War for the same experience nowadays. There’s usually 1-2 full 150 player servers running in the browser, and you start to recognize the slaughterers and shitters over time.
It’s a Napoleonic era musket shooting game with locational open VC that gives bonuses for teamwork and line-firing. Recently I’ve been talking mad shit in a ridiculous accent matching whatever faction I’m playing at the time, and people are now recognizing my name, which is kinda warming :)
AccountMaker@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
I had a very similar experience a few years ago with Tannenberg. And easter front WW1 shooter that, at least at the time, I don’t know the current status, had just enough players in the evening to fill up one server, so I’d play with the same people night after night. It never felt empty because of that and it was great fun.
Fleur_@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Man I should boot up TF2 again
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
New Feature Idea: A New Subscription to bring back those features.
Stop paying? Well you lose access to your friend list.
CEO Be Like: 🤑
can@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
:(
BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 1 month ago
i was having lots of fun talking to people on call of duty until the game ended and it put in a completely new lobby. what the fuck happened?
dat_fast_boi@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’d say Minecraft’s multiplayer experience is close to what Anon describes as “good multiplayer”, probably because it hasn’t changed much in 15 years - there’s not even an in game server browser (at least on the Java edition), and playing Minecraft in and of itself is usually a big time commitment so you’re more encouraged to find a couple of servers you like and stick to them.
However, the last time that I feel like I integrated into a server’s community was 4 years ago - a blank server list doesn’t really encourage you to go looking for more, and it’s been harder to commit time as I get older and have more responsibilities (that I ignore anyways, but still).
I think Lethal Company also has a lobby system without matchmaking, but I haven’t played it so I don’t really know.
lemonuri@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Hmm, it’s pretty much the same as 15 years ago if you stay away from the smallest common denominator popular AAA games.
I’ve started playing squad again after my last try in 2020. I just favourited a couple of low ping well populated servers and have been playing on the same three or four that are working well.
War of rights only has around 150 players in the evening on public servers and they all enter the same one as this game is meant to be played in large squads as well.
Both games are great fun.
Allero@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Private servers are good for building a community (I know, we all have fond memories, mine is SWJKA, especially in the later, JK+ times), but they fail to put players into skill brackets, meaning that if you enter the game later or don’t spend your entire life playing it, you’ll eventually fall off as pros will insta-kill you everywhere.
ntma@lemm.ee 1 month ago
This is why I always drop solo and ignore my team in apex legends. I also disconnect as soon as I die.
Sparkega@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
RinseDrizzle@midwest.social 1 month ago
Anyone remember PlayStations All-stars, Sony’s shitty answer to Smash Bros? My lame claim to fame is I had one of the nastiest Heihachis in the scene. Always played in purple thong. Saw people mention me a few times in forums.
Game was bad and hachi kinda busted, but seemingly only a few of us who ever got real nasty with it. Kinda fun just being a monster on that silly game and showing off maximum old man butt.
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
So this was definitely not my experience in the pre-matchmaking era of online multiplayer. Possible case of rose-tinted glasses?
I agree that matchmaking has problems, but going back to what was there before are unlikely to be a net positive I think
Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I used to roleplay as a pirate, pickpocket, swindler, and ladies man; laughably incompetent at all, under this username in a tiny, indie RPG called Rubies of Eventide. I was never a strong player, but I got a reputation for funny in-game banter. Playing a different kind of person enabled me to punch above my weight in social skills.
RandomVideos@programming.dev 1 month ago
There are definitely games that allow the first scenario to happen(by allowing people to host servers or by not having many players)
Kyatto@leminal.space 1 month ago
Game companies have definitely done their best to try and make multiplayer gaming more and more lonely. I settled in quick to single player cause at least I could have fun and not simultaneously be lonely and dominated by some hyper competitive toxic game matched tryharding BS. Me
ma1w4re@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Team fortress 2
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Don’t be silly, if you want to get dominated by another random person in tf2 then you need to first buy bot immunity