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.
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?
we have successfully urbanized online games. the days of a small town feeling in new online games are over
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.
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.
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.
One of the last good public multiplayer experiences 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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They've abstracted away the social element. It takes so much work now to make a friend. After a game ends there's perhaps a summary screen or lobby, so you can add another player to your friends list, but you have no way of discussing that with them. Anytime I get a friend request, I think, who is this? Why are they friending me
Half the time a friend request comes just so someone can continue to flame you after the match is over
That first bit is a pretty accurate description of a lot of early online gaming.
"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.
I mean, we can have both. Community servers and official matchmaking servers.
But for the sake of money, community servers are gone.
Quake ]I[ was the last real multiplayer game.
Fite me.
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. And we voice chatted in game for the non-competitive modes.
Yup. Matchmaking is very lonely.
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 :)
I had a very similar experience a few years ago with Tannenberg. An eastern 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.
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.
:(
Man I should boot up TF2 again
New Feature Idea: A New Subscription to bring back those features.
Stop paying? Well you lose access to your friend list.
CEO Be Like: 🤑
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.
I used to roleplay as a pirate, pickpocket, swindler, and ladies man; laughably incompetent at them 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.
There's this guy so damn good with the Kraber on Titanfall l 2 Northstar on my server I never was able to kill him ...
Ready gaming fires away in this Kraber g200 montage!
Just play wow again, it still exists
But with raid and dungeon finder, guilds mean almost nothing and everything is just about grinding as fast as possible. I quit wow after matchmaking ruined the intimacy of raiding with a good guild.
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?
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
I don't think it's necessarily rose-tinted glasses, but rather not the experience that everyone had.
I was never super social in servers, so I didn't make random friends or anything. Even for me though, servers contributed to a better overall experience.
Much less toxicity: assholes just get kicked or eventually find their fellow assholes on the 'asshole server' that you know to avoid.
Much easier to have a chill/casual atmosphere: you can hop in and out, so nobody feels 'trapped' in an unfun game. Additionally, since you often jump into games that are in-progress, people tend to care less about winning or losing.
Easier to play with friends of different skill levels: every server would be a mix of skills, so joining with a mixed-skill party doesn't throw everything out of balance. Since people don't care as much about winning/losing it's much easier to fuck-around with your mates without anyone getting upset.
Matchmaking on the other hand is more convenient, but in my opinion a net loss for most people.
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.
Gamespy back in the day. Could make core friends and join the same servers across games.
COD 2 Rifle only 🫡
There are definitely games that allow the first scenario to happen(by allowing people to host servers or by not having many players)
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.
Day of Defeat <3
Just play Mordhau. Playerbase is small enough that you'll see the same people over and over again.
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
