Gamespy back in the day. Could make core friends and join the same servers across games.
Before that...QuakeSpy.
Quake kicked ass and defined my childhood and my adulthood. I was like 10 when that game came out.
I wanted to play that game so bad but my dad was hogging the phone line all the time!
So...I did some reading online. Found out how to build a simple network. Went to the computer fair and got some network cards that did 10BaseT or 10Base2. Went to RadioShack and got some coax, bnc ends, and terminators. Installed WinRoute on my dad's computer. Set it up to share his internet so we could both be online. Set it up so his computer would automatically dial when I wanted internet if he wasn't online yet.
Nearly 30 years later and now I'm a Network Architect.
There are definitely games that allow the first scenario to happen(by allowing people to host servers or by not having many players)
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!
Huh, weird. The menfolk have had kind of a loneliness problem for about 15 years...
I remember all the hilarious impersonations I would do in Black Ops 2 on PSN. Everyone would be cutting up.
good times
....now everyone is in private parties
Day of Defeat <3
Just play Mordhau. Playerbase is small enough that you'll see the same people over and over again.
Tribes 1 still like this. Always see the same dudes. They all killers too
Shout out to my TF2 clan. You were the best friends I ever had. 🫡
Had the same experience with AssaultCube last year.
CS2 still has server browser. Even I have my own dedicated server.
I definitely feel this way about gaming online. I miss Microsoft Ants.
Runescape is a game I have nostalgic memories of meeting people on, nowadays it feels like a single player game that I'm paying monthly for...
This was dota in 2008 basically.
Now I'm sad.
Well, atleast for the very top it's still the same. The best 100 players of nearly every game do still know each other.
However fuck what they've done to PUBG, fuck bots give map bans.
I can't say I share exactly this experience, but I did have some experiences of old that I miss.
The only non-MMO I ever played multiplayer prior to ~2013 was Age of Mythology. I never played ranked or competitive, but I did play a shit tonne of fun custom scenarios. Escape maps. Arenas. One really fun Helm's Deep map that would always slow to a crawl once a larger number of units hit the field. I'd browse through the open lobbies and find something that struck my fancy, or create my own lobby and wait for people to join. Hours spent browsing the Age of Mythology Heaven forums for scenarios and reading people talk about them.
I do mind miss those custom scenarios. The new Age of Mythology: Retold feels much more focused on the ranked mode. Which I do also really enjoy. But there doesn't seem the same culture of custom scenarios that there was back in the day.
Anecdotal, you still learn people and you can build a community reputation playing PvP in FFXIV. We don't get to choose the map, and you'll still see some people only once, but you get to know who's who. The problem is, it's not as fast as fortnite or other games. Which is a large turn off for many. But the slower (just barely slower) pace is more forgiving towards people that are middle aged and can't compete with top tier fortnite/ League of Legends, etc types.
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
Obviously both approaches had advantages and disadvantages, but OPs experience was definitely possible if you had the patience and luck to find a good community/server. But this also means there is a certain barrier because you have to do some work to find a good community/experience and can't just click one button to start.
And there are still modern games that have server browsers and they mostly tend to be less toxic imo, in part because people tend to know eachother a bit better and in part because servers generally have harsh rules, so toxic players often get kicked quickly.
And this is also where the disadvantages come in because there are admins who just kick anyone they don't like for whatever reason.
You can still play old games! TF2 still exists (istg if I die to that one soldier nolife in the 2fort sewers 1 more time)
Also SCP:SL is gonna get a big update soon and it only has servers
I've been playing Lord of the Rings, Battle for Middle Earth lately (I believe the game came out in 2004?). Anyways, the small pool of players isn't as fun as you remember. The greentext notes giving up based on team matchup, and oh boi is that a big problem.
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.
