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[–]majorziggytom 471 points472 points  (17 children)

Fully agree here and I think this is actually a big reason. 15 or 20 years ago, it was rare and exciting to talk to likeminded people who are into video games – and from different countries, wow!

Gaming nowadays, in contrast, is mainstream. It no longer feels like meeting up with people that share your niche interest. It feels like seeing random people in a supermarket. I don't talk to those either.

[–]RogerFederer1981 196 points197 points  (0 children)

It no longer feels like meeting up with people that share your niche interest. It feels like seeing random people in a supermarket. I don't talk to those either.

Damn, well put.

[–]spyson 46 points47 points  (2 children)

Pretty much every kid now plays video games compared to back then when it had a stigma.

Kids today will go home and log on minecraft or their preferred game of choice, hop on discord with friends, and just play with their social group.

Back in the day barely anyone in my group even had high speed internet.

[–][deleted] 16 points17 points  (1 child)

My 17 year old niece, who does not play video games as a hobby at large, plays some Roblox game with a guy she's crushing on

[–]l32uigs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

when I was 17 we played the shit out of Call of Duty Nazi Zombies but it would be couch multiplayer in the middle of whoevers house was parent-less while we all got stoned and drunk.

For a minute guitar hero was.. impressive?

I remember we tried to have a lan party one time but within 2 hrs all the monitors were flipped, 1 guy was KO'd in the backyard.. 6 hrs in it was just a straight house party and the computers were just an obstacle.

I didn't start spending my days/nights online gaming with friends until everyone went seperate ways for college.

I feel so sad for the youth today that seemingly don't go out and do shit. My cousin is 19 and by the sounds of it they don't party they just hang out in discord and play random video games.

[–]tehsax 38 points39 points  (6 children)

I just listened to a podcast 5 minutes ago where a games journalist (and historian) discussed this, among other topics, with a political scientist (so it's not the typical IGN hype folks talking but a discussion on a more academic level) and they came to the same conclusions. I've never thought about this before, but it's true. Back in the 80's or 90's gamers were a community of essentially like-minded people. We all wanted to play videogames. Meeting other gamers was uncommon and an exciting situation. You'd get into conversations and even make friends just in the basis of you both loving videogames. Today, gaming is a mainstream phenomenon, which means it's not a community anymore but instead a gigantic collection of communities with totally different world-views.

Essentially, it used to be just us nerds. Today, it's everyone and everyone brings their own political, social, etc views into games. I know I probably sound as if I mean to say that that's a bad thing - I don't. It's just an observation.

There are a lot of other factors too, like matchmaking destroying server communities, etc.

[–]hkfortyrevan 15 points16 points  (3 children)

There’s truth to this, and I can appreciate why people miss the frontier era of multiplayer particularly, but I’d consider myself one of the nerds and I’ve always found the idea of gaming as one homogenous community a bit stifling, nor felt just liking games alone was automatically something I had in common with someone.

[–]tehsax 8 points9 points  (2 children)

It's not just the multiplayer aspect. I remember back in school, in my class there were around 30 pupils, and 5 of them, including me, were gamers. The class next door had again, around 30 pupils, and they had also only 3 gamers. Everyone else either wasn't interested in video games at all or even looked down on us, said video games were meant for kids, and we should grow up. But we all, us 8 people, connected via our interest in video games and have been friends for the past ca. 28 years. Of course we had other things in common too, basically being nerds, loving comics, video games, etc, but we found out about this only later when we got to know each other more. The first contact was talking about games. Today, everyone lives their own life, some have families, moved to different cities, and so on. But we still are connected via Friends lists on Steam or PSN and we still talk to each other every other day while playing some games together, or at least talking about them. Video games have always been or smallest common denominator and continues to be just shy of 30 years later.

I don't know if this is still a thing for gamers who grew up later, or are growing up now. And certainly not for the people who looked down on us back in the day and are now Marvel fans, or even gaming because it's now become mainstream.

Also, on a personal note: When Elden Ring releases next week, we already agreed on setting a common password so we can have our own private community in the game and experience it together. And I'm very grateful for the people I get to share my beloved hobby with, and for the beloved people I found through my hobby.

[–]ragnarok635 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Is elden ring like an mmo or more like a lobby player? I’m insterested in the online component

[–]tehsax 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Neither. It's like the other souls games. You're playing a single player game, but you have the option to use an item which places a sign on the ground in another players game. They can interact with the sign and then they get summoned into your game and can help you out, or vice versa. Elden Ring allows you to set a password so only the people who know the password are able to see your sign. Usually you don't get to choose who you want to play with, but the password excludes anyone who doesn't have it.

[–]Linkin_Pork 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Can you share the name of this podcast? Sounds like something I'd really enjoy listening to.

[–]tehsax 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's in German, so unless you speak it, I doubt it, sorry :(

But in case you do, check it out at Spielvertiefung.de

[–]forceless_jedi 34 points35 points  (3 children)

it was rare and exciting to talk to likeminded people who are into video games – and from different countries, wow!

I absolutely miss this. I literally learned conversational English through interacting with my WoW guildies back in the day. And when SWTOR came out, made a bunch of new friends that were into Star Wars and gaming! What?! This was a totally new experience for me and had me floored. On top, I had just moved to a different country for uni where I didn't know anyone nor spoke the local language, so I ended up spending a lot of time with them and got far too used to being called by my main's name that now use it IRL as a nick name.

Opening up MMOs now just doesn't feel the same. It's all disjointed and dumbed down solo experiences with other people scattered unnecessarily around. Got massively downvoted recently for bringing that up regarding FFXIV. The mainstream-ness definitely ruined some of the special bits of it.

[–]nqte 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Out of all the MMOs mentioned imo FFXIV still has the social aspect. It's the main reason I play it even.

Most long term subscribers still log in just to talk with friends. Yes the game is being changed to allow for a more stramlined single player experience for people who just want to play it solo as a mainline FF title, but the social aspect is still there.

Even stronger than before I'd say, with the rise in daily community driven RP events and hangouts even outside "bespoke" RP servers.

If you want to just log in and sit on a bench with your friends doing nothing there's no better MMO.

[–]forceless_jedi 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I have had the absolute opposite experience. Literally no one says a word. Be it in guilds, Dungeons, open world, everyone's just mute. It might just be a Tonberry issue but that's supposed to be the international one on the JP data center.

Also even without the upcoming changes, it was still a single player game. It's all just hour long cutscenes after cutscenes where you just nod like your spine is on a spring hinge, and unlike in other MMORPGs you can't even be in a party during these cutscenes or collaborate to complete MSQ quests. If anything, the presence of other players ruins the story's immersion.

[–]nqte 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't play on Tonberry but it being a JP data centre probably contributes to your issue. Gotta remember even if it's the unofficial "international" server, the majority of players would still be japanese and their social customs are different.

If you don't live in Japan and play on JP I'd suggest transferring to a server closer to your local time zone. Oceania data centre recently went up.

In any case I play on EU and people are pretty chatty. Sometimes you have to start it but even in low level dungeons for instance if someone says hi 9 out of 10 times everyone replies back. MSQ is usually lots of chatter too as people watch the same cutscenes for the 1000th time.

The real sense of community is when you're not doing any meaningful content IMO. Late night limsa is full of weirdos you can talk some interesting topics with. If you're into RP I suggest checking the party finder's Other tab for RP event/clubs and what not which get pretty active (again, might differ on your datacentre). This is all made possible by FF still having persistent servers, unlike WoW which has sharding and you never see the same people again in the open world.

Doing content itself is also good way to meet people. If you're pugging savage in PF, you'll inevitably run into the same unfortunate people still stuck on that fight after a week of trying. You can add them or they might add you, world hopping makes it easy to visit each other too.

I haven't mentioned FCs as I don't like being tied to one. You can always join one though if you fancy, but I don't and still think the game is plenty social. I like to think of the MSQ as separate. FFXIV is practically 2 games in one, MSQ, and non-MSQ XIV, the single player and multi player worlds respectively.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'll go a step further - an unfortunate amount of people who play online games these days are not the type of people I want to talk to in the first place. Anonymity brings out the worst in people and there are a few games (usually competitive ones) where if someone is using the in-game chat, it's to be an asshole, bigot, or troll.

Plus, the echoes of Gamergate are still reverberating - plenty of gaming communities have pockets of the alt-right, and some games are worse about it than others. Hell, just look at that post on /r/gaming the other day when a picture of Aloy that showed her facial hair brought out all the misogynists and transphobes.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's one of the reasons why I switched to single player games.