Greentext

we have successfully urbanized online games. the days of a small town feeling in new online games are over

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.

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.

I hit the bnet friends cap playing overwatch. It can be done if you pay attention to who's playing and be friendly.

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.

Just play Mordhau. Playerbase is small enough that you'll see the same people over and over again.

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?

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...

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 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.

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 :)

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.

Quake ]I[ was the last real multiplayer game.

Fite me.

Day of Defeat <3

MechAssault, all the way back on the OG Xbox. I wish I could remember all the names. So many fun times had trying the stupidest things and somehow winning, like two of us in Raptors going on Ýmir and Loki hunting missions.

This is happening to me now in squad.

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.