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?

Great, the loss of community now extends to video games as well

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

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...

That first bit is a pretty accurate description of a lot of early online gaming.

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.

"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.

Yup. Matchmaking is very lonely.

Quake ]I[ was the last real multiplayer game.

Fite me.

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 :)

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 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.

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.

:(

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Gamespy back in the day. Could make core friends and join the same servers across games.

COD 2 Rifle only 🫡