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I legit miss early 2000s gaming. 1) People interacted, they truly did. Dramas, friendship, everything. Where? Quakenet, Forums. Every clan had their channel, s

I legit miss early 2000s gaming. 1) People interacted, they truly did. Dramas, friendship, everything. Where? Quakenet, Forums. Every clan had their channel, some easily reached 1000+ people. 2) People genuinely played together in teams: CS, Day of Defeat, you name it. You had your clan and spammed #5on5 on quakenet. 3) Those clans actually met in lan! At Smau Italian Lan Party 2002 there were more than 60 Counter Strike teams from *Italy alone*. And it was a bring your own computer event[1]. I know it's part nostalgia but I legit think it is borderline impossible to have anywhere near the same level of interactions with people today. Reddit is just not a good substitute for legacy threaded forums. Discussions die fast, they don't even have the material time to develop meaningfully. [1] https://www.aspidetr.com/images/immagini/blu/varie/smau02_03.jpg https://www.aspidetr.com/images/immagini/blu/varie/smau02_03...

doublerabbit 1y ago
LAN parties were welcoming on so many levels. Never played DnD? Come join. One time I recall was an isle of misogynist folk who haven't showered in days playing WoW. The smell... no comment and in one case I recall at one LAN where a delivery woman was scared to walk down the isles to deliver so she asked me nicely if I could. No problem, pizza is here boys. But within reason, they kept to themselves and were there to game. You kind of respected that and they respected you as you were there too to do the same. Outside of all that they were highly intellectual and I recall talking for hours about other highly intellectual topics: psychics, space mathematics, game characters. I didn't approve of their extremist views and you could tell something went wrong somewhere with their psyche but there was a mutual respect. Unfortunately I was too young (20's) to grasp the true vibe. I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend and felt completely cold shouldered. No one was really welcoming and it was very alpha gatekeepery. Granted the audience were clique, everyone seemed to knew each other and the mean age would be 40-something but the attitude from some left me astonished compared to attitudes of some of the worse LAN gamers. If I can hang out with folk who are of such and yet unable to hang with those who are not, I couldn't figure what I was doing wrong. It left me sour for my first major goth event, a sub-culture I've enjoyed since 17; 36 now kind of makes me want to hand in the towel. Maybe I was craving wanting the LAN I once I enjoyed in my teens, but it was worse than that. It felt horrible being there by myself unable to connect with others. I left a day early. Yet all there for the same reason, music. I do believe gaming has a power to bring others together but online games now just feel half arsed and are more released for money rather than fun. Two different sects, yet the one you'd expect to be the worse turned to be more warm. It's weird to think that, but shrug. I really don't know what to think and has left me really perplexed.
- fho 1y ago
  > I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend > the mean age would be 40-something At least in Germany the "black" scene has a serious "recruitment" problem. It's basically the same set of people for decades now with very little additions to the pool. It strange to me that I am amongst the youngest attendeds at concerts and "disco" events at 40.
  - carynh 1y ago
    seconding this.. went to Mera Luna a weekish ago (going there yearly) and in my early 40s I felt like such a child compared to many other festival goers even though it was like my 16th or so time.
    - fho 1y ago
      Been there for 10+ years as well. Recently decided that it has gotten too money grabby and started our own privat festival :-/
  - lukan 1y ago
    "At least in Germany the "black" scene has a serious "recruitment" problem." I mean, if that is the general attitude "I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend and felt completely cold shouldered. No one was really welcoming and it was very alpha gatekeepery." Then where should the new blood are coming from?
  - sersi 1y ago
    I remember going to a goth concert in Germany back when I was 19 (20 yearsish ago) amd yeah not welcoming described them well. So I do think it's very much a problem of that specific segment of the community
  - achenet 1y ago
    Huh, here in Lyon, France, the scene (or maybe I should say scène) is quite vibrant and you've got everything from old ponytail greybeards who remember their first Black Sabbath concert to 16 year old edgy teenagers who think smoking rolled cigarettes they bought from a government regulated shop with their parents money counts as "sticking it to the man and overthrowing the capitalist system". You're welcome to drop by, the Rock'n'Eat in particular is a good "vampires, werewolves and other demons of the night" type venue and it's quite near my house, so feel free to hit me up if you ever feel like going, it'll be a good opportunity for me to practice my German :)
Spooky23 1y ago
That was an innocent and wonderful time for many of us, but there was a dark side to it, especially as this haven for nerds went mainstream. I have a good friend who was basically groomed/seduced in ann online game and raped by a 35 year old man when she was 13. It just sucks on so many levels that we can’t have nice things because many among us are beasts.
- jaimex2 1y ago
  That is some crazy mental gymnastics.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago
  that's absolutely horrible, but it's not like it doesn't happen today; maybe even worse today with all the different social media
- epolanski 1y ago
  Literally nothing got better for your far fetched use case, nothing. If anything it got worse.
- viridian 1y ago
  This is actually significantly worse now. The video game Roblox alone is awash in tens of thousands of cases of attempted grooming or child endangerment, according to their own metrics, and that's just what they have detected.
  - qzx_pierri 1y ago
    This is a parenting issue. The internet doesn’t need training wheels. No offense to those children, but their parents are complete failures.
    - viridian 1y ago
      At some point you reach a critical mass of personal responsibility failures where you need a systemic solution. Even if the internet doesn't need training wheels, the video game where the average player is 12 might.
0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
All the like/share/upvote stuff makes the internet much less authentic. Imagine going to a party where everyone offers a thumbs up/thumbs down whenever you finish a sentence. Do you anticipate making any close friends at this party?
- o11c 1y ago
  Ironically, I've replied to several people using physical thumbs up/down recently. This can be caused by several variations on voice not being viable at the moment: * sore throat * eating * having another conversation * context demands silence (often requires the question to be nonverbal somehow, but not e.g. if the context is "sleeping baby right next to me") * noisy room (often asymmetric) * target is deaf
  - viridian 1y ago
    I use nonverbals frequently as well, but I think what 0xDEAFBEAD is getting at is more like if everyone were to walk around with a touch display hanging from a lanyard where you could like or dislike every comment. The simulacrum would cheapen the real experience by its very presence.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
      Exactly. These metrics are supposed to help filter for "quality", but popularity isn't that great as a proxy for quality, and the metrics have the side effect of turning social interaction into a constant status competition. https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/1128035633727930370 https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/11280356337279303...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
xtracto 1y ago
The thing with sites like reddit, HN and the like is that they don't promote "identity" like IRC, forums and others. Like, I'm replying to you, we are being "social" , but mostly we will interact in this thread and call it a day. There's no push to form community or some longer term interaction. In the late 90s early 2000s I was very into a game called Tactics Arena Online, and we had several great communities.
- baby 1y ago
  Whoever can recreate this community feeling is going to be rich. Why did people spend so much time in specific phpbb forums? Maybe the problem is that there are too many communities out there now and so people just give up because you're in all of them and you're part of none of them at the same time?
  - chad_c 1y ago
    I’m sure an anthropologist can clarify, but once a community reaches a certain size, it seems that emergent properties take over.
  - darth_aardvark 1y ago
    Discord servers are the closest. People do build up friendships, relationships, enemyships, and a public persona / reputation within a Discord server.
    - sneak 1y ago
      Discord is centralized, heavily censored, and surveilled, so it can’t serve this purpose for many communities (such as most of the ones in which I participate).
    - jonwinstanley 1y ago
      My limited experience with discord was either no activity at all, or so much activity it’s hard to follow what’s going on. I suppose I never found the right place
  - 1y ago
meeb 1y ago
Helping look after QuakeNet in the early 2000s was pretty wild. Glad you have positive memories!
1-6 1y ago
In the late 1990s, living in South Korea during the fallout of the IMF financial crisis, my friends and I discovered PC bangs. These gaming havens offered titles like Rainbow Six, MechWarrior 2, and the legendary StarCraft. As a teenager, those moments were unforgettable—sitting in a buzzing PC bang, immersed in epic battles, sparked a lifelong passion for computer networks that I still pursue today. In the 2000s, I helped establish CyberCafe, a PC bang in Oakland, California, where a diverse crowd came together to play StarCraft and Counter-Strike. It was a vibrant community hub, filled with shared excitement. I wish PC bangs would make a comeback. Despite our powerful home setups and fast internet, gaming solo in your room can’t match the electric atmosphere of playing alongside others in a match, surrounded by camaraderie and competition.
- eru 1y ago
  Weren't consoles with split screen supposed to fill that niche (too), right in your living room?
  - Gud 1y ago
    Different kind of experience
  - jamiek88 1y ago
    Consoles don’t even have split screen any more. Sucks.
    - pbronez 1y ago
      Sure they do - depends on the game. Baulder’s Gate 3 can handle split screen coop. It Takes Two is a co-op only platformer. Knight Squad gets up to 8 people playing at once. You can find many more options here https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        It’s more like: the default assumption of a AAA console games used to be some local multiplayer. Now, you have to look for it.
Tumblewood 1y ago
This sounds a lot like one of my favorite games, TagPro, aside from the difference in scale. It has a very tight-knit community, brought together especially by its several community-run competitive leagues. There was even an IRL meetup recently. Sadly it doesn't have anywhere near the marketing budget to become as big as CS.
prjkt 1y ago
What is stopping us from all using IRC again ?
2w3e4r 1y ago
agreed - damn i miss DoD now too haha - that was a fun mod to play when i wanted to get away from CS

doublerabbit 1y ago

LAN parties were welcoming on so many levels. Never played DnD? Come join. One time I recall was an isle of misogynist folk who haven't showered in days playing WoW. The smell... no comment and in one case I recall at one LAN where a delivery woman was scared to walk down the isles to deliver so she asked me nicely if I could. No problem, pizza is here boys. But within reason, they kept to themselves and were there to game. You kind of respected that and they respected you as you were there too to do the same. Outside of all that they were highly intellectual and I recall talking for hours about other highly intellectual topics: psychics, space mathematics, game characters. I didn't approve of their extremist views and you could tell something went wrong somewhere with their psyche but there was a mutual respect. Unfortunately I was too young (20's) to grasp the true vibe. I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend and felt completely cold shouldered. No one was really welcoming and it was very alpha gatekeepery. Granted the audience were clique, everyone seemed to knew each other and the mean age would be 40-something but the attitude from some left me astonished compared to attitudes of some of the worse LAN gamers. If I can hang out with folk who are of such and yet unable to hang with those who are not, I couldn't figure what I was doing wrong. It left me sour for my first major goth event, a sub-culture I've enjoyed since 17; 36 now kind of makes me want to hand in the towel. Maybe I was craving wanting the LAN I once I enjoyed in my teens, but it was worse than that. It felt horrible being there by myself unable to connect with others. I left a day early. Yet all there for the same reason, music. I do believe gaming has a power to bring others together but online games now just feel half arsed and are more released for money rather than fun. Two different sects, yet the one you'd expect to be the worse turned to be more warm. It's weird to think that, but shrug. I really don't know what to think and has left me really perplexed.

fho 1y ago
> I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend > the mean age would be 40-something At least in Germany the "black" scene has a serious "recruitment" problem. It's basically the same set of people for decades now with very little additions to the pool. It strange to me that I am amongst the youngest attendeds at concerts and "disco" events at 40.
- carynh 1y ago
  seconding this.. went to Mera Luna a weekish ago (going there yearly) and in my early 40s I felt like such a child compared to many other festival goers even though it was like my 16th or so time.
  - fho 1y ago
    Been there for 10+ years as well. Recently decided that it has gotten too money grabby and started our own privat festival :-/
- lukan 1y ago
  "At least in Germany the "black" scene has a serious "recruitment" problem." I mean, if that is the general attitude "I just got back from a goth music weekend this weekend and felt completely cold shouldered. No one was really welcoming and it was very alpha gatekeepery." Then where should the new blood are coming from?
- sersi 1y ago
  I remember going to a goth concert in Germany back when I was 19 (20 yearsish ago) amd yeah not welcoming described them well. So I do think it's very much a problem of that specific segment of the community
- achenet 1y ago
  Huh, here in Lyon, France, the scene (or maybe I should say scène) is quite vibrant and you've got everything from old ponytail greybeards who remember their first Black Sabbath concert to 16 year old edgy teenagers who think smoking rolled cigarettes they bought from a government regulated shop with their parents money counts as "sticking it to the man and overthrowing the capitalist system". You're welcome to drop by, the Rock'n'Eat in particular is a good "vampires, werewolves and other demons of the night" type venue and it's quite near my house, so feel free to hit me up if you ever feel like going, it'll be a good opportunity for me to practice my German :)

Spooky23 1y ago

That was an innocent and wonderful time for many of us, but there was a dark side to it, especially as this haven for nerds went mainstream. I have a good friend who was basically groomed/seduced in ann online game and raped by a 35 year old man when she was 13. It just sucks on so many levels that we can’t have nice things because many among us are beasts.

jaimex2 1y ago
That is some crazy mental gymnastics.
insane_dreamer 1y ago
that's absolutely horrible, but it's not like it doesn't happen today; maybe even worse today with all the different social media
epolanski 1y ago
Literally nothing got better for your far fetched use case, nothing. If anything it got worse.
viridian 1y ago
This is actually significantly worse now. The video game Roblox alone is awash in tens of thousands of cases of attempted grooming or child endangerment, according to their own metrics, and that's just what they have detected.
- qzx_pierri 1y ago
  This is a parenting issue. The internet doesn’t need training wheels. No offense to those children, but their parents are complete failures.
  - viridian 1y ago
    At some point you reach a critical mass of personal responsibility failures where you need a systemic solution. Even if the internet doesn't need training wheels, the video game where the average player is 12 might.

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago

All the like/share/upvote stuff makes the internet much less authentic. Imagine going to a party where everyone offers a thumbs up/thumbs down whenever you finish a sentence. Do you anticipate making any close friends at this party?

o11c 1y ago
Ironically, I've replied to several people using physical thumbs up/down recently. This can be caused by several variations on voice not being viable at the moment: * sore throat * eating * having another conversation * context demands silence (often requires the question to be nonverbal somehow, but not e.g. if the context is "sleeping baby right next to me") * noisy room (often asymmetric) * target is deaf
- viridian 1y ago
  I use nonverbals frequently as well, but I think what 0xDEAFBEAD is getting at is more like if everyone were to walk around with a touch display hanging from a lanyard where you could like or dislike every comment. The simulacrum would cheapen the real experience by its very presence.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
    Exactly. These metrics are supposed to help filter for "quality", but popularity isn't that great as a proxy for quality, and the metrics have the side effect of turning social interaction into a constant status competition. https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/1128035633727930370 https://xcancel.com/AliceFromQueens/status/11280356337279303...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

xtracto 1y ago

The thing with sites like reddit, HN and the like is that they don't promote "identity" like IRC, forums and others. Like, I'm replying to you, we are being "social" , but mostly we will interact in this thread and call it a day. There's no push to form community or some longer term interaction. In the late 90s early 2000s I was very into a game called Tactics Arena Online, and we had several great communities.

baby 1y ago
Whoever can recreate this community feeling is going to be rich. Why did people spend so much time in specific phpbb forums? Maybe the problem is that there are too many communities out there now and so people just give up because you're in all of them and you're part of none of them at the same time?
- chad_c 1y ago
  I’m sure an anthropologist can clarify, but once a community reaches a certain size, it seems that emergent properties take over.
- darth_aardvark 1y ago
  Discord servers are the closest. People do build up friendships, relationships, enemyships, and a public persona / reputation within a Discord server.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Discord is centralized, heavily censored, and surveilled, so it can’t serve this purpose for many communities (such as most of the ones in which I participate).
  - jonwinstanley 1y ago
    My limited experience with discord was either no activity at all, or so much activity it’s hard to follow what’s going on. I suppose I never found the right place
- 1y ago

meeb 1y ago

Helping look after QuakeNet in the early 2000s was pretty wild. Glad you have positive memories!

1-6 1y ago

In the late 1990s, living in South Korea during the fallout of the IMF financial crisis, my friends and I discovered PC bangs. These gaming havens offered titles like Rainbow Six, MechWarrior 2, and the legendary StarCraft. As a teenager, those moments were unforgettable—sitting in a buzzing PC bang, immersed in epic battles, sparked a lifelong passion for computer networks that I still pursue today. In the 2000s, I helped establish CyberCafe, a PC bang in Oakland, California, where a diverse crowd came together to play StarCraft and Counter-Strike. It was a vibrant community hub, filled with shared excitement. I wish PC bangs would make a comeback. Despite our powerful home setups and fast internet, gaming solo in your room can’t match the electric atmosphere of playing alongside others in a match, surrounded by camaraderie and competition.

eru 1y ago
Weren't consoles with split screen supposed to fill that niche (too), right in your living room?
- Gud 1y ago
  Different kind of experience
- jamiek88 1y ago
  Consoles don’t even have split screen any more. Sucks.
  - pbronez 1y ago
    Sure they do - depends on the game. Baulder’s Gate 3 can handle split screen coop. It Takes Two is a co-op only platformer. Knight Squad gets up to 8 people playing at once. You can find many more options here https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      It’s more like: the default assumption of a AAA console games used to be some local multiplayer. Now, you have to look for it.

Tumblewood 1y ago

This sounds a lot like one of my favorite games, TagPro, aside from the difference in scale. It has a very tight-knit community, brought together especially by its several community-run competitive leagues. There was even an IRL meetup recently. Sadly it doesn't have anywhere near the marketing budget to become as big as CS.

prjkt 1y ago

What is stopping us from all using IRC again ?

2w3e4r 1y ago

agreed - damn i miss DoD now too haha - that was a fun mod to play when i wanted to get away from CS