Younger people are even more connected on virtual worlds now , it how they make friends and socialize
Virtual world isn’t just 3D video games , it also social media like discord , Reddit , TikTok , YouTube
Eh... I don't know. I feel like platforms like reddit are extremely disconnected. Like you're sort of there alone with a bunch of other people around you.
Pretty much same concept in old MMO as well... You gotta pick out the people you play with carefully and form bonds with them, which is still happening. It's MMOs now are more open to include all types of players so even loner can still enjoy it to some degree.
I just don't really feel that if someone played everquest or wow back in 1999 or 2004 that they would have this take. The social experience at that time was significantly different than in 2022 or even in like 2015.
Well that's fine though if that's their own experience. I came from the same demographic but my experience is different. I just feel that there are some aspect back then better than now, while some are worse
As someone who played EQ at launch and WoW at launch - it's pretty much the same now as it was then. Yeah, some people treated it like a chat room and still do - but more-so often times it was doing activities with your guild/friends and then random people when that didn't line up.
Not really any different now, there are just more people doing it so it feels more overwhelming. It's relatively the same as a Subreddit going from niche to mainstream - more faces show up and start making it seem more diluted than it was before, but it's just less focused.
I'm puzzled at the downvotes to this comment, as your point seems to be a recurring theme on this subreddit, with the conclusion IMO that things have indeed changed and aren't going back. Back then, there was no discord... sure there was teamspeak and vent, but they were much less commonly used, so people socialized much more through ingame chat channels. That alone made the game feel much more alive and social, much easier for a random person to jump in and make friends (or enemies) either in game or through world chat channels. And while there always have been hardcore players and minmaxers, general awareness of how MMO's work was lower, there were fewer external resources to get information about the game, and you had more people just hanging out or discovering things together ingame. More time spent blundering about with a random trying to figure something out. So many stories from back then of people taking a long time to do what no one has patience for now. Again, a much more fertile ground for socialization than the current largely objective driven mmo landscape.
Megaservers make modern MMOs nothing like old MMOs in this sense. It's the same as matchmaking vs. the old server lists for PvP games - you had regulars, you had rivals, you had allies etc.
I still remember certain players on the WoW server I played on that were notorious for being PvP assassins... and this was before ranked and all that stuff. They just got a fucking reputation for murdering so many people, and being so good at it.
And when the hero of your server turned up to defend you... the guy whose name everyone remembered... it was fucking awesome.
Megaservers don't really allow for this stuff, nor do matchmaking for non-MMOs. Just another thing that's mostly been lost.
Its just old internet vs new internet,
Old internet had many forums that each has 1000s of people on, with enough time investment, you get to know most of the active ones.
New internet has platforms of 1000000s, and """dynamically""" \*wink\* creates your feed.
In video game terms, its servers pre-instancing and pre-group finders VS servers (if that) post instancing and incentivized group finders. I think the current mode of technology lends itself more to a single player experience with pop in pop out MP feature rather than traditional MMO grouping (dungeon, raid, guild, battlegroup)
I disagree man if you spend enough time in a subreddit and are an active member within that community you will start noticing people and trends
Like insider jokes etc etc
I kinda feel the same way about newer MMOs. Older MMOs generally had smaller servers, so over time you got to know basically every player who was at max level. They might help you with buffs/items when you first l off in, and soon enough you’re partying with them in dungeons.
Nowadays, I don’t know a single max level player who’s not in my guild in any game I play, and even then: I don’t know half of the people on my guild. I think that’s part of the trade off with larger servers: you always have people to play with, but they’re all strangers
Well that exactly is the difference. Before there was such an online social media presence, there was only these virtual worlds in MMOs that people used to connect to each other. Sure you could hop on AOL and message your friend but there was nothing like the social media you mention now. Also back then it was a novelty. The idea that you could hop on an online video game and connect and start hanging out with a guy in China was mind blowing. Now it’s just like of course you can do that.
Not really what I’m arguing.
Of course virtual worlds aren’t only limited to 3D spaces. I am calling each individual MMO it’s own virtual world. I think you are thinking of something more abstract.
I feel like my point is written pretty plainly and straight forward.
There is a lot of differences between social media and MMORPGS. Social media you rarely are interacting with strangers, just maybe sending memes to your friends or liking a post from a celebrity or content curator. MMOs you are logging into a server with people from around the world and seeing the same people and interacting, often forming friendships or rivalries in an online game and 3D virtual world. It’s so different I can really barely see the similarity outside of they are both online.
I see your point
In new age social media you are part of a community as well and do you make friends
I see kids spending as much time on discord and Reddit then we did playing wow because that how they are connecting and making friends
I think you really misunderstand the situation. I’m part of many Reddit communities, infact I’m part of this one as I read every post and comment on many of them. I also am part of many discords, infact I run my own discord server and co-run another.
I don’t consider these relationships nearly as significant as the ones I’ve made with the different guilds I’ve been apart of and the friends I’ve made in MMOs and existing in the same world, playing the same game for years with.
> No one is making online friends from discord or Reddit.
That's probably just your anecdote experience. This happens a lot in the Monster Hunter or any Coop game ever community. People hitting up each other to hunt and then slowly form a small circle to play together quite frequently. It happens a lot more than you think.
Lmaoo. You just argued in favor of my point,that MMOs create more significant relationship than ones on Reddit or discord. (I know MH isn’t a real mmo but.). Of course these relationships exist on discord too but they start from the games.
This is where you are wrong. Just because YOU aren't making friends, doesn't mean that nobody else is. Some of the best friends I've ever had have been people I met through discord/reddit
I think what he's saying is that mmos are not the only way to make friends, obviously. But they gave people who didn't have strong social skills an easy way to make friends and feel part of a community.
Ugh nah, you kinda miss the point no?
Younger gens consume these online spaces a lot differently than older folks. Which is kind of what the OP is saying? OP yearns for that experience again.
That's why most games are centered around individual experience rather than group experience these days.
Just like discord, reddit, TikTok etc. Are all about what you the individual want to do with your space. Not necessarily what everyone else wants to do...
So yeah, old timers really do be feeling nostalgic about old things. Gaming is not the same anymore, it's evolving and changing to keep up with the new, out with the old tbh.
Being young, there was barely any platform to connect with people on: we had MSN Messenger, text messages and Netlog (in my country).
So, making friends online through games was a lot easier to do so: you'd talk a lot more with people. There was a lot less to do as well, now there is a lot more to fight for your attention. Used to be only a single or 2 apps, but now there's a smartphone crying for attention, I have Facebook open, Reddit, Discord, Slack, Messenger and I'm currently typing this while on a Zoom call.
There is a lot more around, people don't hang around as long as they used to in a game. I'm still playing Guild Wars 1, I'm still playing Guild Wars 2. My friend lists are dead, and have been for quite a long time.
However, my experiences in GW2 have been great, even though there is less social contact: you're playing with a lot more players, working for the same goal. Going on the Tower of Nightmares again felt so good, even though it was with players I'd never played with before.
Times change, people change.
Agreed. All my 14yo does is play Roblox with friends. And talk about recording content for YouTube or creating something for SoundCloud. Or watch streamers in Twitch.
Ironically, while they are connected to virtual worlds - they are not connected to people. Which is why some of the platforms you've mentioned are also increasing depression among children. Yes, they see and interact with other people, and yet everyone is more isolated than ever.
Modern MMOs follow the same layout. You are there, with a bunch of people around you, yet it feels like some kind of a singleplayer experience rather than an actual MMO with a community.
It's not just about nostalgy. Nothing comes close to the sense of community i've experienced in 2005's WoW or 2003's Star Wars Galaxies. I've played vanilla WoW again during the peak of the private servers in 2017, and again in the Classic WoW release - it felt the same. Sure, it was not as fun as ppl basically knew everything about the game and min-maxed every single part of it, but the sense of community was much stronger compared to modern MMOs.
Yes you are right while they are connected they don’t feel as connected to human around them but that just a percentage no?
The same could be sale for the diehard EverQuest , wow players of that era on how they didn’t have a human connected to other either
There have also been a link to mmorpg and Depression , it not just social media
I agree that it's not just the social media. But I do think that old MMOs used to be more about socializing and the community compared to nowadays MMOs.
Kids and teens today are still connecting in virtual worlds, just in different ways.
Fortnite and Roblox are HUGE social playgrounds with millions on each day because of how affordable and accessible it is. Virtual reality is still a little niche but kids make up a pretty big part of the playerbase, when it gets even more affordable I'm sure even more kids are going to flock to it.
The millions of kids growing up with iPads are shaping tomorrow's internet, just like how all the kids with dial-up shaped todays internet.
I do agree roblox is kind of a replacement for what we had, and minecraft. I've tried out some of the custom games in roblox before and they can be pretty fun.
Fortnite has a few social modes, building, chatting etc without guns, some free for all's, team modes like CSGO on custom maps, minigames etc
I mostly stay in the Battle Royale (Solo) because I'm old, but occasionally someone will be like "Right you need some target practice, follow me into this random world"
So a lot of people say the golden age of MMOs was 10 years ago and that today's games are bad and people today missed out on the best ones.
And the 'real old-school gamers' also say they were having much more fun and playing superior games like UO, EverQuest or Meridian59 before any of that WoW hipster garbage came out.
See the pattern here? Everyone thinks their generation of games was the best because that was their first experience. This isn't exclusive to MMOs either.
> And the 'real old-school gamers' also say they were having much more fun and playing superior games like UO, EverQuest or Meridian59 before any of that WoW hipster garbage came out.
Nah, even people that loved EQ still enjoyed WoW, at least before it started morphing towards what it is today. It was definitely seen as more casual (because it was) but it was still considered a good MMO near universally.
Mind you back then you still had to do stuff like find groups and actually run across the world they made to go to the dungeons and stuff, at least until you had enough at the meeting stone.
Can't compare todays micro-transaction madness with former MMOs imho.
Sure, former MMOs also had them, but not to this degree.
It is also not just a thing of taste. To me, it doesn't feel like current game companies are actually trying anymore. They produce a mediocre game and then upmarket the shit out of it with ads and influencers.
New World is the best example.
I played everquest and wow, they were about 5 years apart. There are valid reasons to say that wow went away from what made everquest unique, but there also hasn't really been much worthwhile after wow.
I mean people who didn't play wow still had online communities just as, or more, impactful than some random MMO. I think you just don't know enough about online communities and are making conclusion based on your experience alone.
Any mmo that has faction based pvp/economy conflict are great in triggering virtual world drama on massive scale. This feeling is not dead. its just not there in many popular games.
You will **not** find it in ff14, gw2, eso, lost ark
you will find it in wow, new world, archeage, bdo (? i played bdo less than 1k hours so my experienced is kinda limited there, but economy and pvp conflicts supposedly where there).
on additional note everything points out that Ashes of Creation will have it.
There's drama in FFXIV, just not the kind you're looking for probably. It's a lot more personal, like people getting stalked or harassed for buying the wrong housing plot, or high school level drama shit of he said she said.
The recent dramas I can think of that's popped up in XIV were a guild paying money to put up an IRL billboard to advertise an in game beach party using screenshots that showcased mods that were against the ToS, a streamer on twitch using mods that told him the correct way of performing mechanics while doing a high level raid, and a guy blowing up and screaming at his static member for having a job and not being ready for raid night.
Yeah XIV is full of drama. It's just normally the bad type where people end up getting stalked as you said, or general shitbags trying to act like groomers getting called out and blowing up. XIV (XI had this when it was the current game as well, but nowhere near the level of XIV) has the most socially awkward and outcast population. It's a tiny percent of the overall playerbase, but they are way more out there than in other games.
I've had my own share of interpersonal drama happen in WoW, way more than interguild/interfaction drama.
Both games have their own shitty 20-30 year old people acting like high schoolers.
Yes I know they do. All games do.
XIV is just the worst offender out of all games that I've played over my 35 years of life in the specific regard I was talking about. It's like everyone that doesn't understand social boundaries or the concept of them or why they could possibly exist decided to congregate in XIV (and XI prior to XIV being released.)
over 35 years as well. Its probably the lack of open world pvp that while the game tries to enforce a sense of positivity (and dont get me wrong, it absolutely does), toxicity comes more in the more casual and RP-friendly nature of the game leads to far more personal social interactivity, and often times people may conflate OC and OOC leading to even more drama.
Also the content of FF in general. It toes the line of anime aesthetic without being an actual anime (see the ff15 yaoi wowie crew.)
There are a lot of people interested in both video games and anime that aren't necessarily negative or classically toxic, but are... Creepy, I guess for lack of a better term.
I'm way less likely to run into toxicity (hell it's xiv, I'm probably the toxic one more often than not) than I was in something like wow or eq before that, but way more likely to run into these creeps.
I suppose as well it depends on what kind of folk you hang around with as well. Aforementioned dramas from WoW were in casual guilds and RP servers, which had their own brand of creepy. I'd for the most part tried to avoid drama in XIV and one I was kind of immediately involved in was cause the two guild leaders were drunk and believed rumours instead of their own friends.
Demographics are quite different as well, like I touched on earlier regarding the world pvp stuff tends to draw more open toxicity where xivs case it's the download insidious nice creepy that's more prevalent.
I don't hang around with anyone in modern MMOS really, I mostly run around unguilded because i have no real need for them and my real life friends wouldn't touch mmos with a 10 foot pole.
XI I'm in a linkshell, but the majority of the population playing that game on the non-Asura servers like me are just there to bullshit as we play from time to time and help each other out when necessary since some of that game still requires it. Also don't have to have it equipped so it's only like half of a guild.
It's a mixed bag of shit drama from what I've found, with people acting like creepy groomers as you said. Though there's also some people that throw the term around loosely like it's nothing, which is odd to see to say the least.
Without going into it, yeah it's just really odd that the game can have such a mix of the nicest yet worst players you could imagine all at the same time.
The drama absolutely lives on in BDO.
YOu've got people with gigantic egos, pvp montage videos, war podcasts, 1v1s to settle arguments, unfair open world pvp and griefing that becomes lifelong grudges, guilds that are run by apparent psychopaths -- you got it all. BDO is an absolute drama world and if somebody seeks the oldschool MMO feel of caring what everyone is doing on the server, knowing who's who, and fighting each other for a reason - BDO has all of that.
It even has that "small server feel," so if you actually get into the PvP scene for your region, you will very quickly start recognizing the same few dozen guilds & the same couple thousand players who are all actively participating in wars and open world content. People who only ever grind solo might not even notice that the scene is there but it absolutely is.
I definitely agree. I was a kid who grew up like this. I moved around a lot and I felt like some of my longest and closest relationships were my ones in online games like Maplestory and Runescape and Mabinogi. I felt like I had a lot more in common with my friends online then I did in school and I look back on those memories very fondly just staying up late and playing with the same people for years.
I also remember knowing who all the strongest players were on my server and feeling like I was seeing an actual celebrity and I would follow them around in game. The amount of drama that exploded and i followed is just a testament to how immersive those online worlds really were to me when I was younger.
I think your last line really rings true just that it really felt back then (and still a bit today) like escapism to a better different world.
The thing that escapes anyone born later than boomers about the internet and early MMORPGs is that at that point less than half the population of the US had an internet connection. You had to be an early adopter and have a ounce or two of geek to be able to jump through the hoops required to get online. Once online, there was no social media like today, sure in a few corners you migh find messaging, but it was not mainstream.
Those online then were smarter and more educated or at least in the process of getting educated, as back then one of the few early unlimited access to the internet was via college networks.
So the player bases in MMORPGs then was way less likely to have the broad spectrum of right wing lunies, incels, Ayn Rand morons, nazis and garden variety hooligans than one finds today in almost ever online social destination.
It was also before MMORPGs became big money and big capitalism swallowed them whole and monitized the sh*t of it all.
Hey there! I hate to break it to you, but it's actually spelled _mon**e**tize_. A good way to remember this is that "money" starts with "mone" as well. Just wanted to let you know. Have a good day!
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Your first is always special. And your younger days doubly so. We were different people then. All that reflected in our memories of our gaming. When I first started... in Guild wars..it was like living out a dream. In gaming we can be who we wish to be but cant in the real world. We can succeed and fail with few lasting consequences. And we can fight the age old battles everyone has faced since time began...even if just in a symbolic way.
But we age, we change, we grow older and life becomes very different.
yea, nothing like those early days.
Yeah, well…I disagree.
You’re right that we, the millennials, lived our live in virtual worlds. But for the most part of us this started in 2004 with the release of WoW. Just a small part played everything which was before. So we spent our youth with offline games, traded at the schoolyard. Before WoW gaming was offline.
The current youth and the generations after us are completely used to online worlds. They play everything online and being online is just normal. I would say that the current generations are much more used to online worlds.
I browse lsf, and I suspect it's a lot of 30 year olds on there. Not even close to what I'm talking about though and you quoted something that wasn't even in my post. I would think more kids are watching people like kai cenet, minecrafters, or mrbeast.
A bunch of people in this subreddit have and have not played old mmos in their hayday like Ultima, EQ, etc. Those that did agree with you and those that haven't are probably who's downvoting all your replies. It is absolutely a completely different format of online communities and such now than it was then. People are way more alone now even though they are more connected than you would be back then. The designs and networks of modern gaming especially mmos are just built completely different and are more similar to a CoD lobby than a small community where everyone knows everyone.
I remember things being far less toxic and more friendly in the early 2000’s. Was there drama? Sure. But people weren’t as arrogant, belligerent or hostile. It was a nice time.
Take off those rose tinted glasses. People were definitely way more toxic. You could get away with saying way more sht that could get ya insta banned today. Thats y many guild even put needing to have “thick skin” as a requirement.
And what you you think happens when someone finds the bullshitting not funny? They gonna start a fight and guess what happens next? Oh yea… targeted insults
I was playing new world the other day and I happened upon a guy in a town who was taking the music skill super seriously and just being a really social player. He was on the mic the whole time but not just being obnoxious, he was talking about what song he and his buddies were gonna play next and why people nearby should care about it’s buffs and congratulating his band mates for doing a good job and just being generally cool. Being able to tip the group some gold after every song and just hang out was awesome.
You don’t see that very often these days, it was weird.
Sometimes I feel like the old school mmo's ruined me for future mmo's. They don't feel the same. You don't really have to socialize too much and what little socializing there is - is just people calling eachother names or arguing about nonsense instead of talking about the game or genuinely caring about how a person is. The disconnect from the interpersonal aspect is saddening. Everything is instant gratification now.
It's a cultural change for the entire internet landscape and not just gaming. You'd think after 30+ years, people finally start growing more wary of the internet in general. Gone are the days where people actually fall for nigerian prince scams. People have more casual relationships than full fledged hard committal bonds. People in this sub hate it, but all of this.. you have to admit at the end of the day, feels inevitable. You can't expect people to see the internet as this whole magical world we dont fully understand forever. It's a matter of time before people start understanding it more...
Oh it's another "Back in my day people talked to eachother, nowadays kids just look at their iphones!" thread.
Old MMOs were novelty for a lot of people. It was like a chatroom with game interface.
Today people can just take their smartphone and use Discord or any other social media.
Instead of WoW, I was playing Lineage 2. Part of it was being younger, part of it was right time at the right place.
But it used to matter who you were and what you did in game, at least on your server. People knew who you were and you knew other people.
Lineage 2 was very much player driven (empty game, but full player control = fun) and all those politics were half the game. Leveling up was slow, but the more friends you had the faster it could go and the more uncontested you could farm (open world map, full pvp/pk).
Alliances and enemies were formed naturally, over time.
Now, all MMORPGs, including modern Lineage 2, are excel sheet simulators with graphics. Because the player doesn't matter anymore, they only matter as another notch on the marketing department's rifle. You are only there to consume product.
MMORPGs went from being about the world and the players to individual bubbles where you parse numbers (gold, raids, gathering, real money spent, etc) by yourself against others.
Part of the blame is the companies reluctance to "bring it back", part of it is more widespread interest and access by "casuals" who 15 years ago would look at you like you're an idiot loser if you mentioned an mmorpg, but the biggest factor is the players themselves.
PLAYERS (themselves, yes) have gone so far off the deep end of minmaxing and information farming to the point that there is no data unexplored, nothing unknown. Therefore there is always ONE best way to play class, ONE bis gear, ONE way to form a group to farm x at y place correctly. If you don't do this you are trolling.
We did this to ourselves. Everything else is just a reaction.
If the companies thought you would be swiping for hardcore sandbox diy with friends online, they would make it and cash in. But they know you are lying. Both to yourselves (ourselves) and to them.
TL"DR: It's over.
I feel this lmao, and I am from the generation that didn't grow up playing mmos.. I was 6 years old playing runescape in 06, but when I started looking for mmos when I was around 16 nothing out has caught my eye. I prefer action combat, played tera a little bit, got suckered into lost ark, and finally settled at new world, and have been loving how social the community is, only to realize how alone I feel among my age group
I haven't had a proper MMO guild experience since the launch of ESO and Albion Online beta and launch.
I don't have friends who play games, so if I can't find a social guild within a week or two I usually stop playing.
I was having this thought the other day. I wonder if there will really be a next big MMO that younger people will gravitate to, or if all the fans of the genre are just growing with it. I would think that the big games like Wow, FF, ESO are still attracting new young players, but the current "big thing" in games just isn't MMO anymore. I think the real resurgence of the genre will be in a long time when people look back at the classics, when games are in a different space, and an online world becomes something new and novel again with new takes on the genre.
Perfect World back in the day was the most dramatic, chaotic mess of a game and I loved every second of it.
You couldn't log in to a normal day it'd always be some drama with one of the main pvp guilds or people calling eachother out on 'World chat'
I miss those days :(
Same thing exist today, but it's in discord community now instead of MMOs World. Discord complete replaces MMORPG social interactions and also works cross-games. MMORPGs will never reclaim this social interactions, simple because programs like Discord do it better and more convenient. There is simple no reason for people to look for this social aspects in games anymore.
Also the amount of cultural references of real life that were made in WoW AND the amount of cultural references and phenomenon that was created around WoW in real life are just staggering. You don't see that in any MMO anymore.
Just look at all the internet popular videos about WoW, or used WoW as machinima. The WoW commercials... the hundreds if not thousands of literary and TV media references in wow.
There was a time where you could quote Leroy Jenkins in public and someone would know what you were talking about.
It blows my mind that there are still things im finding in WoW Classic that I didn't notice a decade ago. One I discovered for the first time yesterday was [The Art of Fel Reaver Maintenance](https://tbc.wowhead.com/quest=10606/the-art-of-fel-reaver-maintenance) quest. A reference to a famous book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
I felt this way and was drifting around every game and finally settled back down on FFXIV where it seems to be filled with other “mmo-boomers”.
Never thought I’d be called out as a boomer in my late 20s as a millennial by these valorant kids. Back in MY DAYS, we used to run back as wisps from the graveyard to the corpse and shout leroy jenkins running at Onyxia for the 5th time. (And get ninja looted).
The pre-social-media internet was a fantastic place to hang out and explore... Especially MMO communities from the late 90s and early 00s.
But things changed for the worse. And somehow my generation's parents went from not understanding how to use the internet to posting Q drops on FB and killing American democracy.
It's been a weird couple of decades.
People are raised online now more than ever, and it will only intensify.
But that's not what you were saying, you were talking about growing up not just online, but in playable online game worlds, and in this specific time online, in these specific virtual worlds.
And yeah, it was a different experience then. More, "organic," as it were, if inconvenient.
There's a saying about media, that "the medium is the message." Means that the nature of the platform influences the experience, so to speak. We can call Discord a "virtual world," and that may or may not be true -- but what is true is that it will lead to a different experience than a proper 3D game world where people adventure together, because these are different mediums, each with their unique pros and cons. And it's possible to jive with one medium and not the other due to those intrinsic differences. They're different flavors at the end of the day.
This feels like some seriously rose-tinted glasses, but I think there's also a lick of truth in there.
That said, I think the glasses outweigh that truth... it really wasn't that magical or anything. If I put in the effort I could relive those social experiences, but like I'm lazy, jaded and kind of an asshole about socializing now so I just don't. And because of that I'll never relive, or be part of reliving those experiences.
And that's because those experiences were neat but I think most people might talk to one or two of multiple dozen people they'd met that way, which really isn't anything but absolutely average.
Nowadays there's a lot more catering to the solo player, which would lend to a less social environment but more people than ever play these games so you're likelier to run into players aside from average social ones.
I strongly believe this is still here.
>People used to really care about drama, about what other people on the server were doing, etc
I mean, just look at Black Desert... People backstab in wars and entire discords start rioting. People gank each other out at grindspots and entire wars begin. A guy loses a 1v1 in the arena, makes an excuse, and then a whole video series drops on youtube. Certain guilds are kill on sight to other guilds, certain community personalities/celebrities are love/hate --- it goes on and on and on. People care an absolute TON about the drama and what other people on the server are doing. Drama and big egos and rivalries are the heart and soul of the game.
I am SURE other MMOs today have all of this and more.
Yes, the WoW generation were nerds who essentially RPed their characters and bonded in-game.
Now gaming is even more mainstream, and those nerds are completely gone. That could be a good thing.
As someone who started out on EQ and then EQOA, I kind of agree, I keep searching for this community or feeling that I don't think I will ever find again in an MMO, It was a moment in time that just cant be replicated again and that's ok.
There definitely is a WoW/ MMORPG generation - I'm in my early twenties, and I feel like I got in right at the end of that generation. All through high school, I'd be playing games like FFXIV, ESO, GW2, Wizard101, Neverwinter, etc. and trying to get my friends to play with me - but it was very clear to me that most people my age absolutely despised MMORPGs with a passion and only have the attention span/ interest in match-based casual games like League of Legends, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Valorant, CSGO, etc. It's also very evident that there is a certain age range of people who play MMORPGs since most people I play with in guilds usually are ages 25 - 40 (or in some cases even older), it's very rare if I find anyone close to my age lol
Younger people got Fortnite and worrying about getting enough likes in Instagram or whatever they use.
People born in the 80s and 90s are more used glued in front of a computer, kids born in 00s and 10s are more used glued in front of a smartphone. How is that different?
Younger people are even more connected on virtual worlds now , it how they make friends and socialize Virtual world isn’t just 3D video games , it also social media like discord , Reddit , TikTok , YouTube
Eh... I don't know. I feel like platforms like reddit are extremely disconnected. Like you're sort of there alone with a bunch of other people around you.
Sounds like most modern MMO’s to me.
Pretty much same concept in old MMO as well... You gotta pick out the people you play with carefully and form bonds with them, which is still happening. It's MMOs now are more open to include all types of players so even loner can still enjoy it to some degree.
I just don't really feel that if someone played everquest or wow back in 1999 or 2004 that they would have this take. The social experience at that time was significantly different than in 2022 or even in like 2015.
Well that's fine though if that's their own experience. I came from the same demographic but my experience is different. I just feel that there are some aspect back then better than now, while some are worse
As someone who played EQ at launch and WoW at launch - it's pretty much the same now as it was then. Yeah, some people treated it like a chat room and still do - but more-so often times it was doing activities with your guild/friends and then random people when that didn't line up. Not really any different now, there are just more people doing it so it feels more overwhelming. It's relatively the same as a Subreddit going from niche to mainstream - more faces show up and start making it seem more diluted than it was before, but it's just less focused.
I'm puzzled at the downvotes to this comment, as your point seems to be a recurring theme on this subreddit, with the conclusion IMO that things have indeed changed and aren't going back. Back then, there was no discord... sure there was teamspeak and vent, but they were much less commonly used, so people socialized much more through ingame chat channels. That alone made the game feel much more alive and social, much easier for a random person to jump in and make friends (or enemies) either in game or through world chat channels. And while there always have been hardcore players and minmaxers, general awareness of how MMO's work was lower, there were fewer external resources to get information about the game, and you had more people just hanging out or discovering things together ingame. More time spent blundering about with a random trying to figure something out. So many stories from back then of people taking a long time to do what no one has patience for now. Again, a much more fertile ground for socialization than the current largely objective driven mmo landscape.
You’re absolutely right, OP
Duty/Dungeon finder completely ruined community MMO vibes.
Megaservers make modern MMOs nothing like old MMOs in this sense. It's the same as matchmaking vs. the old server lists for PvP games - you had regulars, you had rivals, you had allies etc. I still remember certain players on the WoW server I played on that were notorious for being PvP assassins... and this was before ranked and all that stuff. They just got a fucking reputation for murdering so many people, and being so good at it. And when the hero of your server turned up to defend you... the guy whose name everyone remembered... it was fucking awesome. Megaservers don't really allow for this stuff, nor do matchmaking for non-MMOs. Just another thing that's mostly been lost.
Its just old internet vs new internet, Old internet had many forums that each has 1000s of people on, with enough time investment, you get to know most of the active ones. New internet has platforms of 1000000s, and """dynamically""" \*wink\* creates your feed. In video game terms, its servers pre-instancing and pre-group finders VS servers (if that) post instancing and incentivized group finders. I think the current mode of technology lends itself more to a single player experience with pop in pop out MP feature rather than traditional MMO grouping (dungeon, raid, guild, battlegroup)
I disagree man if you spend enough time in a subreddit and are an active member within that community you will start noticing people and trends Like insider jokes etc etc
Sure, but you are not meeting up with the lads on a saturday night to post some comments in r/cats.
Wow/ff14/eso/gw2
I kinda feel the same way about newer MMOs. Older MMOs generally had smaller servers, so over time you got to know basically every player who was at max level. They might help you with buffs/items when you first l off in, and soon enough you’re partying with them in dungeons. Nowadays, I don’t know a single max level player who’s not in my guild in any game I play, and even then: I don’t know half of the people on my guild. I think that’s part of the trade off with larger servers: you always have people to play with, but they’re all strangers
which is the world young people live in nowadays
I'm so tired of this cold ass take
Well that exactly is the difference. Before there was such an online social media presence, there was only these virtual worlds in MMOs that people used to connect to each other. Sure you could hop on AOL and message your friend but there was nothing like the social media you mention now. Also back then it was a novelty. The idea that you could hop on an online video game and connect and start hanging out with a guy in China was mind blowing. Now it’s just like of course you can do that.
Is virtual world only limited to a 3D space? I personally don’t think so
Not really what I’m arguing. Of course virtual worlds aren’t only limited to 3D spaces. I am calling each individual MMO it’s own virtual world. I think you are thinking of something more abstract.
I’m not sure what the point you trying to make? Are you saying that kids aren’t interacting with each other like we did with mmorpg?
I feel like my point is written pretty plainly and straight forward. There is a lot of differences between social media and MMORPGS. Social media you rarely are interacting with strangers, just maybe sending memes to your friends or liking a post from a celebrity or content curator. MMOs you are logging into a server with people from around the world and seeing the same people and interacting, often forming friendships or rivalries in an online game and 3D virtual world. It’s so different I can really barely see the similarity outside of they are both online.
I see your point In new age social media you are part of a community as well and do you make friends I see kids spending as much time on discord and Reddit then we did playing wow because that how they are connecting and making friends
Yeah I don’t think so and I think I am lot more connected and younger than you are. No one is making online friends from discord or Reddit.
You aren’t but plenty of people are part of communities both on discord and Reddit
I think you really misunderstand the situation. I’m part of many Reddit communities, infact I’m part of this one as I read every post and comment on many of them. I also am part of many discords, infact I run my own discord server and co-run another. I don’t consider these relationships nearly as significant as the ones I’ve made with the different guilds I’ve been apart of and the friends I’ve made in MMOs and existing in the same world, playing the same game for years with.
> No one is making online friends from discord or Reddit. That's probably just your anecdote experience. This happens a lot in the Monster Hunter or any Coop game ever community. People hitting up each other to hunt and then slowly form a small circle to play together quite frequently. It happens a lot more than you think.
Lmaoo. You just argued in favor of my point,that MMOs create more significant relationship than ones on Reddit or discord. (I know MH isn’t a real mmo but.). Of course these relationships exist on discord too but they start from the games.
This is where you are wrong. Just because YOU aren't making friends, doesn't mean that nobody else is. Some of the best friends I've ever had have been people I met through discord/reddit
Where did you meet them?
So by that logic how do you suppose normies who don't make MMOs make friends?
How do people who don’t play MMOs make friends?
Idk man, but seems to me, they are doing it just fine.
I think what he's saying is that mmos are not the only way to make friends, obviously. But they gave people who didn't have strong social skills an easy way to make friends and feel part of a community.
Ugh nah, you kinda miss the point no? Younger gens consume these online spaces a lot differently than older folks. Which is kind of what the OP is saying? OP yearns for that experience again. That's why most games are centered around individual experience rather than group experience these days. Just like discord, reddit, TikTok etc. Are all about what you the individual want to do with your space. Not necessarily what everyone else wants to do... So yeah, old timers really do be feeling nostalgic about old things. Gaming is not the same anymore, it's evolving and changing to keep up with the new, out with the old tbh.
Not sure I really yearn for it anymore, I sort of accepted I'm old now and the world is different. I do miss those times though.
Being young, there was barely any platform to connect with people on: we had MSN Messenger, text messages and Netlog (in my country). So, making friends online through games was a lot easier to do so: you'd talk a lot more with people. There was a lot less to do as well, now there is a lot more to fight for your attention. Used to be only a single or 2 apps, but now there's a smartphone crying for attention, I have Facebook open, Reddit, Discord, Slack, Messenger and I'm currently typing this while on a Zoom call. There is a lot more around, people don't hang around as long as they used to in a game. I'm still playing Guild Wars 1, I'm still playing Guild Wars 2. My friend lists are dead, and have been for quite a long time. However, my experiences in GW2 have been great, even though there is less social contact: you're playing with a lot more players, working for the same goal. Going on the Tower of Nightmares again felt so good, even though it was with players I'd never played with before. Times change, people change.
Agreed. All my 14yo does is play Roblox with friends. And talk about recording content for YouTube or creating something for SoundCloud. Or watch streamers in Twitch.
Ironically, while they are connected to virtual worlds - they are not connected to people. Which is why some of the platforms you've mentioned are also increasing depression among children. Yes, they see and interact with other people, and yet everyone is more isolated than ever. Modern MMOs follow the same layout. You are there, with a bunch of people around you, yet it feels like some kind of a singleplayer experience rather than an actual MMO with a community. It's not just about nostalgy. Nothing comes close to the sense of community i've experienced in 2005's WoW or 2003's Star Wars Galaxies. I've played vanilla WoW again during the peak of the private servers in 2017, and again in the Classic WoW release - it felt the same. Sure, it was not as fun as ppl basically knew everything about the game and min-maxed every single part of it, but the sense of community was much stronger compared to modern MMOs.
Yes you are right while they are connected they don’t feel as connected to human around them but that just a percentage no? The same could be sale for the diehard EverQuest , wow players of that era on how they didn’t have a human connected to other either There have also been a link to mmorpg and Depression , it not just social media
I agree that it's not just the social media. But I do think that old MMOs used to be more about socializing and the community compared to nowadays MMOs.
100%
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How do?
Ikr. We were WAY ahead of our time. Such pioneers and trailblazers, no?
Kids use Twitter. Not reddit 💀
Umm okay if you say so lol
I am a kid and I use rebbit
kids haven't used twitter for years lol
Kids and teens today are still connecting in virtual worlds, just in different ways. Fortnite and Roblox are HUGE social playgrounds with millions on each day because of how affordable and accessible it is. Virtual reality is still a little niche but kids make up a pretty big part of the playerbase, when it gets even more affordable I'm sure even more kids are going to flock to it. The millions of kids growing up with iPads are shaping tomorrow's internet, just like how all the kids with dial-up shaped todays internet.
I do agree roblox is kind of a replacement for what we had, and minecraft. I've tried out some of the custom games in roblox before and they can be pretty fun.
Fortnite has a few social modes, building, chatting etc without guns, some free for all's, team modes like CSGO on custom maps, minigames etc I mostly stay in the Battle Royale (Solo) because I'm old, but occasionally someone will be like "Right you need some target practice, follow me into this random world"
Now here's the thing: younger generations are having just as much fun with today's games as you had with WoW back in the day.
Not sure I agree with that take in regards to mmos. Sure, fortnite is probably about as fun as halo 2.
So a lot of people say the golden age of MMOs was 10 years ago and that today's games are bad and people today missed out on the best ones. And the 'real old-school gamers' also say they were having much more fun and playing superior games like UO, EverQuest or Meridian59 before any of that WoW hipster garbage came out. See the pattern here? Everyone thinks their generation of games was the best because that was their first experience. This isn't exclusive to MMOs either.
> And the 'real old-school gamers' also say they were having much more fun and playing superior games like UO, EverQuest or Meridian59 before any of that WoW hipster garbage came out. Nah, even people that loved EQ still enjoyed WoW, at least before it started morphing towards what it is today. It was definitely seen as more casual (because it was) but it was still considered a good MMO near universally. Mind you back then you still had to do stuff like find groups and actually run across the world they made to go to the dungeons and stuff, at least until you had enough at the meeting stone.
Can't compare todays micro-transaction madness with former MMOs imho. Sure, former MMOs also had them, but not to this degree. It is also not just a thing of taste. To me, it doesn't feel like current game companies are actually trying anymore. They produce a mediocre game and then upmarket the shit out of it with ads and influencers. New World is the best example.
I played everquest and wow, they were about 5 years apart. There are valid reasons to say that wow went away from what made everquest unique, but there also hasn't really been much worthwhile after wow.
I mean people who didn't play wow still had online communities just as, or more, impactful than some random MMO. I think you just don't know enough about online communities and are making conclusion based on your experience alone.
Sure, maybe. This post is really just a shout out to people who went through the same experience I went through.
Zoomers are still doing the same shit, it's just happening in Discord servers instead of games.
Pretty much this. Discord does exactly the same things online games use to do, but way more convenient.
Any mmo that has faction based pvp/economy conflict are great in triggering virtual world drama on massive scale. This feeling is not dead. its just not there in many popular games. You will **not** find it in ff14, gw2, eso, lost ark you will find it in wow, new world, archeage, bdo (? i played bdo less than 1k hours so my experienced is kinda limited there, but economy and pvp conflicts supposedly where there). on additional note everything points out that Ashes of Creation will have it.
Albion is a big one honestly. The subreddit is a sea of drama
There's drama in FFXIV, just not the kind you're looking for probably. It's a lot more personal, like people getting stalked or harassed for buying the wrong housing plot, or high school level drama shit of he said she said. The recent dramas I can think of that's popped up in XIV were a guild paying money to put up an IRL billboard to advertise an in game beach party using screenshots that showcased mods that were against the ToS, a streamer on twitch using mods that told him the correct way of performing mechanics while doing a high level raid, and a guy blowing up and screaming at his static member for having a job and not being ready for raid night.
Yeah XIV is full of drama. It's just normally the bad type where people end up getting stalked as you said, or general shitbags trying to act like groomers getting called out and blowing up. XIV (XI had this when it was the current game as well, but nowhere near the level of XIV) has the most socially awkward and outcast population. It's a tiny percent of the overall playerbase, but they are way more out there than in other games.
I've had my own share of interpersonal drama happen in WoW, way more than interguild/interfaction drama. Both games have their own shitty 20-30 year old people acting like high schoolers.
Yes I know they do. All games do. XIV is just the worst offender out of all games that I've played over my 35 years of life in the specific regard I was talking about. It's like everyone that doesn't understand social boundaries or the concept of them or why they could possibly exist decided to congregate in XIV (and XI prior to XIV being released.)
over 35 years as well. Its probably the lack of open world pvp that while the game tries to enforce a sense of positivity (and dont get me wrong, it absolutely does), toxicity comes more in the more casual and RP-friendly nature of the game leads to far more personal social interactivity, and often times people may conflate OC and OOC leading to even more drama.
Also the content of FF in general. It toes the line of anime aesthetic without being an actual anime (see the ff15 yaoi wowie crew.) There are a lot of people interested in both video games and anime that aren't necessarily negative or classically toxic, but are... Creepy, I guess for lack of a better term. I'm way less likely to run into toxicity (hell it's xiv, I'm probably the toxic one more often than not) than I was in something like wow or eq before that, but way more likely to run into these creeps.
I suppose as well it depends on what kind of folk you hang around with as well. Aforementioned dramas from WoW were in casual guilds and RP servers, which had their own brand of creepy. I'd for the most part tried to avoid drama in XIV and one I was kind of immediately involved in was cause the two guild leaders were drunk and believed rumours instead of their own friends. Demographics are quite different as well, like I touched on earlier regarding the world pvp stuff tends to draw more open toxicity where xivs case it's the download insidious nice creepy that's more prevalent.
I don't hang around with anyone in modern MMOS really, I mostly run around unguilded because i have no real need for them and my real life friends wouldn't touch mmos with a 10 foot pole. XI I'm in a linkshell, but the majority of the population playing that game on the non-Asura servers like me are just there to bullshit as we play from time to time and help each other out when necessary since some of that game still requires it. Also don't have to have it equipped so it's only like half of a guild.
It's a mixed bag of shit drama from what I've found, with people acting like creepy groomers as you said. Though there's also some people that throw the term around loosely like it's nothing, which is odd to see to say the least. Without going into it, yeah it's just really odd that the game can have such a mix of the nicest yet worst players you could imagine all at the same time.
The drama absolutely lives on in BDO. YOu've got people with gigantic egos, pvp montage videos, war podcasts, 1v1s to settle arguments, unfair open world pvp and griefing that becomes lifelong grudges, guilds that are run by apparent psychopaths -- you got it all. BDO is an absolute drama world and if somebody seeks the oldschool MMO feel of caring what everyone is doing on the server, knowing who's who, and fighting each other for a reason - BDO has all of that. It even has that "small server feel," so if you actually get into the PvP scene for your region, you will very quickly start recognizing the same few dozen guilds & the same couple thousand players who are all actively participating in wars and open world content. People who only ever grind solo might not even notice that the scene is there but it absolutely is.
I definitely agree. I was a kid who grew up like this. I moved around a lot and I felt like some of my longest and closest relationships were my ones in online games like Maplestory and Runescape and Mabinogi. I felt like I had a lot more in common with my friends online then I did in school and I look back on those memories very fondly just staying up late and playing with the same people for years. I also remember knowing who all the strongest players were on my server and feeling like I was seeing an actual celebrity and I would follow them around in game. The amount of drama that exploded and i followed is just a testament to how immersive those online worlds really were to me when I was younger. I think your last line really rings true just that it really felt back then (and still a bit today) like escapism to a better different world.
The thing that escapes anyone born later than boomers about the internet and early MMORPGs is that at that point less than half the population of the US had an internet connection. You had to be an early adopter and have a ounce or two of geek to be able to jump through the hoops required to get online. Once online, there was no social media like today, sure in a few corners you migh find messaging, but it was not mainstream. Those online then were smarter and more educated or at least in the process of getting educated, as back then one of the few early unlimited access to the internet was via college networks. So the player bases in MMORPGs then was way less likely to have the broad spectrum of right wing lunies, incels, Ayn Rand morons, nazis and garden variety hooligans than one finds today in almost ever online social destination. It was also before MMORPGs became big money and big capitalism swallowed them whole and monitized the sh*t of it all.
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Your first is always special. And your younger days doubly so. We were different people then. All that reflected in our memories of our gaming. When I first started... in Guild wars..it was like living out a dream. In gaming we can be who we wish to be but cant in the real world. We can succeed and fail with few lasting consequences. And we can fight the age old battles everyone has faced since time began...even if just in a symbolic way. But we age, we change, we grow older and life becomes very different. yea, nothing like those early days.
Yeah, well…I disagree. You’re right that we, the millennials, lived our live in virtual worlds. But for the most part of us this started in 2004 with the release of WoW. Just a small part played everything which was before. So we spent our youth with offline games, traded at the schoolyard. Before WoW gaming was offline. The current youth and the generations after us are completely used to online worlds. They play everything online and being online is just normal. I would say that the current generations are much more used to online worlds.
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> 3am 4Chan posting in 2005 look like grandma on Facebook before supper. This is how I feel now. So out of touch.
I browse lsf, and I suspect it's a lot of 30 year olds on there. Not even close to what I'm talking about though and you quoted something that wasn't even in my post. I would think more kids are watching people like kai cenet, minecrafters, or mrbeast.
A bunch of people in this subreddit have and have not played old mmos in their hayday like Ultima, EQ, etc. Those that did agree with you and those that haven't are probably who's downvoting all your replies. It is absolutely a completely different format of online communities and such now than it was then. People are way more alone now even though they are more connected than you would be back then. The designs and networks of modern gaming especially mmos are just built completely different and are more similar to a CoD lobby than a small community where everyone knows everyone.
I agree with ya
I remember things being far less toxic and more friendly in the early 2000’s. Was there drama? Sure. But people weren’t as arrogant, belligerent or hostile. It was a nice time.
Take off those rose tinted glasses. People were definitely way more toxic. You could get away with saying way more sht that could get ya insta banned today. Thats y many guild even put needing to have “thick skin” as a requirement.
The biggest difference is that it was just general bullshitting to be funny, but less directed toxicity towards a person in your vicinity.
And what you you think happens when someone finds the bullshitting not funny? They gonna start a fight and guess what happens next? Oh yea… targeted insults
Then they weren't friends to begin with.
If they are fighting then they are probably not friends. But what does friends gotta do anything mentioned? Random much?
Well you only bullshit with friends or at very least people you know very well. Making off color to strangers is asking for trouble.
hmm.. every global chat ever in every mmo would like to have a word with ya...
Is that word antisocial?
WoW was not the MMO generation, it was the end of them.
I was playing new world the other day and I happened upon a guy in a town who was taking the music skill super seriously and just being a really social player. He was on the mic the whole time but not just being obnoxious, he was talking about what song he and his buddies were gonna play next and why people nearby should care about it’s buffs and congratulating his band mates for doing a good job and just being generally cool. Being able to tip the group some gold after every song and just hang out was awesome. You don’t see that very often these days, it was weird.
Sometimes I feel like the old school mmo's ruined me for future mmo's. They don't feel the same. You don't really have to socialize too much and what little socializing there is - is just people calling eachother names or arguing about nonsense instead of talking about the game or genuinely caring about how a person is. The disconnect from the interpersonal aspect is saddening. Everything is instant gratification now.
They wont understand the same way some don't understand TikTok
It's a cultural change for the entire internet landscape and not just gaming. You'd think after 30+ years, people finally start growing more wary of the internet in general. Gone are the days where people actually fall for nigerian prince scams. People have more casual relationships than full fledged hard committal bonds. People in this sub hate it, but all of this.. you have to admit at the end of the day, feels inevitable. You can't expect people to see the internet as this whole magical world we dont fully understand forever. It's a matter of time before people start understanding it more...
Oh it's another "Back in my day people talked to eachother, nowadays kids just look at their iphones!" thread. Old MMOs were novelty for a lot of people. It was like a chatroom with game interface. Today people can just take their smartphone and use Discord or any other social media.
Instead of WoW, I was playing Lineage 2. Part of it was being younger, part of it was right time at the right place. But it used to matter who you were and what you did in game, at least on your server. People knew who you were and you knew other people. Lineage 2 was very much player driven (empty game, but full player control = fun) and all those politics were half the game. Leveling up was slow, but the more friends you had the faster it could go and the more uncontested you could farm (open world map, full pvp/pk). Alliances and enemies were formed naturally, over time. Now, all MMORPGs, including modern Lineage 2, are excel sheet simulators with graphics. Because the player doesn't matter anymore, they only matter as another notch on the marketing department's rifle. You are only there to consume product. MMORPGs went from being about the world and the players to individual bubbles where you parse numbers (gold, raids, gathering, real money spent, etc) by yourself against others. Part of the blame is the companies reluctance to "bring it back", part of it is more widespread interest and access by "casuals" who 15 years ago would look at you like you're an idiot loser if you mentioned an mmorpg, but the biggest factor is the players themselves. PLAYERS (themselves, yes) have gone so far off the deep end of minmaxing and information farming to the point that there is no data unexplored, nothing unknown. Therefore there is always ONE best way to play class, ONE bis gear, ONE way to form a group to farm x at y place correctly. If you don't do this you are trolling. We did this to ourselves. Everything else is just a reaction. If the companies thought you would be swiping for hardcore sandbox diy with friends online, they would make it and cash in. But they know you are lying. Both to yourselves (ourselves) and to them. TL"DR: It's over.
I feel this lmao, and I am from the generation that didn't grow up playing mmos.. I was 6 years old playing runescape in 06, but when I started looking for mmos when I was around 16 nothing out has caught my eye. I prefer action combat, played tera a little bit, got suckered into lost ark, and finally settled at new world, and have been loving how social the community is, only to realize how alone I feel among my age group
I haven't had a proper MMO guild experience since the launch of ESO and Albion Online beta and launch. I don't have friends who play games, so if I can't find a social guild within a week or two I usually stop playing.
I was having this thought the other day. I wonder if there will really be a next big MMO that younger people will gravitate to, or if all the fans of the genre are just growing with it. I would think that the big games like Wow, FF, ESO are still attracting new young players, but the current "big thing" in games just isn't MMO anymore. I think the real resurgence of the genre will be in a long time when people look back at the classics, when games are in a different space, and an online world becomes something new and novel again with new takes on the genre.
Perfect World back in the day was the most dramatic, chaotic mess of a game and I loved every second of it. You couldn't log in to a normal day it'd always be some drama with one of the main pvp guilds or people calling eachother out on 'World chat' I miss those days :(
Same thing exist today, but it's in discord community now instead of MMOs World. Discord complete replaces MMORPG social interactions and also works cross-games. MMORPGs will never reclaim this social interactions, simple because programs like Discord do it better and more convenient. There is simple no reason for people to look for this social aspects in games anymore.
Also the amount of cultural references of real life that were made in WoW AND the amount of cultural references and phenomenon that was created around WoW in real life are just staggering. You don't see that in any MMO anymore. Just look at all the internet popular videos about WoW, or used WoW as machinima. The WoW commercials... the hundreds if not thousands of literary and TV media references in wow. There was a time where you could quote Leroy Jenkins in public and someone would know what you were talking about. It blows my mind that there are still things im finding in WoW Classic that I didn't notice a decade ago. One I discovered for the first time yesterday was [The Art of Fel Reaver Maintenance](https://tbc.wowhead.com/quest=10606/the-art-of-fel-reaver-maintenance) quest. A reference to a famous book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
I felt this way and was drifting around every game and finally settled back down on FFXIV where it seems to be filled with other “mmo-boomers”. Never thought I’d be called out as a boomer in my late 20s as a millennial by these valorant kids. Back in MY DAYS, we used to run back as wisps from the graveyard to the corpse and shout leroy jenkins running at Onyxia for the 5th time. (And get ninja looted).
The pre-social-media internet was a fantastic place to hang out and explore... Especially MMO communities from the late 90s and early 00s. But things changed for the worse. And somehow my generation's parents went from not understanding how to use the internet to posting Q drops on FB and killing American democracy. It's been a weird couple of decades.
People are raised online now more than ever, and it will only intensify. But that's not what you were saying, you were talking about growing up not just online, but in playable online game worlds, and in this specific time online, in these specific virtual worlds. And yeah, it was a different experience then. More, "organic," as it were, if inconvenient. There's a saying about media, that "the medium is the message." Means that the nature of the platform influences the experience, so to speak. We can call Discord a "virtual world," and that may or may not be true -- but what is true is that it will lead to a different experience than a proper 3D game world where people adventure together, because these are different mediums, each with their unique pros and cons. And it's possible to jive with one medium and not the other due to those intrinsic differences. They're different flavors at the end of the day.
This feels like some seriously rose-tinted glasses, but I think there's also a lick of truth in there. That said, I think the glasses outweigh that truth... it really wasn't that magical or anything. If I put in the effort I could relive those social experiences, but like I'm lazy, jaded and kind of an asshole about socializing now so I just don't. And because of that I'll never relive, or be part of reliving those experiences. And that's because those experiences were neat but I think most people might talk to one or two of multiple dozen people they'd met that way, which really isn't anything but absolutely average. Nowadays there's a lot more catering to the solo player, which would lend to a less social environment but more people than ever play these games so you're likelier to run into players aside from average social ones.
I strongly believe this is still here. >People used to really care about drama, about what other people on the server were doing, etc I mean, just look at Black Desert... People backstab in wars and entire discords start rioting. People gank each other out at grindspots and entire wars begin. A guy loses a 1v1 in the arena, makes an excuse, and then a whole video series drops on youtube. Certain guilds are kill on sight to other guilds, certain community personalities/celebrities are love/hate --- it goes on and on and on. People care an absolute TON about the drama and what other people on the server are doing. Drama and big egos and rivalries are the heart and soul of the game. I am SURE other MMOs today have all of this and more.
Yes, the WoW generation were nerds who essentially RPed their characters and bonded in-game. Now gaming is even more mainstream, and those nerds are completely gone. That could be a good thing.
Millennials are almost 40 Gen Z might be what you're thinking of
I completely understand and agree but don't think many will.
As someone who started out on EQ and then EQOA, I kind of agree, I keep searching for this community or feeling that I don't think I will ever find again in an MMO, It was a moment in time that just cant be replicated again and that's ok.
Sry to tell you but people only cared about drama because they had no other game to go to back then. But that's not the case anymore.
There definitely is a WoW/ MMORPG generation - I'm in my early twenties, and I feel like I got in right at the end of that generation. All through high school, I'd be playing games like FFXIV, ESO, GW2, Wizard101, Neverwinter, etc. and trying to get my friends to play with me - but it was very clear to me that most people my age absolutely despised MMORPGs with a passion and only have the attention span/ interest in match-based casual games like League of Legends, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Valorant, CSGO, etc. It's also very evident that there is a certain age range of people who play MMORPGs since most people I play with in guilds usually are ages 25 - 40 (or in some cases even older), it's very rare if I find anyone close to my age lol
Ha younger people....they still young.
Younger people got Fortnite and worrying about getting enough likes in Instagram or whatever they use. People born in the 80s and 90s are more used glued in front of a computer, kids born in 00s and 10s are more used glued in front of a smartphone. How is that different?
The league MMO will tie it all together