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I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
131–140 of 340 posts
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#132I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Yeah, there's a lot more content to consume now. However, it doesn't feel like a community... it feels more like watching reruns on TBS. I remember making actual friends on message boards. Friends I eventually met in the real world. I don't think relationships like that are really formed anymore. Most of social media now is a broadcast, not a conversation. People (m…
Join a discord server for a relatively niche interest that you have and not only will you meet many others with similarly deep interest in a water cooler format but you will be able to work on your hobby much more effectively with a close community of like minded people. Discord is a place that still has conversations and communities, not broadcasts and celebrities.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
In terms of gaming, it's also the result of a shift from dedicated servers to matchmaking algorithms. On dedicated servers, a community of 'regulars' forms through repeated interactions. Modern matchmaking is a more disposable approach - here's a set of players that you'll be up against for 10 minutes, and then you'll never see them again.
And leads to "toxic" behavior. If you behaved poorly in a dedicated server environment you could be banned from multiple servers in one go as each clan might host multiple servers. Eventually all that would be left for those people would be a handful of lawless servers, enough threat of punishment to deter shitty behavior, not enough of an impetus to buy a new cd key and reimpose yourself on others. In practice, most…
Going down the rabbit hole a bit further, I was always a bit pissed off with the 'match at exact skill level' method.
The best thing I ever did to progress in skill in a game was to play with/against people far better than me. I don't want to learn how to beat people who are only as good as I am; I want to learn the techniques and skills to beat the people who are at the top of the game.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#134I think we’re missing out on the weird and the unique. Reddit/Twitter does have massive streams of content, but they’re all pretty homogenous, and both sites have their own pretty homogenous etiquette rules. Back then every site was an amateur attempt with a bizarre design and a community of obsessive weirdos because only obsessive weirdos were posting online, and posting without learning the unspoken rules and celebrities of the community would get you destroyed. Messing with the rules and winding up the ‘big name posters’ could be hilarious, because it actually affected the community.
Now ‘content’ is pretty much just memes. Memes are ‘weird’ but they’re homogenised, structured weird. They (well, image macros - we didn’t have the word meme then) were mostly banned on SA because they encouraged such crappy low effort repetitive content. Now the timewasting internet is 99% that.
SA used to be amazing but over time they’ve banned or devalued more and more of what I thought was worthwhile about the site (effortposts, obsessive stalkers who would dig up incredible things about other posters, the absolutely crap but bigname fiction posters, anyone who doesn’t talk like they’re posting on Twitter) and now GBS is literally just discussing Reddit content.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the key distinction is the concept of "place". TF2 has (or had) a concept of "place" in the form of named servers. That made it possible to encounter the same stranger repeatedly over time. In contrast, Overwatch wants you to already know and specify your friends into their social-media graph and group up before going to a random/anonymous/ephemeral location. So you seldom knowingly encounter the same strange…
With games like Destiny, "placeless" MMOs are already starting to become a thing.
Same with GTA Online.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is pretty much how I felt as a long-time TF2 player super excited for Overwatch to come out, and then very sad once I realized what kind of game it was. You grab your friends and play Overwatch, while you play TF2 and meet your friends. And also a parallel, TF2 obviously still exists, but all of the servers I used to play on are gone now. Haven’t found anything else quite yet. FFXIV actually was super enjoyable…
I think the key distinction is the concept of "place". TF2 has (or had) a concept of "place" in the form of named servers. That made it possible to encounter the same stranger repeatedly over time. In contrast, Overwatch wants you to already know and specify your friends into their social-media graph and group up before going to a random/anonymous/ephemeral location. So you seldom knowingly encounter the same strange…
“Places” is exactly how I think of making new friends in adulthood irl.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#137I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Yeah, there's a lot more content to consume now. However, it doesn't feel like a community... it feels more like watching reruns on TBS. I remember making actual friends on message boards. Friends I eventually met in the real world. I don't think relationships like that are really formed anymore. Most of social media now is a broadcast, not a conversation. People (m…
Join a discord server for a relatively niche interest that you have and not only will you meet many others with similarly deep interest in a water cooler format but you will be able to work on your hobby much more effectively with a close community of like minded people. Discord is a place that still has conversations and communities, not broadcasts and celebrities.
Or go with good old IRC.
In my experience on Discord you only find absolutely toxic communities, which is not very surprising, considering it's the casual equivalent of IRC.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Join a discord server for a relatively niche interest that you have and not only will you meet many others with similarly deep interest in a water cooler format but you will be able to work on your hobby much more effectively with a close community of like minded people. Discord is a place that still has conversations and communities, not broadcasts and celebrities.
Or go with good old IRC. In my experience on Discord you only find absolutely toxic communities, which is not very surprising, considering it's the casual equivalent of IRC.
What's 'toxic'?
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#139I think a lot of people here are missing the point. Yeah, there's a lot more content to consume now. However, it doesn't feel like a community... it feels more like watching reruns on TBS. I remember making actual friends on message boards. Friends I eventually met in the real world. I don't think relationships like that are really formed anymore. Most of social media now is a broadcast, not a conversation. People (m…
Join a discord server for a relatively niche interest that you have and not only will you meet many others with similarly deep interest in a water cooler format but you will be able to work on your hobby much more effectively with a close community of like minded people. Discord is a place that still has conversations and communities, not broadcasts and celebrities.
Yes, I consider Discord to be the best place to meet people. When I start a multiplayer game, I always try to find a channel where people meet to find others to play. People usually talk about others subjects at the same time and you will speak with the same persons, so it's easier to have friendly relationships.
Re: I Don’t Know How to Waste Time on the Internet Anymore
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is pretty much how I felt as a long-time TF2 player super excited for Overwatch to come out, and then very sad once I realized what kind of game it was. You grab your friends and play Overwatch, while you play TF2 and meet your friends. And also a parallel, TF2 obviously still exists, but all of the servers I used to play on are gone now. Haven’t found anything else quite yet. FFXIV actually was super enjoyable…
This is a thing that's bugged me for a long time: the death of dedicated game servers. Game servers had to be run by communities, and they were gateways and feeding grounds for those communities. However, games don't typically use dedicated servers anymore; they use matchmaking. You're right -- matchmaking means you gather your friends first. More insidiously, it means you probably won't see the same players again, a…
That's good and bad.
Good: You can finally play the game as it was meant to be. You could not find a decent server in CS 1.6 where you could play 5v5. You need additional sites/communities/XYZ (e.g. ESL) to play it. Similar with TF2 in the early days. Also, bad admins can't kick you anymore because you use a weapon they don't like. I could forgive such behaviour, but as games introduced some leveling or other statistic stuff, I can't. Just make your server unranked (nobody playing on these).
Bad: No sense of community. Like you said, you need friends first. Reports for cheating are useless, as you won't see that person again anyway.