This is a generation thing?
I feel like the RTS genre has taken such a hit since the 90s heyday. People don’t appreciate a good long form slow build Age of Empires or Warcraft 3 match anymore. Its all that twitchy DOTA nonsense.
no, it all went to hell when we started seeing Koreans play and realized we were all terrible at these games. ladder started to fill with people who were super sweaty about it.
also this is more personal for me but Jesus the micromanaging sucked ass. i am currently commanding an army to expand my territory; why am I also telling each individual idiot to cut down trees to have wood available? shouldn’t you have figured this out by now?
this is why i loved games where this part was either cut (like c&c) or the people were at least smart about these things (like settlers 1&2, even though i liked being a peaceful settlement rather than engage in wars in those games)
why am I also telling each individual idiot to cut down trees to have wood available? shouldn’t you have figured this out by now?
Later iterations of the RTS genre resolved that to some degree or another. Or just got rid of it entirely. Total Annihilation just had you building resource collectors on appropriate squares and then you were off to the races.
it all went to hell when we started seeing Koreans play and realized we were all terrible at these games
A lot of that was overblown anyway. When you actually start looking at the international competitive scene, Americans and other Euro-types did just fine. It was seeing any combination of non-Latin alphabetic characters that drove people insane, even if the competition wasn’t particularly fierce.
But Americans being racist is nothing new. Anybody playing CoD could tell you about it.
Honestly never understood the appeal of multiplayer as an older Gen-Z. I guess it’s like sports, some people just like the spirit of competition.
Sports are an example of where I need multiplayer. The only way they can make Madden against the computer hard is by making opponents just arbitrarily blow through tackles, making (bad) opposing QBs have magic awareness of the field and silly accuracy, etc.
Playing other humans online allows a level playing field (well, if I didn’t use the Patriots this year) and makes the chess match of play calling actually meaningful. I can disguise my looks and mix up play calls and have it actually cause confusion, instead of having the computer complete unaware of context.
Also humans are much more interesting due to the variability of styles. Like boys tend to become predictable, as would be the case if you played the same humans every time…but having different humans makes the competition much more entertaining.
Yeah if you don’t like team sports you’ll never get it
Exactly. I like and play sports a lot, I get my competition there. I didn’t need it in my games.
I’m old enough that some of the PC games I grew up playing came on a CD.
In fact, I’m old enough to remember before when CD became a tag for cross dressing on Pornhub!
“You youngins think you’re pro gamers‽ I’ve forgotten more PC games than y’all have put your hands on!”
I’m old enough that some of the PC games I grew up playing came on a CD.
As someone who remembers installing games with ten 5 1/4" floppy disks - ouch.
Game code came in a magazine, written in BASIC, and you had to transcribe onto the computer… Sometimes multiple pages of it.
I found that surprisingly fun considering how young I was. The issue was I didn’t have the room for more than 1 game most of the time, so I had to redo that every time.
There are some things I don’t really miss though, as fun as they were at the time.
Pfft I have 50 plus 5-1/4" disks for an Atari computer from 86… It still works, I fired it up a couple years ago!
My problem is that the computer is pretty stupid in most games, especially in strategy or similar genres. In more difficult settings the computer usually only have more resources or some buffs but is not a better player. Even in 2024, they can’t manage to program a decent AI. It often kills the fun for me.
I used to like multiplayer back when there was a larger community element. Now no one uses their mic and the lobby changes every match so I’m basically just playing against bots anyway.
A few friends and I are planning a 90s lan. Simple rules like no games published after 2001-08-23, no internet, only self-hosted servers, and all shit talking must be out loud. Also shit talking must be kid safe since we’re all old and have kids old enough to be competent but young enough we don’t want to teach them the true art of shit talking.
This sounds like an insane amount of fun. The only thing more fun than a LAN as a kid, is a LAN when you’re 40 and can afford top tier snacks. And you have kids to be waiters
My kids are teenagers now. Teaching them the true art of shit-talking has been a pleasure.
My youngest kicking my ass at every fucking game we play has not been.
“but daaad, we just want to chill, can’t we play and not be toxic to others?”
raises hand
“YOU WILL TEABAG YOUR SCHOOLFRIEND SO HELP ME GOD”
Reject modernity, embrace tradition - we’re still be there for you in the arena and boomer shooter crowd, and of course, various Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 lobbies.
Come prepared.
I’ve been playing a lot of Red Alert 2 lately which has similar vibes as well
There is something beautiful in TF2 kicking off the whole cosmetic microtransactions/lootbox industry, then sitting back and continuing to be a fun community game for the next decade.
This hits hard. I still remember joining the same 3 cs servers and befriending the people there. Good times.
And you might actually be playing against bots, depending on the game.
Back when servers were hosted and you had a little community of maybe 200 people who would cycle in and out.
I met some lifelong friends in those servers.
I want to do more than win a match, I want to beat the game. You can’t beat multiplayer.
Also, singleplayer exists to entertain me personally. I can pause, quit, restart, mod, cheat, and engage in completely counterproductive nonsense whenever I like. I don’t have to worry about game balance, fairness and making sure the computer has fun.
Also, while I’m sure a majority of people in multiplayer aren’t assholes, it can seem that way when the assholes are the only ones who do anything but silently play the game.
This is their personal preference and has nothing to do with their generation
As an “elder Millennial,” who do you think drove traffic on WoW, Half Life, Halo, COD, etc?
I just don’t like hyper competitive games. I don’t have time to get frustrated.
I like single player games where I have the option to change things I don’t like via mods or console commands.
Like competitive games, but I don’t like overly competitive people. At the end of the day, win or lose, it’s still a video game and it should be fun. Competitive games with friends who understand that and don’t get tilted can be great fun, even when you’re on a losing streak.
I don’t mind competitive games, just not the crazy competitive ones. TF2 is a great example - fun, casual, PvP. Tarkov is probably my least favorite - hyper competitive, huge losses if you die, big incentive to cheat.
It’s a shame that Tarkov is what it is, because I love shooters and it’s probably the best of them, mechanics wise.
Just dropping in, in case you haven’t heard about it: Single player Tarkov exists, and is very fun! It obviously won’t have the same reactions and interactions as humans, but they’re emulated pretty damn well with some additional mods.
Yup, I’ve played it plenty! I even tried setting up a server with Project Fika but for some reason I couldn’t get it going.
There is PVE Tarkov now. You have the option to play with other people in your team. But only if you want to. Don’t know what they ask for it atm.
PvE Tarkov doesn’t allow you to modify server side things, like insurance return times and whatnot.
insurance return time
I’m sorry what kind of game is this?
Haha it’s a game called Escape from Tarkov.
It’s a hardcore extraction shooter. Whatever you bring in to a raid will be lost when you die. If you manage to extract, you can keep whatever loot you found - whether it spawned in the world or you took it from a dead player.
The gear you bring in can be “insured” by vendors. Usually it’s a 24 hour real-world timer if you die with that gear. Even then, the gear that you insure has another filter before it gets returned: Other players and scavengers can take it.
The “lore” of the game explains the insurance return as a deal between the vendors and the scavengers in the area. The vendors
The best games of Counter-Strike (the old one, before CSGO) I ever played were with friends in pub matches. Competitive is fun, but 32 player poolday? That’s the best experience you can have.
Now I’m all about co-op games or single player. I’ve been top scorer in FPS’, I know it’s a thrill, but it’s not as fun as losing with your friends.
Even if I lose a round in Xonotic I still have fun cause i still played
Like competitive games, but I don’t like overly competitive people.
I wish competitive games did a better job not only matching people of similar skill, but similar personalities. I know it’s just a bunch of pixels and numbers in a screen, why do you keep pairing me with these chuds that have no emotional maturity?
Some games have an option to search for a like-minded party type and it really should be a standard option.
I find that to be the main issue with SBMM. The lobby system, in my experience, creates a better sense of progression against your enemies. If you don’t like who you’re playing with, you join a new session. If you do like them, you can stay as long as you want.
I remember playing Overwatch and getting super angry about every single match, and then that Reggie quote “If it’s not fun, why bother?” popped up in my head and I just stopped playing. Probably one of the last times I ever touched “competitive” games.
I love being able to pause when my son needs something too
I don’t play a lot of multiplayer, but I love co-op. That’s why my favorite game to play online is Monster Hunter. Lets beef at the computer together
As a mid-50’s genXer I wholeheartedly agree.
Also mid 50 gen-x’er. Completely agree.
When I read this, I definitely pictured Gen X or elder millennial first.
There’s a reason xennials sometimes get call the Oregon trail gen
TIL that millenials are just Gen X nerds.
Started out on my Dad’s Atari 2600, and other than PvE WoW and a couple odd games, I never bothered with multiplayer as most apparently know it. The few times I set my flag to PvP in WoW taught me all I needed to know about it.
I was the opposite. I started playing wow not realizing there were different servers and just joined the one my buddy was on…when I got to the pvp point I realized that I couldn’t attack the horde players and was like “wtf is this shit?” And rerolled onto a pvp server. Lol
For me, always has been
Do all the shit-ass logistics I have to do to get people together for a night out, and then not go out? Or, play with a bunch of strangers, more than a few of whom are insufferable dicks? Hey, gfy on both counts.
My number one Gen X trait is having to wear reading glasses to play video games on my PC
