I don’t know if it’s aging or just seeing the world around, but I’m with you. My gaming time is down 80% the last few years. I learned a lot from Covid clownery, and moving on from hiding behind escapism is one of those things. Why not use that effort to try to make less reason to want to escape? It’s going to be a different plan for everyone, but for me I put that time in either building family relationships or learning and enhancing skills. In a fun way though, it’s fun hanging out with nephews and cousins and I get to try to rub off some sanity on the future generation.. Or, if I’m working on skills, maybe I’m building something, maybe I’m on the computer developing something, but always learning. Video games for me now are just something to do the last hour or two of the day when it’s dark outside and I’m winding down for bed. It’s not a lifestyle anymore.
This is true. Funnily enough most of the friends I've made online are also dads with very right wing beliefs and it's good to hang with them. Sadly most folks around me don't seem as based.
I occasionally play games with friends, but 95% of the time even that is online play just within our group (coop and the like). I also only play with people I know in person, or their friends, most of which I've at least met once or twice anyway. I haven't talked to an internet random in a video game since WoW Cataclysm in 2011, and I typically turn off any chat features entirely when I am online. I have no energy to waste on the scum that permeates online gaming now.
It's a classic strategy game where the AI poses no threat and can't play by the game's own rules.
Every DLC release added a new layer of half-baked game mechanic complexity , introducing another new system that the AI can't command & forcing the player to adopt their own house rules.
I do agree that the base game is likely the most "challenging" AI-wise, but even calling it half-decent is being way too charitable.
The problem since launch with Civ 6 is that the AI poses no military threat whatsoever beyond the opening era of the game on higher levels when they start with Turn 1 extra units.
Which is simply unforgivable for a franchise whose entire meta is all out war.
Enemy pathfinding is the worst nowadays in so many games. It's to the point where I'm pleasantly surprised when I can't just trick their AI into the most obvious killzone ever.
I’m from Texas. It’s Mexicans here. It’s been Mexicans here for many years.
I do play some Forza. Horizon has been going down each entry since 3. 5 is at best a DLC for 4. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to suggest that every new entry of a game series has to be revolutionary. I’m all in on if something is fun, more of the same is fine. The problem is it’s “less” more of the same. They got so freaking lazy. Even their rally DLC in FH5, look it’s more dirt and cactus! You didn’t have enough of that already! Forza Horizon 6 would have to blow my mind for me to be in on it, I’ve lost interest and shunned Microsoft since the launch of 5.
Seriously though, almost everything I play (outside of Forza I suppose, although it doesn’t get much time anymore) is either Indie-to-AA level online stuff to screw around in a bit with friends, or old stuff I have mostly on GOG. I’ve been replaying Doom 3 recently. It doesn’t feel old after a handful of years. I’ll probably get my hands on Dead Space on PC soon, I haven’t played through it in several years. Still have the Xbox version, but eh I’m starting to abandon that platform, so we will see.
I’m a huge fan of let’s say 2005-era 3D graphics. Enough level of detail to put me in place, not so much it has to be as much work. Before the PS3 era came along and made everything sepia. I also liked how much more time was spent on environmental lighting. Not that it had to be realistic, that means nothing to me. It gave areas a feel. They also had to make the game fun because otherwise it wasn’t much to look at.
I mean you’re right, the reason I never manage to finish a game is always the graphics, I don’t like doing graphics. I actually have a few things I think I can finish in mind now, but life happens at times and I can’t dedicate much time to it for a bit. Nothing revolutionary but it would be cool to actually release a game.
I haven't bought anything new for a while, I stopped playing R6 seige years ago because it got WAY too sweaty to being unfun to play.
I was interested in Helldivers 2 till Sony fucked it up, the main multiplayer I play is Warframe as despite some lefty pandering (they are based in Canada) they don't screw over their players as they came close to screwing up years ago but ever since they made one Dev called Pablo creative director I've gotten so many quality of life and fun updates that I've been happy to keep playing.
A lot of FPS multiplayers lost their charm for me years ago as they seem infected too much with the 'wring out every cent' mentality for their player base and too sweaty a mentality for playing it. I just wish I could have AC multiplayer again so that I can have a competitive game where patience and observation is rewarded more over pixel shots.
Online games are a scam, you're literally paying for a "loicense" that can be taken for you for any reason (i.e saying niggerfaggot in chat)
and if its not interwoven into the official servers, it will be interwoven into private owned servers like in Hell let Loose (i said nigger once in response to getting teamkilled and bam i'm banned from 3 servers owned by the same bloke)
its not that different from other games, the censorship is either baked into the game itself or into the server
i miss the days when i can just casually drop N-bombs on Halo 3 and recieve them in kind, the gaming industry is too fucking gay, even Dota 2 had a new (((Algorithm))) that insta mutes you if you say bad words, and mind you it was one most "toxic" games on steam for nigh a decade, until last year...
yeah its servers with baked in Discord & Twitch features
thankfully, i use neither but i had to use Discord one time for accessing a single player mod for Stalker Anomaly (Stalker GAMMA) and one of the troon devs (not kidding he had a faggot tranny flag any everything) banned me for having an "offensive" username dispite not saying a single fucking word while being on the server
when the trannies take over modding projects, then its the real death knell
Afaik, GAMMA and most STALKER mods are on Moddb, not Nexus. It's one of the main reasons GAMMA uses its own installer to streamline the process. If it was on Nexus or the Steam workshop it would've just gone with said host's built-in mod collection approach instead.
There's no camaraderie in multiplayer games anymore. Third-party servers and server browsers are dead. There is only matchmaking controlled by algorithms made by developers who don't play their own games. All you get are retards that you'll never see again. Once the skill-based matchmaking algorithm decides you're winning too much with your current team, it'll decide to shuffle everyone around. When you solo queue, you're effectively a glorified bot for someone else to have fun in the game. The anticheat becomes more invasive, yet the cheaters remain. Reporting does nothing. Ban waves come in months later, when the game is near-dead and the publisher needs to pump up the player count for the next quarterly investor meeting. The cheaters come back after the next Steam sale.
Yup, I've put less than 100 hours of csgo/cs2 in the past 5 years because devs forget adults who don't watch e-sports or buy skins exist. Because of the type of person that buys cheats, a competitive shooter is in a catch-22. Go niche and reduce revenue to attract a self-selecting audience, or go big and get all the human NPCs (who Eternal September organic indie successes) and tech-illiterates that can't bother to install hacks in a VM or seperate machine.
The games industry is part of the ivory tower bi-coastal elite. It's infested with DEI hires and functions as an epicenter for the feminist-diversity racket. It's the same reason why the Linux community is a clown parade of circus freaks.
Left-progressives are notoriously intolerant towards wrongthink. Your response should be the same.
I never ditched online gaming. Online gaming ditched me.
They killed community servers. In the rare cases you can get a community server, you have to pay for the pleasure of renting one monthly, instead of it just being a headless machine at your home that you could set up with software that came on the game disc. Then in some games, you have to be vetted to be a good boy on a server you are paying for, and abide by their rules, or some easily offended jerk can get your server rights revoked.
They're chasing the perpetually online GAAS treadmill style of game, and have an in game shop to help cut down on the amount of time it gets to get [X] while doing everything in their power to make playing the game obnoxious until you pay.
Phone games had this market cornered so I'm told, and now it's infecting real games.
This isn't even getting into the fact that the people who used to make the games I love are now old enough to retire, and have. So there's no reason for me to even consider a new game unless a bunch of friends are playing it. My steam wish list has a bunch of older titles and indie titles in it to remind me about their release, so I can watch and wait to make sure DEI and censorship didn't kill it for the modern audience.
Very few games made in the last 5 years are drop in drop out co-op like Saints Row 3 and 4, for example. That is the exact thing I am looking for, and aside from a group of indie games, you just can't find that.
That's why I like steam so much. It has been an absolute godsend with remote play. I can get a game for a few bucks, or a friend can, and we can play together, even if we're across country. It might not be couch co-op, but it's as close as internet play together can be.
I bought an XBox Series X (an upgrade from my Xbox One S) in the midst of Covid with the plan of doing some more gaming and... I haven't touched it in nearly 3 years now.
None of the games out there are even worth looking at.
If you had told younger self me that I'd become disenchanted with playing video games...
I ditched team-based and solo online quite a while ago now. It's pretty much exclusively limited to co-op, and even that is a rarity for me.
Multiplayer became shit because of the emphasis on matchmaking and public servers. Private servers allowed for self-moderation (or the lack thereof if you preferred) and was infinitely better for nearly everyone. Did you want an unironically good Christian server that didn't allow swearing? It probably existed. You want one where you can troll to your hearts content? It existed. Wanted a try-hard server? You bet those existed too.
The only type of person matchmaking benefits are those delusional enough to believe the algorithm works in matching them up with others. But the hard truth is that it never does. You will never get a skin-head and a feminist to get along online. It simply doesn't happen. But matchmaking says we should put these two in a lobby and surely this will work out.
The end of the private server as the default is the biggest hit to the health of the online gaming landscape, and nothing will change my mind.
Damn, if it weren't for the month long friend waiting period I'd be begging right now. I love the late beta stage of F2P games, it's the least cancerous they will ever be.
I still play the hell out of Hunt:Showdown with my friends tho. That's about the only mp game I play. I'm currently doing a Witcher 3 playthrough again on PC, and then I'll be playing Ghost of Tsushima (again, but on PC now)
Pm me if wanna group up on hunt on steam? I play nae a lot and play with some pretty based guys but always looking for cool people that enjoy some good racism banter.
What's funny is that the most fun and engaging "online game" I've played in a decade was Sea of Thieves and that game is famous for having literally nothing to do in it besides make up your own adventure. Its got its seasonal battlepass but that literally flies to max level playing any part of it. I even bought a few cosmetics because after a few hundreds hours I felt I could toss the devs a few dollars since I got the game for 10$.
Its really that simple. Make a game I enjoy playing and I'll convince myself to give you more money.
college digital items all day (I assume this is a typo for "collect")
Speak for yourself nigger. I fucking love collecting in games. I 100% complete Donkey Kong 64 every few years and would kill for that style of game to come back. I grind achievements and collect every bullshit irrelevant skin or whatever the game has available as long as it doesn't require direct currency (I'll grind to get X Coins that are also buyable if the rate isn't laughably bad).
That is part of the joy of a game for me and them doing it badly doesn't suddenly make the entire baby worth throwing out with their garbage bathwater.
Frankly, I'm starting to just get bored with fictional, imaginary, and simulated amusements in general.
And not just because of the drop in quality over the years, but simply me realizing how goofy, wasteful, immaterial, and utterly life consuming it truly is.
Or maybe I've just not been achieving the proper balance. It's all too easy to end up gorging on even a healthy "gourmet" game, to the point to where you've been taking reality for granted.
Playing with squeakers (kids) was always a red flag that you were about to have an awful time, and now kids are dumber and more arrogant than ever. So many games are toxic by default just because they don't do enough to make griefing difficult. Unless a game has a devout following after a few years which tends to favor good team play after the tards have got tired of it (think Deep Rock Galactic), then fuck it.
I took a long break, but got back into it when Apex Legends came out. I played the shit out of Apex until about a year ago. It went the way of every shooter where they kept releasing new legends who were increasingly OP (gotta sell those skins) and just generally started going to shit.
I miss the competition and getting my heart pumping trying to clutch up, but for now I'm sticking with Starcraft 2 and an older golf game I have.
I think I never played any western multiplayer title except dark age of camelot mmorpg. Duke Nukem 64 and Halo in splitscreen with friends, but first person online shooters or mobas never interested me or other western mmorpgs. Played some asian mmos 15 years ago and ds3 invading but despite that only singleplayer games. And yeah maybe hearthstone a few weeks but thats barely multiplayer...
I don’t know if it’s aging or just seeing the world around, but I’m with you. My gaming time is down 80% the last few years. I learned a lot from Covid clownery, and moving on from hiding behind escapism is one of those things. Why not use that effort to try to make less reason to want to escape? It’s going to be a different plan for everyone, but for me I put that time in either building family relationships or learning and enhancing skills. In a fun way though, it’s fun hanging out with nephews and cousins and I get to try to rub off some sanity on the future generation.. Or, if I’m working on skills, maybe I’m building something, maybe I’m on the computer developing something, but always learning. Video games for me now are just something to do the last hour or two of the day when it’s dark outside and I’m winding down for bed. It’s not a lifestyle anymore.
This is true. Funnily enough most of the friends I've made online are also dads with very right wing beliefs and it's good to hang with them. Sadly most folks around me don't seem as based.
I've been out for several years now.
I occasionally play games with friends, but 95% of the time even that is online play just within our group (coop and the like). I also only play with people I know in person, or their friends, most of which I've at least met once or twice anyway. I haven't talked to an internet random in a video game since WoW Cataclysm in 2011, and I typically turn off any chat features entirely when I am online. I have no energy to waste on the scum that permeates online gaming now.
Civ 6 is a microcosm of modern game design.
It's a classic strategy game where the AI poses no threat and can't play by the game's own rules.
Every DLC release added a new layer of half-baked game mechanic complexity , introducing another new system that the AI can't command & forcing the player to adopt their own house rules.
I do agree that the base game is likely the most "challenging" AI-wise, but even calling it half-decent is being way too charitable.
The problem since launch with Civ 6 is that the AI poses no military threat whatsoever beyond the opening era of the game on higher levels when they start with Turn 1 extra units.
Which is simply unforgivable for a franchise whose entire meta is all out war.
Enemy pathfinding is the worst nowadays in so many games. It's to the point where I'm pleasantly surprised when I can't just trick their AI into the most obvious killzone ever.
I’m from Texas. It’s Mexicans here. It’s been Mexicans here for many years.
I do play some Forza. Horizon has been going down each entry since 3. 5 is at best a DLC for 4. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to suggest that every new entry of a game series has to be revolutionary. I’m all in on if something is fun, more of the same is fine. The problem is it’s “less” more of the same. They got so freaking lazy. Even their rally DLC in FH5, look it’s more dirt and cactus! You didn’t have enough of that already! Forza Horizon 6 would have to blow my mind for me to be in on it, I’ve lost interest and shunned Microsoft since the launch of 5.
Seriously though, almost everything I play (outside of Forza I suppose, although it doesn’t get much time anymore) is either Indie-to-AA level online stuff to screw around in a bit with friends, or old stuff I have mostly on GOG. I’ve been replaying Doom 3 recently. It doesn’t feel old after a handful of years. I’ll probably get my hands on Dead Space on PC soon, I haven’t played through it in several years. Still have the Xbox version, but eh I’m starting to abandon that platform, so we will see.
I’m a huge fan of let’s say 2005-era 3D graphics. Enough level of detail to put me in place, not so much it has to be as much work. Before the PS3 era came along and made everything sepia. I also liked how much more time was spent on environmental lighting. Not that it had to be realistic, that means nothing to me. It gave areas a feel. They also had to make the game fun because otherwise it wasn’t much to look at.
I mean you’re right, the reason I never manage to finish a game is always the graphics, I don’t like doing graphics. I actually have a few things I think I can finish in mind now, but life happens at times and I can’t dedicate much time to it for a bit. Nothing revolutionary but it would be cool to actually release a game.
I haven't bought anything new for a while, I stopped playing R6 seige years ago because it got WAY too sweaty to being unfun to play.
I was interested in Helldivers 2 till Sony fucked it up, the main multiplayer I play is Warframe as despite some lefty pandering (they are based in Canada) they don't screw over their players as they came close to screwing up years ago but ever since they made one Dev called Pablo creative director I've gotten so many quality of life and fun updates that I've been happy to keep playing.
A lot of FPS multiplayers lost their charm for me years ago as they seem infected too much with the 'wring out every cent' mentality for their player base and too sweaty a mentality for playing it. I just wish I could have AC multiplayer again so that I can have a competitive game where patience and observation is rewarded more over pixel shots.
Not all online but most of the current gen stuff is gay. Private coop with friends for the most part though. way less BS than public servers.
Online games are a scam, you're literally paying for a "loicense" that can be taken for you for any reason (i.e saying niggerfaggot in chat)
and if its not interwoven into the official servers, it will be interwoven into private owned servers like in Hell let Loose (i said nigger once in response to getting teamkilled and bam i'm banned from 3 servers owned by the same bloke)
its not that different from other games, the censorship is either baked into the game itself or into the server
i miss the days when i can just casually drop N-bombs on Halo 3 and recieve them in kind, the gaming industry is too fucking gay, even Dota 2 had a new (((Algorithm))) that insta mutes you if you say bad words, and mind you it was one most "toxic" games on steam for nigh a decade, until last year...
yeah its servers with baked in Discord & Twitch features
thankfully, i use neither but i had to use Discord one time for accessing a single player mod for Stalker Anomaly (Stalker GAMMA) and one of the troon devs (not kidding he had a faggot tranny flag any everything) banned me for having an "offensive" username dispite not saying a single fucking word while being on the server
when the trannies take over modding projects, then its the real death knell
They're already halfway there. They got their hooks in Nexus, which is the primary host for mods, and I'm sure they've infiltrated the competition.
Afaik, GAMMA and most STALKER mods are on Moddb, not Nexus. It's one of the main reasons GAMMA uses its own installer to streamline the process. If it was on Nexus or the Steam workshop it would've just gone with said host's built-in mod collection approach instead.
There's no camaraderie in multiplayer games anymore. Third-party servers and server browsers are dead. There is only matchmaking controlled by algorithms made by developers who don't play their own games. All you get are retards that you'll never see again. Once the skill-based matchmaking algorithm decides you're winning too much with your current team, it'll decide to shuffle everyone around. When you solo queue, you're effectively a glorified bot for someone else to have fun in the game. The anticheat becomes more invasive, yet the cheaters remain. Reporting does nothing. Ban waves come in months later, when the game is near-dead and the publisher needs to pump up the player count for the next quarterly investor meeting. The cheaters come back after the next Steam sale.
I'm not doing it anymore.
Yup, I've put less than 100 hours of csgo/cs2 in the past 5 years because devs forget adults who don't watch e-sports or buy skins exist. Because of the type of person that buys cheats, a competitive shooter is in a catch-22. Go niche and reduce revenue to attract a self-selecting audience, or go big and get all the human NPCs (who Eternal September organic indie successes) and tech-illiterates that can't bother to install hacks in a VM or seperate machine.
The games industry is part of the ivory tower bi-coastal elite. It's infested with DEI hires and functions as an epicenter for the feminist-diversity racket. It's the same reason why the Linux community is a clown parade of circus freaks.
Left-progressives are notoriously intolerant towards wrongthink. Your response should be the same.
I never ditched online gaming. Online gaming ditched me.
They killed community servers. In the rare cases you can get a community server, you have to pay for the pleasure of renting one monthly, instead of it just being a headless machine at your home that you could set up with software that came on the game disc. Then in some games, you have to be vetted to be a good boy on a server you are paying for, and abide by their rules, or some easily offended jerk can get your server rights revoked.
They're chasing the perpetually online GAAS treadmill style of game, and have an in game shop to help cut down on the amount of time it gets to get [X] while doing everything in their power to make playing the game obnoxious until you pay.
Phone games had this market cornered so I'm told, and now it's infecting real games.
This isn't even getting into the fact that the people who used to make the games I love are now old enough to retire, and have. So there's no reason for me to even consider a new game unless a bunch of friends are playing it. My steam wish list has a bunch of older titles and indie titles in it to remind me about their release, so I can watch and wait to make sure DEI and censorship didn't kill it for the modern audience.
Very few games made in the last 5 years are drop in drop out co-op like Saints Row 3 and 4, for example. That is the exact thing I am looking for, and aside from a group of indie games, you just can't find that.
That's why I like steam so much. It has been an absolute godsend with remote play. I can get a game for a few bucks, or a friend can, and we can play together, even if we're across country. It might not be couch co-op, but it's as close as internet play together can be.
I bought an XBox Series X (an upgrade from my Xbox One S) in the midst of Covid with the plan of doing some more gaming and... I haven't touched it in nearly 3 years now.
None of the games out there are even worth looking at.
If you had told younger self me that I'd become disenchanted with playing video games...
I ditched team-based and solo online quite a while ago now. It's pretty much exclusively limited to co-op, and even that is a rarity for me.
Multiplayer became shit because of the emphasis on matchmaking and public servers. Private servers allowed for self-moderation (or the lack thereof if you preferred) and was infinitely better for nearly everyone. Did you want an unironically good Christian server that didn't allow swearing? It probably existed. You want one where you can troll to your hearts content? It existed. Wanted a try-hard server? You bet those existed too.
The only type of person matchmaking benefits are those delusional enough to believe the algorithm works in matching them up with others. But the hard truth is that it never does. You will never get a skin-head and a feminist to get along online. It simply doesn't happen. But matchmaking says we should put these two in a lobby and surely this will work out.
The end of the private server as the default is the biggest hit to the health of the online gaming landscape, and nothing will change my mind.
Yes. Couldn't give two shits about online games. Single player or GTFO.
Megacorps have been poor generally for RTS games and more niche games.
In other news, Shapez 2 came out and so did Sins of a Solar Empire 2. Indie autists know how to make the games I want.
Well, currently my friend invited me to play deadlock so...
Damn, if it weren't for the month long friend waiting period I'd be begging right now. I love the late beta stage of F2P games, it's the least cancerous they will ever be.
I abandoned a lot of it.
I still play the hell out of Hunt:Showdown with my friends tho. That's about the only mp game I play. I'm currently doing a Witcher 3 playthrough again on PC, and then I'll be playing Ghost of Tsushima (again, but on PC now)
Pm me if wanna group up on hunt on steam? I play nae a lot and play with some pretty based guys but always looking for cool people that enjoy some good racism banter.
What's funny is that the most fun and engaging "online game" I've played in a decade was Sea of Thieves and that game is famous for having literally nothing to do in it besides make up your own adventure. Its got its seasonal battlepass but that literally flies to max level playing any part of it. I even bought a few cosmetics because after a few hundreds hours I felt I could toss the devs a few dollars since I got the game for 10$.
Its really that simple. Make a game I enjoy playing and I'll convince myself to give you more money.
Speak for yourself nigger. I fucking love collecting in games. I 100% complete Donkey Kong 64 every few years and would kill for that style of game to come back. I grind achievements and collect every bullshit irrelevant skin or whatever the game has available as long as it doesn't require direct currency (I'll grind to get X Coins that are also buyable if the rate isn't laughably bad).
That is part of the joy of a game for me and them doing it badly doesn't suddenly make the entire baby worth throwing out with their garbage bathwater.
I only really play online pvp cause ive always enjoyed competition. If anyone likes playing hunt showdown it's pretty fun. Hmu.
Frankly, I'm starting to just get bored with fictional, imaginary, and simulated amusements in general.
And not just because of the drop in quality over the years, but simply me realizing how goofy, wasteful, immaterial, and utterly life consuming it truly is.
Or maybe I've just not been achieving the proper balance. It's all too easy to end up gorging on even a healthy "gourmet" game, to the point to where you've been taking reality for granted.
Playing with squeakers (kids) was always a red flag that you were about to have an awful time, and now kids are dumber and more arrogant than ever. So many games are toxic by default just because they don't do enough to make griefing difficult. Unless a game has a devout following after a few years which tends to favor good team play after the tards have got tired of it (think Deep Rock Galactic), then fuck it.
I still like to play Rocket League with my friends. There are a few woke flags (that nobody seems to use), but other than that, it's fun.
I took a long break, but got back into it when Apex Legends came out. I played the shit out of Apex until about a year ago. It went the way of every shooter where they kept releasing new legends who were increasingly OP (gotta sell those skins) and just generally started going to shit.
I miss the competition and getting my heart pumping trying to clutch up, but for now I'm sticking with Starcraft 2 and an older golf game I have.
Ah yes, it should be an instant thing to delete contacts, purchases, etc and able to be done as soon as someone gains access to an account.
What is wrong with you to complain that it isn't quick as a few clicks to delete an account?
No, I just play older games online again
Mostly, if I go back to Monster Hunter games, I sometimes play those with randos. That's about it.
Yeah, I also find myself going for slower paced stuff too. Can't be arsed with online chat.
I think I never played any western multiplayer title except dark age of camelot mmorpg. Duke Nukem 64 and Halo in splitscreen with friends, but first person online shooters or mobas never interested me or other western mmorpgs. Played some asian mmos 15 years ago and ds3 invading but despite that only singleplayer games. And yeah maybe hearthstone a few weeks but thats barely multiplayer...
Sounds like a Kotaku headline.
idk what it said but I upvoted it anyway since it was censored.
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