15 years ago
(media.scored.co)
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I have said it for a very long time, but public servers/matchmaking have been the single worst thing to have ever happened to online gaming, and I will die on this hill. Lootboxes, MTX, even pay-to-win is all irrelevant compared to the damage that matchmaking has done to the social structure of online multiplayer gaming. And that isn't to say that those things haven't done a lot of damage, but they're nothing compared to the damage matchmaking has caused.
I was once murdered in Runescape by Alq, an infamous PK. Still my greatest achievement. I also saw Bluerose13x forge the best items in the game. I made a lifelong friend in Conquer Online and remember many people I played Guild Wars and vanilla WoW with.
Then matchmaking and realm phasing arrived and I never talked to anyone again, nor do I remember anyone.
EverQuest will always have a place in my heart, actually traveling to the entrance of dungeons (pretty dangerous journey itself), and hanging out until there was enough people to go in. Plenty of time to get to know people, make friends, work on casual skills like fishing, drinking, and racial languages. It would be some kind of hell for today's zero attention span ADHD kids.
Final Fantasy XI had a similar vibe for a long time. I think it's broken all of that now, but I haven't logged in for probably ten years at this point. There's something about a game in which even getting the party together was an ordeal that made the whole experience more fulfilling. You couldn't just solo your way through the game, you were forced to learn to interact with all the other persistent inhabitants of your server.
I still remember playing various Quake1 mods and I'm a little sad I lost contact with the players from my usual server.
yeah i still talk to people from my vanilla wow guild to this day. almost 20 years later.
The worst part is they design games around a shit ton of teamwork and coordination, and expect you to just develop those skills with a group of random people.
Which is funny because as the OP alludes to, by the very nature of persistent private servers you can play with a pool of players that is mostly the same and actually learn to develop your teamwork through continued play.
That is a REALLY controversial take if you ask people who play warcraft these days :
https://old.reddit.com/r/worldofpvp/comments/1gcpnpo/trying_to_do_m_after_playing_pvp_feels_like_im/
The game currently has manual matchmaking and automatic matchmaking. (for some dungeons vs for pvp) and holy shit is the manual matchmaking toxic - people use addons that can see your history and use it to gatekeep what you will be able to do. (if you haven’t done 500 +9s, you won’t get invited to a +10)
That thread is from a salty guy who only plays solo pvp. He is the exemplar of modern random gaming, and wants that for the last remaining place in wow where your name can earn a reputation.
WoW is a shitty game with shitty problems, but their mythic plus dungeon system was one of the few places where you could actually meet and interact with real people who you will see again like the old days.
WoW was always instanced trash, a shadow of older MMOs
Sounds like some kind of a cartel has developed in the bottlenecked player base for manual matchmaking
Wouldn't be the first
he's full of shit though. no one gives a shit about your spec in a +4.
yes, you won't be invited to a +10 if you haven't done +9s. Why? Cause there are 50 people applying to the +10 who have done +11/12. why not take those?
Nothing stops him from creating his own group and running his own key. Will take him 3-4 bricked keys at most before he gatekeeps people as well.
Two things. First, public servers have always been the default for MMOs, and by their nature it makes sense to have it. Only today did I learn about things like "realm shifting", and I find that even more cancerous. So there is some level of exemption that MMOs garner by their very nature.
Secondly, why would I care about people from "these days"? Most people "these days" are morons who either weren't playing back then, or they got used to the cancer and forgot how much better it used to be.
It's been like this for over a decade.
What do you mean, don't you like automated dungeon finder with zero communication?!
You’ve never said that ever at any point in your life!