Every MMORPG I've ever played had great communities. Of course, it's been about 15 years since I've played one. The internet in general is not as nice as it was 15 years ago, so MMO communities might have changed too.

Not going to lie, a part of me misses the absolutely chaos and shitshow CoD/Halo lobbies used to be but honestly we are better without them. It still happens from time to time after you win or piss someone off and get a party invite lol The LFG (looking for group) feature on xbox is a godsend though, if you're trying to find like minded gamers.

Anonymity and party chat killed it. The glory days were in MMOs, where you couldn't simply make a new account, ran with the same people on the same server, thus learned to live with each other. Plus there were moderators, no voice chat and everything you typed was stored on the server.

All the decent people seem to have moved on. At least in GT Sport. I just picked it up again, only recognize the names of bad apples, haven't seen any of the nice players today. A lot of new people, all just barging through, playing a different game that has little to do with sport.

The only time voice chat was decent was in ST Bridge Crew, co-op. Anything with competition and humans simply can not behave. The best online shooter for me was the 8 player co-op in resistance 2. And much earlier LAN gaming, no anonymity, no problem.

WHAT IS THAT GAME IN YOUR AVY!!?!?? Looked instantly familiar from a lost childhood memory.... but have no idea what it is.


Tell me now plz.

Number Munchers ;)

Funny you consider CoD:MW2 and Halo 3 as glory days of online gaming when to me they are the same as it is today.

To me the glory days where in the beginning of online gaming and it ended around the release of WoW when the unwashed masses for real got in to online gaming.

The time before that was more fun, also a bit before that games did not have built in voice chat so you didn't need to hear people other than if you decided to join a ventrilio server and in most cases the only people on that ventrilio server where your gaming friends/clan etc no randoms. But to be real most people got around communicating with text just fine while playing, even high paced games like Quake, Quake 3, UT.

A thing I really don't like in modern gaming is that everything has to be ranked all the time. It was a thing jumping on a public server in the past and there could be both people that completely stomped you or you could get completely stomp others.

Those days ended when XBL became a thing.  It was quite nice on DC with PSO. NFL2k and AFO. Granted most people didn't have the mic for their DC controller. For PSO we used a keyboard. When XBL became a thing that's when I started hearing the racism and derogatory words for gay men. I don't know if it was like that already on PC. I don't game online much at all but I prefer it when there is no voice chat. Just predetermined choices like a nice game or good job. Voice chat for most online games esp shooters is useless.

The glory days end when a person becomes to busy with real life to play online or they feel old playing with screaming kids, whichever comes first lol

Well back in the day you got a (cheap) headset with every X360 purchase, now people are using two screens often (play online/while watching some youtube vid etc)

Yeah I think this is very true. I saw something on gamesindustry-biz a while ago about how people are becoming more and more saturated with digital communication these days. These were the days when you still "logged on" to facebook on a computer, and then "logged off" when you've finished looking at photos lol. 

Now we're in the days when we're all constantly in reach with a stream of notifications, messages and whatever else, relaxation in gaming is now solitary or with chilled people. We're socially exhausted by the time we sit down to game. But back that wasn't so true.

Yeah I see how my OP gives the impression that the toxicity was the thing to be treasured. Anyone who's ever played a competitive PC game knows that hearing something about "cyka blyat" and lots of details about your mother's sexuality gets tiresome very quickly. But I do think that raging and swearing can be different to toxicity though.

I think they can be a sign of a group of people who care a lot about the game, and are giving it, and you as a teammate or opponent, their full attention. Potentially raging and swearing are a product of a social game going well, and designed well. I distinctly remember in Halo 3 moments like when my team, which has been at each others throats for the whole game, suddenly all jump in a warthog together and pull off something miraculous. Multiplayer moments have so much more character in these situations. Having that angry guy suddenly start doing well can really affect the team's momentum. A close match, where the next person to die loses the game, doesn't feel the same when you can't hear the anguish of your teammates you let down when you are humiliated by the "final killcam".