But what I'm really upset about is that people aren't communicating and cooperating and being respectful of each other and working together and being social and pushing back the alienation and playing and finding joy.
I'm so fucking isolated these days. This is the closest thing that I have to a social outlet. And so many people in multiplayer games just have no interest in communicating or working together, or have no interest in, like... playing in a way that supports the team and works towards a cooperative goal? Like they're playing by themselves, in a multiplayer lobby, and I absolutely do not understand it and I hate it. I don't understand why people play multiplayer games when they don't wan to play with people.
Discord has been so bad for gaming, especially combined with the steady destruction of private server communities and the shift to ranked matchmaking. People aren't in the game, they're not playing on their favorite server with all the people they've gotten to know over months and years. They're all on discord, in their own little insular discord worlds, talking with their discord friends and not interacting with people in the game.
MMOs especially do not feel like they did back in the day. I remember getting into so many stupid hijinks just goofing with people in town and stuff. Nobody wants to interact in games anymore. We need more online games with just the goal of being goofy with strangers online.
Half the reason people played Ultima Online back in the way back was to just hang out near the bank and talk to people
On the flip side, I've had success making a discord server for a specific game and inviting leftists to join from places like this.
Where are you in my games lol. I saw someone on Pokemon unite who had a possibly hexbear related name, I added them as a friend but I'm too chickenshit to actually invite them into a lobby
Honestly, with the way g*mers are nowadays, I literally never want to interact with people I randomly met in-game anymore. Too much risk, not enough reward. I gotta know a guy(and know they're not some 4channer invertebrate) to want to hear them actually talking in my headset where games are concerned.
I've been on both sides yeah. Like I was in a three stack for Dead By Daylight on disco, and I was on PC, my two friends on Xbox. Our fill was on PC. I was the only person who could communicate with the fill and I was apologetic like sorry my friends are playing selfishly, they're going for the three person escape and sandbagging the fill to get themselves out. It definitely creates a pretty antisocial divide