Chess may be "intellectual" and mahjong may be "luck based trash only fit for smoke filled backrooms frequented by yakuza" but I've never seen a rinshan kaihou 12000 point tsumo in chess
Chess just lacks the drama and excitement of mahjong.
Managing to fork a queen and a king is nothing to the feeling of breaking a massive hand in tempai because you just picked up a white dragon and sense that it's cursed, only to see the guy next to you deal into a dealer baiman with that same tile on the very next discard.
my first yakuman ever (it was a suu an kou, and it was in real life) I had to leave the room for about 20 minutes. I don't smoke but I was offered a cigarette and nearly took it. High point of my life honestly.
oof at the original. 97 and G*mers are literally still the same today.
Maybe I'm too zoomer but I'm just surprised forums were around in '97. I mean I thought the internet was only for email and shit back then
People have been posting on bulletin boards since the 80's iirc, the kind where you had to have your computer's 28k modem dial into the local server and post. Forums as we know them today started really popping up in the mid to late 90's. afaik
A lot of ISPs in the 90s came bundled with Usenet "newsgroup" bulletin boards. Before Limewire and the like, they were a good way to share movies, porn and software (though it required breaking the files up into hundreds of posts). Unfortunately in the 2000s it got overrun with viruses and CP, and most ISPs shut down their Usenet servers by the end of the decade. Of course by then, torrenting had pretty much taken over.
My personal favorite Usenet gem is the board for rap discussion:
- In 1991 one guy straight up admitted that he was trolling before saying that MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice were the best rappers in the game and that the Five Percent Nation only used 5 words, and people got legitimately mad at him
- people were insisting that Kris Kross couldn’t be slept on in 1992
- Apparently in 1993 there was a rumor in Pittsburgh that Snoop Dogg(y Dogg) had died
- Vanilla Ice and Markey Mark had still tainted white rap’s public opinion in 1996
- Someone in 1997 said that rap was at its peak because Biggie and Pac died, and that it wouldn’t be as popular in 20 years (lmao)
- One guy was asking who an up and coming rapper named Eminem was in 1998
- In 98/99 someone said that Missy Elliot was the worst new MC (incorrect) but that MF DOOM had the best 12” (correct)
There was a much, much smaller userbase and generally less streamlined (or less anti-streamlined, monetized) systems, but it was there.
They also generally had their own self-contained cultures, and their own memes that never left that website.
I get some real "tears in rain" feelings when I think about all the forums and chat rooms I was in, all the time spent with those people and how those little moments and injokes are gone.
There are memes completely lost to time. For every Hampster Dance or Dancing Baby, there are hundreds of old memes that now exist only in the memories of those who participated in those forums.
forums are like multiplayer email
IRC is like multiplayer notepad
🀀 🀁 🀂 🀃 🀄 🀅 🀆 🀇 🀈 🀉 🀊 🀋 🀌 🀍 🀎 🀏 🀐 🀑 🀒 🀓 🀔 🀕 🀖 🀗 🀘 🀙 🀚 🀛 🀜 🀝 🀞 🀟 🀠 🀡 🀢 🀣 🀤 🀥 🀦 🀧 🀨 🀩 🀪 🀫
♜ ♞ ♝ ♛ ♚ ♝ ♞ ♜ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♟︎ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♙ ♖ ♘ ♗ ♕ ♔ ♗ ♘ ♖Fuck it. Go for kokushi musou. Be a legend. You're only 5 tiles away from tenpai.
shut up man, I'm down 12,000 pts after that guy across from me got a double riichi haneman
season tiles
flower tiles
Horrible, I hate it. I bet you play with red 5 dora too.
Imagine having that immortalized forever with your full name (the original one)
The "anonymity makes people assholes" theory BTFO way back in 1997.
lovely bit, but I think the better analogy would be "playing chess with those ugly pieces Ozel-tarig made instead of those beautiful pieces Deqran-pil-unum made", since for most purposes PS/XB is less impactful than even choosing black or white pieces in chess which actually matters
Then the phrasing gets much clunkier for the joke
Also, choosing black or white doesn't make sense to compare because this was from before online console gaming was really a thing.
f u r t h e r m o r e anyone talking about Nintendo vs Playstation is inevitably not just talking about the consoles but the games published since Nintendo has always relied on exclusive first party titles, making the analogy Chungus posted more apt.
Mahjong is actually really modern, and chess was invented far after the bronze age. Replace mahjong with weiqi and Nabu-zar-adan with Al-Adli and this meme would be
Maybe replace it with Senet. Mahjong is more than 1000 years old but I don't think it spread to India or Persia until it went global in the modern period.
Chess is really boring once you get past absolute novice and suddenly you have to memorize entire books of openings.
Majiang isn't one game. It's a whole bunch of games, like poker. It's better to think of majiang tiles as a set of cards, with which you can play many games.
Much like poker, majiang is a complete snorer unless you're playing for money. It's gambling, not a game like Monopoly or Sorry!
Chess didn't exist in the bronze age because horses weren't invented yet.
