undefined | Better HN

0 pointsparineum6d ago0 comments

> edit: in online games I played growing up too, this negativity/anti-fun change came probably around 2004 with bigger changes in the US political climate as well.

Tying this to politics is odd to me.

Online gaming has been toxic since day one. Anything that depersonalizes is going to be toxic and that is inherent in the online space. In the smaller communities you can actually get to know people and have some kind of reputation but as the community size grows, the consequences of bad behavior fade because nobody can remember.

0 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

mannanj5d ago· 2 in thread

> Anything that depersonalizes is going to be toxic and that is inherent in the online space. In the smaller communities you can actually get to know people and have some kind of reputation but as the community size grows, the consequences of bad behavior fade because nobody can remember.

Do you think or have noticed that bad behavior is less likely to occur in smaller communities, or is simply swept under the rug or ignored due to some other dynamics at play?

parineumOP5d ago

Two main examples came into my mind when I was writing that. I used to play a lot of counterstrike on private servers and I played some ultima online as well.

With counter strike, I frequented one server and got to know the players on it a bit. You'd chat a bit after you died but, mostly, I'd just see the same names most of the time. There was usually an admin online and bad behavior (mostly not game related but social behavior) would be banned eventually.

In UO, there was a lot of player interaction where I would actually make friends and aquatintes with people I interacted with a lot. You end up building a community within a community of people you like to play with.

Both of those groups had different ways of filtering bad behavior but, I think the key difference is that they both had a pretty significant social interact component. CS seem semi-accidental but the post death chatting gave it a little something I never got from other fps games.

MMOs have really gone completely away from social gaming. They've streamlined so many processes that actual relationships aren't really that important.

mannanj4d ago

seems like an example of change of game design rewarding play time over community or socializing. or might be hard to connect those two together. for me, to relate to your experience, I played a army shooter sim called Americas Army in the 2000's and its community also allowed me a similar community effect + positive behavior incentives, and we had open chat too.

1 more reply

mannanj6d ago

ah yeah I could have just not said that, it was just a brash thought dump, not really thoughtfully considered and not something I'm too pressed on digging a moat into. i.e. its not a strong belief I hold, but an intuition. The goal really was to explore the idea that something shifted that has led people to lose the fun in games. If I were to repost that, I'd say that instead and not try to make conjecture about politics.

Sorry.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse