Popular games switching from pub servers to matchmade 5v5/6v6 bums me out. It feels like it was just done to chase esports money, and it's such a worse casual experience. Way more stress, way less community.

I think this shift is a direct contributor to increased toxicity in multiplayer gaming, honestly. The server communities I remember were like your favorite pub where all the regulars knew each other and you all just liked hanging out. Occasionally new people would drop in, and sometimes they'd become part of things but usually they at least behaved, and if they didn't they were booted off an IP banned.

This is why I like CS:Source a lot still. User run servers but they have updated the graphics enough it doesn’t feel too dated compared with newer titles.

TF2 is amazing these days as well. Lots of crazy, fun stuff going on in community servers.

https://www.gametracker.com/search/tf2/

> This is somewhat Quake 3 specific but I also really miss user generated maps that would just automatically download.

This was (eventually) a feature of Quakeworld for the original Quake as well. You could even download an entire mod, like Threewave CTF, one asset at a time; though in practice it was much faster to download the full pak files.

Still, though, it worked well for maps, and for lightweight mods, or variants of popular mods. For example, there were many flavors of CTF that added their own runes. Anyone up for a game of Thunderwalker CTF? ;)