I think probably far too much about how social media (or, in a broader sense, the mass adoption of the internet) has affected online games like this, and I was really happy to see your point here since this is a thought I've had a lot, but few people seem to understand what I mean when I try to bring it up! I vividly remember a time where people used to just talk in online games a lot more, whereas now most online games feel sorta dead (if they even have a chat option) -- and I suspect that's due to the fact that people are either A) playing with people they already know from real life and don't see any reason to communicate with anyone else, or B) only communicating with the community on platforms like Reddit, in an asynchronous, "flex"-based way. Imo, that shift is the major reason online games have essentially died out except in the form of competitive multiplayer with ephemeral lobbies.
And I've noticed that when I try to explain how things were to people who weren't online before the shift happened, they can't even picture what it was like, or why it was fun. It's so odd to me that that entire way of interaction has just... disappeared.
I play(ed) Ragnarok Online, and some of my fondest memories is logging into one of my characters, going into a PVP map, and then just sit around and talk shit with friends I made there.
We would just sit and talk there, in the PVP map, and when someone who didn't get the memo stopped by to fight we'd collectively kick his ass out and then go back to talking. Some of them would get the memo and come back, then just sit down and join in and bam: New friend made.
Those were some good times.
My point is, maybe people have a higher barrier to entry for 'online friendship', now, as adults, but at least in this same game, people still reach our and form bonds despite there being little in-game support for that socialization. Many still recognize that it's the funny yellow text that touches the heart, and not the count of exp in stats.
I tried going back once, but without spending time to build connections with other players, it wasn't fun. Didn't quite realise that till I read your comment though.
It shipped with user-accounts, IRC (chat), newsgroups (forums), email (direct messages), LDAP (groups/clans/tribes), integrated voice, basically all the components of the internet except calendaring, and if you call CD-Keys like client certs... we'll, just impressive for any game and especially a game of the 2002 era.
I think you both have good points around how a monoculture makes the game less rich and more theme-park-MMO-ish. I always felt that one of the things that helped it feel a bit more like a world simulator and a bit less like a game was the diversity of ways in which people interacted with the game. Wanna be the guy who only farms herbs? Knock yourself out, the game won't stop you and make you go save the world or whatever. When everyone has the same goal (which when I still played I thought of as the slayer-ironman industrial complex rather than no xp waste) you lose that and are back to the inherent absurdity of 50 million different Chosen Ones. It's just a little ironic that in a "no wrong way to play, do it for fun" kind of take you're calling out a wrong way to play.
Disclaimer: obviously very biased; multiply maxed
[0] I wanna say '06 but can't find forum archives and the swiftirc timestamps got reset at some point
> It's just a little ironic that in a "no wrong way to play, do it for fun" kind of take you're calling out a wrong way to play.
I considered this, with my last sentence where I say that it's a "shame". But I'm not saying there's a wrong way to play at all, it's just that things are different.
1. I was on Runscape in the early 2000s. There was no Twitter, Facebook was very new and not really that popular, and nothing else existed. Like, I think Gaia was one of the more popular forums I knew of lol. That meant that Runescape was actually a highly social experience - it's insane the kinds of relationships I built as a 14-18 year old who played the game somewhat obsessively. Staying up all night, meeting strangers. Not actually "playing" the game - like, that was something to do for fun, but so much of it was hanging out with people.
With social media I get a lot of that from other sites. And in general I don't need it as much as I'm not staying up until 4am anymore lol but man it was something else to socialize through a "forum" like Runescape. Even the organic fact that people could "overhear" your conversations just because they were near you in the game led to so many funny "meet cutes", for lack of a better term.
2. The other side of social media influence is that there's a lot more flexing, memeing, and appealing to masses. When I played Runescape it was like... a shameful thing lol, I literally told almost no one at school, and when it came up it was kind of a secret between the few kids who played. It was lame, period , and we did not want to be thought of as lame. No way in hell would I have been posting online about it, nor was there any place to post about it like Reddit - you either posted on the RS boards (probably not tho), or in your clan's custom forum that someone set up.
But now, re (2), there's a lot more room to posture. You can brag way more about your 99s, show them off, show off what you're doing etc. And I think that probably leads to a lot more of the 'grind', which, again (1) was not the point. The point was to run through the wild with your friends at 4am and get scared when pkers came after you and you'd lose a bunch of your shit but who cares. The money we made was genuinely just to fuel those good times. No one actually thought they were going to be the next Zezima - I say this as someone who had multiple 99s, it was mostly just for fun. And it's interesting that you bring up the capes - all of my 99s were after the capes, they were definitely a part of the ceremony.
Viewing RS as a game with an "endgame" or as a game where the points matter is just sort of baffling to me and it's a bit of a shame to me that that's where it apparently has gone.