Online gaming, from good times with strangers to toxic waste pool

I remember my first adventures in online gaming, it was new and exciting! But now it's nothing new and what's worse is that a lot of people aren't that nice online. What happened? Did we all turn into serious and sour gamers or did something else happen?

Things used to be better?

Well I can't speak too much about the good old days because I haven't been playing online with other for that long. Oh not since a couple of years but more like a decade ago, so I can't say that I know how things were before that but even in 2005 and 2006 when online gaming started for me people were less serious and more fun to play with. When I think back of Guild Wars Factions on my PC and Saints Row on my Xbox 360 I can't deny that I had great times playing with strangers, sure there are some rotten apples but nothing to ruin the fun. I really loved meeting other people and making friends all over the world. One moment I would be talking with people from Eastern Europe and the next moment I would be hanging around with some Americans which was all fun. It didn't really bother anyone where you would be from, people just wanted to have fun and if you were fun to play with then they wanted to be your friend and play games with you. It seems weird when I think back of those times because people are more serious now, will yell at you if things go wrong and then there are also people that just want to annoy you. It really makes me wonder, what happened?!!!

What happened to online gaming?

A good question, but not one that is answered that easily. Why? Well mostly because there isn't just one reason, there are probably multiple resasons. You could say that gamers have changed over the years, but games have also changed over the years and they're still changing. In certain games you're forced to work together with other people and if they people don't communicate or behave like morons then it's not easy to make new friends or even get things done. What's worse is that certain games have a lot of these frustrating people in them, they don't want to work as a team but constantly show up in a team. This makes getting anything done very difficult, but let's not forget the whole rage quitter mentality that seems to infest online gaming these last couple of years. At this point when people can't handle things they leave, this rage quitting is a very frustrating and cowardly way of playing a game and also makes certain that you get a lot of hate from your team. But some people are also toxic just because things aren't going their way and I have to admit that I have issues with this as well, but the big difference between me and the douchebag that keeps telling everyone that they suck is that I keep my frustration to myself and not plug in my mic to let others know what I think of them. Gamers have gotten too serious about certain games and then there are people that don't take things serious enough. Because getting beaten by a terrible team is just humiliating and doesn't improve you mood at all. So it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people seek shelter in single players games or keep their multiplayer experience only to games with friends.

Will things ever be the same again?

You probably won't like this answer but I doubt that things will be the same again. Things change, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. You can't stop that from happening nor can you change things back to how they were. The best thing that could happen now if you find people with whom you have a great time playing games and stick with these people. Make new friends and play games together. It's not the same as it was but at least you have fun and friendly people to play games with, a lot of people can't say the same. Playing with strangers in online competitive multiplayer is a risk, sometimes you meet friendly people and sometimes (a lot of times for me personally) you meet people who are either toxic or say nothing at all. That's not fun and often makes me want to dive back into a single player game, just to escape the frustration and other crap you get with certain games. I guess you can always hope that things get better again but I wouldn't have high hopes for that, things tend to go from bad to worse in certain situations. Not that I want to make you depressed, I would advice you to stick to playing with friends and if you do want to take the chance to play with strangers in online competitive multiplayer then I advice you to keep things friendly and if people prove to be toxic, trolls or just useless then just move on because wasting time on these people is just not worth it!

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