But what I'm really upset about is that people aren't communicating and cooperating and being respectful of each other and working together and being social and pushing back the alienation and playing and finding joy.
I'm so fucking isolated these days. This is the closest thing that I have to a social outlet. And so many people in multiplayer games just have no interest in communicating or working together, or have no interest in, like... playing in a way that supports the team and works towards a cooperative goal? Like they're playing by themselves, in a multiplayer lobby, and I absolutely do not understand it and I hate it. I don't understand why people play multiplayer games when they don't wan to play with people.
With helldivers the community just got utterly overwhelmed. One day it was a little niche community of dedicated players for a years old game, the next day it was the hottest gaming product on the market with millions of new players, most of whom were about to run head first in to a very challenging and unforgiving game with no mental preparation.
I really think the death of forums and private server communities plays a heavy role. SBMM, matchmaking in general, subreddits with tens of thousands of people, they all mean you never see the same players twice. It's not like the olden days where you'd go back to your favorite server every day, get to know people, and people who were out of line with community norms would leave or get banned. It's just a giant palpating alienated morass of libido and ego.