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[-] Frank@hexbear.net 50 points 7 months ago

Second Life, Ultima Online, VRchat, countless others. In UO people used to just hang out near the banks and talk to each other for hours as people came and went to deposit items or retrieve things. It was a very social experience, people would chill with their friends, roleplay, talk about life. All they really needed was cool clothes, ridable llamas, a neat environment, and an excuse.

[-] Bloobish@hexbear.net 25 points 7 months ago

Halo 2 and especially Halo 3 multiplayer saw thousands of game styles spawned outside what the devs at Bungie initially thought (griffball anyone?), give the tools and a good gameplay loop to gamers and a community will likely spawn around it very easily. Compare that to the hollow shitfest of the "metaverse" trying to commodify everything (cuss tech capital is running out of monetization pathways) and it's really clear you can't just artificially astroturf a community that wouldn't naturally form.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 14 points 7 months ago

runescape used to be similar

[-] Flyberius@hexbear.net 14 points 7 months ago

Star wars galaxies had a great mechanic where bard players would play music to heal accumulated damage of other players. As a result, cantinas became the place all players would gather and it became a real social experience. Also I think you healed faster if you were unencumbered by clothing, so a lot of people were neckid.

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 3 points 7 months ago

Yeah, that was really cool. I never played it but I heard it was really something before that NGE update.

[-] Flyberius@hexbear.net 2 points 7 months ago

First mmo I ever played and I never felt that kind of magic in an mmo since.

[-] sharedburdens@hexbear.net 7 points 7 months ago

Hanging out in cities and chatting in WoW was what I did while doing my homework

[-] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 7 months ago

Yes, people did that because social media didn't exist. If you want to chat there are a million other platforms that are infinitely more popular than any in game chat.

[-] Frank@hexbear.net 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah but they were fun and pro-social. There were/are no skinner box machinations, no mtx, no advertising, no attention economy.

Any platforms you'd reccomend? I'm not familiar with anything like the old AOL IM chatrooms. It's just reddit, facebook, twitter, and various other hellsites.

Is IRC still around? It must be. Hmm.

this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
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