Personally as a hobbyist developer, I'm find at TON of inspiration from 2002-2015 era gaming and so many of these games can be necromanced through some darkened computer rituals and played. I think that era was the last breath of games as "interactive software experiences" rather than "software as a service" we have today. With a little digging you can find a ton of good games from that era that can be hacked into running pretty damn well on your machine.
Very succinct way to put it and captures my feelings exactly!
I haven't paid for a game in years and I've never been happier. I have 0 interest in random multiplayer lobbies that are filled with capital G Gamers 
and it feels like modern triple A titles tack on any single player as an afterthought.
I haven't paid for a game in years and I've never been happier.
Big Same.
What? None of those games are Master Of Orion.
Has anyone out there made a dedicated downloader/launcher for abandonware? I bet something like that to get all of the private servers, widescreen hacks, and so on in one convenient place would be cool as hell.
Lutris does some of this: You can submit your configurations and WINE setups for games to make installing them easier for others.
That sounds like a fantastic idea. Too bad it couldn't be put out there as like a bounty or something for coders.
Man, a while back some friends and I saw a game on steam that was multiplayer and sounded cool. We all got it, and joined a completely empty lobby so we could figure out what we were doing. Someone joined that lobby and began losing his mind that the one friend of mine on his team wasn't playing optimally. He was a huge dick about it and did nothing to help anyone learn the game. We talked mad shit on him, until he dropped the gem "What did you just see a game on steam, think it looked cool and start playing it?" Like, yeah dude. That's exactly what we did. Are we not supposed to support games you like?
I must admit, I bet games with private player run servers would be more excited to introduce fresh blood to their beloved games. Might have to try that next time.
Let me know if anyone has private server game recs in the vein of the post
This was my experience when I tried valves new hero lane shooter thing. I jumped into a game and everyone was so mad that I didn't know how to play I just finished the match and uninstalled it.
I remember battlefield Vietnam being really fun, but i didn't understand computer specs and settings so when it came out I played it at a very choppy framerate
I remember battlefield Vietnam being really fun
I played the hell out of the single player in high school when I had a phase where I was obsessed with the war (from the usa side, sadly). Anyway I really want to try out the multiplayer since the ai is kind of dog water and I never got to play against actual people.
I remember when the singleplayer in Battlefield games was just the multiplayer maps with bots, instead of the shitty Hollywood-esque "America, fuck yeah!" style campaigns they began to add since Bad Company just to compete with Call of Duty.
I have some fun memories playing the shit out of the Desert Combat mod for BF1942 on El Alamein 24/7 servers.
I remember when the singleplayer in Battlefield games was just the multiplayer maps with bots
It's just a shame the bots were so crappy but then again this is 2001 through 05 ish.
began to add since Bad Company just to compete with Call of Duty.
While it's certainly not Wag the Dog, the Bad Company campaigns were at least kind of humorous in their approach to making fun of modern military shooter tropes (talking about "Spec Ops douchebags with heartbeat monitors on their guns"), and also portrayed the US military utilising expendable cannon fodder while largely losing a war with Russia that started for reasons most of the troops don't understand. Also I connect with the character of Private Terrence Sweetwater on a personal level due to him spending both games constantly correcting people that the Russian Federation is no longer Communist.
I got into Elder Scrolls via Oblivion (2006) and spent untold hours in Skyrim. A few weeks ago, I finally got into trying out Morrowind (2002) for the first time ever, with mods expanding into the whole province of Morrowind among others, and its quickly shaping up to be my best experience in Elder Scrolls. The worldbuilding depth and characterization of opposing interests + imagination to paper over the cracks makes Morrowind so much more engaging than even past attempts at modded Skyrim with all my wishlist mods
I’ll play Baldur‘s Gate 3 when it’s released as abandonware
Hocus Pocus is a good one to check out, 4 games in the series, all great
damn.. that game came out when i was a kid
The first one was in a big box of pc games I got as a kid in the late 90’s, commander keen was another I remember.
commander keen was one of my most favorite pc games ever
I still play sims 2 btw, back when it was just the community trying to keep the game up to date.
I still play sims 2 btw
Someone told me yesterday that the sims 2 runs best in wine on linux and that's wild.
GTA IV runs best on Linux under proton as well
Thats true. Linux barely gives any "pink soup" and lets you run with a billion gb of mods. A lot of hardcore fans did switch to linux because of that.
What does "pink soup" mean in this context?
Usually too much texture memory, it usually happens due to high polygon custom content. Hence it causes “pink soup”
Oh so it's specifically a Sims 2 thing?
Yes. Sims 3 has its own issues.
It's a fun gamble to see what games you can get working again and if they're actually decent. And then there are the games that have weirdly strong community support, like Akklaim's Revolt from back in the day. There's a great community supported version where they still hold races and tournaments
Gaming attained perfection in 1998.
I’m trying to think what came out that year. All I can think of is a game called “The Nomad Soul” (I think it was released as “Omikron” in the USA) by EIDOS interactive.
1999 and 2000 looks like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_in_video_games
Certainly a lot of big names though
playing skate 3 rn on emulated ps3, what a blast.
I recently got back into SimCity 3000 once more
I would kill for a populated Wolfenstein Enemy Territory community. I loved that game so much even though I was absolute trash. My first real “free to play” game, before that term caught on. I play a lot of really old games. I recently replayed all the old Indiana Jones point and click games, some of them are really good!
I would kill for a populated Wolfenstein Enemy Territory community.
Could try discord, might be players there. And can I add it sucks that discord is like the only way now to find people playing these old games? Garbage platform. Give me traditional forums please.
i wish someone out there had SimCopter... goddamn that game was fun
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
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