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I dont think of all the places of the web here I should just make this statement, but I just want to rant like an gamer that had to see its favorite hobby become a soulless corpo cash cow. So with your permission I will start:
I love Halo, definitely one of my favorite IPs since I played Halo 1 on my old PC without any shaders (Masterchief was white and no golden visor. It took me years to know his armor supposedly was green). Halo Custom Edition was one of my first online experience as well. And even if I miss the glory of Halo 3, this one is my favorite intro in the series.
So moving forward, gaming exploded hitting mainstream and becoming a common hobby between the population. Bungie left, we got new consoles and 343 did what 343 does it best by destroying a well known IP. BUT, there is something special, a game called Halo: The Masterchief Collection. Now I could play all the Halo's I missed and maybe get as close as what Halo 3 was on its prime.
But the game succed and it was broken for years, until recently. In the meantime I even got excited for the new entry: Halo Infinite. I even got a new GPU only to enjoy it in all its glory!... and it sucked. It was a game designed to squeeze every penny they could even if it made my experience worse. In order to get more money they even sacrifice design integrity so they could put silly things on the shot that doesnt fit the aesthetic of the game just so they can get a few dollars out of some fools. This exact same thing happened with Moder Warfare 19, a game I payed for, and enjoy it until they just put stupid things in it. On a side note: I recently played Black Ops 6 with my brother and they put unskippable ads of their products in the game, you have to watch the "ad" of the new skin for a couple of seconds before you can skip it.
But hey, I had the MCC, it is working and there are even more people playing it than in Infinite. I get from home, select my game, choose "Social matches" and my desired gamemodes and... it is a pain. There is no social experience here, everything is skill based matchmaking and if you do too well you will get paired with people that threat every match like the world cup depends on it. Halo 2 is specially unsufferable with people that now the glitches/combos and will triple shot you, and on Halo 3 people that will just destroy your base/vehicles and take power position dominating you 100-21.
Some will say, "just wait, they will lower you down and you will have fun!", and to some extend it happened: I once got paired with people that had some head to head experience. Sometimes we will win, other them. And even if they killed the lobbies, we usually be put togheter. But then it happened: We had a Team Snipers game and I dominated the other team. This made the rest of the night a sweart fest againt people that coordinated themselves and destroyed my team with double the points, until I got tired and just quit the game.
I looked online on why does this happens and if there is a way or an option to just have some chill experience, to just "play" a game, not having to fight for the superbowl each match. And it came to me a little name called "Halo 3 Sunrise". Sunrise is basically the restored version of the original Halo 3, it is very basic and to play you have to be invited into lobbies wich is a shore tbh. But it was SO fucking FUN. There are some sweats like always, people that never stopped playing since 2007, but because is a lobby they would just relax next match or the team balance will rebalance everything for next match.
But it doesnt stop there, because of my bad experience with Halo 2 i was reluctant to try it on Insignia, the community Xbox live replacement for the Original xbox. You need to undertand... these people know Halo 2, they are always playing and now the glitches, the combos, etc. But I give it a try thinking I was going to be obliterated... but no, it was really fun. Most people where chill, even I must take some of the blame, I where the sweat becuase I was used to act like this on Halo 2. (We play all thuesday btw)
You could say, "Well, the Halo Community is just chill", but on Insignia we play more games, one of them is Rainbow Six 3 online and it is not an easy game to play. But people just connect and enjoy the matches. Not to dominate, but to have fun. Other games like classic DooM or Sven Co-Op games also have these small servers with people just enjoying the game, no onw treat it like their lives depend on them or trying to promote streams or something... just for fun.
All of this got me thinking: Why does this happens? What went wrong and why people are willing to have an inferior version of the game, like the OG Halo 3 that was limited by the 360 hardware, just to have fun? It is just nostalgia? Well I never played Halo 3 online that much, so why do I have so fun? If only nostalgia is there then I would be jumpin on Reach matches, the Halo title I got when I finally got my 360, but when I played Halo 3 on the MCC I got in love with this game.
So I dont think this is the main reason. Yes "modern gaming" is at blame as well (I will rant about modern gaming in another topic, I widely over wrote in this post), but I think it is something as simple as the elimination of lobbies: the destruction of the community. I currently mostly play games with either lobbies like the mentioned Halo 2 or 3 sunrise or just servers like DooM, Sven Co-Op, R6 3 or the original MW3, and it is way more fun. That sniper that were always on that blind spot and got my ass every match? My personal goal next match will be claymore each spot. My warthog gunner that got most of the kill? You can bet we will repeat the duo. The top fragger of the enemy team that alway got me? This time it is me and him with the noobs of the lobby, and we have to carry the team. These moments are better and more personal than the "Match clutch" they always told.
People get over competitive on matchmaking not only because they have to or they will just get stomped on, but because there is nothing else on online multiplayer. Current online is just an algorythm designed by corpos whos only undestanding of gaming is streamers...
...and this thing fucking sucks
I love Halo, definitely one of my favorite IPs since I played Halo 1 on my old PC without any shaders (Masterchief was white and no golden visor. It took me years to know his armor supposedly was green). Halo Custom Edition was one of my first online experience as well. And even if I miss the glory of Halo 3, this one is my favorite intro in the series.
So moving forward, gaming exploded hitting mainstream and becoming a common hobby between the population. Bungie left, we got new consoles and 343 did what 343 does it best by destroying a well known IP. BUT, there is something special, a game called Halo: The Masterchief Collection. Now I could play all the Halo's I missed and maybe get as close as what Halo 3 was on its prime.
But the game succed and it was broken for years, until recently. In the meantime I even got excited for the new entry: Halo Infinite. I even got a new GPU only to enjoy it in all its glory!... and it sucked. It was a game designed to squeeze every penny they could even if it made my experience worse. In order to get more money they even sacrifice design integrity so they could put silly things on the shot that doesnt fit the aesthetic of the game just so they can get a few dollars out of some fools. This exact same thing happened with Moder Warfare 19, a game I payed for, and enjoy it until they just put stupid things in it. On a side note: I recently played Black Ops 6 with my brother and they put unskippable ads of their products in the game, you have to watch the "ad" of the new skin for a couple of seconds before you can skip it.
But hey, I had the MCC, it is working and there are even more people playing it than in Infinite. I get from home, select my game, choose "Social matches" and my desired gamemodes and... it is a pain. There is no social experience here, everything is skill based matchmaking and if you do too well you will get paired with people that threat every match like the world cup depends on it. Halo 2 is specially unsufferable with people that now the glitches/combos and will triple shot you, and on Halo 3 people that will just destroy your base/vehicles and take power position dominating you 100-21.
Some will say, "just wait, they will lower you down and you will have fun!", and to some extend it happened: I once got paired with people that had some head to head experience. Sometimes we will win, other them. And even if they killed the lobbies, we usually be put togheter. But then it happened: We had a Team Snipers game and I dominated the other team. This made the rest of the night a sweart fest againt people that coordinated themselves and destroyed my team with double the points, until I got tired and just quit the game.
I looked online on why does this happens and if there is a way or an option to just have some chill experience, to just "play" a game, not having to fight for the superbowl each match. And it came to me a little name called "Halo 3 Sunrise". Sunrise is basically the restored version of the original Halo 3, it is very basic and to play you have to be invited into lobbies wich is a shore tbh. But it was SO fucking FUN. There are some sweats like always, people that never stopped playing since 2007, but because is a lobby they would just relax next match or the team balance will rebalance everything for next match.
But it doesnt stop there, because of my bad experience with Halo 2 i was reluctant to try it on Insignia, the community Xbox live replacement for the Original xbox. You need to undertand... these people know Halo 2, they are always playing and now the glitches, the combos, etc. But I give it a try thinking I was going to be obliterated... but no, it was really fun. Most people where chill, even I must take some of the blame, I where the sweat becuase I was used to act like this on Halo 2. (We play all thuesday btw)
You could say, "Well, the Halo Community is just chill", but on Insignia we play more games, one of them is Rainbow Six 3 online and it is not an easy game to play. But people just connect and enjoy the matches. Not to dominate, but to have fun. Other games like classic DooM or Sven Co-Op games also have these small servers with people just enjoying the game, no onw treat it like their lives depend on them or trying to promote streams or something... just for fun.
All of this got me thinking: Why does this happens? What went wrong and why people are willing to have an inferior version of the game, like the OG Halo 3 that was limited by the 360 hardware, just to have fun? It is just nostalgia? Well I never played Halo 3 online that much, so why do I have so fun? If only nostalgia is there then I would be jumpin on Reach matches, the Halo title I got when I finally got my 360, but when I played Halo 3 on the MCC I got in love with this game.
So I dont think this is the main reason. Yes "modern gaming" is at blame as well (I will rant about modern gaming in another topic, I widely over wrote in this post), but I think it is something as simple as the elimination of lobbies: the destruction of the community. I currently mostly play games with either lobbies like the mentioned Halo 2 or 3 sunrise or just servers like DooM, Sven Co-Op, R6 3 or the original MW3, and it is way more fun. That sniper that were always on that blind spot and got my ass every match? My personal goal next match will be claymore each spot. My warthog gunner that got most of the kill? You can bet we will repeat the duo. The top fragger of the enemy team that alway got me? This time it is me and him with the noobs of the lobby, and we have to carry the team. These moments are better and more personal than the "Match clutch" they always told.
People get over competitive on matchmaking not only because they have to or they will just get stomped on, but because there is nothing else on online multiplayer. Current online is just an algorythm designed by corpos whos only undestanding of gaming is streamers...
...and this thing fucking sucks
