I've been going through this for a good ten years now. Been perusing and becoming involved with online communities since I first had an account on GameFAQS over 10 years ago, which I actually still have. Though at this point it's used to keep in touch with a couple of people on some social and private boards. Exhibit B is a browser based game I used to play the hell out of in my mid-teens, going from around 5k people playing to less than thirty over the course of a few years as console and mobile gaming picked up. That was a sad one, I checked in about a year ago and it looks completely abandoned at this point. Exhibit C, for me, is Xbox Live. Some buddies and I from high school became good friends with a lot of people from all over the place, but eventually people go to college, get married, go into the army, etc. You have the memories and reminders from forum posts if the forum is still up, and maybe enough to keep in contact with people you come to care about in different ways.
You, me and delta seem to have had nearly identical experiences -- it's amazing how die-hard communities sprang up among those early, simplistic games. Remember N game, maybe? To this day I have a couch to sleep on in every major city in Australia if I need it thanks to that little flash game. It's a game that introduced me to people who shaped my youth, my political views, my sense of humor, my taste in movies and music ... I mean it's impossible to understate the impact the early forums I joined when I was 13/14 had on me. I'm a big fan of that phenomenon, for all that the internet takes a lot of shit for corrupting our kids. All I found was a group of people my age and a bit older having intelligent and interesting conversations that we couldn't have elsewhere. I could list a hundred examples of ways those interactions made me a more mature person.Exhibit B is a browser based game I used to play the hell out of in my mid-teens, going from around 5k people playing to less than thirty over the course of a few years as console and mobile gaming picked up.
I had a similar experience with various Usenet newsgroups and irc channels. I wonder if much of the web moving towards being tied to your real-world identity will hamper that. I'm sure I wouldn't have have been as welcome as I was a lot of places if they new I was a 14 year old kid in Mayberry.
Same here. I spent half my youth on forums, in my case related to Rollercoaster Tycoon. The other half I played the game. I could put a lot of creativity in that game and the community. Besides, rollercoasters are f'ing awesome.I mean it's impossible to understate the impact the early forums I joined when I was 13/14 had on me.
WHAT?! veen. veen. My man! Also have you ever fucked with http://www.openttd.org/en/ - seems up your alley.
I'm interested in all of those things!!! veen, what's your steam ID? and flagamuffin if you're on that too.
Chris Sawyer's the man, aka The Assembly-Writing Superhero. OpenTTD is really cool, I got into it about a year or so ago but I'm absolutely terrible at it - I know how to build bus lines and rail lines but that's about it. Know a good tutorial that's better than the wiki? Also: SimCity 2000. Amazing.