I miss forums as well, and I’m actually moving back to them. Back in the early 2000’s, I visited like a dozen forums each day. I was a member of like three watch forums, a camera forum, a Star Trek forum, some gaming forums and others. Just ‘doing the rounds’ kept you busy for a while. People also were insanely knowledgeable on those niche forums, and they all had their own specific culture and flavor to them.

Places like a niche subreddit are… OK at best. They are convenient and easy to visit, but don’t tend to have the level of knowledge and discourse that I generally enjoy. You also run the risk of your sub getting ruined by people who are into the wrong aspects of your particular hobby. For example, on a watch FORUM, the discussions are about design, mechanical features, history, photography, how to repair, etc. etc. On the subreddit, a lot of posts tended to be drive-by posters who ‘found a watch and wanted to know what it’s worth’. or ‘is this fake’. The subreddit didn’t curb that, so eventually I and many others just stopped going there. It was basically too easy for people to post there just because, well, they could. Whereas on an actual watch forum, you can do a bit stricter moderation and the registration requirement weeds out low effort posting.

Some consider that ‘gatekeeping’, but I see it as a valid way of protecting one’s chosen community.

I don’t think I’ve met any Brazilians back in those days; (online) gaming is really expensive there from what I heard, right?

One fun thing in the old COD lobbies was always to teach others slurs and general cursing in your language. I learned how to curse folks out in like 50 languages. Each country also has its own unique style of cursing. We Dutch really like to incorporate diseases for example.

I’m certainly not going to say you’re wrong on that first part. I’ve been online since 1996. At that time, the internet was the domain of white, heterosexual, nerdy, generally well educated guys. And me being a white, heterosexual, nerdy, well educated guy… well… going online felt like coming home. Those were my people. I still really miss those days.

But I also know that the experience of someone not like me would’ve been wildly different. I learned a bajillion slurs on COD lobbies after all. It’s a good thing that more people now feel welcome online, as it led to platform growth and functionality that we otherwise wouldn’t have had if it was just ‘my kind of people’.

The current safe, sanitised, gentrified gaming sphere also has benefits: COD lobbies these days are very pleasant by comparison. You even have to sign a code of conduct to get on multiplayer. It feels more welcoming, less hostile. Of course, companies certainly have been financially incentivized to attract as wide an audience as possible. For example, the very first GTA game sold about 6 million copies. GTA V has sold 200 million. And with ever-increasing development budgets, you can’t afford to cater to a niche, you want to cast as wide a net as possible to recoup those costs.

I miss that era. Companies didn’t mind a bit of edginess and weren’t afraid to market to adults. The console culture itself also isn’t what it used to be.

These days, gaming consoles all need to be safe enough for five year olds to play on them. And it’s caused everything to be just too bland and safe, both in marketing and the console itself. Can’t really have things like Xbox 360 Uno with the live camera feed and no moderation. Or the wholly uncensored COD lobbies.

When you can pack the peak amount of players into a decent sized ballroom, that’s never a good sign for your game’s future.

At this point they’re probably better off just refunding buyers and shuttering the game entirely. Doesn’t feel like this is a salvageable situation.

Minecraft in its early days also had the issue of not really having much in the way of actual gameplay and purpose. It was and generally is still very much a self-guided and self-motivated experience.

Me, I enjoy exploring, building a settlement, refining my base with nice architecture and design… I don’t need a particular mission to enjoy it. Other people don’t really dig that - they’re looking for a more linear, guided experience.

Minecraft is what I like to call a podcast game: I’ll put on a two hour podcast and just go and explore or build without a set goal in mind. I’ve spent entire weekends just digging out vast underground networks. It’s relaxing.

Even back in those early days I could see it had potential and would appeal to people like myself who want a nice, open sandbox to play in. But I never would’ve expected it to be this much of a hit.

Same; I was one of the first buyers. Got a few people interested in the game. It’s wild to imagine now, but at that time nobody had heard of it, obviously. Which meant it was an uphill battle to get them to play it, because ‘the graphics sucked’.

I put thousands of hours into it. It’s still the best value for money game, ever.

Well that’s certainly one way to kill a game. Heck, I HAVE a PS5, and I still would be annoyed as fuck by that.

Sure, you can offer to link an account for things like progress tracking. But it certainly shouldn’t be forced on anyone.

Exactly. And I’d say if someone bothers to post that question, they are clearly interested in it. So why not watch an episode or two and see if you like it? It’s not exactly a life-changing decision.

Personally, I’d much rather form my own opinion regarding shows, instead of relying on the opinion of others. I’ve hated shows that others loved and loved shows that others hated.

I own a few Minolta’s, including the X500 and X700. Those were basically the last of their manual focus SLR’s. I love classic bodies like that; metal built bricks that feel solid and chunky to use. I also bought a ton of Minolta glass back in the 2010’s when they stuff went for pennies on the dollar on Ebay. Good glass is good glass, right?

I’ve never shot HP5 myself; I tend to be more of a Fuji shooter in general with Acros for my B&W needs. I’ve developed my own rolls, especially when I had to shoot that in cut-down form in Minox cartridges. Not exactly the kind of thing you take to a one hour photo place :D

Though I’ve also shot stuff like Tri-X 400, Ektar and a bunch of other stuff from Kodak and Fuji over the years. But the thing I absolutely LOVE to shoot is slide film. Velvia 50 & 100 in particular. Absolutely amazing to see slides on a lightbox. You get a lovely depth and color that you just don’t really see in other negatives in my opinion.

I actually just bought a Fuji X-S20 camera which includes a bunch of film simulations, including Acros and Velvia. That’s how much I love shooting those, that I want to bring that fun factor to digital as well :D Also own a Fuji X100S, which I found out is a ‘TikTok trend’ apparently…

I’ve got plenty of stuff that’s older than I am. I’ve got mechanical cameras dating back to the 1930’s, electronic camera’s from the 70’s, watches dating back to that time as well. And there’s game consoles dating back to the NES, like many here.

I like old tech. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s bad or unreliable. If you treat stuff well and maintain as needed, a lot of things will outlast you. I’ll be shooting film in cameras that are a hundred years old in a few years.

Honestly, it’s not surprising. They seem very ban-happy there lately, with accounts getting banned over nothing. And I’ve seen a fair few subs getting the axe as well. When a site gets actively hostile to users and lets mods run their own little dictatorships, people eventually get fed up with it.

Lemmy isn’t Reddit, but at least it’s… also not Reddit :D

Fair enough. Personally, I always stream music through YouTube Music. Never downloaded stuff because I don’t need to. I’ve got fast mobile internet with good coverage and I never really leave my city.

I’m not really into music enough to notice if things disappeared. Can’t say I’ve noticed that, but I’ve heard similar complaints from others. As long as there’s enough 80’s and 90’s bangers, I’m content :D

I wouldn’t necessarily say the best proof (that’s probably things like Spotify and Google Music, services which effectively killed any and all MP3 sharing).

But yeah, the Steam Deck is an awesome platform. It’s great to be able to carry games with you that you normally wouldn’t be able to play portable. It’s also an awesomely capable device for playing ROMS though, if you do decide to sail some seas :D