I’m a casual Half Life enjoyer. Spent some time on the subreddit and man is it off the wall.
Tunic has an interesting fandom. That writing system has inspired a lot of cool stuff. The subreddit is censored six ways from Sunday because of how spoiler-sensitive the game is, but I have to wonder what random passers-by must think.
The Undertale fandom has permanently put me off trying the game. It’s not really my kind of game anyway, but I enjoy the soundtrack.
Minecraft has to have had the biggest demographic shift in its player base I’ve ever seen. I bought the game when it was in beta. Most fans were adults who were able to give a random Swede 20 bucks via PayPal. After the game’s release, and especially after the console ports and eventual MS buyout, the average age got younger and younger. I miss the old Minecraft forums.
One of the weirdest must be Final Fantasy XIV community.
On the one hand, they are a bunch of the nicest people you’ll find. I’ve seen several wow refugees coming and getting surprised because there’s actual etiquette in dungeons: You don’t vote-kick a disconnected player unless 10-15 minutes have passed because they could come back. And people take care of sprouts (newbies), like, really. If there’s a dungeon with a new player (a popup says there’s a newbie but doesn’t say who is it), people give tips about bosses and how to tackle everything. And if there’s a plot twist (there’s a HUGE ONE in Endwalker’s final boss battle), nobody will spoil it.
They have also… Limsa. A city you have to experience to understand. It’s weird, but in the cool sense of the word.
But… on the other hand… The hardcore raider subcommunity has to be one of the worst gang of crybabies ever. JFC they whine about everything. Never satisfied, extremely elitist…
I was doing the latest raid series with some friends this weekend who were catching up with the content, and they didn’t know the fights.
The first battle has new mechanics, and some people died to them. There was one guy who piped up, “This has been out for two years! How are people still dying to [mechanic]???” We beat the boss so it didn’t matter, but several people chimed in to say “hey, there are some new people here; it’s new to them.” Everyone was defending the people who died.
THEN, oh boy, this guy - would you believe it - DIED in the next fight. And the crowd then… oooo did we make fun of that guy.
What I’m getting at is that one guy out of 24 tried to be a bit of a jerk, but then everyone else was like, “No. That’s not this game, bro.” It’s a community. It’s great.
At the end of the raid when we were all waiting on rolls for items, someone disconnected. “Hey, [another player] DC’d. That’s why the rolls are taking long.” Everyone was like, “no worries.” I said, “That’s fine. DC is better than Marvel right now anyway…” and then the group got to talking about movies and super heroes for a couple of minutes while we all waited for this one person to restart the game.
WoW could never.
I think that’s just the hardcore raiding crowd everywhere. I’ve seen it across multiple MMOs. When you’re that highly invested in something, any changes are going to get under your skin. Especially so if competition for seats is involved.
What I wish was more universal was the dungeon etiquette. It’s been a few years since I was in World of Warcraft, but the pick-up group dungeon experience there had the most toxic people I’ve ever seen in gaming by a long way. And I’ve solo queued in League of Legends!