It's so crazy how I feel about certain video games not because of what happened to them but because of how others made the experience of playing the game less than.
When I was growing up I saw everybody playing World of Warcraft. That was the end all be all for gaming, Open World, Player vs Player situations, community, strategy, communication, it looked fun and the brief experiences I had with it were memorable.
Though when I joined up with an older play group I didn't realize how much baggage I would have to deal with while playing with them. Requirements, addons, following a 'meta' guide to be considered 'useful', Others loose emotions that carried onto the next play session and them holding on to grudges because of perceived offensive 'slights' that were done to 'target them' specifically even though there was no intentional ill will when the play was made.
It was a drag! I just wanted to play with people familiar with the game and have a good time, not be harassed or insulted for not doing things 'in the correct order'.
I eventually lost the taste for WoW because of those harsh sentiments that continued to be brought up even though the current play session was unrelated to what we were currently doing in the game.
Rocket League was another game that was exceedingly thrilling to play during intense matches and downright horrible to experience when getting stomped but at least there was a lot of cool aesthetics and moments that could occur inbetween that made matches, either tense or getting destroyed, worth playing.
Playing those first few months was fun! Matches with other players I knew was great because we all had a decent skill level and could enjoy the game. But again that drive to 'be the best' caught some of them and suddenly grouping up with them meant playing with certain sensitivity options, cars set up an exact way for 'maximum performance' and other things that bogged down the fun-o-meter of the game.
I get wanting to get better at the game but instructing playmates to have an 'optimal' set up and berate anybody who is off by a slight degree is not an aspect I particularly enjoy. It was just a buzzkill and left a bad feeling in my head whenever I did turn the game on to play solo.
I eventually uninstalled Rocket League because turning it on didn't fill me with happiness and I just felt dread playing it because of the groups I previously played the game with.
I mean, Video Games are meant to be fun and I understand that losing or under performing is not particularly fun if it happens every time we played but to get to a point where the attitude is toxic and to rage at anyone who isn't following the 'exact' directions or holding onto a grudge months after a misplay happened is not a good environment to play games with / in.
These are fun applications and being competitive is expected to a degree but straight up verbal assaulting others or being angry for months over a skirmish in a game is not going to keep a group together.
I've seen game groups fracture over events like these and eventually come back together but the cohesiveness of the group is never the same and the cooperation isn't what it used to be.
It also doesn't take much for the group to fracture again but this time some players won't return either by disassociation with the overly emotional members of the group or being removed / un-invited to the 'new group' that gets made.
It's silly to reread this and realize that I've experienced this for much of my gaming career but people can be ridiculous and I am no different.
It's better to move on and experience what else gaming has to offer because these programs are meant to be enjoyed, unless the goal of the game is to frustrated the player through sheer difficulty, and to get overly emotional, lashing out and poisoning that experience for others is not a thing a player should stick around for.
Bit of a 'Personal' dump but It's been a bit since I've participated on Hive and I figured something from the heart would be a good way to restart my posting.
My next post will be more informative for creators who wish to remain 'faceless'(Like myself) and may be useful for those with an creation idea.
Thank you for reading!
Happy Gaming!