What happened to communities?

A long time ago it wasn't too hard to find people to play PC games with.  You might not know a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, but you could easily stumble into a community or clan/guild/team/club that was easily accessible.  Your favorite server clusters normally had paid support and solid websites with forums that were available.  Things have change, both for the better... and the worse.

Back in the hayday of Tribes we had a lot of different communities.  There were the elite players of the Base community.  There were other, smaller, Base communities that had plenty of support.  There were small groups set up for Shifter and Renegades, as well.  Then there was the community that I belonged to, Ultra Renegades. Ultra Renegades was a basic mod built for Tribes.  It offered unlimited jetpacks and the ability to use "boosts" and "brakes", not to mention the infinite ammo.  Some interesting modding and adjustments changed the entire game.  It played differently and gave a lot more freedom.  The game was now truly an aerial marvel.  The maps went from interesting layouts with vehicles to free-for-all, above the clouds battles.  It was truly a thing of beauty.  It was my first real experience of intense gaming.

Sure, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and Counter-Strike would all be part of this original push to get online multiplayer gaming to where it is today, but not of them did it like Tribes.  All of these games had large mod communities (CS was actually a mod created for Half-Life) and they all ushered in a kind of play-what-you-like gaming that we may never see again.  Each of these games also had rather large communities.  Not the kind of large that we think of today when we look at huge games like World of Warcraft, Starcraft, or the Call of Duty franchises.  Counter-Strike, for many years, held the title of most popular online game.  You could stumble upon a group of people who were plenty interested in play and easily fill servers with friendly faces or people you were used to playing with.  It was as easy as finding a community filled with people you enjoyed and like playing the game like you did.  Oh, how I miss those days.

Today the possibility of being in a truly active community is pretty slim.  The forums are populated by know-it-alls.  The websites are normally run by exclusive cliques or teams who wish to generate revenue.  No, I'm not mad at people making money, I'm mad when they cover it up with bullshit.  It isn't a new thing, even back in Tribes you saw things moving this direct, but now it is more of the norm.  Today you also see a mish-mash of the communities.  You see several different games supported, if you call it supported...  There is more going on than simply the love for a game or gametype, it's not good or bad, it's both.  It embraces the though of gaming and being a gamer, but it also removes the personal connection that we used to have with the group of people that we played with.  Bouncing from one thing to another can be frustrating.


I know most of it is just nostalgia.  I know I am probably romanticising the past.  Sometimes it feels good.  I remember being a part of a bigger community and a smaller one.  I took part in discussions about Tribes and also about technology on one site.  On another I talked with my clan and we chatted about the game and dicks (also, man asses).  These kind of communities seem to be giving way for larger more homogenized communities and I'm not sure how I feel about it.