But then newbies would get killed a lot and cry, and stop playing. For some reason, this didn't happen 20 years ago but now, it's appearently a big fucking problem if a player doesn't feel powerful in the first five minutes of the game..

I think gamers are just really entitled now. They expect awards for turning on the game. And God forbid if someone else kicks their butt because they have more experience.

I was playing quake and unreal tournament growing up and I got absolutely wasted in the beginning. Made me laugh so hard. Then I got good, very good, because I had to be to not die.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

That's right!

My match making in Quakeworld late nineties / early two thousands went from LAN with dad and brother at home, to LAN at compsci lab at HS after school, to local PC cafe, to regional LAN tournament to international scene once ISDN & ADSL became ubiquitous.

We were always welcoming newbies to the scene. But then starting 2003 the Nordic players became increasingly cliquey and started refusing to play anywhere further south than servers located near the Stockholm datacentre.