Reminds me of a 2011 reddit post (obviously in the format of a rage comic) that led to the formation of r/playdate, although that shifted to just looking for people to play games with over the years.
First game I noticed was deadlock which technically isn't even released yet. That's fine though. Deadlock is a game that is really good to play with a fixed group. So I'd say this site is good for even more than dead games.
StarCraft 1 let you take your computer to anywhere and connect on the LAN with anyone, or even dial-up directly to your friend's phone number.
In StarCraft 2, Blizzard like every other corp wanted to see and control everything we do so you have to go all the way through the internet and lag even if you sit right next to each other. lol if the connection goes down!
Even on the PS5 when I hand a visiting guest the throwaway DualSense I have to bump through a clunky UI of choosing a user or "Quick Play" and wait while it spins up a whole new home screen and other crap for them, and then warnings about DLC or whatever in Mortal Kombat etc, just to have a short 2 minute beat-em-up session.
To be fair, multiplayer via LAN is such a marginal feature nowadays that you can't really blame the companies for not supporting it. You don't really need "greedy corporate fucks" explanation for this; it's just that you don't want to develop, support and test features that maybe 0.1% of the user base is going to use.
This is not an accurate assessment in the StarCraft II case. It was released in 2010, and LAN play was definitely still popular. I remember because I was part of a University club/society that was running ~200 person ~3 day LAN parties at the time, and I recall the intense loathing we had for how incredibly difficult Blizzard had decided to make it to actually play the game you had paid for, on your own network.
If anything, LAN play became less popular because it was intentionally hampered by Blizzard and other companies.
Games like StarCraft, CounterStrike, Warcraft 3/DotA etc were and still are popular in "cybercafes" etc.
Hell that LAN environment WAS the reason StarCraft got so hugely popular in the first place, before Blizzard got jealous and wanted to have their fingers in everything.
Now, when the servers inevitably get graveyarded permanently some day, how is anybody gonna play SC2 or any of the always-online games?
> it's just that you don't want to develop, support and test features
Just let one player's machine host some of the same server code they use for their internet services?
> multiplayer via LAN is such a marginal feature nowadays
WHY?? Literally everybody has phones now, but how many local multiplayer games are there? Imagine if you could just bop your phone to your friends' and immediately start playing something together. The technology and social saturation has never been more favorable than now, but as always it's corporate greed/spying which is the biggest antifun cancer everywhere.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/j8hpz/idea_for_subr...
I love seeing the original concept brought back with a cool UI.
First game I noticed was deadlock which technically isn't even released yet. That's fine though. Deadlock is a game that is really good to play with a fixed group. So I'd say this site is good for even more than dead games.
Nice work!
But it definitely could use some better moderation
In StarCraft 2, Blizzard like every other corp wanted to see and control everything we do so you have to go all the way through the internet and lag even if you sit right next to each other. lol if the connection goes down!
Even on the PS5 when I hand a visiting guest the throwaway DualSense I have to bump through a clunky UI of choosing a user or "Quick Play" and wait while it spins up a whole new home screen and other crap for them, and then warnings about DLC or whatever in Mortal Kombat etc, just to have a short 2 minute beat-em-up session.
Sigh
If anything, LAN play became less popular because it was intentionally hampered by Blizzard and other companies.
Hell that LAN environment WAS the reason StarCraft got so hugely popular in the first place, before Blizzard got jealous and wanted to have their fingers in everything.
Now, when the servers inevitably get graveyarded permanently some day, how is anybody gonna play SC2 or any of the always-online games?
> it's just that you don't want to develop, support and test features
Just let one player's machine host some of the same server code they use for their internet services?
> multiplayer via LAN is such a marginal feature nowadays
WHY?? Literally everybody has phones now, but how many local multiplayer games are there? Imagine if you could just bop your phone to your friends' and immediately start playing something together. The technology and social saturation has never been more favorable than now, but as always it's corporate greed/spying which is the biggest antifun cancer everywhere.