I don't want to sound like an old curmudgeon - but my favorite online gaming experiences are all firmly grounded in the naughts - that is the period between 2000 and 2009 and specifically for me the period between 2000 and the release of Halo 3 on November 7, 2007.
Online console gaming for me began with the release of Phantasy Star Online in January, 2001. It's difficult for me to express how incredible it was to load up another world on your console and for the first time see, hear and talk to people from all over the world. The only thing that might compare to this in today's terms might be the sensation of trying the Oculus Rift for the first time. You feel stunned into disbelief but at the same time fully comprehend that there can be no going back. Phantasy Star Online - with it's little dial-up modem and external mic that connected to the controller and the memory card with the little video screen on it - was that and more. Some of my fondest gaming moments are from that period - joining up in groups of four defeating round after round of boss monsters. Beyond just the online component however - the average quality of the people in the gaming community at the time was very high. There wasn't much in the way of trolling, not even a joke about one's 'but hole' (that's a Dark Souls 2 joke). It was classy - I think that we were all in awe and just really freaking loved the experience. I remember at one point I posted something like - 'Wow - this is amazing' to which somebody responding with only a 'Yup' and we all knew that nothing else needed to be said because we were all experiencing the same sense of wonder. My username - Grazen - comes from that period as well. I was creating my character - she was a wizard, very tall dressed in green - and I needed to make up a name and the gr... gr.. of green came to mind followed by the sneeze of Grazen. It's been my handle ever since.
The original Xbox versions of Halo delivered a similar experience. The original Halo needed a lot of work and a LAN to get it to work, but man if you were willing to put in the work and put together four consoles (with four players on each!) you could have a party to end all parties. It was glorious! Halo 2 helped to launch the Xbox Live - and this the single best Halo game ever made (ok, so sue me) brought a structured online competitive gaming platform to consoles. The community of players was incredible - it was much smaller than it is today and it seemed more mature (though not necessarily much older). The pinnacle of the online Halo gaming universe was Halo 3 with the Forge that enabled players to develop and share their own maps plus a whole host of stats tracking via Bungie.net. The community of Halo gamers in 2007 were the core players. Many had made the leap from Halo 2 and the quality of the community was second to none. It was good, clean, competitive and for the most part respectful.
As the years passed and competitive FPS games went mainstream the average quality of the online community declined. Call me elitist or a gaming snob or whatever you want (and you will) but the community that developed around the COD games or the Battlefield games or Halo 4 congealed into a very different environment than the naught world of PSO to Halo 3. It was nasty, it was brutish, it wasn't as much fun. It was disappointing to be sure - but that's the price of success, large numbers mean that the average player is more a tag along @sshOle and less a true fan.
My weekend with Destiny brought back some of that old gaming goodness. The community was great - the game was great - the experience was great... it was a throwback to that earlier time. I'm going to keep playing on this beta for as many hours as I can put into it. It's not often that we get a second chance to relive one of our greatest gaming moments, particularly after 14 years. Destiny - in terms of the beta - has put together the best of PSO, Halo 3 and that awesome online community into a single package and doled it out for us to enjoy.
Let's enjoy it.
<If you agree and want to create a community of like-minded gamers on Destiny, join our clan The Fallen Chiefs. You can find us for both the Xbox and the PS3/4 on Bungie.net>
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