Does Anyone Remember System Wars Back In The Day?

I like to refer to this era as "Gotham city with not Batman". The Lems, Hermits, and Cows would really go at it.

I remember people getting banned continuously...

It was bad.

I remember SW from 2003. Yeah I used to take "breaks" all the time haha still was good times

I didnt post much when SW was good. Mostly lurked when fanboys would cry over reviews. Spent most of my time on cooler boards.

@mems_1224: And cry they would.

I remember every person with a PC trying to make you feel like you made a life mistake for having a console.

Good times. It's a lot quieter now.

My Twilight Princess 8.8D Hype Thread is a brief walk down memory lane with some of the shenanigans of System Wars past. It was fun looking back.

Nope, I was too busy actually gaming.

I've only been into the wars since the start of this gen.

Not as much goes on in here anymore. I remember when the PC forums was full of activity, but nothe anymore.

Wait SW nowadays is....quiet?

Jeez

It was just as bad back then as it is now.

@naughtyottsel: compared to it back then, yeah. I mean activity wise if that's what you're thinking also.

Wow fair enough, I tend to feel really bad after I insult someone on here so sometimes I feel like taking a break whenever I get really irked with SW (done it a couple of times).

Planned to take a 2 week break for Bravely Second but I've progressed so far in the game in less than a week that it'd be stupid too.

You bet your ass I do! This is where I lost my first tooth, discovered *spoilers* Santa isn't real, this is even the first place I ever got laid.

Good times.

To be fair, that's more of a current thing. At one point, a good chunk of users outright ignored PC in all discussions.

Oh yeah dude, it was like 100 times more active lol. You'd create a thread and it could fall off the first page within an hour, sometimes even in a matter of minutes. It was the most active gaming board I had ever seen.

Jesus, fair enough.

Was it more toxic than it is now?

I remember coming onto SW when I was 13 and 14 years old, 2005 and 2006 and boy was it a different place than it is now. A lot more activity, a lot more varied arguments and tons of great meltdowns.

@naughtyottsel: I still need to play Bravely Default!

lol **** yes man.

People had to be more clever about their trolling and insults, the rules were far more strict. But yeah, people found ways to be vile to each other regardless and a lot of people took the fanboy shit far more seriously.

These days, it's like we all know each other. Most of us are just here because we're used to it. Most of the fanboys these days are really just fakeboys, or just trolling for the lulz. The true fanboys are so few in number now. It's just not as intense and confrontational as it was back in the day.

Wow that's news to me, I thought everyone here was genuine.

Now I feel daft.

Early 2000's were the best, but then the rules became strict and killed much of the fun. Even after the rules returned to being more lax, the site change killed off most the community. I feel that it's only a matter of time until gamespot becomes the next gametrailers.

It was savage, I remember people talking a lot more shit

There was also a lot of Sheep and Lems.. now it's mostly Cows and hermits

I use to post on the GamePro forum back in the day. I would poke around to see what you nerds were talking about and was always amused. It was a lot more "wild west" than now. GamePro shutting down forced me into making a account ;p

I remember this place being a lot busier, where new threads get buried to the 2nd page within an hour or 2. I don't remember the community being better or more toxic, i guess it was about the same.

@Sweetbackhair: Yeah. I joined and frequented the PC boards for years. Picked up most of the 'classics' I missed through recommendations there.

You needed to be more creative in order to troll. It's not that way anymore which IMO kind of killed it. Now anyone and everyone can make flame bait threads without much consequence. It's less active as well which makes it kind of boring at times.

Yes, all this time on here that could be spent on actual gaming.

...

:'(

Wasn't long ago ppl were throwing insults around (dirty ones too) like a confetti canon.

Within the passed few months things have been calmer.

Don't really care either way. I like chill atmospheres...I would think the only ppl who like seeing arguing all day long were ppl who were too scared to say anything.

At least if you got in an argument you had some balls....am I rite?!?....rite?.....ugh.

Yeah, and it was way better. Some of those old-school trolls need to come back.

I'm not sure if there was a systems war on Gamespot then but I remember in the days of the Nintendo 64, whatever years that was, I had an account and don't remember my user name. I do remember people being dicks and giving me a lot of crap because I hated the N64 controller. I was accused of having ADD. Thats my only vague memories of the forums in the deep past. I was an on again off again lurker after that and mostly just wanted game news and not so much opinions. Now I'm very bored so I post comments.

Edit: Now that I've thought about it I think I used the username Fyodor back then. Didn't post much.

I was too busy with Battlefield 1942/Desert Combat and Battlefield 2 to hang around forums. So, I wouldn't know if GS was good then or not.

@Heroldp813: I remember it well. I wish I could pass my experiences on to other posters in SW and the new admin/new mods.

I lurked without joining until 2006. But I remember some crazy threads before 7th gen.

I think I posted very rarely on SW, I was usually on specific game forums or general console forums. I liked SW in the past (still like it now) because despite the trolling and fanboyism there was still quite a bit of info I could gather from all of it without needing to visit multiple sites. Plus what was considered a must-buy on SW was a pretty big deal and what motivated me to buy Valkyria Chronicles when it came out.

Yangire

Edit: I remember that user and others back in 360/ps3/wii times.

SW is just so slow these days

It was fun back then but now it is meh.

I have a feeling it has something to do with the new web layout/design.

You're probably thinking of when there technically was no System Wars sub forum. The Mod's got fed up with shutting down threads and having to mediate people arguing which was the best platform, so they started System Wars hoping people would keep it civil lol

Don't let the Date on my account fool you. I've been here since this was Ziff Davis media when the forum was nothing more then an ugly black background with red fonts blinding posters. They just screwed up my account when they switched , oh who remembers when? I don't?

That's because all the Trolls went over to IGN after many arse kickens lol

I remember the Einstein & hitler episode, the magnificent flop of Twilight princess....good times SW is a shadow of itself.

The board was far more...vile? Can't find the right word. There were a lot of off-topic, flaming threads that existed exclusively to agitate anyone and everyone. I suppose the activity was higher though...

I forget the exact name but a group went off and made their own site based on SW. TheRealSW.com? Something similar. That was place was unreal - many of their gaming gifs/memes were super NSFW.

Oohhh, I think you're talking about ...drawing a blank....Combat Soldier? I think that was his shite hole.

No idea what was going on in the forums back then, and i'm kind of glad for that.

If you go to the oldest topics right now for SW which is around 2007 you will see what it was like back then.

Yeah, I remember getting picked on and modded by hermit Casey just for saying something as innocent as, Halo 3 Smashes Crysis lol. :P

oh yes, when there were mods like Case and Cake, FLOPS were epic, GUFU board...ahhh good times.

i sure do remember the banning part. Literally, if you're not 100% positive about something, you have a good chance of being banned. You couldn't say anything negative about the Wii or its a 3 to 7 days ban or more. It was a joke but for some reason the board was more active and funny.

But anyways I made an account in Gamespot back in 2006 (Not this account that I'm currently using since I abandoned my original one) but would go to the games discussion forums or a certain game title forum but never the SW forums. It was only then in 2007 that I would go to SW a lot and remembered how crazy it was. The mods were very strict with the rules and you can get in trouble for everything because nothing about their rules were very clear.

Today I feel that they got better because the rules are easy to follow and the mods are much friendlier to deal with but back then you were always worried if you do a simple wrong thing that might get you moderated. Hell I remember one time some people got mad at me for not being interested in a game they like and would insult me and when I called them out for being whiny I got in trouble for it. Now today that doesn't happen like this anymore lol. Sure SW might be different today but at least they are not very strict like the old days.

Man, I miss those days lol. System Wars was the funniest damn message board ever. The "suicide watch's", the meltdowns, the retarded debates, and the trolls. SW's today is nothing but a shadow of it's former self. I met a lot of great people here. I mostly lurked for a long time before I made an account. Was posting a lot on "Teh Vestibule" IGN forum during those times.

It's also good to see some familiar faces that are still here, even if it's rare. :P

The site changes ruined this place

Yup, its just devolved. Trolls and fanboys don't have to be clever anymore. They can act like idiots without the fear of getting banned.

Yep, the "new" Gamespot makeover was a giant failure. So many issues with the changes a lot of people left and never came back. The hardware forum was a busy, busy place. It was easy to get answers for your questions and to keep up with news with current hardware trends.

Now you're lucky if you get a couple of responses to a question in the hardware forum. I used to frequent the hardware forums multiple times a day. I now go days before I might visit the forums and actually see something worthwhile to post on.

I rarely post in the SW forum. Most posts are just people crying because things didn't work their way - I get enough of that crap from my co-workers and kids, I don't need to read about other people's problems.

We had much higher quality fanboys back then.

I remember fanboys that would vandalize Wikipedia to push their agenda.

One time a fanboy was spreading so much shit in SW that a Ninja Theory dev registered an account just to put him in his place. This same fanboy started another rumor that made it all the way to The Register. I may still have the conversation somewhere in my forum history.

Those were the good ol' days. Very lame now. It should be called System Scuffles.

I got into system wars back when Socom vs Halo was a heated battle. I was pro Socom and resorted to attacking the user and was reprimanded for it. I've since then cleaned up and stuck with keeping focus on the games/topic instead of insulting the user.