What are some dead games or niche games that have annoying communities?

[mindlessobserver]

I remember playing eRepublik. It had an interesting premise. Essentially you become a citizen of any given country of your choice and work together to make your power fantasy real by making your country the strongest in the game. Needless to say it became very clear very quickly that the game could be exploited by bot farms controlled by just a few users and the mods didn't do shit about it because they made money either way and could even charge their advertizers for "views" the bot accounts racked up on the in game advertisements.

Today the number 1 country in the world is Indonesia, which well, says everything really. The game community essentially died out in the west, but it remains with a dedicated core group of Indonesian Bot Farmers and rabid Serbians living out the Serbia Strong meme.

https://www.erepublik.com/en

 

[Gypsy Man]

San Andreas Multiplayer was pretty cool until it got overran by foreigners, like a long time ago.

It hasn't been updated in almost 10 years and the base game doesn't behave on newer computers.

I guess it has a community, if you speak Russian or Spanish.

If you find unofficial patches to work on modern Windows, it would actually behave.

SA-MP was already overran by foreign servers, even since SA-MP was released in 2006-07. As for roleplay servers, some servers have the same economy as Venezuela's; 500K$ for a bike, they also put real money into VIP memberships and exclusive items that roleplay servers provide (between 5 and 20 euros).

 

[Observotron]

The nuHalo community. There hasn't been a decent Halo FPS on more that ten years and they still keep on trucking. They'll blame anything on the shitty new games, but never the goddamn company that actually develops them. They keep pretending late seasonal content was the main issue for Infinite when the main issue is: The game is garbage and nobody wants to play it.

I completely agree. IDK how to describe it, but Halo 5 and Infinite are too 'clean' with their gameplay. Halo 1-Reach had this 'sloppy' feel to the gameplay that made everything have a larger skill gap (making it more accessible but harder to master.)

I have a legitimate, burning hatred for the NuHalo Community.

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Spoiler: Mad at the Internet Sperging

Make a comment about how far, both gameplay and storywise, the franchise has shifted into flavorless generic sci-fi sludge?

"Lulz, you outgrew the game old man. Move on."

Point out that 343 has consistently fucked up every game release?

"Erm, acthsually, Bungie was pretty shitty too."

Mention how Halo has lost any semblance of edge/dark story telling (whether this is the lack of blood splatter in games or the general 'Marvelization' of the franchise')

"What game were you playing, Halo was always goofy and colorful. And what are you, 9? It's so immature that you want the game to be bloody, you psycho"(Yes, this is a common. talking point)

Point out that Sprint is a shitty addition to the game that always has to be overdesigned to even remotely fit within the gameplay of Halo (Halo 5 and Infinite sprint is so dogwater that the game would be better off designed without it)?

"That's modern game design, 343 are professionals and know what they're doing!"

Point out that 343 Halo games have worse customization than a game that came out over 12 years ago?

"Yeah, but can I have my 'oh so cool' rainbow butt-boy spartan I bought with good boy points? I don't think so."

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It's the perfect example of people who don't actually like the series leeching onto a franchise they never liked and gaslighting OG fans into believing that the game was always shit before "NEWEST PRODUCT". I guess I misremember the massive cultural impact that the franchise had in the early to mid 2000s.

Also, World of Warcraft. I would list some examples, but it's pretty much the same thing.

"Oh, you want the 'War' in warcraft back? There's plenty of War, you just have rose tinted glasses on!"

Honorable Mention - Dragon Age, but IMO there was only one Dragon Age game and I ignore everything else.

Fuck off....

 

[Dysnomia]

If I recall that was largely a SCEA mandate of that era, to cram the system chocfull of 3D and 3D only. It's one of the reasons the development kit for arcade ports of 2D fighting games was substandard in that most of those games were ported to Saturn first, PSX second. Sony wanted action and sports games it took a few years to get their heads out of their asses and that's how that gold period of jrpgs on the system came about.

Saturn was really good for 2D sprites. But the boomer suits wanted 3D even though to me it seemed like most kids didn't really care. I just wanted good games on Playstation and Saturn. Games like Wild Arms looked really good. Until you got to the janky 3D battles. Although that sort of mixed media thing was kind of cool in theory. But a lot of the spells and skills looked terrible. Just jagged polygons in different colors. Then some people complained about Wild Arms 2 being in full 3D and not looking good enough. I thought it was fine for the era. Better than a lot of other games looked.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

mother 3 fags need to get a fucking grip. i played that shit before the mato translation was finished, meaning i played the whole ass thing with a gameFAQs story translation to the side. and it was FINE. i loved it when i was younger and soyfaced when lucas was confirmed for brawl, and then got the fuck over it. i don't know what these retards' excuses are. mother 3 released on 4/20/06, and that gameFAQs translation was finished on 06/05/06. anyone who really wants to play that game has done it already.

M3's one of my favorite games of all time and I completely agree, although if it got a remake that turned out really, really shitty I'd piss myself laughing at the irony.

On topic I want to mention every little community that forms around a EB spinoff/homage dev effort, especially any of the multiple groups attempting to make Mother 4. They attract the absolute worst of the programming socks narcs who in turn slam headfirst into basic software dev problems and explode killing the project. It's always fun to watch.

 

[demicolon]

Undertale is Mother 4.

 

[Eagle Bro]

I have a legitimate, burning hatred for the NuHalo Community.

The vaporware fan projects like installation 01 and vocal mouthpieces are the worst part of it. Even compared to the youtube personalities back in the day. Fairly sure they are just retconning history at this point with shit like "342 guilty spark" and making up faked leaked builds.

Most of the time they are just as bad as 343 picking the corpse of bungie's works for more cut content to add back into the game without comprehending why it was cut. Because it was awful to play and either undercooked or would be iterated upon in the next game like the scarab.

 

[Spectre Saren]

Most of the time they are just as bad as 343 picking the corpse of bungie's works for more cut content to add back into the game without comprehending why it was cut. Because it was awful to play and either undercooked or would be iterated upon in the next game like the scarab.

I can't even hold a grudge against such projects cause they are free. Unless they start charging for it or pretend to make a living off them, whatever. 343 is a company that had, until recently lol, had the Microsoft's buckerinos behind them. They have no excuse.

 

[Male Idiot]

Wesp5, is that you?

Never heard of him, nope.

Swtor is playable, or was a few years ago as solo.

 

[Pig Boss]

Never heard of him, nope.

Swtor is playable, or was a few years ago as solo.

He's the guy who made the Unofficial Patch for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, he's been working on it for years and every release he spends months answering the same questions covered in the ReadMe.txt that comes with the patch. I feel bad for the guy.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Short answer: All of them
Long answer: I'll just list some series or games I enjoy and give a short write up for all of them:

Persona and Yakuza: in the West both series have now been completely taken over by libshit troon fujoshi tourists, most of those "hardcore fans" haven't played any of the games in the series except Persona 5 or the two JRPGs in Yakuza's case. With Yakuza, the community got bad with 0 which marked the first influx of normies and most notably the fujoshis, when 7 came out it was basically already over once the trannies came around and with Infinite Wealth the complete takeover is now done. If someone tells me their first Yakuza game is 7 or 8 I just stop speaking to them. Both "fan"bases also fucking hate Japan for some reason despite the series focusing on Japanese culture and its many quirks.

Total War: There's two main "factions" of fans that hate each other, the historical vs. fantasy fans. Though that's a bit of a misnomer since the most popular mod for Medieval 2 is the LotR mod so it'd be more accurate to call it the pre and post Total Warhammer community. Within those you have multiple mini-factions that also hate each other, some are specific to just 1 game. For example Rome 2 multiplayer is flooded with competitive multiplayer espergs faggots who cried for balance changes all the time, which is bad because it often affects the singleplayer experience as well. Thankfully CA abandoned the game many years ago so they pretty much have to deal with whatever's left of the game.

Ace Attorney: Absolutely and completely flooded with fujoshis and fanfiction spergs. The fujoshi contingent in particular is probably the biggest of any series.

Bayonetta: Full of dykes and heckin' valid transbians, though their absolute spergout at Bayo canonically being confirmed straight has been the funniest shit I've seen in a long time. Their current cope is "NOOOOOO SHE MIGHT STILL BE SCISSORING WITH JEANNE!!! SHE MIGHT BE BI!!!" Crossover with the Persona and Yakuza "fan"doms in that most of them have yet to start playing a single game in the series.

 

[Judge Dredd]

The vaporware fan projects like installation 01 and vocal mouthpieces are the worst part of it.

Not Halo related, but Starfox and other Nintendo fan projects have a major problem with both the "fans" and the creators.

First, I want to say I think a lot of Nintendo's DMCAs are either fake, or a result of a fan running to tell Nintendo, because this shit happens a lot. Palworld is by far the most famous example because Nintendo all but put out a statement all but saying "we know Palworld exists. We can't sue. Fuck off." This is further re-enforced by the various Starfox fangames. None of which have made it to release. I remember asking a guy about why he cancelled the project when it was all but complete, and (to use todays language) he was harassed by Starfox fans. This was before such behaviour was common.


But even without that tinfoil hat, project creators have to know of Nintendo's reputation, but they do the same thing anyway. Announce project. Show off trailers and promise a free download in a few days, only to get hit with a DMCA and the project is gone forever. I think only "Another Metroid 2 Remake" actually had the sense to leak a playable build.

Some, like Goldeneye 25 don't seem to have been as far along at all. It looked like a bunch of stock Unreal assets with the Goldeneye sound effects and a custom map. I think was done on purpose to promote their original games Final Transmission, which was cancelled before they showed anything of note.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230911224813/https://luchador90.itch.io/finaltransmission

Then there's Nintendo's fans willingness to ignore Nintendo's behaviour. Killing Fullscreen Mario so it wouldn't compete with Mario Maker.

With Yakuza, the community got bad with 0

Yakuza has been on todo list since, I want to say Yakuza 3. It was a PS3 release. Back then it had a reputation for a glacial pace, and a super serious story that gets insane at points. It's weird to see transformation in the games fanbase, even from the outside.

 

[Observotron]

But even without that tinfoil hat, project creators have to know of Nintendo's reputation, but they do the same thing anyway. Announce project. Show off trailers and promise a free download in a few days, only to get hit with a DMCA and the project is gone forever. I think only "Another Metroid 2 Remake" actually had the sense to leak a playable build.

(For some reason I can't quote the actual post)

I never understand why the people that make these fan projects don't just finish them and release them. 90% of the time they all end the same way (taken down/DMCA'd). They legally can't make money off them (yes, I know there are workarounds, but still). The only thing I can think of is that they just like the attention and can't wait until they get to play the "Nintendo Killed my Project" victim card. I've seen some people say that it's for publicity/resume building, but I can't think of a single time a fan project developer went on to make anything worthwhile.

Then again, you're already an idiot if you want to get into the game dev field, so IDK.

 

[X Prime]

Ace Attorney: Absolutely and completely flooded with fujoshis and fanfiction spergs. The fujoshi contingent in particular is probably the biggest of any series.

The fujoshi contingent is so prevalent, they actually made licensed Phoenix + Edgeworth paired wedding rings.

Persona and Yakuza: in the West both series have now been completely taken over by libshit troon fujoshi tourists, most of those "hardcore fans" haven't played any of the games in the series except Persona 5 or the two JRPGs in Yakuza's case. With Yakuza, the community got bad with 0 which marked the first influx of normies and most notably the fujoshis, when 7 came out it was basically already over once the trannies came around and with Infinite Wealth the complete takeover is now done. If someone tells me their first Yakuza game is 7 or 8 I just stop speaking to them. Both "fan"bases also fucking hate Japan for some reason despite the series focusing on Japanese culture and its many quirks.

Can fully confirm for Persona. It is why I maintain that turning it into a dating sim starting with 3 was a bad idea. The worst part is that it's leaked into mainline Shin Megami Tensei.

 

[hawkisnight]

MUDs. I recently tried to get back into it. I haven't found a normal one yet. They are either dead, ruled by old guard cliques who circle jerk around each other, p2w, immortals abusing power or mix of all.
Pvp ones - they are the most interesting or they used to be but just forget about it. The competition is who writes the best scripts(I can see the fun but its just not for me). I guess you can join some of them just to roleplay but you're really excluded from all the interesting stuff and there's no guarantee that you will be able to participate in the future. Basically flagged as a "spy". There's also the old age problem with players communicating outside of the MUD but in 2024 it's even worse with discord. Really ruins the magic and fun.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Yakuza has been on todo list since, I want to say Yakuza 3. It was a PS3 release. Back then it had a reputation for a glacial pace, and a super serious story that gets insane at points. It's weird to see transformation in the games fanbase, even from the outside.

The games aren't really that different even now, super serious crime drama with tons of side content ranging from things that tickle your funny bone, endless fast-paced action and things that hit you in the feels, with the exception of the latest one - Infinite Wealth, they just embraced the epic reddit maymays and flanderized every single fucking character. Ichiban is kind of a retard but he can get really serious when he needs to, as seen in his debut game 7. He's an opposite to Kiryu in many ways, Kiryu is a super serious character who can turn into a retard if a side story gets silly enough for him. It's why I give 7 a pass despite having shitty, outdated, half-baked, way too easy JRPG gameplay. The story and characters of 7 are pretty good despite the fucking constant senseless nostalgiabaiting, they literally brought back 3 characters back to life and only with one of them it makes sense, I mean for fuck's sake one of the characters they resurrected had his head blown off.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I can't think of a single time a fan project developer went on to make anything worthwhile.

There's been a few, but they were in the past. I forget where they ended up, but one guy made a short FF7 parody game (it might have been just an animation) for Playstation using NetYaroze and it ended up landing him an industry job. I want to say the Black Mesa guys went on the bigger and better things, but I'm not 100% sure of that. And then there's the various people who got their start modding. I don't know the names, but Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and DOTA all got their start as mods.

Infinite Wealth, they just embraced the epic reddit maymays and flanderized every single fucking character.

Was that the game itself, or was it the translators? One of the problems when deciding which to play first was the early games have jank gameplay, but the remakes were fucked around with by woke/reddit translators.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Was that the game itself, or was it the translators? One of the problems when deciding which to play first was the early games have jank gameplay, but the remakes were fucked around with by woke/reddit translators.

No, it's the game itself. For example Ichiban just turns into retard Jesus thinking he can redeem someone who wanted to murder a child for fun and eats so much shit the entire game because he keeps trusting or forgiving psychopaths that he would've immediately clocked as completely untrustworthy in Yakuza 7. It borders on self parody but you can tell whoever wrote this garbage had no self awareness.

 

[Asian tech support]

And then there's the various people who got their start modding. I don't know the names, but Counter Strike, Team Fortress, and DOTA all got their start as mods.

Icefrog is probably one of if not the most influential individual developer of the 2010s. He might not have invented the ASSFAGGOTS genre but he sure as hell popularized it.
He(?) may or may not be more than one person. Depends on who you ask and what you want to believe.

 

[std::string]

MUDs. I recently tried to get back into it. I haven't found a normal one yet. They are either dead, ruled by old guard cliques who circle jerk around each other, p2w, immortals abusing power or mix of all.

Gemstone IV is still around and pretty welcoming of new players. The F2P account does actually suck and is extremely limited though.

The pay to win stuff isn't really super relevant. You can hunt everything in the game with cheap 4X gear.