Are there any modern games/communities that still feel like mid-2000s?

[Apis mellifera]

I remember playing games like the original WoW, Eve Online, SS13, tf2, Spore, and even beta Minecraft in its infancy, and I've been wanting to try to recapture that vague feeling for awhile. Back then we were all just skinny white nerds on our shitty home computers who had the technical knowledge to figure out how to work the damn things, and the free time to dedicate to picking up increasingly esoteric slang and l33t.

I've tried playing those old games, even found one of my first towers that I built and loaded up my copy of DOOM on floppy that I kept around for some reason, but it just didn't feel the same. It's like, I dunno, like the world's become too modern for the games and culture of my youth, something like that.

Everything is so different now, there's so much more money being pumped into game development, which I really should be happy about, but it all feels less like a community of shut-ins and just like another over-corporatised medium. Chat room/forum culture seems almost completely dead, or in the least overrun by reddit and tumblr refugees, and I feel weirdly alienated in this new, modern internet.

I just want that "feeling" back, whatever it was. I miss it.

 

[DumbDude42]

it's gone for good

over the past ~10 years video games have become so thoroughly normalized, the niche audience you remember has been totally eclipsed and driven away by the mass influx of low iq normies

there is no going back

 

[Ramborambo]

nerd.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

stop playing video games and do something useful with your time

 

[Coelacanth]

I know it won't last, but Dwarf Fortress still has a decent community because it scares normies and twittards off despite Tarn professing his love for troons. That might change when the more user-friendly Steam version comes out, but from what I've seen it's probably the most mid 2000s community out there right now.

 

[WeWuzFinns]

Start making your own game and then give up because fluid dynamics is too hard

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Space Station 13?

 

[Idiotron]

I seem to remember that way back in the day, there weren't really any giant communities.
Instead, you had smaller groups of like minded people.
They weren't some corporate approved groups, just people who happen to play games with each other and generally liked each other, or at the very least tolerated each other enough to have fun together.

If you want an "old school gaming community", you need to create a small group and moderate it carefully to protect it from identity politics and other nonsense, just like back in the day.

 

[Disheveled Human]

Retro Gaming.

 

[Coolio55]

Nope. Half the nerds turned into troons, the other half "grew up" and started sucking the deformed penis of the former.

 

[(not) y2k compliant]

Private and online play for older games (older being 96-03 or so). Be it Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst (Ephinea), Everquest (project 1999), HellMoo, Quake 3, etc. These often end up having very tight nit communities that you can tell have many of the people of old. But keep in mind these communities are not exactly flourishing themselves, you'll be running in to the same 50-100 people, but I've had very good experiences with them since these communities are so far removed from the current online discourse. Granted the ones I'm talking about are older then what you're aiming for, but thats the stuff I'm more familiar with.
Its fun to feel like stepping though a time portal for a little while, but sad at the same time.

 

[Mike Stoklasa]

There is still a reasonably active Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 community. They're pretty fun. The biggest problem with them is that they coordinate on Discord. But if you wander onto TribesNext at 7PM or 8PM Eastern Standard Time you can usually find them because they're on the only server with at least ten or fifteen people.

You can also still find people playing Team Fortress Classic (turkeyburgers and all) and the other week I saw a Ricochet server with 6 people in it which blew my fucking mind. Just look around, you'll find stuff. A lot of them won't let you say "faggot" anymore though, which is a bummer.

 

[Serf 'n' TERF]

You do realise that you are older now, right?

 

[Slappy McGherkin]

I still play Kingdom of Loathing. Been doing so since 2005. Funny and irreverent, but a good community and regular content updates. I don't play as much or as long as I used to, but still find it very "homey" for a MRPG stick-person game.

 

[Haunted Dishwasher]

I'd vouch for No Mutants Allowed - people still make autistic-grade mods for OG fallouts that are total conversions and generally as they're drawn to old game design/playstyle they tend to preserve that 'old community' that existed since Fallout 1/2.

 

[I am vomit]

If you play older strategy games there's a good chance you'll find a really autistic community that won't conform to current social norms.

 

[Alex Hogendorp]

The only one I could think of is the RollerCoaster Tycoon community I guess.

 

[NekoRightsActivist]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. although a large part of it's community is basically ifunny-tier of meme reddit shit and muh hardcore survival sandbox now.

 

[Helicopter Pad]

Space Station 13?

That was already mentioned in the OP, plus SS13 hasn't really had that feel for a while, might just depend on the server though.
Maybe hopping on some Battlefield 2 or Counter-Strike: Source servers could fill that niche? I don't know if BF2 still has community supported multiplayer projects or if EA has wiped them off the face of the earth again but it'd be worth checking at least.

 

[mister meaner]

I got unlucky as now all the games I’ve played back in golden era are either fully dead or get too little attraction to play.