I miss that feeling a little bit. My undiagnosed-ADHD highschool self with like 18 characters hovering around level 20, never maxing one out because the ~30-40 slog was real, just chatting up strangers for fun while hopping around various towns’ mailboxes and occasionally actually doing game content. (Remember when Barrens chat was a meme for basically being like the /b/ of WoW? LOL)
… And it didn’t feel like impending doom or that I was somehow wasting my life away. It’s just what I did after school and that was alright.
It’s how I met my wife though, so it all worked out. :)
I could go on for days but WoW’s peak was a neat way to build social skills while being behind an avatar kept you from being too vulnerable.
I feel like online gaming now has gotten so anti-social and that the mere fear of potential toxicity just has everyone locked up and suspicious; Afraid to talk to anyone they don’t already know. Thanks to, what, basically Discord? Game chats are completely dead.
I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(