Mainly for oldfags - What vidya forum did you browse before /v/?
Is it still around and how is it these days?
WoW forums back in like 2005
also, anyone who is from Gamespot and IGN are, most likely, shitposters.
Facepunch
>>318417389
what an awful place that was
I browsedYaoi Havenalmost exclusively until it got taken down.
were IGN's forums ever good? i know they're straight cancer these days
>>318417748
Gold memberships and post counts really got to people's heads. And they were the type to always look at your past posts to critique you on an unrelated topic.
I swore off forums after that, I like that I can say something retarded here and not have to live with it forever.
>>318417962
never.
LUE
Facepunch
>>318418010
its also a furry cerclejerk cesspit
Gamers.com back when the site was the official forums for EGM and other gaming magazines. EGM jumped ship to 1up.com and the forums survived a little longer and then died.
There were a few forums that split off but I'm pretty sure they're all dead now.
The Codex and gamebanshee
GameFAQS. I know it's cancerous but the huge fast moving boards ensured that there was always discussion going on. It was also the ideal place trade shit. Eventually I found this place and got so used to anonymity that I just couldn't go back.
didn't really use any forums at all before 4chan. spent very little time on the internet in general.
oh how things have changed.
Megaten Haven.
I still remember asking "y hallo thar, butsex?" as a greeting for the new peeps.
Facepunch
Bungie.net
I used to frequent a few smaller forums that i can't really remember the name of, as well as Gamespot. The smaller forums are all dead by now, and i have no idea about Gamespot but can't imagine anything good.
Now i have /v/ and that's not much better.
What a terrible hobby.
I can't even remember now.
somethingawful's games board, i had a SA account before it cost money.i'm 31 years old in two weeks and i've been on 4chan for 12 goddamn years now
tip.it
Played a lot of Run Escape in the past.
>>318415212
I came here from reddit
I don't know, I think Gamefaqs, for a few years I stopped using the internet as a kid because we moved to and our mom sold the computer.
I was a regular on Newgrounds for a while. Say what you will, but that place was perfect for my 13 year old self.
My first board on here was /gif/ when I was 15. I left after seeing a tranny thread because it scared me and I hadn't seen anything like that on the internet.
Came back to 4chan a few years later to browse /v/ and never looked back.
>>31841885827same
>>318415212
The Obsidian and BioWare forums. I was a HUGE Kotorfag.
>>318418916
Oh my god, my brother and I used to go on that website to help us with treasure trails. Good to see its still up!
>>318415212
I used to be on GameSpot also. I guess I stayed there initially because I remember my brother would go to that site whenever he wanted to look up cheat codes for games, and I wasn't too familiar with other sites.
Like most username forums, it carried some of the common issues you see with it; holier-than-thou users, power-hungry mods, unnecessarily large signatures, and people using the visible post count as their e-penis, posting in a thread with no reason other than to raise their post count and using a user's post count as a way to discredit their argument or opinion or whatever. I found myself pretty much only visiting system wars the most because it wasn't a completely tame hugbox like the rest of the website was, but it was still shitty in it's own way.
Through that site, I met two good Steam friends that I voice chat, watch anime, and play video games with. It would have been three, but one kind of disappeared or doesn't show up as often, so it's two. I finally left the website when they transitioned to their current or recent theme at the time which caused the site to look much worse and made posting on the forums unbearable. Despite all the shit the forum went through (there's a lot I could touch on here), it was the site change that finally made me leave.
I went without a place to talk about anything aside from the two steam friends I made for a few months after that. Maybe around 2008-ish or so, I found myself on 4chan, so here I am. I'd rather be here though. I wouldn't want to go back.
Browsed GameFAQs and Xfire forums until 2009-2010
Used to live in Facepunch, almost from the start of the forum thinking about it.
Heard about 4chan from there. Then eventually around 2009 or so I made the jump here. Eventually I stopped browsing Facepunch since 4chan filled all my online communication needs and it's a way better format.
It's scary how important that place used to be to me. Similar to how I feel towards 4chan right now. But these days I almost don't remember my time on there.
>>318415212
gametalk
I guess people are still using it, I used to love it for the cheatcodes mainly, aside from the fact you would almost always get those, "Don't get hit once through the whole game and unlock god mode" bullshits. Codes weren't really confirmed or moderated.
>>318415212
Gamespotter alert, fuck you and CGayC, the filthy sellout
not that users of both sites weren't the same shit, 13 year olds pretending to be internet tough
Used to visit aNaruto MUGENforum when I was very young.
Then I moved onto a Fire Emblem forum (which is still up), though I only really paid attention to the ROM Hacking section.
And sometime I ended up here.
>>318419543
I'll be honest, I kind of do miss some of the e-penis stuff. I came from the Metacritic forums before they shut down, mainly on the music boards, but any user who just posted in every thread was known as 'that guy' and there were some good bantz about it.
But yeah, I also met some friends i still talk to this day there and that's what i take away from those places.
Just used to hangout on #quakenet
was amazing
maybe gamespy network's "planet <game>" boards
i wasn't using forums for games
there was the old official nintendo bbs too i guess, but i didn't use that much
basilmarket
>>318420095
oh fuck, that was my go to site for cheats, that and cheatplanet, I forgot all about it
>Neogaf
>Kotaku
I like it much better here.
None. 4chan was the first time I found a forum that I was willing to browse regularly. Everything else was a shitfest and full of cocksucking. Then again, this was then, and this is now.
Aerisdies. Not vidya tho
>>318415212
devmaster.net was practically the first site I ever went on, followed quickly by gamedev.net. They're about game development rather than general vidya, but close enough. They're both still up.
>>318420095
>tfw using Dig in Diglett's cave on the Viridian side ladder unlocks a new game mode where you can catch other trainer's pokemon. But watch out! The more you do it the more trainers will do it to you.
>>318418010
sounds exactly like reddit
Used to go on Penny Arcade forums a lot. Pretty much NeoFAG with free registration.
only been here a couple years, was /v/ ever saturated with tripfags?
>>318420883
Yes, yes it was.
>>318415212
I didn't. I don't know where I could possibly go that let's me speak as freely as I can on here.
I tried joining GameInformer's forum when I was 13 and got banned fairly quickly because I didn't know how forums worked. Then joined GameTrailers and was there for years. It's long gone. For some reason they wiped the forums multiple times.
>>318420883
It used to be a lot more common. All the quarantine boards have since absorbed most of them.
>>318420883
No.
There were more tripfags because generals, but it wasn't saturated at any point. There were never more than 5 significant (non-topic-specific) tripfags at any time either.
>>318420883
Yes, up until 2009 /v/ had over a dozen of them posting constantly. Thankfully most of them seemed to found their way to Reddit or Neogaf where they might be able to actually get some kudos.
>>318420883
Ooh man forget tripfags bro you shoulda been here when avatarfagging was the hot shit.
>revisit a forum you used to go to
>sudden urge to call everyone there a faggot
>can't because of "rules"
blizzhackers, was the main forum I visited in the early 2000s and it introduced me to programming and 4chan. It was the go to site for everything WoW/D2 hack related but now it's basically dead.
gamefaqs but I didn't really involve myself in the forums mainly just browsed it for tips for games I was playing.
>>318418525
I was a FAQSer from when the PS2 first released til probably 06? Give or take.
>>318420714
I hit up PA for a while until I got tired of their holier than thou bullshit. You're absolutely spot on with the NeoFAG comparison.
>>318421194
Who was that avatarfag who would post bullshit and then people would edit his avatar to be him sucking cock? Was that even /v/?
>>318419942
A game talk bro...
What was your name
>>318421503
Quentin?
GYKK?
>>318415212
r/gaming
I'm not even joking
>>318421503
toady the bro.
classic, literally semen everywhere
>>318421582
I don't remember; I went to GFAQs after that and that was 11 years ago
>>318421741
Yeah, that's the guy. That always made me laugh, I can't even remember when that was a thing. My memory has gone completely of anything from more than 3 years ago.
>>318415212
Sonic Stadium and Something Awful.
Well I've been on /v/ a pretty damn long time now, but many years ago I went to GameTrailers a lot. It was really active and the community was decent. The site is still around but it's a shell of its former self and is for all intents and purposes a ghost town now.
>>318421926
Not that long?
I want to say around 2011, it was definitely pre-/vg/. I have screencaps somewhere but maaaaan so many unsorted images, it would take hours.
>>318422150
The community was pretty comparable to /v/ (which isn't a good thing at all mind you), people shitposting and baiting eachother all the time from what I remember at least 10 years ago or so, I left that place quiet along time ago.
>>318421194
its funny because avatarfags were beloved on my original board (/mu/).
>>318423556
/fa/, /mu/, and boards like that are so disconnected from the rest of 4chan that they develop unique, degenerate culture like that.
>>318423556
there was a time when it was kind of popular here.
or generally excepted at least
>>318424659
ah ok. yeah i mean it's trade-off either way, you lose a bit of board culture for better content
>>318422150
My Gametrailers bro. What was your name? I was active there aswell. That place used to be fucking great.
>>318415212
IGN forums back from 1999 through to 2004 and I hated it. I'm sure they're still around but I'm not sure anyone still goes there.
I never felt like I fit in over there, and finding 4chan was a great experience. It's hard to put into words what it finally felt like to find my niche after years of never really fitting in anywhere else. 4chan was like a collection of misfits finally with a home of their own. People actually appreciated my stupid threads and dump edited images. Rather than people telling me my stupid pictures or thoughts didn't warrant a thread I'd actually get hundreds of responses in an hour. Hell people would actually repost them in other threads after the fact. People around here apparently liked my input so much that they would save images I made or took and post them again and again sometimes for years after my initial post.
4chan has certainly changed since then but I found my home once and I'm not about to leave. I'm not bitter that it's not the same 4chan, but I am a bit nostalgic for that 4chan I found all those years ago.
>>318426701
4chan isn't so bad. I lurked NeoFag for a while and it made me appreciate 4chan more. There are some awful forums out there.
>>318427135
Oh I'm sure.
I'd never give it up. And I'm sure 4chan is still the only place I'd fit in to this day. I mean I've been exclusively coming here for more than a decade, this is the only internet community I'm part of regularly read and interact with. I'd have a hell of a time reintegrating myself with the normals.
>>318421194
there is no such thing as posting an avatar on an anonymous imageboard with no user registration anon
with that said, i miss epic skull guy, lanced jack, donkey kong, phoenix wright, and ambassador of gensokyo. pic related ruined this board.
>>318415212
Gamespot mostly until i got sick of getting banned by the borderline retarded mods.
Half-Life Improvement Team forum
It was supposedly for a full mod for Half-Life to upgrade the single player's graphics, but as far as I know it never came out. The real good shit on the forum was all the people sharing their model replacements for all the Half-Life mods.
>>318415212
GameFAQs, kept going there until around Smash Bros. Brawl released
>>318428235
kill yourself
>>318415212
Newgrounds BBS
Fun times. I wonder how it is today.
Whatever site would pop up from Altavista. I don't recall any of them being any special, as /v/ is "special"
i posted on gamefaqs in 2004 when MGS3 came out. i then got banned a few months later for being an epic troll and posting lemonparty.org when somone asked for help finding the kerotans.
that was the only community outside of 4chan i actually joined and posted to. they all seemed so faggy, even when i was a faggy teenager.
>>318428813
actually i just remembered i was really active on gamebattles for MGO (MGS3 subsistence version)
civfanatics, moderators are shit now
I was in a clan on Counter strike source called wildfire, they had their own forums. I'd also frequent Total war centre forums as around the time Rome:TW and Medieval 2 came out I was and avid total war fan.
The counter strike forum suffered badly from people sucking the moderators and admins dicks. And there was that one moderator who was a total power abuser and straight up dick. He was called Jack I think, fuck you Jack
IGN's Runescape and Animal Crossing forums and Teh Vesti. It was alright. The Runescape forums were cool, very chill community of 10 - 20 people, including an in-game GM. At one point, we were worried that one of us, a Canadian guy, had been eaten by a cannibal on a bus in Canada. I don't remember what evidence there was for it, but it became a running joke. The Animal Crossing forums were cool as well, but a bit more PC.
Other site I used back then was Giant Bomb, before it was overrun by politically correct tightasses who would hate Ryan if he were alive today.
A somewhat small fan site called Squarextreme. This was back in 2001-2002 when I was in high school.
>>318415212
I liked ign, rpgamer, and the gia.
The gia is sadly dead.
>>318433286
Oh, and allakhazam.com
I actually paid a membership due for the honor of having...something? I can't remember the purpose of paying but oh well.
It was a nice little pre-4chan site that allowed massive shitposting and flamewars/cussing on certain boards.
>>318428647
Hes right. And youre the one who should die.
Newgrounds BB
>>318433646
>newgrounds
man, i remember the days when that was a bannable offense here
>>318433934
it was the 4chan outside of 4chan
>>318434443
no, that was somethingawful.
newgrounds was always shit and full of children
>>318434637
it was the 4chan outside of 4chan for the children
>>318435228
> for the children
Which also ran banner ads for pornsites at the time.
Man the early 2000s was a weird time.
Used to be on Arena-Addicts, a WoW private server forum that was fairly active.
>>318435821
as a young kid on the internet I saw so much porn without even trying
>>318415212
Gamespot when I was 11my most recent posts are from when I was 14 but I don't remember browsing then, Escapist for a couple years after turning 15. I ended up with like 6000 posts on the latter and had people emailing me to change it back when I tried a new avatar.The most embarrassing shit I've done is thankfully restricted to private messages, but it's still going to suck if I run for office and the internet digs up my posts.
>>318436553
I probably saw more porn on the internet when I was a kid than I look at now.
It's strange.
I used to frequent a Legend of Zelda EZboard way back in the day. Was the place where I probably made my first real "internet friend." Every now and then I wonder what became ofher.
Then I moved to Neoseeker, which I guess is still around though I haven't posted there in years. After that I moved to a Digimon websie which has managed to survive.
>>318437047
I'm still friends with my internet friends since I was 12
some even from when I was 9 on facebook
First was Neopets. Then GameFAQs, specifically the Brawl board during the leadup to release. I posted so frequently there and for so long that I felt pretty eFamous. Then I was at an offshoot forum of that of like 50 people. ThenMSPA Forums, briefly, then here. I've only been here for a couple years, though.
>>318428235
>>318433586
How new are you 2?
>>318435821
That's because we're past the 10 or so year period it takes to be able to consider an era separately from the present. As far as the internet is concerned, I'd say the early 2000's were weird because things got more established but there was still a sense of the internet being separate from the physical world. The early-to-mid 2000's were also like an edgy reboot of the 90's, which was itself full of edgy reboots.
>>318435821
First time I got any meaningful notion of what a vagina was like was some pop-up of animated flash porn.Breasts I learned from the Dragon Ball manga.
>>318421503
>>318421741
>>318421926
>>318422475
Holy fuck I forgot all about Toady. EVERY thread that guy got shat on for avatarfagging and the thread where everyone drew dicks cumming on his pictures was funny as fuck.
gamesages but it changed into a different place I think ign is what took over
>>318437246
I'm still friends with some of my Digimon forum people, and that's been 13 years now. It's pretty great to keep in touch that long and basically grow up with these people you never actually met.
>>318415212
Not technically a vidya forum, but totse is the only other board I ever really frequented.
Anyone?
>>318437492
I grew up with sisters and female cousins who lived just a few doors down so I never had that "Wow girls don't have penis? They have something else? I wonder what it looks like." mystery that the internet got to solve for me in grainy low-res non-animated 256 color gif format.
>>318438659
I actually knew from a young age that women had "a hole" there instead of a penis because my parents told me this stuff early, but I didn't actually see anything or know the name until years later.
>>318437492
I miss early 2000's internet. I mean don't get me wrong, I don't miss dial-up and gaudy web design, but the internet was a really different place back then.
You really don't see small scale forums so much anymore. Even dedicated fansites seem rarer now. It's all about the tumblrs and subreddits and wikis and these aggregate communities which can subdivide rather than distinct places. Which is fine, but there is a community component that's missing. And yeah, there was wank over post counts and senior cliques, but being a part of a good forum community was a really great experience.
>>318439669
>>318437492
All that social media bullshit changed the internet for worse,back then posting a picture of yourself or your name would be unthinkable and now websites encourage you to post about every little detail about your life
>>318415212
I used Gamefaqs until I got tired of their faggotry years ago.
Cheatengine Forums.
God I miss random spam.
Didn't get the internet until 2004, I mostly played AoM online anyway. The few forums I used to frequent were pokemon/Tales of Symphonia/Pokemon/ogame fanforums.
>>318439669
I feel ya, a forum with over 20 was considered big, and over 50 was HUEG.
>>318417224
The OT forums used to be the shit, man. Then Blizzard went SJW and shut them down.
The masturbation threads were the best.
NSider was all I knew for the longest time. I'm just glad it's all gone now because I was such a piece of shit on there.
Obligatory
>>318415212
I used to browse uol jogos, which is a kinda famous local forum, after it went to shit I started lurking neogaf, but was getting mad everyday with the shit they post and couldn't even reply because I couldn't create an account, so I came to /v/
mostly just IGN and GameFAQs
>>318415212
Bungie.net
>>318415212
>cows, sheep, moles and hermits
Oh the memories and how retarded system wars was.
>>318415212
nothing, I find it crazy that I didn't find 4chan over my years of internet browsing until about 2010, I went to all the damn places that led you there
Within minutes of finding this place I knew I'd never leave.
I used to call The Escapist my home.
But then all of the fun regulars got banned, like all of their content sorta dried up and the forum stopped being fun and everyone started harping endlessly on every time a new flavor of the month story happened. It's a fucking forum and we still got like five threads a day about the same shit.
No idea what it's like now but I've been gone too long for it to matter anyway.
>>318417389
>tfw i still go there every day
>tfw this has been going on for almost 10 years
>>318436721
Yo, what was your Escapist username? I might recognize you
I used to hang around several Final Fantasy themed forums. It was a really tight knit group of people but I've hardly talked to any of them in the past 10 years.
remember when people would hang out in IRCs?
Mutha fuken GameShark
>>318439669
>>318440428
I hear you guys. I only became a regular browser of the Internet back in mid-late 06 to early 07. But man, was the Internet a magical place to be.
Now? Everything feels bland. The same.
YouTube especially, considering how monetized the site is now.
Take pic related for instance. It used to be that if you wanted to find a video from a non-partner channel, you could do it. Now it is just the bigger channels up and center, burying all others.
On a more related note, I used to browse Screwattack fairly frequently back in 08-11. Found them after browsing some of their videos on Gametrailers. I can attest to that the community there was somewhat tight knit. Most I just browsed the blogs that were posted by a few prominent members, almost acting like a forum of some kind. (There was an actual forum, but I didn't browse it.)
After a few interface changes though, that all turned to shit.
The site's primary focus shifted from community blogs to content created by the site's creators. They made it damn inconvenient just to browse blogs, pretty much to the point where I ended up quiting the site outright. Last I checked, they still had that shit interface.
>>318415212
Gamespot
Considered going back. /v/ is fucking intolerable now.
>>318445818
Yes
I always hated IRC. Full of wannabe hacker scriptkiddies pretending to be bad ass. Like /b/ before /b/ existed.
