THERE are thousands of worlds found past the digital screens we peer into, each one with its own traditions and cultures, people and communities; some different from others, while others are similar.

Beyond the gameplay that online video games provide is a rich and enjoyable experience where players interact with others who share the same interest, be it for progression-related reasons or purely for online social interaction.

These interactions are most commonly seen in online live-service games as players always band together and form a community to discuss the most efficient tactics available to best enjoy the game or to share lore and funny experiences with one another. What they are not, however, are all positive.

For Filipino communities in competitive environments like “Valorant” and “League of Legends,” players are commonly referred to as toxic with some older players hailing from “Crossfire” and the original “Defense of the Ancients.”

This is a given as these games can involve frustrating outcomes, especially when players are dedicated to acquiring scores through victories so that they may achieve a desired rank in the game. When short-tempered players face difficult situations caused by others, there is a tendency to want to blame something or someone. Some just take this a little too far.

But that is not always the case. There can be communities that are positive and supportive of one another, often found in chill and casual games. There are some who have even spent thousands of hours playing a game of their choice, with their level of progression earning them the title of “veteran” in their field.

Veterans in the field

Republicasia asked two Gen Z gamers about their thoughts and experience having spent years playing “Warframe” and similar massive multiplayer online games with friends, family, and strangers.

Ashton, 18, has been playing “Warframe” at the same time he started “Dragon Nest,” around 2015. Although he stopped playing the latter, he has been active in the former for the past nine years, accumulating over 2,000 hours of playtime as per his in-game statistics.

Presently, he is active in two other games: “Blue Archive” and “Wuthering Waves,” which he started playing in 2021 and 2024 respectively.

When asked about what encouraged him to play these games, he said that the customizable characters/variety and the theme of the aforementioned games appealed to him.

Gkm, 21, started playing as early as 2006 with his father introducing him to the world of “RF Online.” Playing with people he referred to as “professionals or boomers,” he has been active ever since.

Other games he enjoys are “Cabal,” “Rust,” “Warframe,” “Destiny 2,” “Apex Legends,” “The First Descendents,” “CounterStrike: Global Offensive,” and “Defense of the Ancients 2.” The majority of them are games you can mostly play alone to progress through the game, while others are cooperation-based competitive games.

Gkm said that he started playing “Cabal” and “RF Online” because of his father, while the other games he found through the online gaming platform Steam.

Ashton considers the time he spends on the game as a “healthier way for stress management and coping.” He added that he is able to enjoy the games he plays because of the way they are developed, specifically the “variety and experimental approaches that don’t follow the cookie-cutting way of game structure.”

Gkm, on the other hand, said that he enjoys “the grind and the satisfaction” he gets when achieving his personal goals. He said that he likes single-player survival games because he can do things his way, building structures for himself to enjoy and progressing to a satisfying point. This attitude of his carries over to the online multiplayer games he is active in.

The community

Ashton described the gaming communities for “Blue Archive,” “Wuthering Waves,” and “Warframe” as “chill, helpful and passionate.” Gkm shared that besides the toxic ones in the competitive games he mentioned, they are otherwise “welcoming communities, helpful to newbies.”

Gkm added that he hates the existence of “BIGAS Gaming” in certain communities, a slang term that refers to real money trading where players must work in games for income or profit purposes.

They both said that although the games do not force you to interact with other players, it is still an available function that can assist in the hastening of one’s progression through trading or through forming “parties” to play the game cooperatively. Ashton and Gkm also commented about how they like that the player base actively helps one another.

“It does not really require you to interact with other players as you can play the game as a solo, but your interacting with other players will greatly improve your gaming experience,” Gkm explained, adding that he spends a lot of time getting to know other people when playing MMOs.

There are also multiple showcases of camaraderie in the online community. Gkm said that “even after the official server of ‘RF Online’ got shut down, the players somehow were able to create private servers for all the old players of the official ‘RF Online.’ This shows the dedication of each player in that community.”

According to Gkm, the RF player base likes to support and help new players get to know the game because all the old players already know each other after playing for a long time. He shared that there were times when he would learn how to efficiently do activities in the games through the advice of fellow players.

Given the closeness of the players, Gkm shared that there was even an instance of a large group of people coming together to pay tribute on their servers for a former player who passed away.

Ashton explained that the “Warframe” community “treats new players like how a mother raises its child, [and] it treats the old and experienced ones with respect.” The players are also very vocal, with them often criticizing and calling for changes from the developers whenever there is an unfavorable or unreasonable change to the game.

The great variety of categories accessible through today’s games makes it so that there is a choice for everybody. There are connections to be made, experiences to be had, and memories to be kept through the thousands of hours spent on a single game.

With reports from Prince Bryan J. M. Marquez