Back in the day you didn't typically play in massivevly populated online servers with matchmaking against complete anonymous strangers.
You typically played with a small group of people. LAN houses with people that were there physically, or groups of friends (even if they were online friends).
Even for stuff such as bnet when I played Diablo 2 or WC3, you typically created a game instance, and over time you could recognize the people playing. You curated friends lists, so you would know to avoid the ones that behaved in a way that didn't jive with the rest of the group.
Perhaps it was not scalable, and a change for the worse was unavoidable. There was a simplicity in those interactions that is completely lost and may be impossible to capture again. An echo of a time long past.
Even then, it had the same problem you still face with in-person tabletop groups. If you find a good group that does a session 0 where everyone respects what's laid down, it's fantastic. If not, it's no better than a matchmaking lobby with the worst teenagers. In-person or online or with a small group makes no difference if the norms they all agree on are trash.
Things are better now because you can find that group that aligns with your values. You aren't stuck with the shitty guild that tolerates your differences (at best) because there are enough people online and gaming to where there's probably another that fits better. And it's even better offline because you can connect with those few people in your nowhere little town who aren't butts.
Eh, I think things are much worse now. It's the reason why I seldom play online, and when I do I have absolutely no desire to communicate with anyone (when I play online the first thing I do is muting everyone else. I don't want to read what they write and much less listen to their voices).
There is no community, I am in a centralized server being matched against random people. And when there is a community, it's normally a cesspool where online interaction is at best meaningless. See Twitter for example (no matter if it before or after the retarded buffoon that acquired it, it was always a toxic dump).
Anyway, what is past is past. I talk about those times without much nostalgia (I was a broke teenager at the time, not really the happiest of times). I just rationalize about how things got worse since then.
You typically played with a small group of people. LAN houses with people that were there physically, or groups of friends (even if they were online friends).
Even for stuff such as bnet when I played Diablo 2 or WC3, you typically created a game instance, and over time you could recognize the people playing. You curated friends lists, so you would know to avoid the ones that behaved in a way that didn't jive with the rest of the group.
Perhaps it was not scalable, and a change for the worse was unavoidable. There was a simplicity in those interactions that is completely lost and may be impossible to capture again. An echo of a time long past.