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Gaming terminology used by old school gamers which aren't used today

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
ICQ - 725041 was my ID lol
Brings back memories. DIdn't use it much. Then there was that old ass MSN Messenger where half the people left their avatar as the chess piece. Worked fine, but then disappeared. Not sure why it fizzled out. At the time, cell phone texting wasn't even a thing yet.

As for ICQ, I remember my friend asking me to sign up so I did and only a handful of people I knew I spoke with.

But I remember some reason speaking to someone about Formula 1 racing about Villeneuve and Montoya. I dont even remember who it was or how I even found to speak with him. Then I quit using it.
 
H

hariseldon

Unconfirmed Member
I used to abuse ICQ’s SMS capabilities - it could spoof people’s numbers. A lot of people I worked with sent texts to people they shouldn’t have.
 

manj

Neo Member
Game maps ?

bhWP3Ab.jpg
 

TLZ

Banned
Joystick.

Now it's probably used for something x-rated.

This isn't a term, but I'd like to mention the sound of many coins in your pocket at the arcades, to play the games. Now you just swipe a card instead.
 
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The Silverlord

Neo Member
VDU; VRAM
Interrupts; I/O; Peripherals
PSG (Programmable Sound Generator); MIDI
ASCII; Pattern tables; Tiles
Palette swapping
Sprites; Collision detection; pixel perfect jumps
Bitmaps
 
Joystick.

Now it's probably used for something x-rated.

This isn't a term, but I'd like to mention the sound of many coins in your pocket at the arcades, to play the games. Now you just swipe a card instead.
Speaking of joysticks, long gone is the concept of an autofire switch:

0QzeQnD.png


Not that it was ever much of thing outside of the Quickshot 2 if I recall.
 
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TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
Memory cards are a big one for me.

Save points also became rather irrelevant, and later on, manual saves. I know they still exist in some capacity, but a lot of people just LIVE ON THE EDGE and let all their progress be beholden to the autosave gods.

Been awhile since I've heard about autofire and debug rooms, too.

Also miss tilting carts in the N64 days to get access to weird debug menus and glitches. Along the same lines, some of the exploits you could perform by opening up the disc cover on PS1s. I remember when I was a dumb child who didn't take care of his stuff, I used to open up the console A LOT to try and get FMVs that were skipping to work right, or be bypassed altogether. Switching discs in Final Fantasy games because the entire world was on every disc and the only change up to having the wrong one inserted would be FMV's playing at incorrect spots in the story.

Also, game soundtracks being on game discs if inserted into a CD player. Ahhh, nostalgia.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
Some terms are still used today extensively like Sprites, some sprites are used by devs mostly like Paralax or MIDI.

Some terms I had no known about for around 12 years are: Crack, Keygen, and those related to piracy.

When I was younger I used to pirate games, until I started working and having my own money, until then I used to know a lot of tricks and websites, but I see a lot of not exactly wealthy people just going into digital stores and buying their games instead.

Srsly Steam and digital sales changed the market beyond many admit or recognize here.
 
Some terms are still used today extensively like Sprites, some sprites are used by devs mostly like Paralax or MIDI.

Some terms I had no known about for around 12 years are: Crack, Keygen, and those related to piracy.

When I was younger I used to pirate games, until I started working and having my own money, until then I used to know a lot of tricks and websites, but I see a lot of not exactly wealthy people just going into digital stores and buying their games instead.

Srsly Steam and digital sales changed the market beyond many admit or recognize here.

This is a massive yes - back in the day, most of us pirated stuff - now we have so many sales, we have no need to do it. I always try to buy everything now - not pirated a game or software in 10 years or so. I even own a legit copy of WinRAR and WinZip!

Games are more of a ballache now - some REPACKs taking over an hour to extract as they use heavy compression - and that is with NVMe. Then you have to remember to block things in your firewall, or disable ethernet etc - nah, I am too lazy. Wait a few months and buy it half price! Or a couple of weeks with Ubisoft games ;)
 
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