AxolotlMuseum

The Phantom Multiplayer Effect

prop's name for the feeling of playing on a multiplayer server alone while your friends idle in Discord.

Curiosity Limbo in-joke

In March 2024, during ASMP Limbo, prop explained why he kept playing on the server by himself instead of switching to singleplayer. Singleplayer got a flat “nah” 1. What kept him going was “the phantom multiplayer effect” 2.

The line also reached the in-game chat bridge, where it appears as a Discord message in the server console log 3. The idea, as the chat suggests, is that a multiplayer world feels populated when your friends are in the Discord, even if nobody is actually online.

Primary sources

  1. prop · 18 Mar 2024 · #the-original-mc-chat nah
  2. prop · 18 Mar 2024 · #the-original-mc-chat the phantom multiplayer effect keeps me going
  3. ASMP Chat · 18 Mar 2024 · #axolotl-storm-console-log [10:57:54] [pool-5-thread-3/INFO] *§e[Discord]§r prop: the phantom multiplayer effect keeps me going*

Connected