Tag: wow

Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is going to be a terrible game, and I hope it gets made. I’ve heard this same phrase echoed around the Massively virtual offices a lot over the past week. I’ve uttered it myself, even though I’ve also taken to calling the game’s lead Brad “Designed Downtime” McQuaid because he’s touted that exact term as…

Here’s how to tell whether you’re an old-school MMORPG player: Tell me what character archetypes make up the holy trinity, that fabled core combination of classes that makes or breaks a dungeon group. If you said tank, healer, and damage, you’re adorable and I love having you as a fellow player and you’re half right, but no. That trinity, what…

Karen Bryan, Massively’s wonderfully level-headed guild and family columnist, recently wrote about the problem of absent guild leaders in modern MMOs. I certainly have no plans to quibble with her conclusion; she is absolutely correct when she says that modern MMOs have created complicated systems of ranks and privileges and achievements for guilds without also creating effective tools for dealing…

I want to go home again, and I’m not alone. When Ultima Online launched in 1997, its housing system was both wonderful and terrible, like much of the rest of the game. If your keys were stolen or lost, your house was compromised forever. Homes didn’t decay if abandoned, so they took up space and prevented others from placing, and…

When I look over some of my past Daily Grind posts on Massively, I notice a recurring theme: I’m apparently subconsciously interested in the ways people try to influence the design of the games they play. I’ve asked about the efficacy of exit surveys, the dangers of player representatives, what sort of sub fee we’d pony up for an awesome…

Ultima Online wasn’t the greatest game of all time, and it’s not even my favorite, but because it was first, and because it’s so old, it’s had a long period of time to make mistakes and learn from them (or not). And because it’s a sandbox, it’s made those mistakes across a broad spectrum of MMO design, rather than being…

Ever hear the phrase “common sense isn’t very common”? It’s true. Arguments from common sense are logical fallacies because there’s really no such thing. We’re all terribly susceptible to the idea that the things we find obvious are obvious to our peers. After all, what sort of horrible person wouldn’t agree with me on something so basic and simple? If…

Anyone who knows me knows I love sandboxes. There’s something about an interactive simulation that’s a lot more engaging and replayable than yet another scripted themepark. And one of the best aspects of the best sandboxes is a strong player economy. The economy game is basically PvP for smart people. No — observant people. It’s as much about anticipation and…

The finished version of RIFT (as finished as an MMO ever is) confirms most of my published pre-launch perceptions: It’s a strong MMO, perhaps even the strongest of the third-gen MMOs. Perhaps it’s even a transitionary fossil, a link between the WoW-era and the incoming SWTOR and GW2. I find it impossible to judge a game independent of what’s come…

Guild Wars owns a permanent position in my top three MMOs of all time. It’s group-friendly and solo-friendly; it’s all about lateral advancement; and it’s one of a few MMOs employing my favorite pay model. So of course I’m watching Guild Wars 2’s development with great interest. And yet nearly every GW2 announcement from “high level cap” to “open world”…