Columns

Enjoy a run-down of our recent long-form pieces, both game-specific and more general. You might also be interested in our list of all of our columns and recurring articles. [Follow this category’s RSS feed]

I'm definitely an elf!

Perfect Ten: 10 times World of Warcraft was killed forever

28
As many of you reading this may know, World of Warcraft is a game that launched and then immediately died forever. It then proceeded...

Massively on the Go: April showers didn’t bring Pokemon GO May event flowers

2
April was a rough month for Pokemon Go, as the game failed to deliver on Earth Day - an event Niantic used to champion...

Fight or Kite: Pax Dei’s alpha is equal parts survival gameplay and grind-fueled crafting

14
In my experience, I’ve found "survival game" and "grindfest" are synonymous with each other in all but the rarest of cases. There just seems...

Choose My Adventure: Necro Kitty proves to be a reasonable Elder Scrolls Online tank

11
I've had some minor grouping experiences in The Elder Scrolls Online before. I was around for some of the game's early days when people...

The Daily Grind: How do you define ‘old-school’ MMORPGs?

25
One of the topics that comes up every year come award time is how we decided which MMORPGs are old enough - whether by...
With strong eye contact.

Wisdom of Nym: It’s OK that your Final Fantasy XIV character is going to look different in Dawntrail

32
So we've all had a chance at this point to play around with the benchmark for the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion, and that...

The Daily Grind: What’s your biggest complaint about mobile MMOs?

30
A few weeks back, we covered the launch of Dofus Touch, and I'm gonna be honest, it looks freakin' adorable. Ankama is a super...

One Shots: …and that’s how I became hoarse

6
While you may be completely freaked out when confronting an enemy six times your size, it's important not to show fear. In fact, one...
Library?

The Daily Grind: Which MMORPG has the coziest inns?

23
Look, it's time to accept and understand a fundamental truth about Star Wars: The Old Republic, perhaps the game's greatest failing. Cantinas? Not comfy....

LOTRO Legendarium: 27 practical benefits of LOTRO’s player housing

3
There's this ongoing common perception in MMOs like Lord of the Rings Online that player housing is good for one and only one purpose:...
boat

Betawatch: Age of Water and Bellwright enter early access

5
For some reason we keep letting games enter early access, and this week saw two more hit that stage of release, with both Age...

Stick and Rudder: So let’s talk about those Elite Dangerous pre-built ships

5
Over the past couple of days, I've been watching and writing about the fun little tire fire that Elite: Dangerous ignited when it announced...
Forever and ever.

Into the Super-verse: Why the resurrection of 20-year-old City of Heroes is worth celebrating, even if you don’t play

13
There's a certain poetry to the fact that this year, on the 20th anniversary of City of Heroes, we can all play the game...
Would you like to see something unsettling?

WoW Factor: Exit BlizzCon, for good this time?

15
Back in 2021, we learned that there was not going to be a BlizzCon 2022. This did not surprise me, and I penned a...

The Daily Grind: What’s the most frustrating misperception the general public has about MMORPGs?

25
MOP reader Orca7 tipped us a funny piece from The Onion from last week that reminds me MMORPGs are still not regarded in the...

Massively Overthinking: Is there a feature or item in MMORPGs you won’t play without?

39
I was jolted into a near panic earlier this past weekend when I saw a tweet from Lord of the Rings Online in which...
WRONG!

Vague Patch Notes: When MMO designers build traps for players

16
So last week, I spent a whole lot of words talking about what "the meta" actually means when it comes to MMOs. Put very...

Tamriel Infinium: Will Elder Scrolls Online Gold Road’s spell scribing be a gamechanger?

0
All the way back in 1996, Bethesda introduced an interesting feature with its second Elder Scrolls RPG. Daggerfall included "spellcrafting," a system that allowed...
is that a monkey?

The Daily Grind: Which MMORPG with level scaling handles it worst?

21
Considering the fact that every MMORPG is in a war of content basically forever, I say it makes sense that they would embrace level...

Perfect Ten: Great MMO April Fools’ Day pranks from back in the day

10
There are two types of people on April 1st: those who are annoyed and indifferent to the tomfoolery going on all around them, and...

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