The Daily Grind: What’s your most embarrassing MMO character name?
By chance, MOP's Carlo struck up a conversation among our team a week ago all about embarrassing character names and gaming handles. Apparently he...
Wisdom of Nym: Just before patch 5.3 for Final Fantasy XIV
Is it too late to hope this patch ends with a bunch of NPCs from the First watching everyone walk back to the Source...
GDC Summer 2020: How Astroneer’s crafting balances cognitive load for the player
Long time followers of Astroneer may recall that the game's early development crafting felt cute but incomplete. Despite the game already being in the wild,...
The Daily Grind: What do you spend your in-game MMO money on lately?
A while back, I asked you folks whether you tried to become rich in MMOs, but that Daily Grind didn't go into detail on...
Jukebox Heroes: It’s time to turn your MMO’s music back on
We're going to take a detour from our tour of various MMO soundtracks to talk about one of the most common statements I hear...
The Daily Grind: Walking in MMOs – or running?
A few weeks back, when MOP's Justin did a Daily Grind about whether folks prefer helmets on or off in MMOs, one reader took...
GDC Summer 2020: Roblox, player-generated content, and the ‘metaverse’
Roblox VP of Product Deepak Chandrasekaran held a skill-building talk at GDC Summer 2020 this week titled Building the Metaverse through User Generated Content...
The Daily Grind: What older MMO feature deserves some dev love?
Lately I've been enjoying myself a big ol' dose of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don't do boosts in that game, so I...
GDC Summer 2020: Gachapon reward models in (mostly) free-to-play games
Let's be real: Some of the panel titles at GDC Summer 2020 are unintentionally misleading. For example, the "Evolution of Gacha Systems in Mobile...
GDC Summer 2020: Pokemon Go’s Niantic offers augmented reality design advice
I was really looking forward to Niantic's AR Game Design 101 panel at GDC Summer 2020 this week because for all my criticisms of...
GDC Summer 2020: What online gaming can (and should) learn from social media’s trainwrecks
The circle is now complete: Social media has mastered skills MMOs and online games haven't, not that social media was paying much attention to...
The Daily Grind: What MMO offered the best beta experience?
This week, MMO players have been talking about a game - and also not talking about a game. New World's beta weekend has been...
Massively Overthinking: Changing the mindset of the MMO genre
I recently saw a journalism professor argue that generating a widespread thinking shift in an entire profession can take decades. "You have to keep...
GDC Summer 2020: Unionizing the video games industry
Just in time for Blizzard's latest labor crisis, Game Workers Unite UK treasurer Kevin Agwaze held an Ask Me Anything at GDC Summer 2020...
LOTRO Legendarium: The pros and cons of Rohan housing
To my knowledge, this past week's Update 27.2 for Lord of the Rings Online may well be the biggest housing patch that's hit the...
GDC Summer 2020: Quantic’s 400K-gamer motivation model
Quantic Foundry's Nick Yee gave a lecture at GDC Summer 2020 yesterday showing how the analytics firm's massive amount of data can be used...
The Daily Grind: Which MMO offers your favorite type of resource gathering?
You know, we talk about crafting a lot here on Massively OP, but gathering doesn't get nearly as much love, and yet pretty much...
GDC Summer 2020: Immersive multiplayer storytelling with Disney’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge
Prior to this whole virus thing, one thing that I was enjoying about MMOs was how they (along with ideas taken from social media)...
Desert Oasis: Our guide to playing Black Desert’s season servers
The introduction of Black Desert's season servers this summer was my chocolate-in-peanut-butter moment of the year. I didn't know the combination would be so...
GDC Summer 2020: How Niantic adapted Pokemon Go gameplay in the time of COVID-19
GDC Summer 2020 is running all this week, and I'm, well, at home. But much like Pokemon Go, the convention adapted, and while I've...
