SWTOR Commando presents detailed thoughts on the new Galactic Command system: “What I’m reading is this: No more choice to work towards a specific goal. No more progressing through content. No more helping someone gear up by boosting them through an operation and giving all the loot to them. Everyone and everything will be at the mercy of that damned random number generator.”
“So is it possbile that this may be BioWare’s NGE, in redefining what an MMO should be?” The Balance Force asks. “I would hope not.” XamXam suggests a compromise: “Ultimately, my ideal solution is to take the gearing component out of Galactic Command entirely and just leave it as a tool to queue and get bonuses. Keep it as a subscriber only feature.”
Join us as we look at other hot topics in the MMO blogosphere, including why we love ranged combat, the many nerfs of Guild Wars 2, and faction pride in MMORPGs.
Dimension Gallery: How to obtain dimension items (in RIFT)
“For quite some time, members of the dimension community have had an honor system of dimensions open to the public. The idea of TAPLAP is that if you ‘take a penny, you leave a penny.’ When you drop things off here anyone can freely take them and you can also take items as well, if you take an item don’t forget to leave an item in return. Some of these may require special permission access to interact with, check with the owner of the dimension for more details.”
GamingSF: My favourite MMORPGs
“Continuing on the theme of artwork, in Lord of the Rings Online, I particularly appreciate the landscapes — the beautiful nature of Middle Earth that surrounds our characters as we travel.”
Alternative Chat: The end of innocence
“Once upon a time, vanity pets were just companions. Then one day, someone realised their potential not simply as a casual revenue stream for ActiBlizz, but as a means for a section of the player-base to evolve away from just a fuzzy companion and into the world of attack power and skill sets […] Activision Blizzard have managed to cure me of my addition to pet collecting by doing nothing more than their job.”
Overly Positive: Faction pride in games
“That’s probably why when it works correctly, there’s a fierceness to faction pride in games that have competitive modes or environments. There’s a need or a like to want to make their faction look good and be the best, reflected in groups that choose or align themselves with a particular faction and make a name for themselves as big movers and shakers within it.”
“Some shots today of my travels in EverQuest, EverQuest II, and RIFT as well as Aura Kingdom.”
Ravalation: Why do we like to pew-pew from range?
“Could it be that there is a biological factor in this initial choice? It is generally not evolutionary viable to ‘rush in’ when in a new situation; rather, one would want to observe from a distance before dealing with things. Playing an MMO for the first time is diving into an unknown situation as well. Our ‘gut feeling’ or instinct could be telling players to be cautious. Even when people get confident in their new virtual environment after a while and try other classes, their first character is often still perceived as their ‘main.’ This could explain the popularity of ranged classes.”
Creeping: Black Desert — The renegades
“The end game in Black Desert can be pretty harsh. It either means investing a lot of time and money to get geared up quick or taking your time to get what you need in pieces slowly. Sometimes painfully slow, but patience helps.”
Why I Game: Guild Wars 2 — The nerfs will continue until morale improves
“The change in meta means that raid team roles are now in flux once more, and my particular raid group hasn’t even settled on a workable raid composition, let alone who will be in which role most of the time. This leads to discomfort, rather than the numbing comfortable familiarity of knowing that such-and-such player will be here and doing this, and that player will be there doing that.”
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
