One of my favorite MMO April Fools of all time is Guild Wars 2’s playable Super Adventure Box. It’s so brilliantly designed and executed that it goes far beyond mere joke territory and became an institution. A fun game-within-a-game.
Reader Little Bugbear took advantage of an initial foray into SAB to take what I consider to be a very arresting picture. It’s almost a silhouette of a character lounging against an 8-bit skybox. “Sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy a nice day of gaming,” Little Bugbear said.
Before we get into the rest of this week’s lineup, I want to share the news that we’ve made some further improvements to our comment system that should allow you to share your screenshots in bigger and bolder glory, especially when you post one at a time!
“Here’s an unintentional up close and personal picture from Blade and Soul,” posted Rafael. “This cap is busy, but I love it. See, the thing is I was looking through all of those quests on the right trying to figure what to do next while I waited for a raid to pop. And when I glance back at my toon, Yalie, she is looking back. Yeah, it’s just one of those things that games of this ilk do now days. But it was very cool. And her smile and expression are priceless. Almost as of to say. ‘Chillax, dude. We got this.'”
Liandreth reminds me why I keep wanting to play Albion Online despite the subscription and gankbox focus — I love the graphics and camera angle.
“Here’s a really nice shot of a waterfall I found whilst wandering around in Albion,” Liandreth  writes. “I did want to get up close and personal. It’s pretty.”
“When I first arrived at Grahtwood in Elder Scrolls Online, I tried to capture the sheer grandioseness of it’s size and beauty. Of course, I added the cheese of an action pose,” Wanda said.
Hey, no judgment here! If you can’t do cheesy heroic poses in MMORPGs, where can you do them?
Everyone seemed enthusiastic about my “up close and personal” challenge a couple of weeks ago, even if it resulted in some inner trauma. Poor Wild Abyss got too close with one of RIFT’s wildlife and came away haunted for life: “This is closer than I ever wanted to get. Milking space bug things… not even once.”
Screenshot challenge time! This week let’s look back at our starting steps in MMOs by sharing pictures of fledgling characters and our favorite beginner zones.
Every week, One Shots shines a spotlight on the best community screenshots from your MMO adventures. If you have a great pic to share, email it to justin@massivelyop.com with the subject “One Shots.” Make sure that the picture is over 880px wide and comes with a description or story!
