With all of the hullabaloo going on concerning Ashes of Creation and its Kickstarter campaign, a few bloggers are asking themselves whether or not this is an MMO worth backing, especially if they’ve been burned before by grand promises and poor execution.
“All of this adds up to an enticing package and ought to spark the embers of hope that maybe there will be something new under the sun when it comes to the fantasy MMORPG genre,” The Ancient Gaming Noob wrote. “So why am I not excited about this? Why isn’t this helping me shake off the MMO malaise?”
“I’m not on the hype train by a long shot. Not that I see anything particularly wrong with the game, it’s just way, way too early to even think about commenting on it,” Endgame Viable said.
“Am I going to pony up? Mmmm. Maybe,” mulls Inventory Full. “I’m still thinking about it, although, after reading the Kickstarter page, I’m actually less interested in the game than I was.”
Tales of the Aggronaut: Mixed feelings
“I want it to work well, because I would really love to see a game like The Secret World succeeding. Â It did a lot of interesting things that no one else is still doing, and presented a game setting that is unique and interesting. Â The big problem however is all of that interesting bits came in a package that never quite worked as well as I thought it should.”
Ravven: Preparing for Stormblood
“I do love this game, though. It gives you an immensity of things to do, a wonderful crafting system, and some of the best designed instances I’ve ever experienced. I would love to see a bit of the depth of (for example) Black Desert’s graphics, but even lacking that, it is a wonderful MMO. And I adore the sense of humour that pops up every now and then. It’s probably my all-time favourite… even if I have to re-learn everything each time I go back!”
Galactic Antics: A hairy situation
“The second unisex style is very reminiscent of a fine mop head just being splashed on a character’s head. So obviously you don’t need me to tell you what I’ve termed it. In terms of design it’s certainly the most… ‘interesting’… hairstyle to come to the game for a very long time, since depending on your character’s gender and body type it may look fine or it may make you look similar to a typical ’emo/goth’ youth.”
Ravalation: Ten years of LOTRO — A virtual history of Middle-earth
“The LOTRO of 2007 was a different LOTRO than it is now: It was more ‘hardcore’ in several ways. Classes that had a support role in group content (Guardian, Captain, Lore-master, and Minstrel) had no DPS mode (trait lines didn’t exist yet), so leveling them took a long time. When you died, there was no option to revive at the spot; you had to retreat to a stone circle (or be lucky and be found by a friendly captain, lore-master or minstrel). Traveling took much longer than it does today, with fewer stables and swift travel routes gated behind reputation (and no option unlock them with mithril coins).”
Aywren Sojourner: FFXIV — My role play conundrum
“Maybe that’s why I always have an itch to create a RP blog/journal for my MMO characters. In fact, long ago when the Internet was new (to me), the appeal of being online wasn’t gaming, but rather RP through long-lost chat rooms, forums and mailing lists.”
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.
