Destiny 2’s recent PC beta certainly brought out curious players in droves, and MMO bloggers couldn’t help but share their opinions on this next evolution of the sci-fi shooter franchise — even if those opinions weren’t too positive.
“It proved to be a deeply disappointing experience,” Superior Realities said. “Not because of anything wrong with the game, but because the beta offered such a small sliver of it as to be entirely pointless.”
Endgame Viable just doesn’t get it: “I know I’m going to regret this, but: What’s all the hype about? I didn’t hate it, but Destiny 2 looked and played like every other shooter.”
How would you respond to those observations? While you think about it, let’s look past D2: The Mighty Space Ducks to more essays on Elder Scrolls Online, EverQuest II, and the dinosaurs of ARK: Survival Evolved.
Inventory Full: A rush and a push in EverQuest and EverQuest II
“I’m aware of the paradox in preferring the journey to the destination, while still welcoming anything which gets me through it faster. Although, looked at more closely, perhaps its not such a paradox after all. The upper levels in many MMOs aren’t so much a journey as a forced march. Even after all these years of what’s generally imagined to be a downward spiral of difficulty and commitment, every one of the later levels in both the EverQuest titles take hours rather than minutes.”
Gaming SF: Approaches to story in MMORPGs
“So story isn’t all about exploration it seems; it can be tied to progression and character development, it can be the focus for less casual social interactions or even a background to or excuse for competitive gameplay.”
“ARK is really interesting in that there’s no real end goal, it’s completely up to you what you do and where you go, so there’s a lot of exploring to be done. A little secret here, I’m scared deep water in real life, and that fear is actually coming across into the game a little. I get really jumpy when we go out on our raft and if I’m steering we tend to hug the coast even though the danger isn’t any less.”
MMO Juggler: Slow (re)start in Elder Scrolls Online
“ESO is a beautiful game; it looks absolutely fantastic everywhere. Doing the intro quests in Morrowind and investigating inside houses, I found stunning design and layouts. This elaborate painting is one of five or six different ones, background scenery most players run by on the way to finding the thingamajig for a quest.”
Contains Moderate Peril: Lockboxes
“Ultimately, lockboxes are symptomatic of game developers struggling to find a universally acceptable means to finance their game. The demise of the subscription model has left many MMOs in the thrall of an unsatisfactory hybrid F2P business models that have done precious little to improve the overall quality of the games.”
