Have you ever noticed that you play it way too safe in your MMOs, especially when it comes to interacting (or not) with others? Aywren of Sygnus wrote an honest blog post lately in which she felt challenged to examine and even buck her “safe patterns” in life and gaming and to try to get out of her rut and try new things.
“On my gaming blog, I’ve talked about my struggles with grouping in MMOs, and how FFXIV specifically had to pick me up and forcibly throw me out of my safe zone if I wanted to keep playing it. This is something I still struggle with,” she admitted. “I do everything I can to avoid stressful dungeons, raids or classes. I’m still afraid of tanking and healing for strangers outside my FC.”
Join us for more thought-provoking blog posts from the MMO community as we fill up your screen with the latest in Global Chat!
Dragonchasers: Crossout would be a great game if it wasn’t free-to-play
“I dunno, I just keep thinking, ‘If I could pay $60 and get a full game to play, I would love this,’ but it just feels to nickle and dimey to me. Heck if I knew a one-time purchase of a $20 starter pack would kickstart me into the better goodies, I might even do that. But I just fear I’ll spend $20 today and next week will have to spend another $20 to keep going.”
Nomadic Gamers, Eh: A Day of ECO
“We’ve picked some crafting paths to go down so that we can get a bit of everything, and unfortunately for me, I went carpenter because I had no idea what I was doing. I say unfortunately because this is one path that uses a lot of trees, and I feel like I’m hurting the ecosystem much more than I would like.”
Contains Moderate Peril: The dilemma of skill points
“But then there reaches a point in the game, where you find yourself hoarding a lot of skills points and faced with a multitude of options. Suddenly, its no longer simple. Unless you have a very clear idea about how you intend to develop your build, it becomes a very confusing prospect. Do you put points into flower arranging, so you can increase you Lupin attack, or do you go for heavy embroidery? The fear is that you’ll make the wrong choice and gimp yourself, further down the line.”
Why I Game: Whirlwind tour weekend
“I found myself logging in and out of A Tale in the Desert. I’d log in for 30 minutes, attempt to do a teeny step on a mini-goal or project, scroll and read all the chat text in-game and Discord, and then log out because I’d rather wait offline than online. Couple hours later, I’d pop in for ten minutes and pop back off again. I think, subconsciously, I kind of want to spectate, rather than be a participant at this point in time.”
Me vs. Myself and I: Thoughts on Monster Hunter World
“I don’t know what it is about food in JRPGs, but between this game and Final Fantasy XV I’ve seen so many different things being cooked and consumed by my characters. Food plays a role in many games but it’s never quite as celebrated as it is in JRPGs.”
Endgame Variable: Why is it so hard to get back into ESO?
“Toward the end of my two-month run I started to notice a problem, and I simply can’t unsee it now: Everything is basically the same, all the time. Every quest is basically the same. Every zone is basically the same. Every city is basically the same. Every NPC is basically the same. Every fight is basically the same.”
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.
