A thinkpiece that we had back in April about the difficulty levels (or lack thereof) in MMORPGs sparked some interesting discussion among gaming bloggers as they grappled with the concept of challenge levels and how MMOs should improve in presenting them.
GamingSF thinks that there is much room for improvement in offering players varied challenges: “I also want to see more MMORPGs introducing non-combat challenges through puzzles and quests that require thinking to complete (e.g. following lore clues).”
And Inventory Full chimes in with this distinction: “I also strongly agree with whoever it was who said that gamers these days equate difficulty with time spent. Indeed, more often than not when someone complains that something is ‘too difficult’ what they really mean is it takes longer than they want to spend doing it.”
Continue on for this week’s Global Chat, as we look at Lord of the Rings Online’s Mordor, feelings concerning Defiance 2050, the whole Daybreak mess, and more!
Occasional Hero: Walking into Mordor
“I am also once again reminded of what a great job this game has done with its worldbuilding. Granted, as much of it as is reasonably possible is pulled straight from the pages of Tolkien’s books, but I think that master wordsmith would be proud of what Turbine/Standing Stone has added to his legendarium. And the attention to detail never ceases to amaze me!”
Superior Realities: Defiance 2050 — maybe?
“Normally replacing a classless leveling system with traditional classes would get the stink eye from me, but in this case, I think it might add some actual depth to the game. It sounds like Defiance 2050 will have a greater emphasis on active abilities — Mass Effect style — instead of just being a pure shooter. That would be most welcome.”
The Ancient Gaming Noob: Daybreak and all their sins remembered
“There is a lot of resentment and feelings of betrayal when you look back down the road the company has traveled. Every game shut down, every bad decision they had to reverse on after announcing, every upbeat demo or announcement followed by months of silence, every update that didn’t meet expectations, every bug that lingers for year after year, every nutty side project that ate up dev time only to be abandoned… it all adds up. Also, that ProSieben thing. How could I forget that?”
Heals N Heels: The price of rewriting history
“Blizzard took a huge risk back in Cataclysm when they decided to wipe the slate clean and redo Azeroth. It’s something almost everyone wishes they could do but can’t — and for good reason. We don’t get do-overs sometimes. They in effect, rewrote history by erasing some of it — and the question I have long sought to answer out loud: Was it worth it?”
Nomadic Gamers: A weekend in ESO
“It’s exciting to play a “new to me” MMO that I haven’t really delved into before. The quests and stories are interesting, the landscape new, and I’m discovering points of interest that are both disturbing and fascinating. I may only be level 11, but I’m eager to see how this goes.”
Aywren Sojourner: Tales from tells — ask and ye shall receive
“I pondered how to answer this, since I didn’t actually know why. Then, me being a writer who loves words, I became curious and decided to Google it. After reading through a quick article, which I thought was pretty interesting, I shared the info with this questing soul.”
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.
