The recent announcement of WoW Classic’s starting point — Patch 1.12 — started to make the prospect of this legacy server a lot more real to players, including many MMORPG bloggers.
“Fans of Captain Placeholder are no doubt disappointed, but it seems like a reasonable place to call Vanilla to me,” said The Ancient Gaming Noob.
“I do wonder whether Blizzard will ever take this idea to the logical next step, as other studios have already (both EverQuests and now RIFT), and make it into a progression server so that players can relive the highs of each new content release, patches, and expansions in turn,” mused GamingSF.
Inventory Full concurs: “A server that simply locks at a specific snapshot of the game risks stagnation. There is a market for an unchanging experience as can be seen by the number of ‘maintenance mode’ MMOs that still hold some kind of population but it’s easy to see why a company as large and successful as Blizzard might not consider that audience sufficiently large or profitable to encourage.”
ECTMMO.com: Delving into the past
“Things really feel in a slump these days as far as the MMO scene goes. There isn’t really a whole lot of new stuff, and what has come out over the last few years has been new to the west, older games that took years to release here and they have not been all that great. It seems so many games I play are on slow updating schedules, smaller content drops or just feel they are in limbo. But there are some new bits of interest here and there. The longer I play MMO games the more I seem to delve back into the past, or rather, the games that were in their prime in those golden days of the past.”
Aywren Sojourner: FFXIV — ‘What we do is what defines us’
“It’s odd how one of the most enjoyable parts of the new patch for me is the crafting beast tribe quests. To say that it’s renewed my desire to improve my crafters and learn about crafting in FFXIV is an understatement. The Namazu quests are the last things you’d expect to strike home in the heart of an artist/creator. But this weekend, that happened for me.”
Neverwinter Thoughts: Happy fifth!
“I honestly continue to be impressed by how well this plucky little MMO has continued to do (based on realistic measurements of success, not WoW killer standards). I don’t see a lot of talk about it in my little corner of the MMO blogosphere, but based on what limited player numbers we have to try to gauge its success, such as Steam Vharts, it actually seems to be one of the more popular ‘second tier’ MMOs, seemingly outperforming some competitors that seem to get a lot more buzz.”
MMO Bro: Five most influential MMO inventions
“Instancing creates a more controlled environment, allowing for story-telling moments that would be difficult or impossible to replicate in an open world. It allows developers to fine tune encounters around a set number of players and prevent bosses from simply being zerged down by overwhelming numbers.”
Inventory Full: Keeping myself occupied with Occupy White Walls
“OWW is a curious pastime. It’s all about art but the tidal pull for me is the clicking together of pieces. Other building and decorating software I’ve used has required either a great deal of technical knowledge, considerable creative ability or, more commonly, both. This is much more forgiving.”
Full Moon Fury: Things I wish I had known in DDO part 1 and part 2
“I ran into my very first ooze in Durk’s Got a Secret and in my excitement, forgot about their Corrode Metal attributes from pen and paper. At the time, I had a handful of assorted (crappy) lootgen weapons and starter gear — remember, this is the first time through! — and watched in abject horror as they all dissolved into proto-paste and I wound up mostly-naked punching slime to death. Yeah, don’t do that. Even when you finally survive the fight, you’re left standing in a sewer with nothing left, scratching your head, thinking to yourself, ‘Well, now what?'”
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.
