Yes, just about every MMO blogger was sharing heated opinions about last week’s World of WarCraft WarCrime. “It’s such a sad event and I’m particularly mad at Blizzard at the way they chose to write this,” wrote Aeternus.
Moonshine Manor was equally appalled, saying that she was “not sad at the story, but at having to mourn my fandom.”
“The storyline strips players of agency, it’s not a good feeling,” wrote Mmosey.
And Leo’s Life couldn’t make sense of it: “The lore nut in me sees no logic in this.”
In An Age sympathized with the outrage but noted, “This cinematic short is amazing in isolation.” And Atheren doesn’t want this to be the beginning of the end of Sylvanas: “I hope she gets a redemption arc.”
And Wolfy felt that the community reaction was too much for an outsider: “The level of the freak-out was above and beyond what I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing as someone barely remotely associated with the WoW playerbase.”
Aywren Sojourner: Summer excitement in FFXIV
“Moonfire Faire is actually pretty exciting to me this year. I like the rewards they’re offering and it’ll be interesting to be involved with a holiday on an RP server. There’s already a large beach event scheduled for one of the weekends that I may attend, and it’s always great to get more glamour incoming!”
MMO Bro: Five MMOs with the most dedicated communities
“When people talk about MMOs with good communities — especially good role-play communities — one of the first names that always comes up is Lord of the Rings Online. I haven’t spent much time in LOTRO myself, but I’ve seen the praises of its community being sung high and low.”
Psychochild: How MMOs get stories wrong, how MMOs can do stories better
“The other problem is that writing a universal story means that you can’t allow the player much agency. You rarely get to decide what your character does, it’s often a few choices with little consequence. Again, we look at FFXIV here where the character gets thrust into the role of the Warrior of Light (WoL). You can’t choose to play as another type of character in the game story-wise, and as you do your WoL things you are limited in the options presented to you. Any choices in the dialog present a very small branch in the text presented. You’re going to be moving forward with the story no matter what.”
Endgame Viable: I wish EQ2 would explain more
“There’s a lot I like about EverQuest II, it being one of the last ‘old school’-style MMORPGs around, and the massive amounts of content to explore (if you can find it), but there’s also a number of things that rub me the wrong way. Just little nagging quality-of-life things that are ‘off’ that make it hard to get back into the game.”
“You can think a lot about what kind of game would truly be your ‘perfect’ game but, in the end, you try a game and you enjoy it or not. With its virtues, its flaws, its community; thanks to them or despite them.”
Princess in a Castle: I’m a spoiled MMO gamer
“I don’t know there will be another MMO that will change me as a player as much as the Guild Wars franchise did. I’m hoping that one will come a long soon, and Riot teased me with that question if they should make an MMORPG (HELL YES!), but I’m not getting my hopes up.”
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.
