Roger over at Contains Moderate Peril addresses a point that I’ve been saying for years now: Many MMOs skew to information overload when it comes to stats and fail at communicating vital directions. It can be too much and too indecipherable to all but developers, highly experienced players, and theory crafters at times.
“Simply put, teaching a player the basics of a game is a big challenge,” Roger said. “Providing succinct information on more complex issues is even harder. Many gamer developers are still extremely bad at imparting knowledge and making viable tutorials.”
Our parade of thought-provoking and interesting MMO blog essays continues below with a look at FFXIV’s Blue Mage,
Aywren Sojourner: BLU quick review
“I’m looking forward to continuing to level my BLU this week and clearing up the quests as I go. It’s been a nice change of pace overall. Some folks might still be grouchy about how BLU works, but I feel like it has a lot of room to grow as long as the devs continue to support it on down the line.”
Shards of Imagination: Blue Mage first impressions
“Personally, I am fine with the way it is. Yes, it is a bit annoying that we can’t use the Duty Finder to just get a group as a Blue Mage. However it is a unfair for a party to not only get a member whose abilities they don’t know anything about but also have spells that could completely trivialize the dungeon.”
Endgame Viable: Guild Wars 2’s All or Nothing completed
“Anyway I pretty much knew how it would end, so it was a chore and kind of a bore to play through the episode. The ending had no impact on me whatsoever. It was kind of huge letdown actually. (‘*That* was what everyone was talking about?? I forced-marched myself through this content for 11 days for *that*?’)”
Mailvatar: What makes MMO combat enjoyable?
“Combat is a main feature of most MMOs, and I’m fine with that because it can be tremendously fun. Action combat or tab targeting, I don’t care. What the game shouldn’t do is force me into a too tight design corset dictating the exact ‘right’ way to play. Give me some freedom in how I play my chosen class or build and enable me to feel that I’m in control of the situation rather than the game controlling me. Then I’m a happy camper.”
Material Middle Earth: Ward of the Mountains
“I must say that the new skins have amazed me. The statted skins within each armor class looked very similar to each other (heavy quest rewards versus heavy crafted gear, for example) except for a few subtle differences in texture and ornamentation. That’s something I’ve decided to explore with future outfits.”
“Astroneer is a cute but strange little game where you take the role of a titular Astroneer to land on lonely, randomly generated, decent sized planets and build bases on them. To do so, you (and your buddies if in co-op) will need to use your magical vacuum cleaner to collect various materials to research and construct things.”
Every week, One Shots shines a spotlight on the best community screenshots from your MMO adventures. If you have a great pic to share, email it to justin@massivelyop.com with the subject “One Shots.” Make sure that the picture is over 880px wide and comes with a description or story!
