We were having an interesting discussion in work chat the other day about EVE Online involving Brendan and me. Brendan, obviously, is the expert on the game, and he was noting that a lot of the changes made to the game over the past several years are an attempt to design the game more toward players who don’t necessarily want the open-waters free-for-all PvP atmosphere. I believe him. But at this point I still won’t step back into the game, simply because years of development and cultural narrative around the game have been focused on that aforementioned free-for-all open-waters PvP environment.
Whether or not that’s still the environment, its own history isn’t easily disentangled. And if the designers want to change that narrative, that’s a problem.
Of course, sometimes that history is a fair reason to be upset with a given game; if you didn’t want to play H1Z1 back in the day due to the history surrounding then-Sony Online Entertainment, you have no doubt felt yourself rewarded for that skepticism and recalcitrance. At the other end of the spectrum you have games that do genuinely change from launch, and sometimes that history gives a picture of the game that is no longer accurate if it really ever was. So what do you say, dear readers? Are there MMOs that turn you off just based on history?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
