The phases (i.e., patches) for World of Warcraft Classic continue to roll out, and as the endgame takes form and Darkmoon Faire arrives, it’s time to take stock of how the legacy version of WoW is doing in early 2020.
SilviteSoltis touches base on the half-year point: “Basically, what I’m saying is that though I thought Blizzard has been rushing Classic content, the release of Blackwing Lair and the rest of Phase 3 content seems like it’s coming at a good time. Personally, I’m super-excited for this new chapter of Classic. Despite not having my full Tier 1 set — 5/8 as of right now — I’m ready for something new. And I’m sure that many of you out there who have been clearing MC in under 2 hours for the past few months are right there with me.”
Read on for more MMO blog essays, including a first impressions of Astellia, evidence for EverQuest 3, crafting in Final Fantasy XIV, and more!
Altar of Gaming: First impressions of Astellia Online
“Even Black Desert Online, which has arguably the best graphics in an MMO, is quite harder to tame, with results that feel way less customizable than Astellia’s. You can sculpt your face, eyes, nose, lips, and ears to a huge extent, and you definitely won’t get disappointed at the wealth of options for each body part, since all of them are covered!”
The Nosy Gamer: The end of a quest line and I’m a fashion leader
“FFXIV has brought out my inner fashionista. But I do want to point out one thing. Although I have bought a few items off the Mog Station that I like, all the items in the screen shots were obtained through game play except one. The items seen in the botanist quest screenshots were all crafted by me except for the axe which was a quest reward. And as I mentioned, the pants I wore in my perfect Fashion Report effort were a veteran’s reward. Everything else was either purchased from the Gold Saucer, the market, received as a quest reward, or crafted by myself.”
“I’ve found the adage ‘always remember to look up’ to be very true: if you live somewhere relatively urban especially. If you never look up when you’re walking around, you can miss a lot of detail. Architects tend, or at least tended, to build interesting stuff above ground level. This can be equally true in World of Warcraft (or any MMORPG). I’ve often looked up in a dungeon and been surprised by something unusual, or occasionally spectacular, on the ceiling or roof above. Flying around to do some gathering last night, I saw a few things that are easy to miss but worth spending a moment to take in.”
Contains Moderate Peril: The problem with raiding
“Whether they are successful remains to be seen but it does show once again that raiding is not a universal pastime in the MMO genre. I remember Turbine making a similar statement to this effect, back when they were developing Lord of the Rings Online. But this post is not intended as a discussion about the validity of raiding or any of the traditional debates associated with it. I think raiding has a place in the genre. What I want to do is state the reasons why it is not something I actively do anymore. I suspect my experience is not unique.”
SWTOR Commando: Finding my fun
“We’ll see if it holds up, but I’m definitely getting the impression that with the rewards for queuing for the full random selection being pretty meaningless these days, there’s a certain self-selection going on inside the group finder population. There definitely seems to be a number of people who don’t necessarily care much for flashpoints and just want to do the easiest ones as quickly and with as little fuss as possible to maximise their gear drops per hour or however these things are measured these days.”
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.
