That’s a really good question! While pretty much every MMO has some sort of autumn/harvest/Halloween event going on this month, there are a few standouts from the pack.
MMO blog Nerdy Bookahs rendered this judgment: “It is actually a tie between LOTRO’s Haunted Burrow and Guild Wars 2 with all activities taken together. LOTRO finds this sweet balance between giving us Halloween and doing something that works really well in this world […] Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, has a much bigger event.”
Read on for more player essays, including a guide to Balance Druids in Shadowlands, an examination of the lack of challenge in No Man’s Sky, and more!
Tales of the Aggronaut: Warcraft makeover edition
“The highlight of this patch however is the new character models and as a result the only thing I actually did last night was log in a bunch of characters and head to the barber shop.”
Gnomecore: How to play a Balance Druid in Shadowlands
“I was surprised not to find any comprehensive explanation how Balance Druid now works in 9.0 pre-patch and on – not even Icy Veins or Wowhead were able to help me! Half an hour of reading abilities explanation, whatever ‘guides’ were available and trying it on a dummy resulted in an understanding. I’m saving you from my pain now.”
24 Hours In: Killing time and dungeon bosses
“There’s actually not a lot to do in Secret World Legends outside of the main story. At least while levelling. As I said a couple of days ago I’ve been running out the clock on this run of Secret World Legends, because while I was hanging around to pick up a few shinies from the Halloween event I didn’t want to start on the next zone of the main story in Egypt with only a few hours to go. So instead I’ve been looking around for other things to do and finding… not much actually.”
“It’s still missing something. And it might be something dumb like ‘challenge.’ Some games are not meant to be challenging. No one is going to play My Time at Portia while looking for a Dark Souls experience. In this regard, No Man’s Sky is very obviously tilted towards a chill, Explorer player-type. ”
Contains Moderate Peril: LOTRO — even more community management problems
“If this were any other developer I would’ve been surprised by such a response but after years of such indifferences from SSG, I simply shrugged. They’ve always been shocking at marketing their own content.”
GamingSF: Solo vs. multiplayer in MMORPGs
“Solo gaming in the MMORPG genre isn’t new to me at all. I’ve documented countless times on this blog about playing many different online games as a solo activity. Although the genre is named for its multiplayer aspect, there are other reasons for wanting to play these games solo – for instance their open-ended, ever-changing nature.”
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.
