What happens when an MMORPG gets a big kick in the pants from both critical lashings and a company-wide scandal? It may actually get back on track — or at least make noise about doing so.
In An Age notes that there seems to be a strong connection with all that’s been happening at Blizzard this summer and the upcoming World of Warcraft Update 9.1.5: “I cannot quite tell what it is exactly, but the whole thing feels nauseatingly patronizing. Like it took throwing two decades of reputation in the garbage and an existential crisis for these designers to finally go ‘Huh, ain’t got shit to do today cuz the bosses are either sacked or hiding in the Cosby room… maybe I’ll give this whole ‘make fun games’ thing a try.’ No, really, they basically said that.”
Nerdy Bookahs says that it’s pretty much time to say goodbye to Atlas Rogues: “I don’t have any insights into game development, but I find it odd that a game that clearly does show potential and that is in early access doesn’t get any more patches and updates. Gamigo isn’t broke, so that’s not a reason as can happen with independent developers. Has Gamigo already lost faith in its product?”
Are you willing to wait a while before buying a game? Dragonchasers says that he’s gotten to that point: “A good reason to buy a new multi-player game is to get in on the fun while all your friends are playing it. That doesn’t really apply to solo games, but this is why my pre-order of New World exists. I pre-ordered that game in, I think 1885 or something. I’m still not 100% convinced it’ll launch this month!”
Why I Game said that Guild Wars 2 choice paralysis is a real and humbling thing: “Somehow, over time, we’ve had EVEN MORE daily tabs added. There’s festival dailies, when a festival is running. Dailies for strike missions, dailies for fractals, dailies for a whole bunch of living world season zones if you happen to be still doing those and a very random one for krait hunting and swim infusions.”
Tales of the Aggronaut connected with his game’s creator through a recent event, saying, “Generally speaking, the culmination of these events is receiving a personal message from Yoshi P directly, thanking us the players for keeping the dream of Final Fantasy XIV alive. Each year the message is poignant and unique… and at least for me ends up summoning forth a few tears as I experience it.”
How’s Fallout 76 doing as it goes into its third year? Virtual Bastion has an in-progress review, saying, “Say what you will, but despite the game’s many, many, many problems, Bethesda created a wonderful world in Fallout 76. Just being in it, exploring, making new discoveries, finding new locales (still not found ‘em all!), is what drives me towards the game, much more so than dropping nukes, or defeating colossal creatures, or completing a made-up ‘endgame.'”
Nerd Girl Thoughts spent some time in Craftopia, if you’re thinking of picking this up: “Craftopia is definitely not a finished game, and I’m fairly certain it’s trying to do too much and is therefore also not very good, and yet, I still want to keep playing. It’s pretty, it’s not very demanding either mentally or physically. I like to have a low-mental-effort game that can be played in short bursts, and I’m thinking I’ll probably pick this one up next time it goes on sale.”
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.
