I think a lot of us sport a wide range of opinions on free-to-play business models, particularly depending on the way it’s applied to a certain MMO. But for MMO blogger Virtual Bastion, F2P is and always will be “awful.”
“Free-to-play games are typically not made to be fun games; rather they’re made to be platforms for digital purchases. The entire point of the game is to get players to feel like they’re missing out and thus pressure them into spending money. The makers want us to feel annoyed or agitated, because that means their ‘game’ is doing its job: It’s making us think about the product (cosmetics, currency, loot boxes, etc.), and the more we think about it, the more likely we are to give in and buy more of it.”
Read on for more MMO essays about Wizard101, World of Warcraft, SWTOR, and more!
Swordroll has 12 wishes for Wizard101 in 2022: “Perfect for a spring update, quality of life improvements don’t always translate to direct profits for KingsIsle, but they do keep players happy and continuing on through the game.”
Retro MMO Gamer is over the moon about cross-faction play in World of Warcraft: “Though this change will probably affect more high-level players or those who have max characters wanting to group up with their friends, for a casual such as myself, it does present the advantage of being able to do instances with the other factions and people I know who only play Alliance (as I am mostly horde) and that will be cool.”
MMO Bits put together a guide of everything you need to do to get prepared for SWTOR’s new expansion: “Make sure that your characters’ storylines are up to date so you can jump straight into the Legacy of the Sith Story when 7.0 launches. This means you need to have completed the Whispers in the Force story to be up to date. This story mission is after the Secrets of the Enclave flashpoint.”
The Ancient Gaming Noob said farewell to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite: “Of course, while it never achieved anything like the success of its sibling, it still made more money than most video games ever manage and probably leaves behind a host of fans for whom it was ‘their’ game. So it goes.”
Mystic Worlds focused on the simple pleasures in Star Citizen: “Compared to other MMOs, the time it takes to get things done is considerably longer in Star Citizen. Regardless, of the things I enjoy doing, it’s definitely an entertaining distraction from the real world.”
Gnomecore offered a few hot takes on Blizzard, including its recently announced survival title: “The most interesting thing is that for both of these games, is that they come without Metzen & Co’s legacy. This will be a litmus test, on whether they have visionaries and dreamers good enough to create their own world and drag us into it. And that’s what I’ll be tracking with utmost interest.”
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.
