In a thought-provoking essay, MMO blog Parallel Context wrestled with the question, “Who gets to decide what is fun in multiplayer games?” This is a tricky question when you consider that your joy may impact someone else’s play experience.
“What is fun for people can vary enough that in a multiplayer format I don’t know if there’s a happy medium that can be reached. Some people have to have a defined set of goals to achieve, others don’t. Some people like the grind (yes, they do exist) and others don’t. Some people like group content, and others would rather avoid groups like the plague.”
Read on for more MMO essays, including looks at Lost Ark, FFXIV, Valheim, and more!
Indiecator arrived a little late to the scene with some Lost Ark first impressions: “The gender-locking of the classes was a bit odd, in my opinion, but what’s more annoying is that you can’t change your body at all. Character creation took quite a long while due to my fiddling with the hair and face for so long. Meanwhile, my breasts and ass are incredibly BIG – not because I did that… but rather because the developers decided that would be the default and only option for all bards.”
Inventory Full returned to Valheim: “Coming back to Valheim, the first hour felt much easier. I was all ready to go with the narrative that changes have been made to make sure the new player experience is softer, smoother, gentler than it was. And maybe they have.”
Aywren’s Gaming and Geek Blog walked us through creating FFXIV’s new adventure plates: “The Adventurer Plate is a place where you can showcase information about your character and your playing habits. It’s quite customizable and you can earn more customizations for it on down the line.”
Gnomecore has a few first impressions of FFXIV Patch 6.1: “Anyways, like previous x.1s, MSQ in 6.1. perfectly suffices. It sets stage for future patches, maybe expansions, it addresses stories old and new and binds them beautifully, it introduces villains, and it is still set with troubles and antiques of the current expansion’s nations and cities without walking too far into uncharted territory.”
The Ancient Gaming Noob went off on Richard Garriott’s recent decisions: “This is the most contemptible, tone deaf, obvious cash grab in an industry long accused of cash grabs. This raises the bar on cash grabs. For years to come I predict I will be saying, ‘Sure, this move by X was bad, but was it as bad as the Lord British blockchain MMO?'”
Contains Moderate Peril has a few words to say about lazy writing in SWTOR: “During the course of one conversation, I found my character being forced to make a decision to choose whether to support the Sith Empire or the Republic. For want of another phrase, this lazy writing pissed on everything that I had invested my time into for the last two months and I found that insulting.”
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.
