In a slightly older essay, Kalyriene looked at the importance of the new player experience in MMORPGs — and why both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV drop the ball in this department even after revamps.
“FFXIV pays extreme respect to the content that makes up its foundation by ensuring that every player goes through it and it matters, but as the game has grown and added full earth days of new story content per expansion, the amount of stuff a new player has to run through is massive and daunting.”
Inventory Full talked about how weird it is to play a single-player MMO: “The disconcerting thing about Erenshor is that even though you know you’re the only one there, chat is filled with people trying to sell stuff, asking questions, having arguments, and giving their ill-informed opinions on the game. Just like in every MMORPG ever.”
Heartless Gamer analyzed New World’s gear progression changes: “It is fan-freaking-tastic that expertise is being removed. It was a pointless grind gating players from using items they acquired or making items they acquire effectively useless because they were not yet high enough expertise to get end game drops. This also means no more having to run new players through content to get “expertise bumps.”
Kamalia et Alia is squeeing about World of Warcraft’s Patch 10.2: “Leafy Druidy armor and weapons for everyone! I think the artists did well enough at making the Emerald Dream stuff distinct from the Ardenweald/Night Fae stuff — though with that said, I will definitely be using the butterfly wand and pinecone off-hand with the Night Fae moth backpacks!”
The Ancient Gaming Noob sees a battle brewing for WoW’s next expansion: “I suspect that there is, once again, some ‘We need to stomp out that whole Classic idea and get everybody back on retail where they belong’ feelings behind that tentative agreement. Nothing unites the core of retail than plotting the demise of WoW Classic.”
Contains Moderate Peril pushed back against Star Trek Online’s latest starship initiative: “Cynics will also note that to receive the benefits of a Tier 6-X2 upgrade, the player has to use a further two Experimental Ship Upgrade tokens. Yet despite paying twice the cost, you still only get the same unlocks as with the first upgrade. All of which makes me wonder whether this is worth it.”
Altar of Gaming ranked the best and worst classes for WoW Classic’s hardcore servers: “Mages have all they need, Frost talents and spells like Frost Nova, Blink, and Ice Barrier are so strong that they can kite enemies with slows and freezes and kill them without giving them a chance to hit.”
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.
