If you haven’t visited Psychochild’s Blog — the brainchild of former Meridian 59 and Storybricks dev Brian Green — lately, you are missing out on some tremendous essays about MMO design. One series in particular that stuck out discussed why roleplaying should be celebrated and encouraged rather than dismissed.
“I think the most interesting thing about [roleplayers] is that they create content. By acting out stories in your game, they can make the world seem more alive. The crowd of people in the bar, the group of people in the city plaza, or just the quiet neighbors next door all add to the world and make it feel more alive. If a player is an RPer, they this content can be another thing they participate in,” Green wrote.
Read on for a slew of excellent essays that cover MMO topics such as guild drama, mental health, collections, character boosts, and more!
Diary of a Guild Leader: Warning signs of guild drama
“As humans, we love to gossip, spread rumors and tell secrets. It creates a social bond that we enjoy belonging to a group and the endorphin rush from being included. Of course there is a negative side to gossiping, especially when you are a group that spends a lot of time together. A guild is just like any other social group where drama can be a real rock in the shoe. Sometimes you gotta take off your shoe and get rid of that pesky rock.”
Leeterati: How Blizzard missed a big opportunity to address mental health
“I want to make clear that I’m not saying that mental illness makes people angry and dangerous. But as someone who struggles with my own mental health and who has volunteered with veterans suffering from PTSD, I know that mental illness can cloud judgement and make high stress situations even worse.”
GamingSF: Collect all the things
“The Orsinium DLC has some ‘extras’ alongside the zone story and boss fights. One particular activity I really appreciate is the collection of museum artifacts. These Orsimer (AKA orc) treasures are scattered through the zone, so if you’re attentive as you quest around, you’re likely to stumble across them.”
Endgame Viable: Diablo III for the first time
“I was late to the Diablo party. Most of my Quake friends loved it, but I stubbornly rejected it until later in the game’s life cycle. I think I played Diablo II at launch, but I don’t remember much about that game except being disappointed in the obvious lack of 3-D rendering. Both of those games stunted most of my enthusiasm for isometric games going forward, and I tend to avoid them now.”
Ald Shot First: It’s the end of the world and I feel fine
“I had heard rumblings from gaming buddies and friends about a new MMO about to release based on an RTS. I had zero knowledge of this game and cared even less about it releasing. I was blind enough to assume no one else i played with would care either. Boy was I wrong on a monumental scale. Slowly but very obviously, we started losing players left and right from my guild at the time.”
Armagon Live: On character boosts
“The thing is… I usually don’t do it. In any game where I get a free max-level (or old-expansion-max-level) boost. I just keep on stalling and not using it. I am actively playing SWTOR right now (I also wrote a lot about it) and I have one Level 65 boost sitting there, unused. I’m still not even sure for which character I want to use it.”
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.
