The player debate and analysis over the virtues and vices of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns has — unsurprisingly — evoked strong opinions on both sides of the aisle.
Blogger Bhagpuss at Inventory Full said that he’s a satisfied customer: “For once I’m getting what I want. It feels these maps have been made with my playstyle squarely in mind. Instead of achiever maps with a nominal nod to exploring these are real, explorable maps with a few lifebelts scattered around for drowning achievers to cling to.”
Alternatively, Creeping had an epic-sized rant about how the expansion felt like a bait-and-switch from the beta. “I really, really, don’t understand why they had to add the hero point grind, on top of the masteries grind on top of a story arc grind,” she wrote.
Agree? Disagree? We’re only getting started with a look at the opinions across the MMO blogosphere today!
Stars of the Spiral: My favorite things about Pirate101
KingsIsle’s 101 games don’t get a lot of attention these days, but there are some serious fans of those titles, including dedicated blogger Kelsey. In this post, she lists 11 features of Pirate101 that she adores, including the housing system.
“The way they built the houses is amazing,” she said. “They’re usually very large where you have the room to decorate whatever you want. When you walk around in one, you can’t help but love the personal touches, the roomy feel, and the beautiful design.”
Leo’s Life: MMOs and stickiness
Using the examples of several popular MMOs, Leo tackles the issue of game “stickiness” — what gets us to stay in an online title for a long, long time. According to him, there isn’t any one magic key to this issue.
“Designing stickiness is hard work,” Leo writes. “Looking at one item alone isn’t enough; it’s the sum of all the parts. A game could have great dungeons but no group-finder. It could have superb guild tools but nothing for the guild to actually do.”
ECTmmo.com: SWTOR/EA/BioWare, you lost me!
I can’t help but feel bad for Kaozz, who was banned from SWTOR for reasons unknown and faced a wall of frustration in trying to reach out to support to deal with the issue. Instead of help, she only found customer service reps who were annoyed with her requests.
That was the last straw for this blogger: “In the end, my account was banned, without receiving an email or any way to find out why. My money taken. I was blown off as a customer. I was lied to by your support. You lost me, not just as a SWTOR customer, as a blogger, a fan, a supporter, an enthusiast, and lastly as a customer of all the games I supported.”
WildStar Core: Housing spotlight #2 — Sazz Genetic Clinic
Whenever I want to feel really bad about my lack of housing decoration accumen, I need only turn to posts like this where players much more talented than I have created insanely wonderful spaces in MMOs. Check out this tour of a “genetic clinic” in WildStar as one of the examples of how housing can become much more than another virtual apartment.
Tales of the Aggronaut: MMOs worth playing — Lord of the Rings Online
It’s been a while since I’ve personally been in my old favorite Lord of the Rings Online, but I completely back up everything that Belghast is saying in this piece. It truly is a special MMO.
“The hook of this game is and will always be that you get to wander around in the Middle Earth Setting from the Tolkien novels,” he writes. “The biggest take away from the setting that I can give you is that it is huge, and feels more like a real world than most MMOs do. Â There are all sorts of little things that draw you into the world.”
Through Wolfy’s Eyes: Dungeons already done right
“The problem with those maps is that those dungeons are, literally, designed as hallways,” Wolfy writes. “They don’t feel like an experience so much as they do a Tunnel of Love. If, of course, the point was to be murdered by monsters instead of snuggle time.”
Wolfy doesn’t just lament how linear modern MMO dungeons are but points out that games like Wizardry and Zelda have shown how diverse and interesting dungeon crawls can be. Maybe it’s time that MMO devs take a look back to the past for inspiration?
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.
