The debut of World of Warcraft Tokens into the game’s economy has caused quite a stir, particularly after the prices plunged during the first few days. Alt:ernative Chat discussed the economics 101 aspect of the event but ultimately posed a few soul-searching questions for buyers.
“Was it worth it?” she asks. “All that time it took to ‘make’ that money in game, is this a fair exchange for the real world money you’ve currently freed up? What if Blizzard turned around tomorrow and vastly restricted your ability to make gold in the future? Most importantly of all, do you now feel a greater obligation to play the game because you had to work for it in a different fashion than simply stumping up US/AU Dollars?”
To that all I can say is: Time is money, friends! In this week’s blogosphere safari, we look at the backstory of SWTOR’s Revan, ponder the merits of joining a multi-game guild, and read an analysis of Guild Wars 2’s elite skills.
Inventory Full: Take me to the movies
Not all fantasy is the same, and yet we tend to lump it all together. Bhagpuss makes a good point by using Allods Online as an illustration how that MMO has skewed away from Tokien fantasy to doing something rather unique. In fact, he’s downright giddy over the fact that the title uses movies as a plot point instead of yet another Elf war.
“As the years roll by and the genre stretches and spreads, even the very terms lose their meaning,” he writes. “We’re all science-fantasists now. It happened to the Discworld; why should we escape? So, I guess I should never have been surprised to come across a questline in Allods based around the dawn of Cinema. And yet I was. Astonished.”
Spawn of the Dread Master: Revan: Analysing SWTOR’s take on the expanded universe legend
Having played a fair bit of both Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: The Old Republic, I thought I was in-the-know about the character of Revan. However, this illuminating and detailed post showed me how ignorant I was. If you like having a backstory of a major in-game character laid out clearly, then this article delivers a terrific read.
Tough Love Critic: Unforgettable to ignorable: Elite skills in Guild Wars 2
Are elite skills in Guild Wars 2 a pale imitation of what they were in the first game? TLC seems to think so as he recounts the history of these skills and gives his opinion on each and every one.
Ultimately, he says that the coming expansion would be a great time for the studio to revamp underperforming and lackluster elites: “The wide range of usefulness in the very few elite skills present in the game needs to be addressed. Every elite should have a use that isn’t trumped by the others in every case. With the expansion and the meta upset it will create on the way, this is an ideal time to bring all elites to the level of awesome.”
Murf Versus: All the Shard’s a stage, and all its players actually humans
Nostalgia posts? Give me a hundred of them and I will be a happy camper. I love, love reading players’ favorite memories and experiences of yesteryear, especially if they discuss their first steps in an MMO. Murf has an excellent post about how Ultima Online was a key influence in his burgeoning career as an MMO player.
“Ultima Online was by no means a perfect game, but it was a perfect game for the moment and the perfect MMORPG to introduce me to a broader, more social kind of online gaming,” Murf writes. “Looking back, I cherish the game and my memories of it absolutely. It was a different world in which I lived many lives — that’s saying something for a teenager who hadn’t left the South yet.”
The Errant Penman: Is joining a multi-game guild shooting yourself in the foot?
I’ve always throught that multi-MMO guilds are not only incredibly useful to nomadic players who want to stay rooted in a community but necessary in this era of thousands of games. However, this post plays the devil’s advocate by asserting that multi-game guilds could be detrimental to certain types of players.
“If players truly want to find the one game that they can dedicate years to again, then maybe they shouldn’t choose the multi-game gaming community that opens a new chapter every six months. This is planning for failure and runs contrary to the player’s long-term goals,” Isarii argues.
I don’t usually think of Lord of the Rings Online when my mind wanders to mods and plugins, but such things exist, and Tomeoric is all over that scene. He wrote up a terrific post explaining what plugins are and which ones he felt were the most essential to enhancing the play experience.
Introducing his list, Tomeoric states, “This really can’t be answered with a list of random plugin names without any explanation at all. There are some that I run all the time, and some for special occasions or scenarios — each could potential be documented in their own lengthy post. However, what we’re going to try to do here is just give a broad overview of my active and favorite plugins, and their main function(s).”
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.
