Columns

Enjoy a run-down of our recent long-form pieces, both game-specific and more general. You might also be interested in our list of all of our columns and recurring articles. [Follow this category’s RSS feed]

Desert Oasis: Black Desert Mobile is not just a mobile copy of Black Desert

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Last week, I taught my freshman classes basic email etiquette. In a time of distance learning, it's an important skill to teach. We looked...

Perfect Ten: 10 amazing hidden quests in World of Warcraft

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Finding quests in World of Warcraft is not exactly what you would call "difficult," as the game famously stuck giant floating exclamation marks over...

Flameseeker Chronicles: Hands-on with Guild Wars 2’s new Sunqua Peak fractal, live today

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While Guild Wars 2’s Cantha-centric End of Dragons expansion may not be coming until next year, players eager to visit The Empire of the...

Not So Massively: The dos and don’ts of stealing from MMOs

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Recently I played through the new PC port of the open world RPG Horizon Zero Dawn. While playing it, I was struck by how...
Holla back.

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s second Ishgard season is a touch underwhelming

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In the days of my youth, you usually got introduced to a new band via the radio. (The radio was like YouTube, but no...

Jukebox Heroes: The best of MapleStory 2’s soundtrack

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The death of MapleStory 2 earlier this year is seen as somewhat tragic in the Massively OP offices. Many of us got time with...

One Shots: When nerfing goes too far

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We've all seen classes and gear hit with the nerf bat from time to time in MMOs -- hey, it's a fact of life!...
Fly.

The Daily Grind: Do you try to be patient with new players in MMOs?

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Patience is a virtue. It is also something not everyone is very good at - and I include myself in this particular batch because...

Global Chat: Which MMO has the least annoying inventory system?

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Inventory is something we have to deal with in, oh, pretty much every MMO that we play. Some games are far more generous with...

LOTRO Legendarium: The quiet consistency of Lord of the Rings Online

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I want to start this LOTRO Legendarium column today by talking about, well, by talking about World of Warcraft. Like probably many of you,...
Patch, patch, patch.

Betawatch: Craftopia is doing the difficult Early Access work

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There's kind of a pall around early access games, mostly because a lot of them launch into early access and then faff about pointlessly. But Craftopia...

Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s new event includes problematic features and stat bloat

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Yes, more not-great-news in Pokemon Go, and yes, it's once again mostly about Mega Evolution. While it's been nice that the official Pokemon Go...
Get back.

WoW Factor: Covenants have become a Shadowlands prison of Blizzard’s own making

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If there was any remaining question about what stage of the expansion development we were at with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, this week marked the...

Massively Overthinking: Contemplating in-game advertising

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Last week, EA announced that it would finally be removing all the in-game ads from UFC4 after a few days of intense complaining from...
Never gonna get it, never gonna get it.

Perfect Ten: How to speak with your family members about playing MMOs

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The nice part about growing up with serious social awkwardness as "the weird one" in my family is that really, every strange fixation I...
Doom approaches.

The Daily Grind: Have you ever had an accomplishment in an MMO you didn’t realize until later?

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Back when vanilla World of Warcraft was a new thing, I soloed Hogger on my Paladin. This did not strike me as all that...

Desert Oasis: Checking back in on Black Desert Mobile, almost one year later

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It's been a while since I checked in on Black Desert Mobile for Desert Oasis. In fact, I haven't really played it since my initial...

Choose My Adventure: Mining misadventures in Wurm Online

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Well, I have to say, following the advice of the poll from last week did help a little bit while also unfurling the multiple...

Fight or Kite: New World’s beta hasn’t made me a true believer – yet

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The New World beta preview came to an end a few short nights ago. Like some of the other members of the MOP crew,...
Money dollars.

Jukebox Heroes: Six great ArcheAge tunes

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ArcheAge is well-known for being one of the more beautiful MMO game worlds out there, but does its music stack up in comparison? The...

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