Choose My Adventure: Blowing up rocks for fun and profit in Elite Dangerous
When I first started my run in Elite: Dangerous for this week's Choose My Adventure, I was just barely over the amount of credits...
Vitae Aeternum: Let’s design some New World artifacts
The New World community is currently waiting not so patiently for the big Aeternum update in October. While we're killing time, I thought it...
The Daily Grind: What’s the most difficult MMO crafting profession to master?
I have been a die-hard crafter in a lot of MMOs over my lifetime, but I am also the first to admit that some...
Wisdom of Nym: The actual storytelling issues with Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
I'm not exactly surprised that basically any controversy vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XIV's most recent expansion is pretty much completely focused on the story (with...
The Daily Grind: What life lesson did you learn from MMOs the hard way?
I know MMOs don't exist to teach us life lessons, but they definitely have the opportunity to do so, whether we want them to...
The Game Archaeologist: A look back at proto-MMOs through the 1980s
Today I want to try something a little different as we look at MMORPG history. Rather than focus in on a single title or...
One Shots: Retrofuturism for rent
Here's your two-step process to make anything old look all futurey like something out of the Jetstons. Step one: Take a normal thing. Step...
The Daily Grind: What sort of cosmetic thing would you like to collect in your main MMO?
Cosmetic items are nice things to collect because while they do not strictly affect your numerical performance in the game, they do offer significant...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s August is leaning into Adventure
I must admit that Pokemon Go's traditional Adventure Week events have historically been a minor hit with me as they feature the fossil 'mon...
Storyboard: The fine art of letting your character fail in MMORPG roleplaying
Do you know why tabletop roleplaying games use dice? Every game designer ever will lie about the reason. The reason cited is to create...
The Daily Grind: What’s the oldest MMO meme you remember?
If you were around in the early days of online gaming, you surely remember how terrible the memes were. I mean, I put on...
Massively Overthinking: How much research do you do before playing a new MMORPG?
On this week's MOP Podcast, Justin and I discussed our experiences in No Man's Sky (again), and both of us came to the conclusion...
Global Chat: Looking back at 15 years of World of Warcraft blogging
Fifteen years is a huge chunk of time to devote to both a video game and an ongoing blog covering it, but that's exactly...
Working As Intended: The Fridge Poetry game is the latest distillation of MMORPG PvP
This morning, MOP's Sam busted into MOP's work chat with a link to the Fridge Poetry game.
"It's more like an art project than a...
Vague Patch Notes: Everything in an MMORPG is time-limited
Today, I want to talk to you about an event that you can no longer participate in within Final Fantasy XIV. It's an event...
The Daily Grind: What sort of time-limited content works well in MMOs?
Over the years, I have occasionally dunked on Guild Wars 2 for making its story content early on revolve around taking part in continually...
The Soapbox: Why MMOs are the ultimate creature comforts
As long as I can remember, I've been an avid fan of re-consuming my favorite forms of media. I used to read the same...
Perfect Ten: 10 times MMOs appeared in TV and movies
It's always surreal when real MMOs cross the divide between niche and mainstream to be referenced in television and films. Depending on how you...
The Daily Grind: Which MMOs are the most and least like their launched versions?
I'm sure we're all familiar with the Ship of Theseus metaphor for online games -- that of a product that has all of its...
Fight or Kite: Backpack Battles puts your bag sorting skills to the test
After the dungeon has been cleared, the boss has been felled, and the zerg has been wiped out, the very next thing we all...
