The Game Archaeologist: World of Warcraft in the 1990s
MMORPGs don't pop out of nowhere, ex nihilo, to suddenly be enjoyed by players across the globe. Good ones take several years, dozens of...
The Daily Grind: Which MMOs have the best character select screens?
With The War Within pre-patch arriving in late July, World of Warcraft's character select screen is getting a huge makeover to allow you to...
Choose My Adventure: The Elite Dangerous vs Pax Dei rematch
Nine times out of ten, I generally follow the Will of the Polls here in MOP's Choose My Adventure column without too much question...
Vitae Aeternum: New World Aeternum’s stagger changes could make or break the game
In all the hubbub over New World's controversial Aeternum relaunch, there's one element of the update that's been largely overlooked. The features infographic mentions...
The Daily Grind: How many players constitute a proper MMORPG raid?
Back when Amazon first announced its New World Aeternum rebranding, I noticed an interesting comment about the planned raid. Longtime reader Squid opined that...
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s relatively smooth early access isn’t a sign of doom
On Sunday evening, I had to log out from Final Fantasy XIV to take care of an errand. This is not unusual. It is,...
Pokemon Go’s Meteorite bait-and-switch isn’t helping Go Fest hype
Niantic is not heading into 2024's Go Fest on great terms with the Pokemon Go playerbase, owing to a string of problems: a sales...
The Daily Grind: Would you rather have disposable minions or true pets with an MMO pet class?
A few weeks back, MOP's Chris and I were talking about Path of Exile 2's forthcoming Witch character and griping about the way a...
Global Chat: Tarisland’s controls, WoW Classic permadeath, and Dawntrail tips
The Ancient Gaming Noob doesn't mince words in a recent essay: He found Tarisland pretty annoying right from the start. One key complaint? The...
The Daily Grind: What’s your favorite example of MMO devs embracing a community meme?
World of Warcraft's Captain Placeholder. Final Fantasy XIV's square grapes. City of Heroes asking you to kill skuls. Lord of the Rings Online putting...
Four Winds: Wuthering Waves, Genshin Impact, and the burgeoning gacha gaming industry
In the early days of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time covering the then newly released Genshin Impact. The first piece was...
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs show blood and battle damage?
At the risk of sounding like a bloodthirsty gorehound, I do kind of wish that MMOs did more to visually represent the damage that...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s July spread is basically just marking time until Go Fest
It's not particularly surprising that, once again, Pokemon Go isn't really sharing a lot of details about what's in store for the month of...
WoW Factor: MMORPG raiding is not special
You all remember The Incredibles, right? I know that these days the hot take is to try to spin the film as some sort...
The Daily Grind: Are you taking part in Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail early access?
I'm not going to lie to you, people, I'm writing this post well before the early access period has begun because my primary goals...
Massively Overthinking: How ‘massively multiplayer’ do we expect MMORPGs to be?
Earlier in June on the MOP Podcast, Justin and I took a stab at answering the age-old question of what, exactly, constitutes an MMO....
Vague Patch Notes: Many kinds of challenge and many kinds of fun in MMOs
Earlier this week, MOP's Bree and I were discussing my plans in Final Fantasy XIV as part of the Dawntrail early access launch. Now,...
Vitae Aeternum: A new theory on what went wrong with New World’s 2024 plans
The New World fanbase is still reeling from the fallout over the announcement of its soft relaunch on consoles as New World: Aeternum. Something...
The Daily Grind: Which MMO is worth playing because of its lore?
A few weeks ago in a Massively Overthinking, Tyler landed one hell of a double-dunk on SWTOR and EVE Online almost in passing, suggesting...
First impressions of ASKA, Sand Sailor’s brand-new colony-building survival sandbox
Thanks to the press preview hosted by Thunderful and Sand Sailor, I recently had the opportunity to play around with survival sandbox ASKA a...
