column

Pay me to play me!

The Daily Grind: Do you get worried when MMO fan sites shut down?

59
Fan sites come and go. They always have and always will. The game that you thought you would care about forever when you were...

LOTRO Legendarium: Examining 2019’s amazing producer’s letter

22
I swear, the news never fails to make a monkey out of me. Just the other day I was grousing about how it was...

The Daily Grind: Does law and order add to MMORPG worlds?

40
As of late I've been going through the Thieves Guild DLC in Elder Scrolls Online. The result of this has taught me that (a)...
There was something beautiful and wonderful and it destroyed itself.

Jukebox Heroes: The 10 greatest MMO soundtracks of all time (as voted by you)

16
A few weeks ago we witnessed the showdown of the ages (or at least the epoch known as "late January 2019"), as Massively OP...
Looking closer.

WoW Factor: Why people are mad at Battle for Azeroth, part one: Combat

36
One of the complicated challenges of writing about World of Warcraft is sorting out the stuff that's happening now from the stuff that's been happening...

The Daily Grind: So how worried are you about Guild Wars 2?

61
Last night's devastating news that NCsoft was forcing Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet to make major layoffs definitely shook me, even more than the...
A very short marathon.

Vague Patch Notes: Online games are a marathon, but they still need to start running

12
One of those phrases we like to use a fair amount here is the fact that running an MMO is a marathon, not a...
We're going to be here for a very long while, princess.

The Daily Grind: Are there party roles you will not fulfill in MMOs?

49
We all know the big three roles in most MMO design at this point: tanks, healers, and DPS. But these are not the only...
Weepy weep weep.

Perfect Ten: The bloodiest MMOs of all time

16
I am not nor ever have been that much of a fan of gore and blood in video games. Oh, I thought Doom was...

The Daily Grind: What if World of Warcraft never launched?

57
It is 2003, and after several years of development and hype, Blizzard Entertainment sizes up its World of Warcraft project. The studio decides that...

Choose My Adventure: Dungeon diving in The Elder Scrolls Online

12
Pretty much everything I've done in The Elder Scrolls Online has been a delight, so I was going in to my chosen task for...

The Daily Grind: What MMO could really use a true fresh start server?

57
We talk a lot about progression servers and vanilla servers, branches of MMOs that use different rulesets, either new or old - we even...

The Survivalist: Astroneer adds whimsy to the enjoyable terrors of space survival

4
Ever feel like you can't keep up with all the survival sandboxes coming out? With so many, it can be hard to keep them...
Now the story can be told...

Wisdom of Nym: The system changes I’d like to see in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

14
We don't yet know everything we're going to learn at the Tokyo fan festival about Shadowbringers, but we can be reasonably confident that it...

The Daily Grind: Are you concerned about the future of World of Warcraft?

105
Given the week that Activision-Blizzard just had - capping off a record financial year by haphazardly firing 800 employees, literally provoking union groups to...

EVE Evolved: EVE Online has a gambling problem

25
The gambling debate has kicked off again in EVE Online, this time in response to the annual Guardian's Gala event that's currently running throughout...

The Daily Grind: What are the moments in MMOs that make you feel powerful?

36
You know, for all the fun of going back and curbstomping low-level enemies, that doesn't make me feel powerful in an MMO. What makes...

The Game Archaeologist: Terra, SubSpace, and Sovereign

2
In the MMO industry, science fiction has always taken the role of the overlooked little brother to big sister fantasy's popularity. Sure, there have...

The Daily Grind: When have you bumped into MMOs in real life?

36
The other day I was driving through my neighborhood and I happened to look at a cross-street that read WESTFALL. And, being the former...
lolwut

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s mysterious Hrothgar text has no good explanation

7
It was just supposed to be a minor patch for Final Fantasy XIV and it's touched off a huge flurry of confusion. Someone in the...

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