column

Remember, he's bigger and stronger than you, but you're smaller and weaker!

Vague Patch Notes: Why the social penalty for open PvP in MMOs never works

80
One of the most important things to have when you're thinking about games and their design is reference material. It's one of the things...
Flexin'

The Daily Grind: Which MMO has the biggest homogeneity problem with outfits?

46
Every MMO has a certain upper limit on how many different outfits you can come up with. That's just the reality. And some games...

Hyperspace Beacon: The tale of Ood Bnar and his place in SWTOR

5
If you've not watched the "Choose My Alignment" livestreams that MJ and I have been doing over the last couple of years, then you've...

Perfect Ten: Hit franchises that were almost made into MMORPGs

22
For my money, there are few more tantalizing and agonizing thoughts than the great "What Ifs?" of the MMO genre. What if one title...
GO LEFT YOU IDIOT

The Daily Grind: Are you looking forward or backward with your MMO picks?

74
We do find ourselves in a very strange time to be MMO players. While there are plenty of titles in development and early access,...

Choose My Adventure: Stunning vistas and snotty elves in Elder Scrolls Online’s Summerset

22
Choose My Adventure is slowly becoming a source of delight for me, especially if I'm able to play games like The Elder Scrolls Online....
Toss me a cure, will you?

Wisdom of Nym: Impressions from the second Final Fantasy XIV fan festival

12
The experience of a Final Fantasy XIV fan festival is a distinct one, a strange beast that sort of creeps into your existence even...

The Daily Grind: How bad are delays for MMOs, and how much does communication help?

26
Last week, a newly minted Ship of Heroes fan posted a comment on the game's official forums saying he'd studied in-development MMOs and settled...

Jukebox Heroes: The Final Fantasy XIV soundtrack that disappeared

2
First there was the initial release of Final Fantasy XIV. Everyone generally agreed that this was a bad idea, and so it was sent...
ROBOT ROCK - wait, can't play that song.

The Daily Grind: Have any of your MMO accounts ever been hacked?

56
For all I know, all of my authenticators are just placebos; I've never actually had an account get hacked. There are accounts I've lost...

The Game Archaeologist: Dungeon Runners

4
Where do you rest on the spectrum of humor? If you find yourself giggling and snorting at dumb jokes, groan-worthy puns, and satire so...

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers launches July 2 with Gunbreaker job and playable Viera

79
We still don't know where we're going for Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. The keynote from the stage at the Paris Fan Festival didn't tell...
Somebody pull.

The Daily Grind: Why are you still an MMORPG fan?

85
No, MMOs aren't dead. I just want to put that out there; there are millions of us still playing them, dozens (if not hundreds)...
lizert

Storyboard: Can you diverge from lore in MMORPG roleplaying?

18
All right, this is new for me because most of my titles do not contain dirty lies right in the question used to kick...

Vague Patch Notes: How to recognize MMO lies from quite a long way away

25
One of the most consistently weird elements of covering MMOs is that there's a very simple and yet incredibly odd metric of knowing if...
THE LAW

The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs that turn you off just based on history?

50
We were having an interesting discussion in work chat the other day about EVE Online involving Brendan and me. Brendan, obviously, is the expert on...
Even-handed.

Perfect Ten: MMO arguments we need to put down

56
You know what I hate? No, not just botting. No, not people with more cash to spend on game development than sense about whether...

The Daily Grind: Do you play MMOs for ambient sociability?

74
In my gaming time, I switch back and forth between MMOs and solo games (often adventure or RPGs) quite often. When I'm in the...

Choose My Adventure: Where Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen meet

19
I'm going to attempt to connect apples and oranges here. In my final days with Elite Dangerous for CMA, I have actually managed to...

The Daily Grind: Do you trust companies selling ‘games as a service’?

54
MUD and MMO players are pretty much the original victims of "games as a service" mentality. News that Nintendo is shutting down the Wii...

THE LATEST POSTS