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WoW Factor: How much does World of Warcraft matter to Blizzard?
My initial plan this week was to write about whether or not World of Warcraft was successfully creating an echo chamber in which everyone...
LOTRO Legendarium: LOTRO’s Minstrel revamp is a master class in studio obstinance
Does anything in this world produce a cold sweat faster than a developer abruptly announcing, "Oh hey, we're going to retool your class?" Unless...
The Daily Grind: Did you buy a Steam Deck, and are you playing MMOs on it?
A couple of my guildies got their Steam Decks over the summer, and I have to say, I'm a bit jealous. I blew it...
Four Winds: What made Lost Ark so successful where Elyon failed?
I'm sad about it, but I have to eat my words about Elyon and its place in this decade's pantheon of MMOs. I honestly...
Vague Patch Notes: Queues do not tell the story of an MMO’s success
It's time to talk about queues to log in to a game, and you know what game we have to talk about in this...
The Daily Grind: Have you ever kept playing an MMO that didn’t want you around?
Every MMO wants everyone to keep playing as long as possible, on some level. The developers want you to keep paying money and playing...
Perfect Ten: An MMO sunset tour for 2022 to date
MMO sunsets can be weird. I am never happy when a game that people love goes away. It always represents a lot of lost...
The Daily Grind: What MMO has the highest lethality rate?
We all die in MMOs. That's a fact of life, and it's why MJ has a death counter on her game streams. But some...
Choose My Adventure: Hitting the reset button and getting hit in return during Temtem’s launch
To be honest, I wasn't really expecting my full reset to the launch version of Temtem to feel too different, but I also was...
Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s restored S1E4 Tower of Nightmares
Here we are at the penultimate episode of Guild Wars 2's restored and retooled Season 1 content! The pieces are finally starting to fall...
Vitae Aeternum: The best solo armor and magical weapons in New World
I now return to bring you the second part of my analysis of weapon and armor choices for the solo player in New World....
The Daily Grind: What’s the weirdest activity you’ve charged MMO currency for?
As City of Heroes Homecoming tests long-awaited recycling rules for abandoned names and characters, I've been contemplating what to do with some of the...
Wisdom of Nym: Making money in Final Fantasy XIV isn’t what you think
So let me start with a statement: Gil is pretty much irrelevant to me in Final Fantasy XIV because I already have enough. We...
The Daily Grind: What are the most obvious vestigial organs in MMO design?
I found myself in a heated discussion a week or so ago about Guild Wars 2's leveling system because in my estimation, Guild Wars...
The Game Archaeologist: The legacy of Ultima Online
Last week in The Game Archaeologist, we traced the history of Ultima Online’s origin, development, and testing -- not to mention one pesky in-game...
The Daily Grind: Are there any ‘forgettable’ MMOs you still remember?
A while back, I proposed the term "temport" to describe a certain flavor of free-to-play MMO that gets imported from elsewhere (usually South Korea...
The Daily Grind: What can’t you shut up about in regard to MMOs?
We all have opinions. Oh boy, do we. We have opinions on things we aren't even aware of yet, that's how reflexive we are...
WoW Factor: What makes World of Warcraft in particular appealing?
I've been covering MMOs professionally for about 13 years now. That's a long while. And it's kind of strange to me that I've been...
The Daily Grind: What’s the most annoying grind in an MMO?
A few weeks ago, the MOP work chat was positively hopping over an unusual subject: Guild Wars 2's mount grinds, specifically the skyscale. One...
Vague Patch Notes: The MMORPG industry shockwaves that still reverberate
A thought occurred to me the other day regarding World of Warcraft and the way that it deformed the MMO industry: People who are...
