evergreen
Perfect Ten: 10 ways that MMOs kind of used to be worse
Believe you me, I know quite well the arguments that have been rehashed over the years about how the MMORPG genre and these online...
Massively Overthinking: Picking the ‘wrong’ MMORPG class
Last month, the MMORPG subreddit slept on a good thread about picking classes in MMOs. Let's wake this sucker up. "Am I the only...
Vague Patch Notes: The sneering elitism of the MMO term ‘welfare epics’
A few weeks ago, I saw an MMO player unironically complaining about "welfare epics" here in 2021. This is basically the equivalent of saying,...
LOTRO Legendarium: How much value does a VIP subscription offer these days?
Probably the biggest question any Lord of the Rings Online player has to ask him or herself is whether to go subscription or free-to-play...
Vague Patch Notes: MMO sunsets and the myth of meritocracy
A few weeks back, I talked about why a given MMO might have failed even when it possessed good qualities. It was a response...
Perfect Ten: The top 10 things to love about Elder Scrolls Online
Having finally clicked hard with Elder Scrolls Online this winter, I find that it's difficult to restrain myself from gushing about pleasant discoveries (and...
Not So Massively: A eulogy for Anthem and Defiance
Last week was a bloodbath. In a single day, we saw Electronic Arts consign one game to eternal maintenance mode, and Gamigo announced closures...
Vague Patch Notes: Considering the soloer’s experience in MMOs
I sized him up from where he sat across from me. He was intelligent, that much I could tell just at a glance -...
Stick and Rudder: Seven player-made Elite Dangerous tools that you should check out
Since beginning my Elite Dangerous journey, I’ve been impressed and delighted to find many community-supported tools available to aid Elite players in navigating the...
Massively Overthinking: Which MMORPG offers the best tutorial?
MMORPG developer Raph Koster recently put this neat article by experimental game developer Nicky Case on my radar. Case notes that common wisdom is...
Vague Patch Notes: The challenge of the average MMO player
Pick an MMO, any MMO you know pretty well. Pick an MMO where you have a good sense of how much content there is...
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs to get you out of your gaming rut
We have all been there. You've been gaming in your standard comfort MMOs when one day you hit that wall of burnout. You feel...
LOTRO Legendarium: How can LOTRO become more alt-friendly?
Lord of the Rings Online has so much to offer players, from an expansive world to thousands of quests to, um, chicken soccer. But...
Vague Patch Notes: Emergent gameplay in MMOs isn’t a defense of awful behavior
To the surprise (or at least disappointment) of many, it turns out that some players in Elite: Dangerous found an exciting and fresh way to...
Perfect Ten: The types of MMO guilds
Guilds! They're remarkably consistent features of MMOs because developers have long realized that they are an unparalleled engine for creating drama, arguments, and recriminations....
LOTRO Legendarium: Ranking Lord of the Rings Online’s Eriador zones from worst to best
Probably like many of you, I have gone through the initial zones in Lord of the Rings Online more times than I can count...
Massively Overthinking: Do MMO players secretly just want ‘another WoW’?
Last week, there was a provocative discussion on the MMORPG subreddit about the genre. I don't want to get tangled up in the whole...
Vague Patch Notes: If this MMO was so good, why didn’t it succeed?
Your mission today, should you choose to accept it, is to participate in an experiment. I want you to write up a nice long...
Perfect Ten: A guide to podcasts for your favorite MMOs
Clearly, your Tuesday schedule every week should have a big fat "LISTEN TO MASSIVELY OP PODCAST" written at 4:00 p.m. EST right on it....
The Game Archaeologist: Lost Continents, the Jules Verne MMO we never got
If you're looking for an alternate vision of futuristic science fiction, you would do well to dive back into the worlds of 19th century...
