evergreen
The Game Archaeologist: Digging up the history of City of Heroes
For the longest time in the early 2000s, MMORPGs scared me off. They looked too obtuse, too grindy, too ugly, and too unapproachable for...
Perfect Ten: The best expansions for specific MMOs
Looking over the past two decades or so, MMORPGs have grown by leaps and bounds with regular releases, events, and (of course) expansion packs....
Perfect Ten: Endless dungeons in MMOs
Most MMO dungeons are normal songs. You start out and you have a pretty clear picture of the beginning, middle, and end; they don't...
Vague Patch Notes: On balance and differentiation in MMOs
Do you like fighting games? I don't. Let's talk about fighting games. But bear with me because you'll get where this is going.
While I...
‘Magic through serendipity’: Raph Koster on the glorious mess that was Ultima Online
I was a wide-eyed, naive kid when I first stepped into Ultima Online in 1997, and as it turns out, the developers were too.
That's...
Perfect Ten: Ten things you need to understand about MMORPG Rogues
Sometimes I know that I may be a bit too old-school because there's a little twitch in my eye whenever I have to refer...
The Soapbox: Do MMOs still fall victim to the copycat curse?
When Radical Heights launched, I was inspired to put together a whole Perfect Ten about why trend-chasing doesn't work for online games. Obviously, my...
Massively Overthinking: The case for rarity and randomness in MMO monetization
Last week, Guild Wars 2's Crystin Cox gave a monetization interview to Gamasutra during which she made one specific argument I wanted to pull...
Perfect Ten: The unique pitfalls of licensed MMOs
Making a list of the "biggest" MMOs currently running is always an exercise in frustration. It's easy to put a few things on the...
Massively Overthinking: The state of modern MMORPG raiding
Massively OP reader Sorrior recently sent in a question about raiding, a topic we haven't discussed in a while.
"I have noticed raiding tends to...
Perfect Ten: What your MMO quantity says about you
It occurs to me that it is very difficult to find MMOs that I have literally never played before in some capacity. There are...
Massively Overthinking: What we really mean when we talk about ‘difficulty’ in MMORPGs
Massively OP reader Steve wants us to revisit the Daily Grind on making death more meaningful without making it more annoying. His letter was long, so...
Perfect Ten: MMOs that claimed to be the first
We've all been there. We're playing our favorite MMORPG and then self-appointed professors of game history start arguing in world chat about firsts --...
The Soapbox: Three augmented reality game problems (most) MMOs don’t have – and one thing they do so much better
I'd like to think that I'm kind of a healthy gamer. While MMOs take a lot of time, the nice thing is that their...
Perfect Ten: Why trend-chasing doesn’t work at all for online games
Video games have always been a remarkably insular field; that's the nature of development. Someone produces Super Mario Bros, and a few years later...
Perfect Ten: More anthropomorphic MMO studio conversations
A while back, you may recall that I posted some of my conversations with anthropomorphized concepts of MMO studios. If you don't remember this,...
The Hunter’s Arsenal: Massively OP’s guide to the weapons of Monster Hunter World
Throughout their time in Monster Hunter World, players will have to make a lot of decisions, but none of them are as important -- or...
MMO Mechanics: The Fair Play Alliance and mechanising fairness
News of over 30 gaming companies taking a united stand against unfairness and toxicity in online game communities sprung out of GDC 2018 a...
Perfect Ten: Why MMO progression servers are a brilliant idea
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been enjoying the journey through RIFT Prime, the game's first progression server. Trion Worlds surprised and...
The Game Archaeologist: World of Warcraft’s Corrupted Blood pandemic
It began with an exploitable glitch. It exploded into an uncontained nightmare of death. It established a meme as strong as Leeroy Jenkins. It...
