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WoW Factor: The black mark of World of Warcraft’s player economy
Sometimes, I like to play a little game with MOP's Bree. I say I like to because the game is "Give Bree An Aneurysm,"...
The Soapbox: If MMO classes aren’t broken, please leave ’em alone
Last week was a pretty big one for Lord of the Rings Online. The 17-year-old MMO opened up a pair of new progression servers,...
Vague Patch Notes: Is it time for MMORPGs to start embracing romance?
The other day, I was writing about Baldur's Gate 3 celebrating its anniversary with statistics about all the companions that people have smooched over...
Perfect Ten: 10 tabletop games based on World of Warcraft
So here's what inspired this particular article: I was thinking about board games based upon MMOs of various scales because the other day I...
Choose My Adventure: Mission runs cap off a welcoming return to Elite Dangerous
What a difference a month makes. When I first started these series of Elite Dangerous posts for Choose My Adventure, I had gone into...
Fight or Kite: Marvel Rivals replaces Overwatch heroes with Marvel flair
I don’t think we’ll ever be certain, but I am pretty sure I can guess exactly how Marvel Rivals was initially created. Someone walked...
Wisdom of Nym: The story beats that really work in Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
Before I dive into this week's column, I want to start things off by noting a weird aspect of storytelling that's true in Final...
LOTRO Legendarium: My six-month leveling plan for Lord of the Rings Online’s fresh legendary server
If all goes well, the new legendary servers -- the first in three years -- will roll out this week for Lord of the...
Not So Massively: Stormgate was not ready for early access
As the first of StarCraft II's spiritual successors to make it to a public launch, Stormgate will be releasing free to play for all...
Design Mockument: How to make housing work in World of Warcraft
Editor's note: This column was originally published in August 2024, a full three months before we knew WoW is actually getting housing with the...
Hands-on with Arc Games’ Fellowship, a new game trying to distill the MMORPG dungeon experience
For many folks, one of the more entertaining aspects of playing an MMORPG is running through its dungeons (though of course that varies from...
Vague Patch Notes: The player-provided guidance problem in MMORPGs
Final Fantasy XIV has a player-based mentor program and an automatic guidance network for new players. The idea is that certain players can volunteer...
Perfect Ten: MMOs with outstanding tutorial sections
Tutorials! They're important. I even wrote an entire column about them recently, talking about how important they are in getting people into a new...
Choose My Adventure: Blowing up rocks for fun and profit in Elite Dangerous
When I first started my run in Elite: Dangerous for this week's Choose My Adventure, I was just barely over the amount of credits...
Vitae Aeternum: Let’s design some New World artifacts
The New World community is currently waiting not so patiently for the big Aeternum update in October. While we're killing time, I thought it...
Wisdom of Nym: The actual storytelling issues with Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
I'm not exactly surprised that basically any controversy vis-a-vis Final Fantasy XIV's most recent expansion is pretty much completely focused on the story (with...
The Game Archaeologist: A look back at proto-MMOs through the 1980s
Today I want to try something a little different as we look at MMORPG history. Rather than focus in on a single title or...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s August is leaning into Adventure
I must admit that Pokemon Go's traditional Adventure Week events have historically been a minor hit with me as they feature the fossil 'mon...
Storyboard: The fine art of letting your character fail in MMORPG roleplaying
Do you know why tabletop roleplaying games use dice? Every game designer ever will lie about the reason. The reason cited is to create...
Working As Intended: The Fridge Poetry game is the latest distillation of MMORPG PvP
This morning, MOP's Sam busted into MOP's work chat with a link to the Fridge Poetry game.
"It's more like an art project than a...
