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The Game Archaeologist: Dragon Ball Online, the MMO that never made it to the west
It was back in 1986 that Toei Animation, a Japanese company, brought a new series called Dragon Ball into the world. The initial run...
Fight or Kite: Warhaven’s pre-season 2 is super fun but perilously unbalanced
Update: This column was written before we knew that Nexon has decided to sunset the game in April, unfortunately. Consider this our eulogy and...
Tamriel Infinium: The history of Elder Scrolls games (before and after Elder Scrolls Online)
There's nothing quite like that feeling when you first dip your toes into a particular game only to discover that it's part of a...
Into the Super-Verse: Gearing up as a newcomer to City of Heroes Homecoming
I was originally going to spend this week opining on why the Incarnate system in City of Heroes didn't really work and why it...
Working As Intended: How to mod City of Heroes Homecoming the easy way
If you played City of Heroes a long time ago - or even back in 2019, when its secret server blossomed into a public...
Vague Patch Notes: Early access is just game development as performance art
I was reminded recently about Valheim. I do not own the game and thus have not played it; I cannot tell you if it...
Perfect Ten: The 10 most utterly bizarre Final Fantasy XIV NPC names
A lot of times when I write these columns, I have either a point to make or a higher concept that I am touching...
Choose My Adventure: Genshin Impact is slowly working its charms on me
Perhaps this is just time away from the game or the full mental and literal reset talking, but I have to say that right...
Wisdom of Nym: Impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s petite patch 6.55
There's an odd thing that keeps going back and forth in my head when I look at last week's patch 6.55 for Final Fantasy...
LOTRO Legendarium: Digging into LOTRO’s 2024 roadmap, from U39 to the Baharbêl expansion
Oh boy -- it's roadmap time for Lord of the Rings Online! As we've been seeing over the past few years, Standing Stone Games...
Leaderboard: What’s the most vulnerable Daybreak MMO in 2024?
Every year when it comes time to update this poll for January, I consider tossing it out. But the last few years of Daybreak...
Vague Patch Notes: What City of Heroes Homecoming means for the wider MMORPG industry
As you have probably noticed from the fact that I have been writing about City of Heroes nonstop since the Homecoming server got its...
Into the Super-Verse: What City of Heroes needs now is not more endgame content
One of the key discussion points about the City of Heroes revival revolves around what the perception of the game is going to be....
Perfect Ten: The weirdest weapons from MMOs of yore
Swords. Staffs. Maces. Spears. Wands. Bows. Crossbows. Double-crossbows. Hammers. Wolverine claws. Daggers. Axes. Deadly? Yes. Fashionable? Not so much. A two-handed sword is so...
Choose My Adventure: Returning to Genshin Impact in 2024
I'm irritated to admit that this week's edition of Choose My Adventure was more like a misadventure thanks to technical issues, to my surprise,...
Vitae Aeternum: The ups and downs of New World’s revamped story
In the early days, I made the argument that New World's narrative, while minimal, deserved more credit than it was getting. Since then, however,...
Wisdom of Nym: Dreaming about Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.55 during the day-long downtime
Somehow, the final Endwalker content patch has arrived. All right, maybe you could argue that's just the tiniest bit premature; technically we've still got...
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v7.0
Once again we put a wrap on another year of MMORPG news, opinions, and -- most pertinent to this column -- history. In a...
LOTRO Legendarium: Brainstorming new hobby ideas for LOTRO
April 24th, 2008. That was both the first and last time that Lord of the Rings Online added a hobby to the game --...
Fight or Kite: Harry Potter Magic Awakened’s winter seasonal event has its claws in me
Seasonal events and festivals are just about standard fare in MMOs these days. You’d probably be hard-pressed to find a game that didn’t include...