game design
MMO Mechanics: Three non-combat mechanics to love
The wheels in my head have been turning over non-combat mechanics in MMOs for a while now, perhaps because of the buzz surrounding Wander,...
EVE Evolved: Have the Drifters conquered the Jove Empire?
EVE Online's Carnyx release is right around the corner on June 2nd, and it's going to be a big update! The Caldari will finally...
Massively Overthinking: When IPs are wasted on mediocre MMOs
This week's Massively Overthinking question comes to us from Kickstarter donor Aldranis, whose query neatly dovetails with the IP-related question we answered on the...
Ultraviolence, virtual worlds, and why I hate myself for loving GTA Online
OK, maybe that title is overly dramatic. Still, I feel guilty for liking Grand Theft Auto Online. I've touched on this before, as have...
EVE Evolved: Building your own empire
When CCP announced its far-reaching plans to overhaul EVE Online's territorial warfare gameplay, players were cautiously optimistic but understandably guarded. EVE's old sovereignty system...
WoW Factor: A three million loss lesson
It's been a little while, hasn't it, friends? In the time since I last penned WoW Factor (which missed an installment purely due to...
‘No more grind’: PvP sandbox Das Tal launches its Kickstarter
As promised, buy-to-play indie PvP sandbox Das Tal has begun a Kickstarter campaign today to coincide with the launch of the German wing of...
MMO Mechanics: Three favourite action combat systems
Virtually every MMO contains dangerous places that are filled with other players or NPCs that will attack characters on site, and many also feature...
EVE Evolved: Seven years of EVE Evolved
When I started writing about EVE Online for Massively back in 2008, the MMO genre was really hitting its stride, and emerging sites like...
The Daily Grind: When should MMO devs just stop tweaking?
Yesterday's reveal of Lord of the Rings Online's legendary item imbuing system struck me as a promising show of faith from the devs but nevertheless a...
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns interview unwraps specializations and traits
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, readers of all races, professions, and levels: I finally have the news we've all been waiting for! Today...
EVE Evolved: How many subscriptions does EVE have?
Two weeks ago, a mathemagician over at The Nosy Gamer published some interesting calculations showing that EVE Online's subscriptions may have dropped by around...
The Daily Grind: What old MMO feature deserves to make a comeback?
Today's Daily Grind comes to us from Kickstarter donor Diskonekted, who asks one of the genre's million-dollar questions:
What features or technology from older MMOs are...
MMO Mechanics: How strong communities are barriers-to-exit
MMOs occupy a unique position in our game libraries because they include a wide range of clever mechanics that keep us logging in day...
RIFT chronicles the remaking of the Hammerknell raid
If you came into RIFT late in its life cycle, you missed Hammerknell. If you weren't raiding when Hammerknell was super relevant to the...
EVE Evolved: Four lessons sandbox MMOs can learn from EVE
The past few years have seen a resurgence of support for sandbox MMOs, both of the trying-to-be-minecraft creative kind and the hardcore nuke-it-from orbit...
The Soapbox: The misguided quest for MMO stickiness
This guest Soapbox was originally commissioned in 2015 through Massively Overpowered's Kickstarter campaign and is authored by Tyler F.M. Edwards, who blogs at www.superior-realities.com....
Massively Overthinking: The true value of free-to-play players
Today's Massively Overthinking question comes to us from Kickstarter backer and prolific commenter Omedon, who wrote us a really long question. It's long. But it's a...
Guild Wars 2 removes bleeding caps in Heart of Thorns
One of the routinely stated design goals about Guild Wars 2 is that you should be able to wander out in the world and...
EVE Evolved: CCP’s Andie Nordgren on new structures and sovereignty
I've been pretty critical of EVE Online's upcoming sovereignty and nullsec revamp, calling the constellation-wide battle fake and its use of reinforcement timers unnecessary....
