game mechanics
The Daily Grind: What MMO has the worst possible maps?
When I think back about the ways in which MMOs have improved over the 15-ish years I've been playing them, my thoughts invariably turn...
World of Warcraft is patching in a way to purchase Legendaries directly in patch 7.3.5
One of the most ongoing issues in World of Warcraft's current expansion has been the preponderance of Legendary items and the general difficulty of...
Wisdom of Nym: Materia and stats in Final Fantasy XIV
When Heavensward was the current expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, we were introduced to the idea that you could meld materia onto valuable endgame...
Crowfall is spicing up its maps with ‘adventure parcels’
The maps in Crowfall are assembled in a combination of procedural and hand-crafted generation. Individual bits are hand-crafted, but the maps as a whole...
Catch up on the revelations from The Elder Scrolls Online’s most recent patch preview
Curious about the next DLC for The Elder Scrolls Online? We can hardly blame you; it brings with it much-desired features like home storage,...
Check out the starting cutscenes for the first four Allied Races in World of Warcraft
When are the first four Allied Races arriving in World of Warcraft? They're a big feature of Battle for Azeroth, but evidence increasingly points...
The Daily Grind: Where do you turn for your MMO guidance?
The great part about MMOs is that they've embraced one sort of crowdsourcing almost from the moment they first existed, and that's crowdsourcing information....
Fortnite adds silencers in its first Battle Royale update of 2018
The first Fortnite update of the new year has arrived for the Battle Royale mode, and it introduces the silenced pistol along with a...
Kingdom of Loot offers a video preview of its upcoming overworld map
Remember Kingdom of Loot? It's cute, it's pixelated, and it's Secret of Mana meets Diablo in early access. So how is that working out?...
Dark and Light outlines painting your house and pets
We pray that none of your childhood pets had to endure the terror of a child with a paintbrush because all it takes is...
Final Fantasy XIV previews 4.2 Rise of a New Sun with a new sub-site
Ready to help rebuild Doma in Final Fantasy XIV? The preview site for the next major patch has gone live, and it makes it...
Saga of Lucimia explains its new combat system and why you need a team to fight a bear
Bears! Godless killing machines with mouths like rows of daggers, claws like differently arranged rows of daggers, and fur like particularly soft and non-painful...
MMO Mechanics: 2017’s MMO Mechanics in review
I cannot quite believe that we're saying goodbye to 2017 and ringing in 2018 so quickly: It certainly doesn't feel as though an entire...
Crowfall explains crowns, guilds, and buying crowns for guilds bought with crowns
Crowns are the microtransaction currency coming to Crowfall starting in 2018, which you can buy like most microtransaction currencies. Guilds are... well, guilds. If...
Shroud of the Avatar prepares for the arrival of Release 49
December is a time for sitting with friends and family, toasting to the new year, and most importantly, not doing any actual work. Thus,...
Path of Exile is adding a map stash tab
Where are you going to store all of your maps in Path of Exile? There are too many maps, and you have no place...
Hearthstone alters its e-sports plan for 2018 while continuing to get more expensive
People who enjoy playing or watching competitive Hearthstone will probably be excited about the recently announced changes to the game's competitive play circuit. The...
Revelation Online encourages you to strip… your gear of enhancements
It is possible that Revelation Online could have used a thesaurus for its latest feature, as "stripping your gear" produces a mental image that...
Destiny 2 is reversing some of its controversial player lockout DLC design
So, remember when Destiny 2 players without Curse of Osiris were locked out of content that predated that DLC? That was pretty great. Also,...
Exploring the psychology behind losses, gains, and grouping results in video games
Getting five batches of 100 gold feels better than one batch of 500 gold, and being forced to spend three separate 100 gold fees...
