The former studio behind City of Heroes.
/holdtorch
paragon studios
Design Mockument: In defense of visual ability customization in MMORPGs
I will never know who it was working behind the scenes at City of Heroes who first had the idea to let players customize...
Massively Overthinking: The top three MMOs we played in 2024
I know from experience that when I list out the MMOs I want to play in a given year, it is an aspirational list....
Vague Patch Notes: Nostalgia isn’t the problem with pining for your MMO past
So it hasn't been long since World of Warcraft launched a new set of WoW Classic servers, except this time it's WoW Classic Classic,...
The Daily Grind: Have you let go of any old MMORPG obsessions?
Earlier this year, when City of Heroes Homecoming first scored a license to operate from NCsoft, my kid fell hard into econ PvP over...
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MOP stories of 2024
As you're reading this, it's Thanksgiving night, and the end-of-the-year insanity is about to begin. You're going to be treated to a whole ton...
Perfect Ten: Lessons from unsuccessful MMORPGs that I wish designers would learn
I have been writing about this genre for far too long now and seen far too many games with genuinely good elements completely fail...
Vague Patch Notes: Living like a rock in MMORPGs
So if you are anything close to my age, you probably do not think of Simon & Garfunkel's music as being anything remotely "raw."...
Massively Overthinking: How long should it take to level to endgame in MMORPGs?
Right after New World's Aeternum launched, we did a piece looking into how the game was faring - and one complaint I saw over...
Design Mockument: Exploring alternatives to the typical MMO trinity
Here's a fun thing for you: I swear that way, way back before the game launched, there were documents from the Guild Wars 2...
Massively Overthinking: Have you ever been booted from an MMORPG group because your class wasn’t the meta?
Earlier this month, when some World of Warcraft players were protesting massive nerfs to specific classes, MOP reader Sloth explained the problem superbly: The...
Vague Patch Notes: Solipsism and what it means for playing MMORPGs
We've been talking for the past couple of Vague Patch Notes columns about the fact that MMOs are, as a genre, defined by having...
City of Heroes rogue server Rebirth delays its next patch to 2025 – but it features full-color costume customization
The teeny City of Heroes rogue server Rebirth updated players on its Issue 7 patch yesterday - and it's good news and bad news....
Perfect Ten: The 10 types of tanks in MMORPGs
I've been thinking a fair bit about player archetypes lately, and that also means that I've been thinking about the variants within roles. While...
The Daily Grind: How much in-game money are you willing to spend on an MMORPG house?
A few weeks back, we did a piece rounding up some of the cool stuff Guild Wars 2 players have been building in Janthir...
The Daily Grind: Which MMOs could still use a classic plus mode?
I don't even remember which MMO it was now, but the other day Chris turned in a post that mentioned some MMO and its...
Design Mockument: Alternate trinities in MMORPGs and the challenge of other roles
The trinity has been a truism of MMO design now for about as long as it wasn't. I came up during the small times...
Design Mockument: How might we build a Stormlight Archive MMORPG?
So when I was talking with MOP editor Bree a while back, I mentioned how one of my early ideas for the most recent...
City of Heroes’ Halloween 2024 is fun – but the community-run Witch’s House event steals the show
While technically the City of Heroes Homecoming Halloween event for 2024 went live earlier this month, it was barely a footnote compared to the...
Vague Patch Notes: MMOs rely on other people – but what does that really mean?
Now that we're done with Leveling Month in Vague Patch Notes, is there another topic I can turn into a month-and-change of column topics?...
Massively Overthinking: How do you stop MMOs from feeling like (or becoming) a part-time job?
In last week's Choose My Adventure, MOP's Chris penned a perfect paragraph summing up the paradox of MMORPGs - it doesn't even matter what...
