staff roundtable
Massively Overthinking: Do MMO betas rob you of launch joy?
I use to think of betas as being unpaid labor for video game companies, but maybe I've been going about it all wrong. On...
Massively Overthinking: The best and worst of BlizzCon 2019
BlizzCon 2019 is behind us, finally, and we're winding down our coverage and trying to put a capstone on the experience. In this week's...
Massively Overthinking: The problem with MMO ‘dailies’
Longtime MOP Patron and friend of the site Avaera recently posed us an intriguing questions about daily login rewards in MMORPGs.
"Recently my game of choice,...
Massively Overthinking: Niche MMOs vs. everythingboxes
Earlier this month, veteran MMORPG designer Raph Koster announced that he's finally making a new MMORPG, with a suite of top devs and a...
Massively Overthinking: Are you boycotting Blizzard?
Tyler's piece this week about the Blizzard he loved being dead actually brought tears to my eyes. It hurts to lose a game and...
Massively Overthinking: The one about MMO roleplay servers
An MOP reader named Thierry recently pointed us to a brewing storm in the World of Warcraft Classic community: In a nutshell, the server...
Massively Overthinking: MMOs, challenge, and flow
A couple of weeks ago, MMO developer Mark Kern tweeted a controversial claim about how challenge and interactivity is the point of games (and...
Massively Overthinking: Is the age of the $15 subscription coming to an end?
Massively OP's own Justin Olivetti penned a blog post this week in which he muses on the lifespan of the $15 MMO sub fee,...
Massively Overthinking: Let’s ban a word from the MMORPG lexicon
A while back, an MMO player I follow on Twitter who also happens to be super into sports retweeted something fun into my feed:...
Massively Overthinking: Do you ever feel guilty about ‘freeloading’ in a free-to-play MMO?
A few weeks back, Massively OP's Ben Griggs made an observation that I bet some readers can relate to. He mentioned that in his...
Massively Overthinking: The future of WoW and WoW Classic
With WoW Classic finally launched, perfectly capping off the summer with jokes about queueing like it's 2004, we can't help but look to the...
Massively Overthinking: Problematic faves in MMOs
A while back, a reader suggested that it was impossible for a fan who loves something to recognize its shortcomings, and I was taken...
Massively Overthinking: The first 10 minutes of an MMO
So here's the thing about Elder Scrolls games: Most of them start out with the same hook. From Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim, you...
Massively Overthinking: Morality and compelling choices in MMOs
The most recent episode of The Psychology of Video Games podcast touches on a subject we don't tackle very much: moral choices. It's an...
Massively Overthinking: Thoughts and predictions on Guild Wars 2’s next big thing
Last week, Guild Wars 2 put an end to the whining about info droughts by promising a big reveal of living story season 5...
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMORPG zones of all time
I once heard it said that a popular studio - I think it was Blizzard - made it a point of asking prospective developers...
Massively Overthinking: Revisiting sheep and wolves in MMOs
One of the meta discussions we've been having here on MOP this week has centered on PvP sandbox titles like Albion Online, specifically how...
Massively Overthinking: What would you want out of a potential WoW sequel?
It's a rare MMO player who's never played World of Warcraft, which makes this particular summer an interesting one for the whole genre. Even...
Massively Overthinking: Do you even *like* MMO expansions?
This seems like an absurd question on its face, right? MMO players are supposed to like MMO expansions. They're progress. They're content. They're fresh...
Massively Overthinking: Always be achievin’ (in MMOs)
A while back, my husband and I were idly chatting about MMO achievements. Neither one of us is much of an achievement hunter, or...
