No, it’s not a slow news day; it’s just The Daily Grind, a long-running morning feature in which the Massively Overpowered writers pose gaming-related questions to the MMORPG community. [Follow this feature’s RSS feed]
the daily grind
The Daily Grind: Have you ever been to a concert in an MMO?
Slightly embarrassing story time: One of my favorite things to do in classic Star Wars Galaxies was sing. Yes, musicians and dancers were technically...
Massively Overthinking: The boring MMO development between bookends of hype
If you watch MMOs being developed for long enough, one truth becomes evident: It's kinda boring.
I started thinking a bit about this last week...
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs that turn you off just based on history?
We were having an interesting discussion in work chat the other day about EVE Online involving Brendan and me. Brendan, obviously, is the expert on...
The Daily Grind: Do you play MMOs for ambient sociability?
In my gaming time, I switch back and forth between MMOs and solo games (often adventure or RPGs) quite often. When I'm in the...
The Daily Grind: Do you trust companies selling ‘games as a service’?
MUD and MMO players are pretty much the original victims of "games as a service" mentality. News that Nintendo is shutting down the Wii...
The Daily Grind: What’s the best example of wasted aesthetics in an MMO?
If you somehow missed our award for meme of year, now's a good time to trot it back out because it could so apply...
The Daily Grind: When did you realize you were no longer a beginner in an MMO?
I tend to think of myself as a beginner in any given MMO for a really long time. Like, to the point where I'll have...
The Daily Grind: Do you find it hard to connect with pre-established MMO characters?
One of the hallmarks of MMORPGs is the freedom for players to create the kind of character that they want, from race to looks...
The Daily Grind: Do you approach all MMOs with PvP as ‘PvP games’?
I saw a thought-provoking exchange on Reddit this week that's too good to sit on. It was in a thread for an MMORPG in...
The Daily Grind: How much should fan communities influence MMO designers?
The other day I saw a comment on an MMO subreddit that I quite liked; to paraphrase, it basically stated that the system designers...
The Daily Grind: What do you want out of World of Warcraft’s next expansion?
It's no secret that player engagement with World of Warcraft is down across the board, with even some of its most vocal supporters acknowledging...
The Daily Grind: Would you play Overwatch if it had a PvE or co-op mode?
Overwatch had a strange 2018. While Blizzard expanded the game's developer team last year, it also put out less content (and more repeat content)...
The Daily Grind: What’s your core problem with mobile MMOs, and is it fixable?
Droid Gamers put out an interesting piece this weekend that to me illuminates how the ongoing conversation about mobile MMOs go south. Author Ash...
The Daily Grind: Do you wish more MMOs celebrated character birthdays?
It always struck me as a cute trick that the original Guild Wars gave your characters birthday presents. Sometimes they were even valuable birthday presents, seeing...
The Daily Grind: Is player competition in MMOs healthy or harmful?
Youngsters these days probably won't ever experience the real struggle of logging into an MMORPG and endlessly fretting that other players will get to...
The Daily Grind: What was the most innovative MMO of 2018?
To balance out our traditional Daily Grind on MMOs that contribute to the death of the genre, it seems only fitting to do one...
The Daily Grind: Do you trust player census numbers for MMOs?
It's a shame that developers don't really give you any official player numbers any more, but that's the state we live in. Players have...
The Daily Grind: Which old MMO studio do you miss the most?
We have spent a lot of time -- perhaps more than is prudent -- pining over MMOs that have closed their doors. But I...
The Daily Grind: When was the last time an MMO actually lived up to its trailer hype?
The Guild Wars 2 subreddit was marveling this past weekend over the fact that the original Guild Wars 2 teaser trailer is coming up...
The Daily Grind: What dead MMO needs more coverage?
One of the humorous awards we've given out in the past - but didn't in 2018 - was our award for the dead game...
