The Newbie Experience
Today I was thinking about the newbie experience in MMOs. There's something special about those early levels. It's like developers front load everything great all at once so that players…
Today I was thinking about the newbie experience in MMOs. There's something special about those early levels. It's like developers front load everything great all at once so that players…
MMO crafting hasn't seen a lot of innovation for quite some time. In fact, I think crafting has slowly been sliding to a worse state or neglected entirely by the…
Microtransactions are a polarizing subject. Some people equate them with a "Free to Play" system, and some view all microtransactions as a pure form of evil. Others, like me, view…
We had a really good discussion going on Ventrilo tonight about what grinding means. So many times people think grinding is a negative, and it's used by many I know…
EverQuest (the original this time) will be going "Free to Play" this March. It would be crazy to begin any conversation about EverQuest without first tipping our hats to a…
When World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 is was new, it was shiny, but it really wasn’t as polished or infallible as people think of it today. Aside from WoW’s launch issues, which mostly stemmed from Blizzard not anticipating the demand, WoW had issues that crop up in most contemporary MMOs.
WoW was evolving constantly back then, and surprisingly continues to evolve regularly even today. There were itemization issues, stat issues, and content issues. End-game wasn’t clearly defined. PvP was anything but defined. It was clear that Blizzard was learning like the rest of us how their future would unfold. I was there for all of it.
I remember playing and having discussions in general chat with the other players about raids. All we knew at the time was that there was a raid. Looking back at the 40-man raids of WoW’s launch and all they entailed, then looking at the raid finder experience of today, it’s truly mind blowing how WoW has evolved. If you played the entire time, you’re even more aware of how many changes the raiding system has gone through and different systems/mechanics/features/implementations the content has seen over the years.
Then there’s the PvP system, which started out … actually it didn’t. There wasn’t a “PvP system”.  There weren’t battlegrounds, rewards, titles, or gear. It was just the ability to kill other players in zones like Hillsbrad. Evolving just like raids, PvP has gone through countless changes over the years.
What am I getting at by giving you this history lesson? (more…)
We just finished The Lord of the Rings: War in the North! Fantastic game -- truly fantastic.  We plan to go back through a second time, at least, on a…
*Until you reach the point where we require payment for you to progress. Help me understand why it's still being called and advertised as "Free to Play". I've already proven…
To all the trolls who flamed me when I said that the LotRO Cash Shop would affect gameplay both directly and indirectly, what are your thoughts now that all this…
It looks like Turbine has either been corrupted by the Ring or they've been into the sauce. We've gone over the fact that LotRO is going "free to play" and…