Global Chat: September 26-October 2, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat!
We're all about crafting and complaining in this week's Global Chat -- hopefully not at the same time, though. Follow along after the jump to see some of what our readers had to say this week, and pitch in on a conversation you may have missed!
Eliot had a burning question for yesterday's Daily Grind: Do you complain about games you don't play? Plenty of people weighed in, including Dittowizard:
The only time I complain about a game I don't play is when that game comes into my house, eats all my Lucky Charms, and then changes the channel on my TV to something I don't want to watch. I hate it when games I don't play do that!
Other than that, I think that complaining about a video game you don't play is about the least constructive thing a person could do. If you stand on one foot in the middle of a rain storm singing Lady Gaga songs out of key, that would be more constructive than complaining about a video game you don't play because at least you're getting some exercise.
Jef had some excellent what-not-to-do tips for developers in last week's Some Assembly Required, and of course he touched on crafting. Scrubmonkey pitched in in the comments section with his thoughts on the subject:
"Crafting is not combat." This made me think of something that is a tangent to your main point but nonetheless keeps me from really getting into sandbox games: Why can't crafting be as fluid and dynamic as combat in these games (or any MMO, for that matter)? Crafting is always either spreadsheets online or an inane minigame that becomes tedious after you've done it two or three times. I've seen MMOs with heavy emphasis on crafting, but I find that how crafting is implemented is lacking across the genre.
Now before someone says, "Well, combat is just going through a rotation over and over again," I would say well... sometimes it is for more routine encounters, but that's not true for PvP and high-end encounters. Combat isn't always dynamic, but it certainly has higher potential than crafting as it's usually implemented.
This is not to say that crafting should be fast and "twitchy" -- far from it. That goes against theme. Still, though, it could stand to have more active input, implement a variety of experiences, and require more player skill than it does now. After all, it's supposed to be fun, right?
Now, as always, it's your turn! Hit the comment button and let us know what you think.
Global Chat is the weekly feature that's all about you, our readers. Every Sunday we collect the best, funniest, and most thought-provoking comments from the Massively readers and round them up into Global Chat for discussion. Read over them for yourself, hit the comment button, and add your own thoughts!
