One Shots: Jump! Jump!
Do you like jumping puzzles in MMOs? Then you and I can no longer be friends. I am sorry to draw the line there, but if this is the case, then there is something seriously wrong with your head. Maybe you like the small jolts of anxiety and tension as you try to hop from platform to platform, but I would rather chew on tinfoil than go through that again.
Reader John will be your friend if you're a jumper, however. He's mastered one tricky hoppery-doo in Guild Wars 2 and lived to tell the tale. "This is the view from one of the high points in the Hidden Garden. It's a jumping puzzle you reach by killing one of the four keepers in Mount Maelstrom, opening a portal. I always enjoy the landscapes of this game."
I enjoy the landscapes too, John. From ground-level. I wonder what other landscapes we'll be seeing in this week's collection of player-submitted screenshots?
Reader Chris has nothing but praise for the art style of Lord of the Rings Online: "I have literally thousands of screenshots from this game, most of them taken in appreciation of the landscape. Turbine's environmental art remains peerless; despite the number of graphically sumptuous rivals to jump up in recent years, for my money they still do the best fantasy landscapes in MMOs. This is a shot of the road into the cyclopean fortress of Orthanc, paved with dark metal plates of Saruman's design. I love the grumpy-looking guard standing at the base of White Hand marker."
I always thought that this big hand was remarkably tacky, but in a way that told me the Orcs probably thought it was the height of exterior decor. I bet they think that going to T.G.I. Friday's is fancy dining, too.
Meanwhile in Star Wars: The Old Republic, a daring adventurer named Frank is making a new best friend. If 80s movies taught me anything, it's that large, chunky robots make the absolute best buddies.
"On the last night of The Relics of the Gree event, I took a moment to reflect with my newfound companions. Who knows when and where the Gree will show up next," Frank pontificates.
You're deep, man. Deep.
This next screenshot is a bit of a mess, but the mess has a mess of nostalgia attached. Reader Brian decided to show off his history of grinding out gangs of mobs in a certain MMO far, far away...
"This one is from about six to nine months before the combat upgrade hit in Star Wars Galaxies," Brian writes. "Nothing fancy here, just a nostalgic screenshot of grinding out packs of Huurtons in Pre-CU SWG. Many of the older players will be familiar with this scene of a giant pack of mobs being taken down while grinding out a new skill box. This was my first real computer game and played on a computer with terrible internet and 64 megs of on-board video! Ah, how times have changed!"
That's just what the innocent Huurtons needed: for you to upgrade your combat potential. No wonder every mob from this game is permanently extinct.
The Elven Warrior of Mystery, Desiree, sat in a funk. The dashing Rogue Carth had swiped the Ultimate One Shot while she was putting together a new outfit. "That's so not fair," she muttered to herself. "I was in a completely different interface screen! He should honor the sacred pact of the /AFK!"
Well, there was nothing to be done by sulking, she thought. She stood up, stretched, and made a vow that day to repay Carth a hundred times over the misery that he brought upon her. She would not only get back the Ultimate One Shot but make that thief /beg like the little coward she knew him to be. A thin smile crossed her face at the thought...
Want to be featured in a future edition of One Shots? Send your favorite MMO screenshots to oneshots@massively.com, and don't forget to include your name, the name of the game, and a description of the scene. Large, colorful, UI-free shots that tell a story and really show off the game make for the best images. Look ma, we brought back One Shots!
