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The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's post-fanfest shakedown
So Final Fantasy XIV players like yours truly have a mouthful of fanfest information to chew on. How did it all shake down, in the final assessment? Well, I'm not going to lie: My aim was mixed at best. A minority of demo stations covering content I hadn't anticipated, patch 2.4 a week after my prediction, and mentions of 2.5 in brief. But we did get gear details and an expansion announcement. I'd call it a mix and a wash, at the end of the day. You tried, gold star, etc. But enough about what I did and didn't get right; there's plenty more to talk about from the various panels, the Live Letter, and other revelations. So let's start in on it, kicking off with the elephant in the room that I've already been hearing about for the entirety of the past day for obvious reasons. Yes, it's a cash shop.
The Mog Log: Predictions for Final Fantasy XIV's fanfest
There's less than a week to go now. Final Fantasy XIV players nationwide will congregate in Las Vegas for the fanfest starting on October 17th, and I... will be nowhere near there. I'll be on a trip with my wife celebrating a year since our wedding. But it's not as if I could talk about the revelations from the festival now anyway, since it's not for another several days. I'm going into this just as blind as you are. But we can still speculate, can't we? Of course we can. In fact, there's some stuff that's almost a certainty going into the fanfest and some stuff that remains a bit more speculative. So I'm going to make some guesses about what we'll see at the festival and shortly thereafter, and next week we can all either laugh at my guesses or not. I won't be watching all of it in purely real-time, but I'm pretty sure we'll see the following.
The Mog Log: Final Fantasy XIV's Hunts are broken
It's been nearly two weeks since Final Fantasy XIV's patch went live, and I'm at once surprised and not surprised that we haven't seen anything really addressing the problem with Hunts. I'm not surprised because Square has a bad history of reacting to broken elements about as quickly as a narcoleptic sloth with poor motivation, and I'm surprised because players have been screaming about it for... about two weeks now? Yes, that sounds right. And not just screaming in the usual disorganized fashion. This is pretty targeted and logical screaming, helped substantially by the fact that Hunts are currently very, very broken and need fixing. So let's explain the mess that the game has made for itself and the numerous simple solutions that can be implemented really any time now. Not that I'm saying they're all easy, just simple. Straightforward. And no, increasing mark HP is not one of those solutions.
The Nexus Telegraph: The basics of crafting a WildStar build
There are few things I love so much as writing a column for June 30th only to find out on the 30th that the patch I'm discussing is going live on July 1st. You know, when it's too late to change anything. I really would have been happy to have found that out before the day. But, hey, WildStar's first patch came out, and now I've had a couple of weeks to explore it a bit. Am I happy with it? Sufficiently, yes, although I haven't yet digested it in full. For one month out from launch, I can't complain much. Of course, that's not the first thing that I want to talk about today. I want to talk about builds. Rather than giving you the absolute best-of-the-best builds for tanking and DPS and so forth, which I can't quite do, I want to help you figure out how to make a build that works. It's a satisfyingly interactive, and there are lots of very functional options however you choose to build your character.
Captain's Log: A look at Star Trek Online's Season 9 to date
It's strange to be stepping on to an unfamiliar bridge, isn't it? To be in charge when previously you were just an observer, especially when the crew hasn't necessarily changed at all. But you didn't come here to read my metatextual woolgathering; you came here because you want to read about Season 9 of Star Trek Online. Yes, it's been out for about a month now, but that's enough time to get a fairly good sense of it, isn't it? Season 9 is an odd beast, in some ways; elements of it suffered for its long development, but it moves the game as a whole forward and introduces some interesting shifts all around. Its biggest weakness is in how much of it is based not around content so much as improvements of existing content and systems. But let's not focus on that; let's start at the huge upheaval that came with the featured episode and the overhauls it brought.
The best of Massively's MMO Family column
While young children aren't Massively's target demographic, we frequently encounter MMOs that appeal to kids as well as MMO gamers with kids. That's why we ran the MMO Family column for over four years. Helmed first by Lisa Poisso and then Karen Bryan, the column reviewed kid-friendly games and offered advice and insight on how to survive as the parent of budding MMO gamers. Enjoy our picks for the very best of their collected work in MMO Family.
The Nexus Telegraph: WildStar's last two classes
In the wake of last week's class reveal, I'm going to start with a piece of information that was actually revealed shortly thereafter but might have been missed. According to the development team, the Chua can be Medics as well. So now, WildStar's full class and race layout has been made public, and what seemed to be a single odd omission is now corrected. You might recall that I did some serious class speculation when we didn't even know what the last two races were going to be back in March. Now we know the last two classes of WildStar and I can see how good my aim was. And once I'm done congratulating myself on fitting together pieces of obvious information, we can talk a little more about what the last two classes are actually doing within the context of the game. That seems fair, doesn't it? I'm glad you agree.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: The super news of October
October was a pretty big month. I don't mean that just because it was a month filled with all of the classic horror you could ever hope for, although that was certainly welcome. But October also saw two big superhero games ramping up and doing things in a big way, one for a console launch and one for a big fan-pleasing rally... which was pretty cool to see, all around. That's not to say that the other superhero games available sat around and did nothing during October, but you couldn't match the energy surrounding City of Titans and DC Universe Online. Let's look back at the past month of capes and cowls.
The Soapbox: What's my motivation?
If you play MMOs, odds are good that you're familiar with the classic "kill ten rats" quest trope. Kill quests are one of the most fundamental elements of traditional MMORPG design, and a great deal of modern and classic MMOs would have little to no content without them. Whether it's ten rats, ten wolves, ten bandits, or ten dragons, the basic gist of the quest is always the same: You, the seasoned adventurer, must eliminate animals or enemies for an NPC who for one reason or another cannot handle the task himself. MMOs are built on combat. It's difficult to design a full-featured MMO that engages players for years on end without some sort of PvE killing content; only a handful of MMOs have even attempted it. And while some would say the days of the kill quest are coming to an end, modern MMOs certainly aren't cutting back on killing in general. As a primary mechanic for advancing a character, slaying seems to be the most popular design choice. I don't have a problem with the bulk of my progression coming from throwing fireballs or bashing shields. I don't mind obliterating monsters in multiples of five. What I do mind, however, is being asked to kill without a good reason.
The Mog Log: A year of columns in review
Three years is not a lot of time to do anything. I'm continually surprised by the fact that I've been writing about video games professionally for three years of my life, which is admittedly only 10% of my life to date but still seems astonishing. This also marks the start of the third year of The Mog Log, which means that I've been talking about moogles and cat-women professionally for a tenth of my life. I use thoughts like that to keep me warm at night. As always, the anniversary mark is about the time when I look back at the column thus far and see how well it's done as a whole. Last year I wanted to really switch up what I did with my coverage for Final Fantasy XIV and Final Fantasy XI, and I think that by and large it worked pretty well. So let's do the usual thing wherein I look back, you take a trip down memory lane with me, and we all walk away feeling smarter. Or, if that doesn't sound interesting, you could just go look at some cat pictures.
Ask Massively: Why we write about only the games you hate
Welcome back to Ask Massively because why not? You're here; I'm here. We've previously discussed defining MMOs and how we select the games and the news Massively covers. This week, let's talk about column selection and perception of story frequency. tomrobbins asked, "Why do you guys cover [WildStar] so intensely yet other MMOs you barely mention? This game can't do a thing with out getting an article written about it here, yet it's not even out. Other MMOs barely get mentioned. This site seems only about WildStar, EverQuest II, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Star Trek Online lately." Does it sometimes feel as if we're reading different sites entirely?
The Nexus Telegraph: A WildStar community roundup
Let's talk about WildStar. Do you want to? I'd reckon you do, considering that you're reading this now. A lot of people want to talk about it, after it showed up more or less from nowhere with a striking look, spectacular setting, and the promise of several interesting gameplay systems, all from a studio that looked from the outside to have been catatonic before this came riding onto the scene. The point is that WildStar is kind of a big deal. It's novel, it's exciting, and it's as different a take on the science-fiction genre as you could ask to have. Unfortunately, it's also still not released. But we've had a year of solid information to chew on, and as a result I'm happy to present the first installment of Massively's new column, The Nexus Telegraph. This week we're going to kick things off with a look at some important links, just to start things from a solid foundation... albeit a smaller one.
Storyboard: The second anniversary of Storyboard
Last year, I had planned to change up the focus of Storyboard a little. The "high and wide" format had been working, but I was worried that the column just wouldn't have legs if I didn't start going for more focused and narrow applications. So I spent several months working on just the right way to do more game-specific columns in here. You don't remember them, of course, because none of them was ever posted. Those several months of work did not produce a single viable column. At the capstone of the second year of Storyboard, I'm forced to basically eat crow about one of my major plans for the last year because it turns out that not only did it not work but it didn't need to work in the first place. I managed to fill up another year of columns just fine without going into great detail about one game over another, and as it turns out, I'm a lot happier with this year as a whole anyway.
Ask Massively: I approve of more staves edition
You know what we need more of? Staves used as melee weapons instead of a caster's Set of Stats in a Stick. Usually, what we get is closer to a cane than an actual staff, so it makes sense that a curvy stick with a lawn ornament on one end isn't much for actual combat. But come on, folks. You can do some serious damage with a metal pole and a few witless mooks. City of Heroes is ahead of the curve here. This week's installment of Ask Massively has nothing to do with staves, however. It has to do with a few more lingering questions about the comment system and some wide-ranging "best of" topics. If you've got a question you'd like to see answered in a future installment of the column, you can leave it in the comments or mail it to ask@massively.com. Questions may be edited slightly for clarity and/or brevity.
The Soapbox: That's the way it should be!
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Every fandom has it. In Transformers fandom, it's the segment of the population that insists the franchise peaked with the original G1 cartoon (and its numerous animation errors, bad scripting, and downright ridiculous plots). Star Trek fans will insist that the franchise should be more like the original series, where every plot revolved around Kirk's trying to bone someone or Spock's acting stoic. And then there are the tabletop gamers who miss the days of early Dungeons & Dragons, as if the books stopped working once the line stopped being active. Some fandoms have terms just for this crowd; some don't. But they're all in the same general group -- they're the One True Way crowd. They're fans who insist that one particular incarnation was the right way to go and everything afterward has been a poor imitation. The camp exists with MMOs, as well, and just as with any other franchise, it's arguably the most harmful portion of the fanbase.
The Mog Log: Apparently I enjoy receiving hate mail
I like Final Fantasy XI, and not just because it was the game that introduced me to how awesome MMOs could be, although that's certainly a part of it. I like the game because it has a lot of things that are genuinely likable, several elements that are well-designed, and some really excellent parts that stand out even now. So keep in mind that everything I'm about to say is said on behalf of a Final Fantasy XI fan. Specifically, the rant that's about to ensue about how the idea of remaking it is a terrible idea. This suggestion crops up pretty regularly, largely among people still disappointed that Final Fantasy XIV was what it was at launch. There's some thought that somehow cloning FFXI with the models from Final Fantasy XIV would lead to a glorious revival. And I can understand the thought process, but there are two very good reasons why that shouldn't happen -- not won't, which is already obvious, but shouldn't.
Storyboard: An event with a touch of plot
In tabletop games, the GM is sometimes referred to as the player who doesn't get to play. Running a plot-heavy event in an MMORPG is fairly similar -- you're still technically there in the form of a character, but the focus is on an adventure that you're presenting for your fellow players. That means a whole lot of extra work on your part because you suddenly lack the advantage of letting the game handle most of that pesky worldbuilding work. You probably don't need to be told that this can all go bad. No, what you really want to know is how to avoid going bad. And while some of the stuff that I've posted in the past about running in-game events is still entirely applicable, there are also some unique issues that you're going to have to deal with when your event is meant to be tightly scripted. Plan it right, and the whole thing can go off without a hitch. Plan it wrong, and... well, do I need to do another column on drama already?
Ask Massively: Format changes for big questions
Potaco asked a great question two weeks ago for Ask Massively, one that I'm going to just post right here: "As a contributor to a gaming site that involves keeping up with many, many, many MMOs, do you find it harder to commit to a single game than before being forced to be exposed to so many?" Naturally, I could have answered the question simply for myself. But we're a diverse bunch here at Massively, with different tastes and opinions and experiences. Any answer I gave wouldn't reveal the whole picture, so I turned to the rest of the team and posed the same question. The resulting column was so big that I had to steal an entirely different feature's format just to make everything easy to read. (Hopefully the guy who does it won't mind.) As always, if you've got a question you'd like to see in a future installment, mail it along to ask@massively.com or leave it in the comments below. Questions may be edited for brevity and/or clarity.
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: City of Heroes 2
Before the comments light up, I'm just going to say outright that City of Heroes 2 does not currently exist. We've heard no news about it, no announcements, nothing beyond the speculation of many City of Heroes players such as myself. I'm deviating (again) from the set schedule and talking about a purely hypothetical sequel that all of us are kind of expecting but that does not, at this point, exist. But considering all of the recent talk about Guild Wars 2, I think it's apropos. Let's assume, for the purpose of this article, that Paragon Studios is knee-deep in development of City of Heroes 2 and simply isn't telling anyone. What sort of things would the game need? What would be the best possible route for the game to take? How could it satisfy fans of City of Heroes while drawing in new players? I don't have the absolute answers... but it sure does make for some interesting speculation, based on the things the team has been doing over the past several years.
Choose My Adventure: Ballad of a teenage Zorai
Last week, the unthinkable happened. Or at least the unprecedented. Yes, after a dozen or so columns under my belt for Choose My Adventure, one of the "joke" choices finally won a poll. Either everyone thought that the paradise city was actually a thing in Ryzom or the impassioned pleas in the comments the week before had done the trick. For those of you under the misapprehension that this was, in fact, an actual thing, I apologize for the not particularly elaborate act of deception. My question to myself, at this point, was what I actually had to do at this point. Did this mean that I had to search through every city in the game to find a paradise, only to discover at the end that paradise had metaphorically been at home the whole time? Was I already in the paradise city, judging by the fact that some people would call the jungle a virtual paradise? The girls were pretty, the grass was green, and by almost any metric you cared to use, Corlede was as close to home as she was getting. But no, I knew what I had to do. Something I had known since I started playing. I went home.
