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The Soapbox: It's a game, but not just that
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. There are things about the MMO community that bother me. If you consider the number of Soapbox columns I've written over the last year or so, this will probably shock absolutely no one. But there's one thing that draws more ire from me than any other, one statement alone that implies an attitude that really gets my goat. It comes from MMO players, from non-players, from all sorts of different sources, and it bothers me every single time. "It's just a game." The statement that, say, Guild Wars is a game doesn't bother me at all, just like it doesn't bother me when someone says that Australia is a continent. But that addition, the sentiment that it's just a game bothers me immensely. It's insulting to a lot of people, and it's something that I try to avoid ever mentioning in my own writing because MMOs aren't just games, even though they are games, and the idea of "just a game" alone is missing the point something fierce.
The Daily Grind: What do you find the most fun in MMOs?
"Fun" is one of those wonderful properties that every single game tries to capture, and whether or not a game succeed is completely subjective. Some people find the freedom and constant tension of free-for-all PvP to be fun; others find it limiting and an open invitation to grief. Some people like having a clearly delineated quest experience to enjoy; others find it restrictive, arbitrary, and ridiculously narrow. It's that gap between personal tastes that allows us to have so many different options in the MMO field, from Ultima Online to Vindictus and everything in between. We ask a lot of broad and sometimes abstract questions here, but let's boil this one down to something very basic -- what experiences in MMOs do you find really fun? Large-scale raiding with friends? Acquiring new equipment? Making off-beat characters? Roleplaying? Do you like skill-based action systems like Global Agenda's to let you prove how good you are, or do you like slower group combat as found in Final Fantasy XI to let you flex your mental muscles? What do you find to be most captivating and enjoyable? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
