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The Daily Grind: Are there games you miss but still don't play?
I don't really play Final Fantasy XI these days. I miss it, though -- quite a bit, even. It was my first MMO, and while a lot of its feel shines through in Final Fantasy XIV, it's not quite the same. But I don't really have the time to play it even by its lonesome, let alone with multiple other games already on my agenda, so it's not on my playlist, even though I still get the periodic urge to throw caution to the wind and dive right back in. There are games we want to play but can't (such as City of Heroes, in my case) and games we want to play and do, but we don't talk much about the games we want to play but still don't. Are there games you miss but still don't play? Are they previous favorites you grew out of, places with lots of emotional memories that don't hold up to reality, or really fun games that just get edged out by games you find even more fun? 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!
Breakfast Topic: Looking back at WoW that once was
Sorry, new players, but we're all breaking out the rose colored glasses jumping aboard the nostalgia train for today's Breakfast Topic. Today we're looking back on our favorite game moments: specifically the quests and events we miss from WoW long gone. We're talking about things like the epic end to the Alliance Onyxia attunement quest, ending in Onyxia fleeing from Stormwind -- which, okay, we wouldn't actually miss very much if we'd had to do it recently -- or the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj world events -- which we wouldn't miss, either, if we could still remember all the peacebloom we had to farm. It's not so much that we want these things to return as they were -- seriously, peacebloom farming -- but it seems a shame that these historic happenings have come and gone from Azeroth, never to be seen or experienced by new players. Because even if these events were annoying -- sometimes really annoying -- they had some truly epic moments that we'd love to relive. So, fellow gamers, what's the epic moment (or moments) you'd like to see brought back to WoW?
Some Assembly Required: The newer-is-better fallacy
There's this idea that old-school MMO players don't know what they want. I've an inkling that the folks espousing this idea have little experience with the old-school games they purport to be evolving beyond. This doesn't stop them from claiming that old-schoolers are in love with a time period instead of a game, though, which in turn intimates that old-schoolers' minds are too muddled to know exactly what they do and do not prefer. Regardless of how you feel about old vs. new, sandbox vs. themepark, or world vs. game, it's easy to see that conflating someone's personal preference with nostalgia results in a perspective that's of limited usefulness at best.
The Soapbox: On MMO negativity
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. Last week I was given a link to an op-ed piece at Thade's place, and in lieu of posting a comment there, I figured I'd do it on the Soapbox and hopefully generate some discussion (and traffic) for all concerned. In a nutshell, Thade questions whether MMO pundits actually like MMOs, and he comments on a perceived rise in negativity amongst what are assumed to be fans of the genre. I don't know if the blogosphere has taken a turn toward the negative, but if so, there's a pretty simple explanation for it. The games have changed, and the old guard who grew up with MMOs (and are willing/able to devote time to blogging about them) have to try a little bit harder to enjoy themselves as each new title gets further and further from what they like. That's OK, though, and it's also OK -- and even essential -- for the disaffected to speak up.
The Daily Grind: Were older MMOs better by virtue of experimentation?
If you haven't sensed it by now, the Massively staff is made up of a very wide range of preferences, experiences, and gaming types. Sometimes quite heated discussions -- OK, rabid rubber chicken-throwing screamfests -- erupt due to disagreements over what makes MMOs great, what the industry should be doing, and what it did right in the past. Recently we got into a two-fatality "discussion" over whether or not MMOs prior to World of Warcraft were better simply because they weren't trying to copy WoW and were more willing to experiment. It certainly seemed like there was more variety from each new title back then, although some of those experiments certainly did not prove to be palatable to the gaming masses. Then again, this might be a case of rose-colored glasses looking upon the past with faulty nostalgia instead of accurate realism, and it discredits the actual innovation and evolution of the industry since then. There certainly are more people playing today than back then, and MMOs have become more widespread and accepted by even mainstream media. So what do you think? Were older MMOs better because they experimented more than ones today or do titles today deserve more credit for what they have become than glasses-wearing old-timers give? 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!
Growing Up Geek: Jesse Hicks
Welcome to Growing Up Geek, an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today we have our very own Contributing Editor, Jesse Hicks. I've never been one for nostalgia, but if I had to choose a Proustian element from my geeky childhood -- a singular sense-memory that evokes a whole constellation of related feelings -- I'd pick the eerie keening of a 28.8 modem. That high, quavering sound, for me, conjurs up the earliest days of my geekdom, when computers were slow, landlines were king and the internet was young. I was twelve when my family got our first computer: a 486DX that first appeared without a hard drive. My mom had found a great deal at a computer show...or so it had seemed. That missing 120MB hard drive, as you may have guessed, severely limited functionality. But once that problem was remedied, I was off and running with DOS and XTree, happily deleting essential system files. The learning process had begun.
The Soapbox: Debunking the first kiss theory
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. So I owe this week's Soapbox to one of my gaming buddies who recently opined that a lot of older genre fans wear rose-colored glasses. We're a sentimental, eternally ornery, and change-resistant bunch, he said, and we're all searching in vain for that one game that recaptures the magic of our first MMO rodeo. Ordinarily I'd take offense to those labels, but upon further reflection, my pal had a point (though it may not be the one he intended). This "first kiss theory" -- as I'm calling the bundle of nostalgia-related charges often leveled against old-school MMO fans -- is fairly common on massively multiplayer forums. This was the first time I'd heard the theory espoused by someone I knew personally, though, and as a result I spent a fair bit of time mulling it over. Join me after the cut to see why it ultimately doesn't hold water and why, if older MMOers are indeed nostalgic, there are quantifiable reasons for it that has little to do with half-remembered glory days.
Old Azeroth through rose-colored glasses
Sometimes denial works for you, and I think that's why I like this forum thread so much. It's full of nostalgia for a simpler time, when PvP meant going to Southshore and murdering some Alliance, when the encounters in Molten Core were the most epic thing in the game, and speaking of epics, when seeing a player outfitted with all purples meant that they'd be raiding for weeks with 39 other people. This thread willingly looks back and sees things not as they were, but as we remember them: super fun, refreshing, and completely empty of the problems and quibbles we have to deal with today.Of course, Azeroth's past wasn't really like that. It was hell organizing 40 people to do one boss, much less a whole night of raiding, and if the organization didn't get you, the server lag and disconnects would. Southshore and Crossroads PvP made for great stories, but in actuality, it was really just a zerg fest, and no one actually won, it was really just everyone throwing away their nights because there was nothing better to do. And epics -- well, it was actually pretty cool when epic gear meant something. But boy was it disappointing when you went whole weeks of raiding without getting any loot at all, without even a Badge of Justice for your efforts. Or when you had to disenchant a tier piece because the Paladin set dropped yet again.Do we want to go back to those days? Probably not -- while there are definitely some good things about them, there were all kinds of issues that have since been solved (and that many of the nostalgists tend to forget about). But every once in a while, it's nice to look back through rose-colored glasses and remember when.
WoW Moviewatch: Forrest GumpDK
I didn't originally think I'd feature Forrest GumpDK. Mojorising created the video to help celebrate the four year anniversary of his guild, The Enigma Order. While I like seeing these videos, it's usually not the kind of thing that appeals to an audience-at-large. After watching it through, however, the warm-hearted nostalgia grew on me. I actually found "Forrest GumpDK" to not only be a "happy anniversary!" card, but also a fond retrospective of raiding since Vanilla WoW.The video is based off a certain Robert Zemeckis film from the mid-90s. At the end of GumpDK, the main actor is credited as "Tom Tanks." Hey, it's the little jokes that make things work. Basically, the movie starts off following a feather as it drifts down to a tuxedo-wearing Death Knight, sitting on a bench in Stormwind. The DK then begins telling the tale (in subtitles) of how The Enigma Order has been raiding over the past years.While Forrest GumpDK is talking about his Guild, I think we all remember the days of fighting that big guy who's made of fire, then a dragon, then another dragon. And then, shooting off into "space!" That sense of wonder might have worn thin for some of us veterans, but Mojorising's Forrest gave me a gentle, rosy-glass view of the old times. For that, I thank Forrest GumpDK for a job well done.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
