Global Chat: These times they are a changin'
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!
Today's Global Chat covers some big game changes as well as some NPCs we love to hate. As always, our readers have plenty to say about issues both game-changing and lighthearted, and much of it can be applied to the MMO field in general. How long is too long to wait for game updates? How do you balance in-game currency vs. real-world cash purchases? And seriously, is that one NPC ever going to shut up?
Hit the jump for our readers' thoughts on these burning questions.
Final Fantasy XIV has come a long way since launch, and Square Enix is continuing to work hard to improve and adjust. Cendres had this to say about the latest patch:
1.18 brought quite a lot to the game that was sorely needed. But because of this there are frustrations to a portion of the players since their gameplay has been shifted but isn't actually done shifting until later patches. It's all just a very big adjustment, but so far I am enjoying that there's actually things to do now. Looking towards what the rest of the year offers, if they keep this up this game will be looking pretty fantastic by 2012.
And before anyone says "but who will care by then," plenty of people will. MMO players have become like gypsies; never staying in one place too long and there are many people just keeping an eye on this while it's being updated into something fun. If Square Enix can give the game the TLC it deserves and some marketing when it's ready then it'll be just fine.
Love 'em or hate 'em, official or player-designated, most MMOs have a mascot of sorts. Last week's Perfect Ten took a look at ten of the most prominent MMO mascots, including Statesman from City of Heroes. Plenty of players, including Massively reader XRXXX, are pretty clear on their feelings for this guy:
"Oh god, Statesman was the worst. Basically telegraphed his "I'M BETTER THAN YOU!" mantra throughout Paragon City. People say you play as sidekicks in DCUO. No, you played as sidekicks in CoH, because no matter what you did, how many times you saved the world, how many super-badguys you've beaten, Statesman was still 500 times stronger, faster, smarter, tougher and more godlike than you."
Cryptic is working on a new method for players to obtain C-Store points in Star Trek Online, and the reaction is mixed. Brandon talked it over in the latest Captain's Log, and Faryon had this to say in the comments:
I fully support alternative ways of getting C-Points, but to make them exchangeable for an endgame currency is -- in my opinion -- an extremely bad idea. Yes, this change will allow players with little disposable income to still get C-Store items, but at the same time it will also allow players who have a lot of cash to spend to effectively buy endgame currency for RL money.
Some on the forum threads have tried to argue that this change could stabilize the current ingame economy, but that's just plain wrong since it will only create a new economy based on converting RL cash to C-Points to Emblems and Emblems to C-Points. As I have said earlier I fully support alternate ways of getting C-Store items, but I really hope Cryptic will reconsider this point and keep RL cash far away from endgame currency.
Now it's your turn, so hit the comment button and let us know what you think!
