One Shots: Chubby chocobos on parade

Whenever your game gets a goofy mount or pet, it's an inevitability that populated areas will be swarmed by them. So it came to pass in Final Fantasy XIV, as the fat chocobo mounts became the hot new thing that all the hip young kids wanted to ride.

Reader Connor brings us this parade of chubby chocobos from his recent adventures: "This was when the new mount got released a few weeks ago. Everyone stood around AFKing in the high level hub, but eventually we formed a miltia and sallied forth."

Chubby chocobo, you look beautiful and amazing just the way you are. Also, delicious. Like a giant Peep. OK, we need to hit the jump to see the rest of this week's screenshot submissions before I start trying to eat my monitor.

One truism about Fallen Earth is that everyone who plays that game has to take scads of screenshots of sunrises and sunsets. I'm half-convinced that the sunsets were the real reason this game got developed, and reader Jonnyfive seems to agree.

"This has something almost no other MMOs have: wide open vistas," he said. "You can travel for miles and miles without ever hitting a loading screen."

I'm digging into some of the backlogged submissions, including this absolutely gorgeous screenshot from Star Wars: The Old Republic. Looking at this picture almost makes me want to reinstall the game. Almost.

"The Gee event on Ilum is coming to an end, but I thought it may be worthwhile to show my Shadow Jehenna posing in front of the Grey Secant, the ship the event revolves around," reader Jehenna wrote. "Have to give credit to the devs for creating such an otherworldly backdrop -– the ship looks tremendous hanging above the frozen wastes. And I managed to avoid getting ganked while taking these shots!"

This shot from EverQuest needs some context to fully appreciate it. Reader Yrys explains: "Here is a large pile of corpses for a sacrificed ogre player. In order for a Necromancer to obtain essence emeralds, you had to find a willing player to sacrifice with a spell. The person sacrificed lost experience and could not be resurrected to gain experience back. Essence emeralds were used in some powerful Necromancer spells, as well as a couple of quests."

Charming! Player cooperation and assisted suicide!

This week's screenshot challenge is to show off your favorite mount (and you riding it, of course). Have we done this before? We may have, but I bet you've found a new awesome mount since the last time!

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!