The Daily Grind: What's an underrated MMO feature that needs love?
Lost now to the ages (at least until player teams finish rebuilding the game) is the crafting system of Glitch, a wee and sunsetted indie MMORPG dismissed out of hand by those who cluelessly believe browser-MMOs without ultrarealistic gore are for grandmas. But Glitch's crafting system was way ahead of its time, with hyperlinking inside every crafting panel so that you never, ever needed to fumble and backtrack or switch tools or count mats to make anything. Hardcore crafters might not have been entirely impressed with the economy, but the crafting process itself was damn smooth.
I can think of lots of underrated features in some other MMOs. City of Heroes' sidekicking has trickled into a handful of games, for example, but its group-and-instance difficulty scaling feature has seldom been seen since. Yet it ensured that groups of all sizes and class-makeups and skill-levels could always tackle content. It was a brilliant way to capture a varied playerbase ranging from casuals to powergamers, and yet no one else is even bothering to try it.
What other underrated MMO features really deserve some love and copypastaing in the genre?
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!
