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The Daily Grind: What MMO would you bring to the proverbial desert island?
So let's pretend you're stuck on a desert island. You're stocked up on snacks and sunblock. You've got a gaming rig and internet but no conceivable way of contacting anyone to come save you (work with me here). And let's pretend you managed to bring just one single MMO with you to this magical island that lets you play MMOs but not communicate the fact that you're stuck on, you know, a desert island. Would you hedge your bets and go for a sandbox with a boundless amount of content? Would you pick something you've never played to minimize the been-there-done-that factor? Would you pick a classic themepark and set yourself to grinding up a thousand alts? You only get one, so choose carefully: What single MMO would you want handy if you were stranded on a desert island? 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!
The Daily Grind: Would you pay extra for a filtered community?
Earlier this week we asked if there was a game you'd like to play but for its awful community. The topic got a lot of replies, and the usual MMO suspects turned up in many of the comments. The thread got us to thinking about customizable communities, server rulesets, and creative uses for instancing technology, and though no MMO firm has offered players control over their community experience as of yet, it's certainly doable. Funcom executive producer Craig Morrison mentioned the possibility in 2011, and for today's Daily Grind, we'd like to know how you'd feel about being able to carve off pieces of a game world specifically for your friends, your guild, or your niche community (roleplayers-only, PvPers-only, etc.). Would you pay extra for dedicated communities or filtering technology? 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!
The Daily Grind: How do you roleplay betas?
This may be a little to esoteric of a way to start your Wednesday morning, but you can't spell "Massively" in several foreign languages without "eso" and "teric." Anyway, this past week I posed a tongue-in-cheek question to RP-leaning friends on Twitter about how they roleplay betas. How did they take into account the fact that this world was to end? Was their character aware of the theory of multiple universes? Or did they simply put off roleplaying until the actual launch? What surprised me were the thoughtful and interesting responses I received. I had just assumed nobody actually bothered with RP in betas, but that's not the truth; on the contrary, many of my friends used the time to experiment with characters, to begin to fashion stories, or even to play their character as an ancestor of their soon-to-come main. So what about you? How do you -- or would you -- roleplay betas with their unstable, transitory worlds? 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!
The Daily Grind: What game would you play were it not for the community?
EVE Online is a pretty polarizing topic around the Massively watercooler. A couple of us love the game and think its community gets a bad rap, others like the game but cringe at CCP's laissez-faire approach to policing its userbase, and still others snort derisively at any mention of New Eden. While CCP's sci-fi sandbox does have a reputation for scams, scandals, and schadendfreude, it's also got its share of helpful players and corporations (the EVE equivalent of a guild), and I'm always disappointed to hear of potential players scared off by the big meanies who consistently make EVE headlines. That leads into today's Daily Grind question. Is there an MMO out there that you'd play if it weren't for the community? Which one, and why is the community so bad? 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!
The Daily Grind: Are MMO players tired of beefcake?
A few months ago, The Mary Sue published an intriguing article about why men play female characters in MMOs, and the answer might surprise you. While some men surveyed wanted to play lady toons for immersion reasons or eyecandy reasons, many of them had a much simpler motive: They were sick of beefcake. They were willing to play men, but they just couldn't relate to big hulking dudes with huge muscles and tiny heads, and those are often the types of male characters offered in video games. MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars and City of Heroes offer "huge" male characters as options, while World of Warcraft is a serial offender. We usually focus on gender issues as they pertain to the portrayal of women in MMOs, so today I want to turn the tables and ask you about the portrayal of men. Are you annoyed when male characters MMOs look like they're hitting the steroids a bit too hard, and do you find such characters relatable or offensive? In other words, are you tired of beefcake in MMOs? 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!
The Daily Grind: How many games have you committed to in your gaming history?
Committing to an MMO isn't like committing to beating a single-player game. With the latter, you push through to the end, and barring the odd bit of DLC here and there, you'll be done. No, marrying yourself to an MMO means you're in for the long haul, a year or more. It's the time when a six-month subscription starts to look like a great deal because of course you're still going to be playing in another six months, and hey, less money overall. But today we're not wondering whether right now you're committed to Star Wars: The Old Republic or RIFT or whether you're waiting for your next long-term flame. No, today we want to know how many long-term flames you've had in the time you've played MMOs. Have you committed to several games for a year, then drifted into the next one? Have you never really settled down beyond a month or two hither and yon? Or have you been playing Ultima Online since launch and never really had reason to move to newer pastures? 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!
The Daily Grind: Do you prefer open or closed chat?
Tribes: Ascend has an open chat system that might seem unusual to players more familiar with MMORPGs than MMOFPS titles. Anyone can lay down whatever smack-talk he wants in the traditional open chat... but almost no one does. Instead, players make use of quick macros to audibly announce enemy movements, signal for aid, praise comrades, and taunt opponents. Truth is, time spent trash-talking the other side in chat is time enough for that side to shoot you in the face, so players stick to simple short-cut communication, keeping the game relatively clean of the sort of chatter that makes your eyes bleed. Roleplayers would never go for such a limited chat system, I realize, and I'm right there with them when it comes to annoyance that factional chats limit communication between, say, the opposing teams of World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. But at the same time, it's refreshing to see a streamlined chat that sticks to gameplay and isn't bogged down with Chuck Norris jokes and clever ways around the profanity filter. What do you think of closed vs. open chat? 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!
The Daily Grind: What would make you cancel a pre-order?
These days, MMO pre-orders are commonplace. They're used to allow early access to the game so you can grab that Legolas or Lord Stark name before anyone else. Throwing your money down is a risk we must take in order to secure that early status, and the developers usually mix in some extra goodies to sweeten the deal. But sometimes we get word of a before-the-bell game mechanic or design implementation that ruins the game for us and makes us cancel the pre-order on the spot without giving the game a chance to speak for itself when we've finally gotten our hands on it. So let's get specific here. What could a game developer do to ruin a game for you before it launches? And have you ever canceled a pre-order? Why or why not? 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!
The Daily Grind: Would you buy a system for one game?
At noon EDT I'll be logging into PlayStation Home to see what CCP has in store for its DUST 514 faithful. I'm not expecting much beyond the free t-shirt for my Home avatar, since game devs are a notoriously tight-lipped lot when it comes to pre-release info that we actually want to hear. Nonetheless, a couple of my EVE Online bros will be joining me, one of whom is a long-time PlayStation connoisseur and the other of whom went out and bought a PS3 this week specifically for DUST. And that brings us to today's early-morning question. Would you buy (or have you bought) a console or a PC system primarily for one game? Which one? 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!
The Daily Grind: Who was your MMO mentor -- and whom did you mentor?
No matter how many years we have played MMOs, we shouldn't forget that we all had to start somewhere. Yes, we were all noobies once, floundering through our first days in an online game and aggroing everything in sight without understanding what "aggro" meant. We all needed help and guidance, and some of us got it in the form of a friendly mentor. This mentor showed us the ropes, taught us the slang, gave us resources so we weren't as vulnerable, and helped us get our game footing. Maybe it was a guild leader, a real-life friend or family member, or even a now-forgotten Gnome who took time out of her day to take pity on a greenhorn such as yourself. Later on as you gained more experience in the ways of the MMO, you had opportunities to mentor others in return. You heard the pleas from the advice channel, roped in a buddy to play the game, or taught a significant other about your hobby. The student became the teacher, and you found yourself explaining that mass-aggroing 20 mobs at once was not beneficial. So tell us: Who was your MMO mentor -- and whom did you mentor? 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!
The Daily Grind: Would you play a Witcher MMO?
I've finally conquered CDProjekt's The Witcher 2, and yeah, I'm one of those guys who devours single-player games and thinks about whether they'd make successful MMOs or not. I played the original Witcher RPG many moons ago, and one of the few things I remember about it is the tacky naked wench trading cards. Thankfully, the sequel is a superior (and less juvenile) game in every respect, and in fact it's one of the more impressive PC RPGs I've experienced in a number of years. Yeah, it's high fantasy, but it's fairly original, it's for adults, and it features fascinating lore rife with factional conflict (and a unique take on traditional elves). Would The Witcher 2's cinematic presentation and unforgiving combat translate to a traditional MMO? I don't know, but I'd definitely pay monthly for a Temerian "action MMO" akin to Vindictus. What about you, Massively readers? Would you play a Witcher MMO? 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!
The Daily Grind: Should new expansions include old expansions?
When Cataclysm launched, a friend of mine who hadn't played since the days of Vanilla World of Warcraft wanted to join in the fun, but when he saw the cost of catching up -- nearly full box prices for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, on top of Cataclysm itself -- he balked and decided to stick with cheaper games. Blizzard's policy on charging for full expansions long after they were new always did seem weird to me, since I grew up on Ultima Online and EverQuest, whose earlier expansions usually came bundled for free along with the newest one. Why keep barriers to entry (or re-entry) unnecessarily high? So I'm happy to see recent sales on WoW's earlier expansions and a free Cataclysm for returning players via the new scroll of resurrection deal, but I can't help but wonder whether it's too late. How many of you have skipped over a game because of the cost of "catching up"? Do you think new expansions should always include the previous ones gratis? 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!
The Daily Grind: Do you expect a roleplaying server to be policed?
I roleplay a lot. This probably does not come as much of a surprise. As a result, I've spent time on a lot of different roleplaying servers and have long since given up any hope that I'll ever see any enforcement of rules by the community service staff. It would be really nice if GMs politely kicked people who didn't come to roleplay, but the fact of the matter is that it's just not going to happen. But even though I don't expect it, I might be in the minority. What about you? Do you expect that on a server officially designated for roleplaying, the customer service staff will be monitoring the game and taking steps to improve the environment? Do you just expect that the staff will take complaints about inappropriate names just a bit more seriously? Or are you happy enough that there is a clear, reserved place to start building a roleplaying community without worrying about the police element? 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!
The Daily Grind: Do social media tie-ins annoy you?
When ArenaNet thanked Guild Wars 2 beta applicants with a special video earlier this week, the move was met with a surprising amount of angst-ridden complaining because the video was gated behind a "Like" button on Facebook. Some gamers just didn't want to sign up for Facebook just to see a video or resented the idea that the thank-you was really just a clever marketing trick to advertise the game to their friends. While complaining does seem a bit like looking a gift horse in the mouth (and it was easy enough to find a copy of the video on YouTube within five minutes anyway), I can still understand why some folks are irritated by the permeation of social media into every corner of the MMOsphere, from news sites like ours to clicking "Like" for free stuff to auto-Tweeting in-game accomplishments. What about you? Do social media tie-ins annoy you? 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!
The Daily Grind: Which non-existent MMO genre would you play?
It's difficult to think of a historical or cultural genre that hasn't already been covered by an MMO. We have everything from medieval fantasy to dystopian sci-fi and just about everything in between, but we don't have everything just yet. For example, we don't have a wild west MMO. We don't have an undersea Atlantis MMO. But would anything too quirky or specialized even work as an MMO? More interestingly, what would you like to see in an untapped MMO genre? Certainly not everyone wants to see only fantasy or sci-fi! Right? 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!
The Daily Grind: Do exclusive in-game event items annoy you?
I was looking longingly at an ad for EVE Online's Fanfest a few minutes ago. I say longingly because it's a bit late to be booking airfare to Iceland for a couple weeks hence, to say nothing of getting off work. The event seems like a good time, though, and the icing on the cake is the in-game swag that CCP distributes to attendees. Sony Online Entertainment does something similar for its annual Fan Faire shindig, and I remember tons of exclusive items on display in the virtual homes of Star Wars Galaxies fans who made the annual pilgrimages to Las Vegas. It's bad enough that I never made it to Fan Faire, but it was infinitely worse that I wasn't able to get my collection-obsessed paws on rare no-trade paintings and whatnot (yeah, first-world problems, yada yada). What about you, morning crew? Do exclusive in-game event items rub you the wrong way? 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!
The Daily Grind: Are MMO communities inclusive or exclusive?
In my opinion, one of the best aspects of MMO gaming is the communities that form around these titles (and MMOs in general). The excitement and passion of these games can foster spirited discussion and a sense of belonging for those looking to connect with like minds. Friendships can and are formed, groups band together for a shared purpose, and game communities develop their own lingo and histories. Yet these communities can also be one of the worst aspects of MMOs. They've been known to turn forums into pits of decomposing humanity, trolling and ranting with no end in sight. They can turn on an individual who doesn't know all of the mores and unwritten rules of how things are said and done. They can certainly rank a person's importance based on how long and how involved he or she's been with the game, relegating newbies to an eternal kiddie's table of condescension. So which of these do you find to be true more often? Are MMO communities -- especially ones surrounding your current games -- accepting and inclusive to newcomers, or are they elitist and exclusive? 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!
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite GDC 2012 reveal?
Another Game Developer's Conference has come and gone, and Massively was there to bring you the most complete MMO-related coverage to be found on the 'net. There was a little something for everyone, and whether your taste runs to AAA MMOFPS titles or smaller indie sandbox affairs, the annual trade show featured tons of MMO news and views. In addition to the demos and interviews, Massively also sat in on a couple of developer panels, and we managed to take a breather each morning to collect our thoughts via some impromptu podcast sessions. We also enjoyed some hands-on time with Funcom's hush hush The Secret World title, but unfortunately we can't tell you about that until March 15th. Today's Daily Grind is all about last week's convention, and the traditional question goes something like this: Which bit of GDC news was your favorite? 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!
The Daily Grind: Should MMOs balance for PvP, PvE, or yes?
The original concept for Guild Wars is right there in the name: guild wars. There was no question that regardless of how much PvE content the game planned to feature, there'd be at least as much or more GvG content for the competitive folks. But as more and more skills were added to the game, the devs ran into serious balancing problems and began tweaking the skills so that the PvP meta was less affected by the powercreep slowly taking over PvE. Eventually, ArenaNet split the skills, giving some skills different effects depending on whether they were being used against players or monsters; some newer skills were designed to be PvE-only from the start. Do you think Guild Wars offers a pragmatic solution to the PvE/PvP balance problems that plague so many MMOs? Or do you think games should strive to balance their gameplay without creating skills (or gear) that do different things in different situations? 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!
The Daily Grind: How much grouping should be required in a game?
A good group arguably makes any game more fun. No matter how much fun you're having in any game, be it Star Wars: The Old Republic or Global Agenda or whatever else, there are players who believe it's better when you're running with other people, telling jokes or roleplaying or even just working in unison. Of course, others would point out that's all if you have a good group. A bad group can turn even something fun into a real misery, which sort of defeats the purpose of playing a game. And that's not getting into the time it takes to form a group or coordinate several people... or the fact that some players just prefer not to group. So how much grouping should an MMO require out of its players? Should pretty much all content require a group, forcing players to work together and build a real sense of community at the expense of any solitary play? Or should pretty much all content not require a group, letting everyone group with players as they wish without hard restrictions -- and making large chunks of the game single-player for all intents and purposes? 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!
