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The Perfect Ten: Ways Guild Wars 2 beats the pants off of Guild Wars
As a gamer who went through all of the original Guild Wars campaigns and spent the better part of a year or so doing it, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that while it was a fine game and pretty to behold, it wasn't for me. I felt it was too grindy and at times way too difficult, and I couldn't connect with it the way I did with other MMOs. That's why I'm celebrating Guild Wars 2's launch: This is the game I wanted from ArenaNet from the get-go. It most certainly carries the torch of the franchise, particularly in its lush world-building and incredible vistas, but it does the most important thing a sequel should do: preserve the good, add bold new ideas, and drop the dead weight. At risk of offending those who hold the original Guild Wars as a sacred cow (blasphemooey?), I present the top 10 ways Guild Wars 2 most definitely beats the pants off of its predecessor.
The Perfect Ten: Stock fantasy enemies from lamest to coolest
One theory of MMOs is that they represent several parallel universes, each with similarities and differences. This may explain why so many of them claim to be boldly original and yet carry the same monster DNA that exists everywhere else. Today we're going to carefully unpack our ancient collector's edition of stock fantasy enemies. Blow off the dust and smell that nostaglia, mhmm. Sure, they've seen better days, but they're still good, right? Still solid. Still capable of entertaining us, even if we've slaughtered their kin a thousand times over. Let me show you my collection of 10 stock fantasy enemies that we encounter all the time in MMOs. Just for fun, I'm going to order them from lamest to coolest. I would be number 11, by the way.
The Perfect Ten: Goosebump trailers
I love trailers. Man, I love trailers. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but sometimes I'll spend a shameful hour just flipping through all of my favorite movie and game trailers. When the editing is tight and the music spot-on, my spine becomes infused with epicness and I feel a heady buzz that comes from seeing so much awesome crammed into such a short clip. Just as in the movie industry, MMO studios are hit or miss with their trailers. There have been so many generic, forgettable videos that I pad the lining of my imaginary dog's crate with them. They're very absorbent and release the fresh scent of pine. But once in a while, there comes along a trailer that acts like the Dark Crystal, sucking my soul right into it before shaking it around and then releasing it. Trailers like that give me goosebumps, and here are 10 of them, all in a row.
The Perfect Ten: Amazing amateur MMO cosplay
I find the whole cosplay subculture at conventions to be both foreign and fascinating. On one hand, I deeply admire the dedication and time it takes to put together a complex outfit and then spend all day wearing this custom-made sweatsuit. On the other hand, it does tend to bring out some folks' narcissism and unnecessary cleavage. While many facets of geek and video game culture are adequately represented by those crazy cosplayers, I don't see as much when it comes to MMORPGs. Was it truly underrepresented, I wondered, or have I just never looked? Consider the following 10 costumes the result of an afternoon or two combing through so much amateur cosplay that it vastly exceeded the recommended amount as set by the American Medical Association. I'm glad to make the sacrifice for you, and besides, you just know those doctors are the ones in these outfits, anyway. (Please note that if you're looking for more skin than skill, this will not be the list for you!)
The Perfect Ten: MMO Jukebox
Earlier this year, I got to expose my musically nerdy side to you all in a one-two shot of MMO theme song countdowns. The truth is that I'm just a huge sucker for video game music, and as such, I've collected a wide range of MMO scores to bolster my MP3 player. I know that we players tend to be pretty vocal about turning off MMO music at some point, usually due to extreme repetition. Unfortunately, that seems to leave a bad association with this music in our minds, and I don't feel that reputation is deserved. MMO scores can be just as good -- if not better -- than their counterparts in film or other video games. So I've decided that every so often I'm going to devote a full Perfect Ten to sharing my favorite MMO music. I'm always open to suggestions, of course, so if you know of a track that you feel really should be in the next list, send me an email or leave it in the comments!
The Perfect Ten: Worst MMO launches of all time
First things first: Whatever MMO release is currently ticking you off is the worst launch of all time. It would be folly of me to try to convince you otherwise. You've been roundly slapped in the face and you don't want me to convince you that the pain was in vain. I understand. Getting past that, however, would it be possible to examine the subsequent 10 worst launches in the MMO industry? If your trauma isn't too great, that is. It would be? Terrific! What constitutes a horrible game launch is varied, although each and every one of the following games made an unfortunate blunder that caused the title to stumble instead of sprint out of the gate. It's not the end of the story, of course, but it does make for a good tale to tell to youngsters camping in the open woods or a particularly seedy LAN center.
The Perfect Ten: The truth about lockboxes
Call them lockboxes, lootboxes, super packs, gift packs, treasure boxes, mystic chests, or Chupacabra's lunchpails, but these virtual boxes of mystery, fame, and fortune are all the rage in MMOs these days. Few studios have resisted the siren's call of such easy money, much to the dismay of many-a-gamer. The idea is that a game will dish out to players free locked treasure boxes that require purchased keys to open. The allure of the box's mystery prize is often too strong to resist, especially when there's the possibility of a huge reward inside. The result too often is strong buyer's remorse and studio glee. There's been a lot of conversation around lockboxes here on Massively, so I wanted to dedicate this week's Perfect Ten to dissecting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of these items for you.
The Perfect Ten: Guild Wars 2 gravestone epitaphs
The dead tell the best stories, they say. Outside of Divinity's Reach in Guild Wars 2 is a graveyard. It's the type of place that you run through quickly on your way to more lively settings, unless a zombie attack emerges. It was the type of place that I was running through quickly during the previous beta weekend when I realized that the gravestones could be examined -- and each and every one of them had an interesting epitaph to read. Some crazy ArenaNet writer sat down one afternoon and wrote out dozens and dozens of gravestone inscriptions on the off-chance that any of us would slow down enough to read them. It paid off in my case. This may be one of the most trivial Perfect Tens I've ever done, so forgive me with being absolutely fascinated by the epitaphs that came up during my explorations. With an absolute economy of words, each gravestone tells a complete story. Some are funny, some are dark, some play into the lore, and some actually managed to be quite moving. Here are my 10 most favorite that I found. Maybe they'll haunt you as they do me.
The Perfect Ten: Free-to-play holdouts
In the increasingly diminishing field of subscription-only MMOs, two distinct camps have formed. There is the Old Guard that has its established playerbase and is simply not interested in jumping on board the F2P train, and then there are the New Kids on the Block (which would make an excellent band name, by the way), who argue that their premium features and AAA content warrant a subscription in the F2P age. A few years ago, doing a list of the final few F2P holdouts would have been a ridiculous proposition, but now it's actually difficult to get to 10 of these. Each company has a different reason that it hasn't given these games more flexible payment options (FPO should replace F2P; pass it on!), and while some have addressed this publicly, others say nothing and leave us to speculate on it. For today's Perfect Ten, we're going to look at the 10 biggest current F2P holdouts in the industry and muse about what's going on behind the scenes. Will this list be impossible to do in a few years or will subscription-only titles come back in a big way? Hey, I don't predict things; I just make lists.
The Perfect Ten: MMO tributes to real-life people
When a beloved friend, family member, hero, or role model dies, we feel the pain of that loss and grieve in many different ways. Part of that grieving and healing process is often entails those left behind constructing some sort of tribute to the dearly departed. Sometimes this comes in the form of a shrine of flowers, sometimes it's the establishment of a charity, and sometimes it's creating an in-game memorial that thousands if not millions of people will see over the course of years. So while death and illness are depressing topics to dwell upon, I find the many MMO tributes that studios and even gamers have erected to be inspiring and a celebration of individual players' lives. With the help of my fellow Massively staffers, I researched 10 wonderful in-game tributes that serve to honor the lives of fellow gamers.
The Perfect Ten: Types of loot that get me excited
Loot's not something that I see discussed much these days among MMO players. It's probably because loot's been around since the beginning of online time and is such a staple that we'd only really notice it if it went away completely or if the object in question were a major game-changer for us. Random loot from mobs is a reward mechanic that is bordering on archaic, having been supplanted by dependable quest rewards and barter vendors that give us the gear we so desire. Of course, now we've come around the weird circle to the point that dropped lockboxes hold interesting loot, but we've got to pay for the privilege of seeing what's inside. But let's not go there today! Instead, I'm going to share with you the 10 general types of loot that still get me excited while playing. They will shock, amaze, and radically reshape your life, as long as you've had a recent brain wipe and are awaiting brand-new neural instructions.
The Perfect Ten: Free-to-play shopping strategies
"Nothing is ever truly free," my grizzled Uncle Trigger once told me. "So you got to pay for that there air! Pony up, boy!" While Uncle Trigger was overlooking a few aspects of this philosophy, the sentiment is an important one to grasp, especially when it comes to the growing wave of free-to-play MMOs. Even though the first word is "free," it should be followed up with several paragraphs of tiny lawyer disclaimers that basically say, "Nevertheless, the studio is going to look for other ways to tempt you out of your hard-earned cash." F2P is often funded by microtransactions, which offer players some variety in how they customize their game experience at the expense of a subscription's simplicity. It's often not better or worse; it's just different. Because nothing is ever truly free, and because F2P is loaded with more shopping options than a Walmart supercenter, being a savvy customer is more vital than ever. Anyone who's waded into a F2P store probably has experienced buyer's regret due to a hasty or uninformed purchase, not to mention those who end up going broke because of poor impulse control. So today I'm going to get downright practical and offer up 10 strategies that will safeguard and strengthen your F2P shopping trips (also, random plug for Beau's Free For All column in the hopes that he doesn't get mad I'm treading on his territory here!).
The Perfect Ten: Clever ideas
I'm a sucker for a good, clever idea. You know the type: the ideas that make you slap yourself on the forehead and shout, "Why didn't I think of that first?" Or for the less humble of us out there, "Why, I did think of that first! But I got lost on the way to the patent office and I'm pretty sure that someone stole my dream journal to pilfer my genius notions!" While critics point their fingers at the MMO industry and proclaim it a barren wasteland of innovation, there are quite a few awesome -- if small -- ideas that bubble up in MMO and move the genre forward. Maybe they're teeny-tiny baby steps; maybe they're giant hopscotch leaps over the six-spot with the rock in the middle. But these ideas can and have had the power to change how these games are made and played. So this week I'm saluting 10 clever ideas, both large and diminutive, as a reward for a job well done!
The Perfect Ten: MMO prisons
Chillin' in the clink. Spending time in stoney lonesome. Thrown into the slammer. Checking in to the big house. Doing (perfect) 10 to life in the hole. Learning the ropes in juvie. Prison: The only fun thing about it is the slang that people have come up to describe it. And while you may never actually want to spend any time in the crowbar hotel in real life, chances are you've already done so in MMOs. Jails are an ever-popular locale in online gaming, and they almost always deal with an epidemic of escaped -- yet still milling around casually -- prisoners. So in today's Perfect Ten, we talked to the warden and got you a special glimpse into pixelated pokeys, if only to scare you straight. No more exploits and bots for you, young man or woman!
The Perfect Ten: Best MMO theme songs (part two)
The last time on the Perfect Ten, disaster struck the good ship Poseidon and the surviving readers were running out of air as they tried to escape the flipped-over vessel. Also, we were counting down the top 20 MMO themes, but that's of small consolation to the soon-to-be bereaved friends and families, don't you think? Because we play these games extensively, it's not uncommon for MMO music -- and themes -- to become vilified by the sheer number of times we've heard them. That's a little unfair to a three-minute piece of soundtrack that slaves every day to feed his wife and kids, doing the best he can in a trying situation. So perhaps we can put aside melodic oversaturation to look at these tracks anew, shall we? With half of them out of the way, it's time to look into the elite of the elite: the 10 best MMO themes of all time. According to me. A guy you don't know. You've got goosebumps, don't you?
The Perfect Ten: Best MMO theme songs (part one)
As I've well established both here on Massively and elsewhere, I'm somewhat of a nut for video game music. Whereas others might collect vintage hair metal tracks or the latest Justin Bieber opus, I'm always digging through obscure (and not-so-obscure) official soundtracks to games like Wipeout and Kirby. Video game scores can be right up there with the best that the film industry puts out, and the fact that they tie into personal experiences that we've played through can lend them sentimental weight. So for the next two Perfect Tens, I scoured all the MMO theme songs that I could get ahold of in an attempt to formulate a list of the very best. It was originally slated to be just one list, but after an hour or so of listening to tracks and having friends and fellow staffers weigh in on the subject, I knew it was impossible to keep it there. Two important things to note for this list. First, I wanted to keep to just the title/login screen tracks so that I wouldn't be working on this for the next 2.5 years. Second, unlike most past Perfect Tens where there's no significance to the order of the list, in this case we're going to have a genuine countdown to the best MMO theme song of all time. And I expect to take no flak about it, do you hear me? Good. Let's begin.
The Perfect Ten: Most significant MMO stories of 2011
2011 was an odd duck of a year for MMO news. A huge chunk of the year felt devoid of significant releases, but that was mitigated somewhat by the major launches of RIFT and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Titles got shoved back to 2012 or beyond, MMOs that we thought never would go free-to-play did, and the industry continually surprised us with revelations, ideas, and controversy. So in my last Perfect Ten of 2011, I put together the 10 most significant MMO stories of the year. Ten seems like an awfully small number for such a great big field, so I had the rest of the staff members chime in with their nominations just to make sure I wasn't too off-base with any of these. It was a whopper of a year, and Massively was there for all of it -- the ups, the downs, the queues, and the QQs. It's time to wrap it up with a pretty bow and dedicate it to the history museum!
The Perfect Ten: The upcoming contenders
While I'm on board the Star Wars: The Old Republic train (at least until SOE's Star Wars: The New Republic comes out in 2014 and forces SWTOR to shut down), I can certainly sympathize with the frustration that non-fans are feeling right about now. There are few things more annoying than not being into the latest craze -- or hating it outright -- and yet being unable to escape it. So I'm here to say to you today that, like World of Warcraft, SWTOR isn't the be-all, end-all of the MMO field. It's a part of it, but just one part, and there are many, many others in the works as we speak. Mama always told me never to put all your eggs in one basket anyway, so I'm spreading my eggcitement across many cyber-nests. This is the bone I'm throwing to all of you this week: a list of 10 Midichlorian-free MMOs that have me -- and should have you -- extremely buzzed about their development. In putting together this list, I realized that there are so many promising prospects that I divided them into two groups. This week I'm presenting the strongest contenders that should make it to launch with a solid product, while next time I'll list promising prospects that may be more of a long shot. I'm 47% confident that I will not forget your most-anticipated title.
The Perfect Ten: Ways to prepare for the coming of SWTOR
Welcome to a very special edition of The Perfect Ten, the column that my two toddlers contribute to with their awe-inspiring counting abilities! With last week's dropping of Star Wars: The Old Republic's NDA, the internet has exploded with information, testimonials, and poorly spelled flamewars between the camps of believers and non-believers alike. It's a good time to be alive, eh? In the spirit of the NDA drop and the upcoming December 20th launch -- less than a month! -- I've put together a list of 10 excellent ways that a SWTOR fan can prepare him or herself for the coming MMOcalypse. I totally understand that it can be frustrating to be waiting for an anticipated game launch, feeling impotent with your inability to speed up time. However, taking action in other ways can help with the wait and make us feel like we're being productive. That's what I'm here for today. It's OK, there's no need to thank me. I get Light Side points for this.
The Perfect Ten: First impression turn-offs
A year ago our very own Shawn "The Mittani" Schuster wrote a memorable Soapbox column around the idea that MMOs had an hour to grab his attention or else he was out the door. No, don't go read it now. You're reading this! Stay! Good reader. I concur with his point that while MMOs may ask us to experience them for the long haul, first impressions still count. And if those impressions aren't favorable right out the gate, it's not likely that we will be around for hour two, no matter how good it is. I know what you're thinking right now: "What is this itching, burning sensation between my toes?" It's Athlete's Foot, and you need to get on that ASAP. You're also thinking, "But Justin, whose opinions I respect, admire, and use to teach my children, what drives you away from MMOs when you give them a try?" Again, it's an itching, burning sensation between my toes. No, not really. It's more complicated than that -- so complicated, in fact, that it requires a 10-point presentation on what turns me off when an MMO is making a first impression. Imagine that!
