retrospectives
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The Daily Grind: Do you have an emotional reaction to old characters?
When I booted up Star Trek Online again, the first thing I had to do was look up my character from the game's launch. Seeing her on the screen again brought back a lot of old memories. Some of that has to do with the simple reality of roleplaying, but beyond even that there was a sense of familiarity. This was a setting and game I enjoyed, and seeing a familiar character was a little like coming home again. For some people, characters are just the tools they use to interact with the game. For others, characters are an emotional link, even if they don't really roleplay. Seeing your first character brings back a rush of memories, whether that character is in Ultima Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic. So do you have an emotional reaction to old characters? Or do you not really look back to what you've played in the past, focusing instead on the present? 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!
A Mild-Mannered Reporter: My plans lie in shambles!
Welcome to another installment of A Mild-Mannered Reporter, where you've all stumbled into my trap. Yes, you thought that I was going to have a column discussing another villain group due to the end of the last column, but no. Today might not quite be the anniversary of City of Villains, but it's close enough for our purposes to look back at the impact that the first expansion had on... Wait, what? You mean I already did that? Foiled again! Of course, it's not really a surprise. It's hard to picture a world without the villains running around, even if the world conspires to give them a bad name -- not to mention the bad name they give themselves. But in honor of this anniversary, I want to look back and reminisce about a couple of nefarious features that the expansion brought with it that haven't held up quite as well, for better or worse.
