I’ve never been one to make very good use of Steam wishlists – or any wishlists, for that matter. I’m weird in that way, I suppose. But I’ve been trying to be a more organized adult by making better use of notes and lists and all that jazz, even though it’s a slow process. And […]

I always start off with a lot of concern whenever I enter a sandbox MMORPG for Choose My Adventure. Mostly because these games are almost always murder blenders and having to look over my shoulder with every step isn’t what I’d call my idea of fun. Luckily, Fractured Online has, at least in the interim, […]

Back in July, Kotaku penned a piece on Kien, a game originally announced for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance… in 2002. Apparently, the game was finished back then, but no publisher would take it on. A full 22 years later, one of the original devs returned to revamp the game and get it out on […]

We’ve gone through a lot of different names for what are now being called Allied Societies in Final Fantasy XIV, but I think this one finally captures both what the idea is for these quests and the space that FFXIV has narratively staked out for these quests. It was one thing when it was Amalj’aa […]

A while back, MOP reader Hebby joked on Mastodon that she intentionally plays bad MMOs, but even she was surprised to see a certain MMO that shall remain nameless getting coverage. So I want to talk about the idea of playing bad MMOs. At first, I was tempted to scoff; why would anyone do this, […]

When a beloved player falls, a studio may honor that memory by including him or her as part of the game world. While our headlining picture isn’t the first time we’ve seen such an inclusion, it’s nevertheless heart-touching. “Death comes to us all but this player was very active in game, on the forums and […]

Final Fantasy XIV does not let me just have a normal horse mount. You can get elemental ponies from the old Extreme trials, there are special achievement horses, there are a couple of cash shop options, and so on. But just having a normal horse to ride is basically impossible, which becomes really weird when […]

Before I dive into this week’s column, I want to start things off by noting a weird aspect of storytelling that’s true in Final Fantasy XIV as much as anywhere else: Excellent execution where it counts more can be way more important than sub-par execution where it counts less. Every single FFXIV expansion, for example, […]

Today’s Daily Grind is inspired by Neverwinter, whose last module revamped the volcanic Mount Hotenow and dropped a ton of Mountain of Flame screenshots on our heads. And you know, I used to really, truly hate the requisite “volcano zone” in MMOs, whether or not they actually had a volcano. Red everywhere? Flames falling out […]

When the moon is crashing down onto the surface of your planet, do the following. First, blame Roland Emmerich. Second, don’t panic. Third, summon the strongest member of your party to take the alpha strike so that the rest of civilization can endure. Fourth, ask Link if he can rewind time back to the first […]

Giving up on things is usually presented as a direct negative, and for understandable reasons. We don’t like to think of giving up on our goals. But sometimes when it comes to MMOs we realize that, for example, we’re spending hours of our time to accomplish something we don’t actually care about for no actual […]

If all goes well, the new legendary servers — the first in three years — will roll out this week for Lord of the Rings Online. I’ve been eagerly waiting the opportunity to start fresh once more, build up a wardrobe, and progress through my favorite MMO with a community at my side. Part of […]

Whenever I hear the title Fellowship, I think about that video about how cats are praised for fellowship, which reminds me of the fact that my own cats have separation anxiety from me when I run to the bathroom or go buy groceries. However, the game in question is not about cats but about distilling […]

Heartless Gamer put down a whole lot of thoughts about the recent Throne and Liberty global beta, saying that while the MMO has plenty going for it, including graphics and performance, it’s not a slam-dunk by any means. “I can tell you that this beta was nothing like what I got out of New World’s […]

As the first of StarCraft II‘s spiritual successors to make it to a public launch, Stormgate will be releasing free to play for all as an early access title on August 13th, but before then, founder’s pack buyers and beta players have been given two weeks of early access-ception. Thanks to the beta key kindly […]

Since the launch of World of Warcraft, players have been waiting for and longing to have housing. It still has not happened. The reasons given range from being adjacent to plausible to just feeling outright silly, but the details don’t particularly matter in context; what matters is that we’re still sitting here without housing in […]