Opinion
35 entries. 23,000 words.
2012-09
-
Pointers in Games.
2012-09-17.
Guild Wars 2 is an awesome game. But there is one thing about it that drives me insane. In fact, I have the same problem with almost every game that has a pointer.
You can’t see the pointer!
This is a major problem in GW2 because many of your abilities are ground-targeted spells, so you need to be able to point to the spot where you want to cast it. (I use the option that automatically casts wherever you are pointing.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Opinion
2014-04
-
ArcheAge – Founder’s Packs, Resisting Temptation.
2014-04-28.
As announced on Trion’s live stream Thursday, ArcheAge Founder’s Packs are now available.
They are expensive. $149.99, $99.99, and $49.99 for Archeum, Gold, and Silver, respectively. Archeum gets you into the game right now, playing until launch day, otherwise you only get to play in beta “events” starting in June.
So let’s discuss. With myself.
My first Russian glider!
I think they are fair prices.
Based on the laws of supply and demand, it makes perfect sense that it costs $150 to get into the ArcheAge alpha.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2014-08
-
ArcheAge – It’s Not A PvP Gank-Fest.
2014-08-20.
UPDATE 10/24 - Before you run to the comments to disprove me because of that one time you were ganked in a situation where you probably should have expected it, let me explain the purpose of this post. I’m not saying that ganking is impossible in ArcheAge, especially after level 30 (though I would argue that “ganking” is the wrong term to use after you’ve reached level 30). What I’m saying is that it’s extremely rare if you stay in safe zones, and you’re not going to lose anything if it happens, so there’s no reason not to try the game.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
-
Identifying As A Gamer, Erratum.
2014-08-25.
I’m not entirely sure what happened, but somehow WordPress posted two different versions of my last post. The RSS feed and the front page shows one version, but the post page itself shows a newer version. I think maybe ScribeFire did something to it. Anyway, I added a paragraph to my answer for question 20 at the last minute and this is what it was supposed to say:
20. Do you identify as a gamer?
- Gaming
- Opinion
- Responses
-
What’s The Best Subscription-Only MMO?.
2014-08-29.
What’s the best subscription-only MMO out there right now? If you could only pick one to maintain, which one would it be? (By the way, the possible answers are: WoW, EVE, WildStar, ESO, or FFXIV.)
This is pretty easy for me to answer, actually: Final Fantasy XIV. Hands down. No need to even talk about it. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, there’s a lot to do, it’s updated often, it does every MMO mechanic (that matters) exactly right, and it’s cheaper than the others at $12/month.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2014-09
-
FFXIV – Okay There’s One Bad Thing.
2014-09-01.
To be fair, here’s one thing that FFXIV doesn’t get right:
I just re-installed it, subbed up, and jumped in again. (I went crazy and got a 3-month sub because I have some money coming in again heh.) I’m installing it on a different PC from when I last played it, so maybe you can guess what happened.
All of my settings, keybinds, and HUD configurations were gone. Even the character-specific configurations like my gear sets were gone.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Status
-
A Brief Word About That Controversy.
2014-09-05.
I generally try to avoid industry politics on this blog, unless it relates to in-game politics. (Like raiders versus casuals.) Which is why I don’t have much to say about the recent kerfuffle known as GamerGate.
But I will say that I fully support equality and inclusiveness among gamers and I find personal threats against anyone loathsome. I try to cling to the possibly naive belief that truly despicable people are a very small, very loud minority.
- Administration
- Opinion
- Politics
- Responses
2014-10
-
ArcheAge – PvE After Level 30.
2014-10-11.
I’ve been dinged in comments for not having experienced the PvE game after level 30 and misleading everyone about ArcheAge. While the game might be rosey for people under level 30, they say, the “real” game begins at 30, and after that milestone, they say, then the game turns into a PvP gankfest.
Well as of this post I’m level 40, and I’ve spent many hours questing in Cinderstone Moor and Halcyona, and sailing around on the ocean.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
-
ArcheAge – What’s Wrong With It.
2014-10-17.
I feel like I’ve been giving the impression that ArcheAge is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it isn’t all sunshine and roses. I’m mainly playing it just because “it’s the new thing.” And I do enjoy the fact that you can progress by doing “non-standard” MMO things. But pretty soon, Rift’s Nightmare Tide is going to be “the new thing,” and then a bit later, Warlords of Draenor is going to be “the new thing.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2014-11
-
Rift – Nightmare Judgments.
2014-11-22.
One thing I’ve noticed in Rift’s Nightmare Tide is more pressure to spend money. I don’t mean in terms of a sales pitch; I mean in terms of making the game less tedious.
Losing my head over Nightmare Tide! (Not really, it's a Halloween costume mask.)
For example, two new things in Nightmare tide are Earring Slots and the Planewalker “attunement” which allows you to wear some of the new gear.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Reviews
2014-12
-
ArcheAge – Post-Mortum.
2014-12-11.
I’m determined to sit here and write a complete blog post.
Inspired somewhat by j3w3l’s recent post, I’ve been thinking about ArcheAge. Thinking, that is, but not playing, because my work schedule has been ramping back up and ArcheAge is not a game you can play when you only have a little bit of time to play it. Not to mention the possibly-related fact that I’ve lost interest in it. I still log into ArcheAge once or twice a week to make sure my taxes are paid and to stockpile more tax certificates, but that’s about it.
- MMORPG
- Musings
- Opinion
-
Massively’s Best of 2014.
2014-12-21.
I was looking over Massively’s choices of the best MMO launched in 2014. That’s a terrible list.
Of those, I consider only two of them to be “legitimate” candidates: ESO and WildStar. And of those two, ESO wins because it is the more innovative of the two. (Only one of the Massively people agreed with me.) It’s sad to note, though, that I only played those two games for two months and one month respectively.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
2015-01
-
Year End 2014.
2015-01-01.
In most Steam sales, I have a fairly strict cut-off point of avoiding anything unless it is under $10. Over the past year or so, I’ve rarely found anything meeting that criteria that I don’t already have, so I was a bit surprised to find myself buying nine games in this Winter Steam Sale, including Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, The Walking Dead Season 2, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Democracy 3, Contagion, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Dominions 4, Thief, and Transistor.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Status
- Steam
-
MMORPGs Aren’t Dinner Parties.
2015-01-14.
I recently read this Soapbox article on Massively: Of course I care what you’re doing in MMOs.
(Contains Moderate Peril also read it.)
It’s a soapbox article, so I’ll grant that it’s supposed to be controversial. Jef sets out to refute what he calls this misconception he read on a forum: “Why do you care what other players do in an MMORPG? It doesn’t affect you.” I didn’t write that, but it’s something I might have written.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
-
H1Z1 – Dumb Question.
2015-01-17.
This is probably a dumb question, but if these Airdrops are such a fun element of the game that everyone enjoys, why aren’t they building it into the game as random spawns like Trion’s Rifts and Arcfalls? Why would they make someone pay to spawn a fun event for everyone? That makes no sense. It’s like making people buy world boss spawns. (Don’t get any ideas, game developers. That would be terrible.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
-
AOL Sucks.
2015-01-29.
If this rumor that AOL is going to shut down Joystiq-and by extension Massively-is true, then I’d just like to say that AOL sucks. Massively is basically the only gaming news site that I read, and their podcast is one of the few that gets a regular weekly listen from me on my morning commute. I hope everyone at Massively and Joystiq lands on their feet.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
2015-02
-
Goodbye Massively.
2015-02-01.
So yeah, there was a post recently in the MMO blogosphere that basically trashed Massively. I guess they’re entitled to their opinion, but it didn’t make any sense to me.
I liked Massively for the exact reason that this other blog trashed them: They didn’t take themselves too seriously. I always felt like there were human beings behind their articles and podcasts. Real people doing the best they could with clearly limited resources in a super fast-paced environment.
- Opinion
- Responses
-
What Does Buy-to-Play Really Say About An MMO?.
2015-02-03.
ESO* is going Buy-to-Play. Yay! I’m looking forward to playing it again.
(Holy jeez those guys make awesome cinematics. I wonder how much of a AAA studio’s game development budget goes into those.)
But philosophically speaking, I wonder what the Buy-to-Play model says about an MMO. After having experienced it in GW2, B2P seems to imply something that’s not a very good thing. The game company seems to be saying, “Here’s our persistent world game, but there’s really only about a month or two of fresh gameplay for you to look at, and we’re probably not going to update it very much, so don’t make any long-term plans to stay in our game.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
-
Something Witty Like: SOE’s New Daybreak.
2015-02-05.
Breaking News! (Not.) SOE is turning into Daybreak.
I don’t read as much doom and gloom into this news as SynCaine does, but if Daybreak intends to take a more cross-platform stance, it could mean EverQuest Next will end up a lot more controller-friendly than we PC MMORPG gamers might like. You can already sense it with Landmark actually. You’ve got a left button ability and a right button ability and that’s about it.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
-
Daybreak Firings.
2015-02-12.
I wanted to believe SOE being bought out might be-well, if not good news, then at least not bad news. But now I guess it’s okay to officially start with the doom and gloom over Daybreak. I hope everyone affected by these layoffs finds another place soon. (I’m going through my own job placement stress right now so I feel for anyone with any uncertainty about their job.)
While this news doesn’t affect me personally the way it does others-I don’t have the nostalgia for EverQuest that most people do (I was an Asheron’s Call guy and hardly ever played EQ)-based on the dour mood around the blogosphere it’s easy to see that this is a tremendous blow to the spirit of the genre.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
-
WoW – My Favorite Addons.
2015-02-20.
I started this post in November 2014, and TAGN’s recent post on addons reminded me that it was still sitting in Drafts. So I thought I would finally post it.
Addons are a fact of life when you play World of Warcraft. You can play without them (I’ve done it), and most of the gameplay basics are there, but Blizzard has consistently refused to put in any of the quality-of-life enhancements that we are all used to from every single other MMO released in the past ten years.
- Advice
- MMORPG
- Opinion
-
Three Times The Controversy.
2015-02-21.
There have been three controversies in the blogosphere lately that I haven’t had a chance to comment on. (Well, three that I know of, at least-I’m sure there are more floating around.) I don’t particularly like to be controversial on this blog but I did want to at least voice my opinions.
Twitter and MMO Gypsy made me aware of a Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview with Peter Molyneux that made the rounds of the blogosphere.
- Opinion
- Politics
- Responses
2015-03
-
The Line Between Hand-Crafted And Random.
2015-03-09.
Syp generated some conversation and controversy by posting a somewhat strongly-worded post against procedurally-generated worlds, but I think he’s absolutely correct: If a developer tries to cut corners by substituting a computer-generated world in place of what should have been a hand-crafted world, it probably won’t be fun. I’m not sure which game he was talking about, but it might have been Crowfall or H1Z1, both of which embrace procedurally-generated worlds and claim to be MMORPGs.
- Opinion
- Responses
2015-05
-
NBI Talkback – GamerGate.
2015-05-11.
Slightly belated, but…
How did GamerGate affect you?
It actually didn’t affect me per se. I was a passive observer and it wasn’t discussed that much where I spent time on the Internet. I generally don’t read “hard-hitting” game journalism sites like RPS, Kotaku, and whatever others there are, and I definitely don’t venture into their comment sections. I think I only unfollowed one person on Twitter because of their relentless talk about GamerGate.
- Community
- Opinion
- Responses
-
NBI Talkback – Early Access.
2015-05-14.
Early Access and Kickstarter – Do you support unfinished games? This question is worded a little ambiguously, perhaps intentionally... what does "support" mean? I certainly support the development of new games, by which I mean that I always want people to try to make games. As for financially supporting unfinished games, sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I've been refining my criteria (see below), but it depends on the situation.
- Community
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
2015-08
-
Game Developers Aren’t Slaves.
2015-08-11.
A while back I saw this pro-GamerGate post and had a flashback to my days in the political blogosphere. I’ll save you the time of reading it: It’s a long, very well-worded piece of propaganda disguised as anti-propaganda. (You know you’re reading propaganda when you come across the word “indoctrination.”)
The part that really made my jaw drop was this:
Never forget that you [developers] are here to please the gamers, they are not here to please you, validate your beliefs or prop up your ego.
- Gaming
- Opinion
- Responses
-
Pay-to-Win.
2015-08-18.
I don’t think I’ve written about pay-to-win before, mostly on purpose. Frankly I think most of the outrage is entirely manufactured. But I posted a brief comment on Jef Reahard’s controversial MassivelyOP post to the effect that “pay-to-win” is one of those emotionally-charged terms like “climate change” or “gun control” that evokes instantaneous knee-jerk, black-and-white responses, so it’s a dangerous road to travel as a blogger.
Because in reality it’s a very complicated subject with many shades of gray, and it requires us to sit down and think long and hard about our gaming goals and values and who’s got time for any of that?
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2015-12
-
Games Of My Year 2015.
2015-12-26.
Here’s my year end “Best Of” list, because if you’re on the Internet, you have to do a year-end list of some kind. It’s the law.
2015 Contenders After studying my Steam purchase history and searching my memory, I’ve come up with the following list of new games that I purchased and played in 2015. These are only games that were released in 2015, not every single game that I purchased or played in 2015.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- RPG
- Single-Player
2016-03
-
Goodbye EverQuest Next.
2016-03-13.
I don’t have much to add to the EverQuest Next wake that hasn’t already been said, except for this possibly controversial thought:
I’m kind of glad they cancelled it.
Wait, wait, let me explain. We’ve known all along that Landmark was the prototype for EverQuest Next. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was dreading the day that they released Landmark with Norrath assets and called it EQN, because Landmark is not a very good game.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
- Responses
2016-06
-
NBI 2016 – Kill Hippy GIFs With Fire.
2016-06-07.
The topic of animated GIFs came up in the NBI Discord this morning so I thought I’d write a little bit about it.
I hate animated GIFs.
That is all.
No, really, I hate them. I lived through the 1990s World Wide Web, so I have vivid memories of the days when every advertiser put obnoxious blinking animated GIFs in every web ad, making every web page into some crazy dystopian night-time Las Vegas scene with blinking neon signs in every direction.
- Blog
- Musings
- Opinion
2017-03
-
Amazon’s New World, Part Two.
2017-03-07.
From a draft written somewhere around October 2016…
I finally got around to watching Amazon’s teaser video, thinking that it would erase my earlier skepticism and soften my opinion about their upcoming games, and maybe even start to get excited about the possibilities.
Unfortunately it only pushed my skeptical buttons even harder.
“What if a game was built for Twitch,” wonders a voiceover 12 seconds into the video. Instant buzzkill. The video goes on to mention Twitch about five times in the first 60 seconds, before anything about games.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2017-10
-
FFXIV – Loot Window Screed.
2017-10-27.
I’ve been doing a lot of Alliance Raids in Final Fantasy XIV since 4.1, so I’ve seen the loot window a whole lot lately. This is a 3000-word screed on everything that’s wrong with the UI in this window.
This is probably not unique to FFXIV, by the way. But it’s the one I personally see most often.
First let’s go over how it works in case you haven’t experienced it.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2018-02
-
RIFT Leveling Anew.
2018-02-12.
With all the buzz about RIFT Prime, I wondered if I could recreate a nostalgic experience for free just by starting a new character on plain old RIFT Normal. I wanted to check two things: To see if experience points were withheld from free players at the beginning of the game just like at level 68, leading to hard road blocks that could only be made up by endless grinding or spending cash.
- MMORPG
- Opinion
2019-02
-
Cultural Perspective On The Activision/Blizzard News.
2019-02-14.
I’ve been trying to think about how to approach this particular story, and whether I should address it at all. It doesn’t really affect me personally, and it’s dangerously close to Expressing A Political Opinion On The Internet. Which is basically an invitation for the world to come over here and yell angrily because there is only one correct opinion on everything and conformity must be enforced at all costs. Because yelling at people is historically proven to be the best way to change their views.
- Opinion
2020-09
-
Ethical Gaming.
2020-09-25.
I started to write this post after seeing Roger’s post on the complications of ethical gaming, which followed Wolfy’s post on the same subject, although it turns out I don’t have anything to add to what they said. Just go read their posts and imagine me nodding along in agreement. It’s complicated, and it’s personal.
But beyond simply agreeing with them, I suppose I felt compelled to continue with this post to acknowledge that yes, I know, I’ve played a lot of Ubisoft games this year, and I’ve enjoyed the heck out of them*, even while Ubisoft Corporate has been under fire for gross social and ethical malfeasance.
- Opinion