Life Without MMO Guides

Have you ever wondered why there are so many MMO guides out there? Step-by-step walkthroughs and so forth? I think I know the answer. It’s because without Internet guides, most MMO game players would simply stand in one place and stare at the screen, paralyzed and unable to figure out what to do or how to do it.

You can tell this from watching the global chat of a game that is in closed beta. It’s filled with non-stop questions that one might conceivably fall into the “duh” variety. How do we find this or that? How do we solve this puzzle? Where do we find this NPC? Where do we get crafting materials? How do we get past this monster? There are no handy guides to turn to, and obviously reading the quest text or any of the in-game hints are out of the question in this fast-paced, go-go-go world we live in.

You might think it would be a great opportunity to hone your critical thinking skills and try to figure something out on your own. Perhaps if you figure something out before anyone else, you could be the one to write an Internet guide that becomes super popular. (And then becomes obsolete six months later but for some reason still comes up first in searches.) But no. Apparently your only recourse is to stand helplessly in place, typing in global chat.