Latent Friendship is Magic

Tags

community, ffxiv, ffxiv community, final fantasy, final fantasy 14, final fantasy xiv, friendship, MMO, mmo community, mmorpg, roleplay, roleplayer, roleplaying, xiv

Recently I’ve gotten back into Final Fantasy XIV a lot more than I had previously. This wasn’t kicked off by recent awful events, by the way, and it wasn’t necessarily spurred on by the larger Endwalker expansion reveals (though that did have a small part to play in things). Mostly, my return was fueled by friends. Friends that I sometimes play with and people that I’m not necessarily friends with.

Allow me to explain

The Thrival Sandbox or How I Learned to Love the Grind

Tags

elite dangerous, MMO, mmos, multiplayer, multiplayer gaming, no man's sky, sandbox, sandbox mmo, survival, survival sandbox, survival sandbox mmo

I’ve made no attempts to hide my distaste for survival sandbox MMOs and games. They’re one of the laziest forms of game design and I still hold to that opinion for the most part. That said, I have slowly begun to find a few exceptions to the rule that have endeared me to at least a couple of aspects to the sub-genre and, perhaps in some small way, helped me to build a bit of empathy and appreciation for those who love these kinds of games.

FFXIV 5.1 and Self-Exclusion

Tags

community, ff14, ff14 5.1, ffxiv, ffxiv 5.1, final fantasy 14, final fantasy xiv, MMO, mmorpg, patch, patch 5.1, raid, raiding, raids, update

So Final Fantasy XIV has put out its sizzle reel for Patch 5.1, and almost immediately I felt pretty much excluded. Most of it was about content tiers I don’t care about, styled after a game I am worn out about, with only a couple of nods to parts of the patch I’m interested in.

To be fair, this feeling is mostly self-inflicted, but it brought up a whole lot of sour thoughts all the same and I felt the need to talk about them. About how this patch seems to be about folks who need to be at the bleeding edge of content tiers at the repulsion of all else who don’t feel that way.

This means something to lots of others, but not to me.

Send the Clowns Away

Tags

aaa developers, anthem, anthem game, curse of osiris, destiny 2, developers, forsaken, game dev, game devs, looter shooter, MMO, multiplayer, online multiplayer, online shooter, shooter, the division, the division 2

Yesterday, I picked up The Division 2. Haven’t played it yet at the time of this writing, but I had some extra money to light up and I’ve been looking at it from the sidelines for a little while as something different to try out. Coincidentally, I had picked up Anthem just after it released and played that a fair bit, too, but also completely stopped.

What makes me think that The Division 2 will stay in my gaming rotation when Anthem fell away? There are a number of ideas, but chief among them is that even though I really do enjoy Anthem’s gameplay, I also really can’t bring myself to fire up a game when the developers are making clownshoe decisions. I have managed to be convinced to fall out of love with playing in a giant, pink, stompy robot suit, which isn’t a sentence I expected to type.

The Pink Cadillac, moments before it started collecting dust.

Singing the Anthem

Tags

anthem, anthem mmo, anthemgame, bioware, demo, fps, looter shooter, MMO, multiplayer, online, online multiplayer, online shooter, shooter

Thanks to some extremely good fortune, I was granted access to the VIP demo (read: pre-order bonus) of Anthem, the upcoming looter shooter from the folks at BioWare. Unfortunately, I only was able to get my code on Sunday, which happened to be the last day of the demo. As such, this is less of a deep hands-on than an initial impressions piece. Not a complaint, though, because I really had fun.

Not least of which being the ability to wear a thick, bright pink robot suit.

Nice Things About Disliked MMOs

Tags

bad games, champions online, eve online, good games, lord of the rings online, lotro, MMO, mmorpg, multiplayer, overwatch, world of warcraft, WoW

Over a week ago, Massively Overpowered posed a question on its regular Daily Grind column asking readers a nice thing that could be said about an MMO game they didn’t like. I definitely chimed in on this once, since my useless mutant superpower is finding something to like in games I hate, but the more I pondered the question the more I came up with multiple answers.

So, why not take that bit of random inspiration and run with it? Here’s a small list of MMO and multiplayer titles I’m no fan of yet can admit that they do something really well.

The Colors of Nexus

Tags

carbine studios, closure, games, gaming, MMO, mmorpg, shutdown, sunset, video games, wildstar

Of course I was going to write about this story. Even though I’ve seen the writing on the wall for this game a long time ago, it doesn’t make ultimately saying goodbye to WildStar not suck. Just suck a little bit less, as I’d made my peace with the matter a while ago.

Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t provide a few final words regarding what was one of my favorite flawed MMO gaming experiences.

And this bright pink bastard in particular.

Welcome to Joy

Tags

chill games, community, fun, gamer, games, gaming, MMO, mmorpg, silliness, silly, silly games, video games, video gaming

As much as I like how “legitimate” video gaming things like esports are becoming, I’m often left reminding myself that legitimacy should always take a backseat to being fun. For every game that tries to be art or weave a genuinely complex story, I’d much rather there be about three times as many games that just have a good, goofy time.

It’s a lesson the Devil May Cry series seems to be taking to heart.

That sense of overwhelming fun has catapulted some games into high points on my mental list of favorites, and it’s something that I felt is worthy of elaborating on. Both as a self-reminder and perhaps a reminder to anyone reading this who might be taking this stuff a little too close to the vest.

How Rend Changed My PvP Mind

Tags

MMO, mmorpg, pvp, realm vs realm, rend, rvr, rvr mmo, sandbo, sandbox mmo, sandbox pvp

PvP and I have a weird relationship. When it comes to playing games solo or in a cooperative situation I can dance on the keybindings like a piano virtuoso, but put me in a combat situation in front of another live person and suddenly I end up being no better than if I rolled my face up and down the keyboard.

So with that in mind, my recent MMORPG curiosities seem to be going against type. I continue to be intrigued by developing games like Crowfall and Ashes of Creation and kind of leapt at the opportunity to give Rend’s alpha build a peek when I had the chance to. And though my time during said tests was a bit on the short side, it really did help build a small bridge between my brain and PvP.

Or to reference the game itself, let the PvP tree grow.

Monster Hunter World vs. Dauntless: Post-Launch Edition

Tags

action rpg, dauntless, hunting, MMO, monster hunter, monster hunter world, multiplayer, online rpg, rpg

I wrote this before, but when I did Dauntless was in closed beta and Monster Hunter World just had their try-before-you-buy “open beta.” Now that MHW has been released on console for a while now and Dauntless is in an open beta, and since I’ve logged plenty of hours into both, I figure now was as good a time as any to revisit this little comparison and see if my initial instincts were right.

Oh, and for the record, though Dauntless calls itself open beta, it’s doing progressive updates and is asking money for a cash shop. That’s a launch product; you don’t get to ask for money and also say you’re still in testing.

Besides, you’re pretty much feature-complete. You’ve launched.