I have a freakish adoration of holiday bosses. Maybe it’s their loot pinata nature. Or maybe it’s the fact that you can only fight them a few days out of the year. Either way, when I heard that the Midsummer Fire Festival was on in WoW, I made a mental promise that I’d get to …
Hey Gang, Another Friday, another SAR. As I mentioned in this morning’s article, this is a special edition of Some Assembly Required. This week, I spend some time talking with a fellow named Burns whose guild and play style are firmly rooted in playing under the influence. I met with Burns on Skype on several …
Over the last few years, I’ve had the occasion to talk about a lot of things. One of them I haven’t yet is the prevalence of the drug culture in MMOs. Well, thanks to trade chat, that day has finally come. I see this all the time on my realm. Whether it’s in trade chat …
My plans for WoW took an unexpected turn today. As of 6:30PM, my alliance death knight is no longer on the Aegwynn PVP server. As a matter of fact, my death knight is no longer even a member of the Alliance on any server. That’s right, I went for the full whammy; I pulled up …
I’ve been pretty busy managing games, work, and hardware upgrades this past week, so I’ve been a little behind on the news. Sorry for the lack of Monday update, but there’s a few big things I’d like to touch on, so let’s get started. Cataclysm Cutbacks Path of the Titans represented one of the most …
The topic of RMT has been huge the last couple of years. When I first started blogging in June of ’08, F2P was almost universally derided by the subscription-game crowd. It was tied with notions of poor quality and a “buy now” herd mentality driven by manipulative game design. I don’t know how true any …
Ravious writes today asking whether content explosions are still the best way to introduce new content to an MMO. By explosion, he means, of course, the traditional method of delivering large patches every six months. This is the model most AAA MMOs opt for, but, as he points out, there’s a much wider array of …
Happy Hump Day, folks! It’s been a while since we’ve sat down to do an interview and that makes me sad. So, this past weekend, I got the chance to chat with Larisa of the Pink Pigtail Inn. We spend some time talking about bit about blogging, WoW, and the MMO genre. It was a …
In a recent article in The Escapist, SW:TOR designer and writing director Daniel Erickson states that he thinks most MMOs out now have no point; that they lack a story to define our actions and, thereby, amount to a series of errands on the checklist of some faceless NPC. This comment disturbs me. Have Bioware …
I’ve been gone from World of Warcraft for some time, but, since returning, I’ve found myself reminded why I fell in love with WoW: the dungeons. Tonight, it was Violet Hold. Though exceptionally quiet (not a word spoke until the final boss was downed), it was a good run; quick and easy. I was able …
