The Daily Grind

Most of the time I can't really recommend starting new in Final Fantasy XI, which is a shame. It's not that the game is bad, nor is it lacking in things to do once you're at the level cap. No, it's just painful to get to the level cap. If you could somehow skip months of tedious leveling and just get straight to the broad and varied endgame, you would be set. Which sounds dangerously close to an endorsement for leveling services, but that's not the point.

We all have games that we like, but not enough to fully commit to in terms of leveling. Some of these are games that are great at the cap, but we'll never see them. Of course, some would argue that if you're not willing to put in the work to level, you're not going to be willing to play the game at the top either. So are there games you would play if you could skip straight to the end of the leveling game? Or would that defeat some of your attraction to MMOs?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

You've probably heard of the paradox of choice, the idea that the human brain can't really process more than a dozen or so choices at a time under certain circumstances. We get overwhelmed by too many choices, and sometimes we withdraw from choosing altogether. It's not always true -- Ben and Jerry's offers over a hundred flavors and seems to do just fine -- but I wonder whether it's the reason that some MMO gamers just do not get sandboxes.

An MMO sandbox dumps you in and is indifferent to what you do next. It won't hold your hand; it won't tell you where to go, what to be, or how to progress. In short, it presents hundreds of choices to you with no guidance and sometimes no context. I love this style of game, but given the sandbox struggles of the past few years, I admit it's potentially a problem. Glitch, for example, shut down in part because players, according to the devs, just didn't know what to do. And how many times have I read that someone quit Skyrim because he'd finished the main questline and thought it was over?

But then I'll bump into a blog about how someone spent 300 hours collecting all the cheese in Skyrim to build cheese mountain. Clearly, this problem is not universal.

So are you also building cheese mountain? Or do sandboxes overwhelm you with too many choices?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

I haven't dipped a toe into the Neverwinter pool yet, but I'm doing a bit of preliminary research for some potential playtime this weekend. One of the things that I'm finding is that the game's class roster is a bit light on, well, classes. Specifically, there are five to start with, which seems somewhat spartan for a title based on Dungeons and Dragons.

Notably absent is my preferred ranged DPS. There's the Control Wizard, of course, and he sounds mighty interesting, but the Neverwinter wiki says his primary role is crowd-control. What about you, Neverwinter players? What sorts of classes would you like to see available in the future?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Having started to play a Necromancer in Guild Wars 2 lately, I've been thinking about how odd it is that some MMO classes are kind of, well, evil. Or at least really, really gross, unless you think that playing with corpses is something a normal, well-adjusted citizen does. Summoning zombies, consorting with demons, even stealing from others -- sometimes our classes do unsavory activities. One could even call them... evil.

Perhaps this depends on the morality of the beholder, but I know that I've spoken to players from time to time who just don't pick classes that can be construed as evil even if they're using their corpse-exploding habits for the greater good. Usually it just doesn't fit in with their perception of what a hero is, and that is that.

What about you? Do you avoid "evil" classes, are you attracted to them, or do you not think about it one way or the other?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Guilds break up. Just like bands, it's a sad reality. Sometimes they just slowly drift apart because some people are leaving The Secret World and other members are developing differing interests, so the guild shuts down with no animosity. Other times the shutdown is accompanied by an explosion of drama so profound that you'd swear you were undergoing multiple simultaneous divorces instead of just dissolving a gathering of EverQuest II players. There is GM intervention, there are angry phone calls, in extreme cases there may even be bricks thrown through windows.

At the time, they're not fun to watch. But those horrible drama-filled guild demolitions do at least make for entertaining stories after the fact. So today we ask you: What was the worst guild meltdown you've ever seen? Were you involved in it or were you just an observer? In retrospect, was everyone blowing things out of proportion or blowing things far out of proportion?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

I recently returned to Lord of the Rings Online, and one of the first things I did after reinstalling was hunt down all the old plugins I had a couple of years ago. Some are more important than others, but one is basically indispensable.

Without TonicBars, the LotRO interface is a horrific jumble of 27,000 hotbars and 127,000 abilities, but with TonicBars these abilities are kept neatly off my screen until I roll over the appropriate button and unfurl the underlying bar. You can also configure the plugin to display a hotbar only when various gameplay conditions are met, like, say, your health dropping below a certain percentage.

So that's my indispensable add-on. What's yours?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

It's amazing to me how quickly the MMO industry (at least in the west) went from being dominated by a subscription model to adopting free-to-play nearly across the board. In just a couple of short years, the hold that subs had over us was broken and players were free to sample way more MMOs for no money down than they ever could.

It's also amazing to me how this movement has turned my general acceptance of subscriptions into somewhat of a dealbreaker. When I went back to World of Warcraft for a 10-day free trial a few weeks ago, the looming thought that this game would require a subscription to continue deeply influenced my enjoyment of it or interest in pursuing it past those 10 days. I had to ask myself the question, "Does this MMO offer something above and beyond what I can get elsewhere for free or a one-time purchase?" And I felt like the answer was "no."

Subs aren't dead, of course, and they certainly have their attractive aspects (cutting through F2P red tape and getting exclusive benefits, for example). I like having the option to sub, but I no longer like being tied down by one. So what say you? Are subscriptions worth it any more?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Working at Massively has given me several years to gain an appreciation for official game sites done properly. You wouldn't think that putting together a website for a game that's already online would be the difficult part, but apparently it is. EverQuest II and Lord of the Rings Online both hide their screenshot galleries in unrelated headers. Final Fantasy XIV doesn't link to the official forum from the main page. And this isn't even discussing sites with auto-playing videos or Flash elements preventing you from interacting with the site normally.

Pretty much every MMO requires you to go through the official site on a semi-regular basis, which means that any minor problems start to become continual irritations given enough time. So what frustrates you about official game sites? Wonky graphic placement? Poor font choices? Too many separate logins? For that matter, what official game sites do you think have pretty much gotten the formula correct?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Earlier this month, Massively's MJ sat down with the City of Steam devs and discovered that you, the Massively readers, had actually influenced one of the game mechanics. Wrote MJ,

There is one new feature that was put into game specifically because of Massively fans: jumping! That's right. You made it clear you wanted jumping in game, and the devs listened. Who says you don't have the power to change things?

Leaving aside the implication that we spent one of our precious wishes on jumping, I thought this was really cool, and I tried to think of other examples of players coming up with amazing (or not) design ideas that were subsequently implemented in a game. I can think of certain demands that were met in classic MMOs. World of Warcraft is infamous for implementing the most popular player mods as official features, and in more recent news, there are Guild Wars 2's efforts to split reset times for different continents after much player protest.

How about you? Has an MMO ever implemented your idea or the ideas of a fellow player?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Lord of the Rings Online is one of those MMOs, at least for me. You know the ones I mean. They're great games for the most part, but for whatever reason you've quit and returned and quit and returned to them more times than you can count.

With yesterday's announcement of the forthcoming Helm's Deep expansion, I'm finding it harder than ever to keep to my pledge of staying away from Turbine's Middle-earth.

What about you, morning crew? Assuming you're a LotRO expatriate, will Helm's Deep bring you back?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

For some players, the real meat of an MMORPG begins when you don't have any more pesky levels to worry about. Leveling is training, but using all that training to clear through the hardest content in the game is what you signed up for. Whether it's in World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2, these players feel that the real push is to have the best possible gear and optimize your character specialties.

For other players, the endgame is just an addition, sometimes even an unwelcome one. Having the best gear or the best build is nice, but it's not worth pursuing at the detriment of your enjoyment. Far better to just do dailies in Star Wars: The Old Republic or level a new character in Champions Online. These players can be just as dedicated to the game, but they just don't care for the endgame push.

So which category do you lean toward? Is the progression track at the top what you live for, or is it just a distraction? How important is endgame progression to you?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The Skinner Box design to MMOs and the random nature of loot tables means that an absolutely epic piece of gear could conceivably drop with the next kill. Or the kill after that! Or after that! Or... yeah, you know the drill. The unpredictability of corpse looting is like a little slot machine built into our games, mostly giving us trash while once in a while paying off in incredible dividends.

It's the latter that I'd like us to discuss today. Every once in a while I do a double-take when I see that I just looted an ultra-rare item. I didn't even know text that color existed in the chat window, to be honest! And getting that incredible drop can make my evening (not to mention give me bragging rights to my guild).

So what was the best random drop you ever got in an MMO -- and what did you do when it happened?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

We've seen a number of big-name game gurus make headlines in recent months with various MMOish development projects. Whether we're talking Chris Roberts, Mark Jacobs, or Richard Garriott, there's plenty of star power on display in both the MMO and crowdfunding arenas these days.

Are there any other well-known devs you'd like see turning (or returning) to the MMO ranks?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

One of the aspects that I like about MMOs is the sense of accomplishment when it comes to achieving specific goals. Maybe they're my goals or maybe they're goals set by the game, but checking things off a list and knowing that I've made progress is satisfying. That's why I often look at real world chores like an MMO quest log these days, filling my to do list up before knocking them out. I'm only slightly disappointed when victory music doesn't play when I turn in a quest to my wife.

Mental note: Must buy wife a kazoo.

Anyway, do you ever experience moments where your passion for MMOs bleed over into your real life? Do you grind reputation with your boss at work? Have you found yourself opening up a fridge and wondering what kind of epic consumables are inside? Did you strip to your skivvies and dance on top of your mailbox until the neighbors complained? Is all of this a cry for help?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

WildStar's announcement this week that closed beta players have already started modding the game's UI to their personal preferences got me wondering once again about whether MMO gamers have been influenced by games like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic when it comes to acceptance of modding.

As recently as last November, when SOE outlawed all mods in PlanetSide 2 -- including benign mods that enhanced graphics and FPS -- our commenters seemed split over whether mods were a good thing. One, who specifically singled out Diablo III and Guild Wars 2 as key offenders, argued that developers' "play it how we made it because we know best" attitude stifles player freedom. Another wrote that on the contrary, Guild Wars 2's anti-mod approach was the right one; he liked that everyone is made to play with the same interface because "the fact [that] you almost need different UIs and addons for endgame in WoW" is a turn off.

So let's take this topic's current temperature: Do you like moddable MMORPGs? Why or why not?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!