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The Soapbox: Eat your tanking or you won't get your ice cream

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Classes, Culture, Game mechanics, Patches, Opinion, The Soapbox, Miscellaneous

Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column.

Picture this -- you're a parent of a squalling child. (For some of you, this may be a very easy picture as you sit at the dinner table.) Your child is refusing to eat his or her dinner on the basis that the broccoli doesn't taste like doughnuts covered in Skittles. Being a mature adult and realizing that a lifetime of Skittle-based food toppings is not a viable dietary choice, you are trying to patiently reason with said child despite the fact that the child assumes Kevin at school is evil incarnate because he took the good swing despite your child's having called it.

Eventually, you break down. You tell your child that a special treat awaits if he or she eats all of those vegetables. And so your child queues up for a random heroic in World of Warcraft, and -- wait, we skipped ahead of the metaphor, but that's essentially what the whole Call to Arms feature boils down to. And it brings up interesting questions of bribery, choice, and what makes a fun and functional mechanic.

Continue reading The Soapbox: Eat your tanking or you won't get your ice cream

The Soapbox: Eat your tanking or you won't get your ice cream originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alter-Ego: Working together is hard to do

Krystalle Voecks — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, Bugs, PvE, Opinion, DC Universe Online, Alter-Ego

The news earlier this week that DC Universe Online is now Sony Online Entertainment's best-selling game probably won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who has actually played it. There's an enormous amount of fun to be had in running through the game, and the storylines are incredibly well thought-out. However, for all that I personally love the game, there is one thing that I and many other people I've talked to find to be incredibly lacking, and in this case, it's something so integral to the MMOG experience as to essentially make or break parts of the game.

Essentially, what point is there to an MMO in which you can't really reliably interact with the other people you're playing with? It's also rather eye-opening just how much your enjoyment of a game like this can be impacted when you can't effectively talk to other people. As such, this week I'll look at several crucial problems with the DC Universe Online chat interface, as well as things that can be done to improve the overall experience.

Continue reading Alter-Ego: Working together is hard to do

Alter-Ego: Working together is hard to do originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Do you socialize differently in-game?

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Guilds, Opinion, The Daily Grind

Some people are just naturally more social than others. Some of us have no trouble talking to new people, asking questions, making friends, and generally interacting with our fellow humans. Others struggle to even make eye contact with the cashier at the local McDonald's for fear of somehow screwing things up. But whether or not you're a social person, how you behave often depends on the situation you find yourself in -- such as whether you're in the real world or trying to get four random strangers to attack the darn skull-marked target first.

There are those of us who go from being a shy and insular person in the real world to a social butterfly when we get online, and there are those of us who perform the exact opposite transformation and barely say a word. And then there are people who don't change much, who are just as shy or outgoing as they are in day-to-day life despite the change of venues. Do your social traits change when you log in? Or do you tend to stay the same in the virtual world?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of our 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 The Daily Grind!

The Daily Grind: Do you socialize differently in-game? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Where is your uncanny social valley?

Rubi Bayer — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Opinion, Massively Meta, The Daily Grind

Ravious at Kill Ten Rats took an amusing look at the scale of social interaction in MMOs the other day, outlining the type of interaction vs. the level of fun in a game, and it made us wonder.

The type of gameplay preferred varies from person to person, of course. What one person views as the most fun type of play can sound completely boring or annoying to another person, and the same goes for interacting with those in the MMO world around you.

So where do you stand? Are you one of those players who leaps headfirst into any PUG, excited at the prospect of meeting new people? Do you prefer your circle of friends, those known elements that won't surprise you, be it good or bad? Or do you eschew company as a rule, preferring to treat the game as a single player game?

Click the handy comment link below and let us know what you think!

The Daily Grind: Where is your uncanny social valley? originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: What attitudes can you not stand?

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Humor

Blizzard has always been known by the fans for going all-out with their jokes on April 1st, and this year was no exception. The entire Equipment Potency Equivalence Number was funny in its own right, but especially as an attitude prevalent not only among World of Warcraft players. No matter what game you play, you know people whose sense of ego and importance at in-game achievements drives you up the wall. For some people it's a minor irritation; for others, it's the sort of thing that is so insufferable it's not worth even trying to work with them.

There are no shortage of helpful and friendly players in games, but there's also an abundance of arrogant gear worshippers, socially inept trolls, die-hard PvP grognards, ineffectual PvE carebears... you get the idea. Almost everyone agrees the extreme cases are bad, but we all think some are worse than others. So what about you? What sort of outlook makes you just quit a group in frustration no matter how the player performs? Is it something hugely removed from your own playstyle and approach, or something that's close to how you normally run and becomes more obnoxious as a result?

The Daily Grind: What attitudes can you not stand? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 03 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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"Why do we play MMOs" series concludes

Brooke Pilley — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, Opinion

When we last checked in with Tobold, he was just starting up a new blog series looking into why we play MMO games to a greater degree than single-player games. That isn't to say that the MMO genre is bigger than the single-player genre, just that MMO gamers tend to focus on massively multi-player games more than single-player games. His first two articles examined Storytelling and Gameplay elements in MMOs and since then he has done pieces on Challenge, Character Development, Rewards, Social Interactions, and Learning.

The series just wrapped up and Tobold wrote a nice summary of why he thinks we mostly choose MMOs over single-player games. He feels that while we may play single-player games that have strong elements of story, gameplay, or challenge, the social aspects of MMOs seem to be the trump card. MMOs can have many weaker core elements but social interaction (direct) or simply participating in a persistent game world (indirect) appears to make up for those deficiencies. It's a long series to get through but well worth the read if you're into these kinds of high-thinking philosophical discussions.

"Why do we play MMOs" series concludes originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony opens complete EverQuest 2 database to researchers

James Egan — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, Culture, MMO industry, News items, Academic, Education

The players of EverQuest 2 might be pleased to learn that their gameplay may further science. They may be less enthused, however, to learn that a complete record of their interactions with one another is being studied by researchers. Following a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ars technica's John Timmer reports, "With the cooperation of Sony, a collaborative group of academic researchers at a number of institutions have obtained the complete server logs from the company's EverQuest 2 MMORPG." That's right. This is everything you've ever done in the game, but it's all in the name of science.

The researchers are among those who believe that massively multiplayer online games can be used to model real world collective behavior. The task ahead of them is a daunting one, with close to 60 TB of data to pore over. "The end result is a log that included four years of data for over 400,000 players that took part in the game, which was followed up with demographic surveys of the users. All told, it makes for a massive data set with distinct challenges but plenty of opportunities," Timmer writes.

Continue reading Sony opens complete EverQuest 2 database to researchers

Sony opens complete EverQuest 2 database to researchers originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: Is there a place for diplomacy in an MMO?

Akela Talamasca — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Real life, Culture, Game mechanics, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Politics

'Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent', wrote Isaac Asimov, and to a certain extent, that's true. But in an industry that caters to these primal impulses -- and thriving off of them, as well -- is there room for the non-violent path? Certainly, the violent response is more fun than talking it out, at least in an urge overkill kind of way, but surely that's just a matter of implementation.

If we truly want to simulate any sort of real-life experience in our games, the full range of social interactions ought to have a place, including politics. And it's one thing to try to reason with an AI, but if you can create a lasting peace with another human player, you have something to be proud of. But is it necessary, or would diplomacy in a combat-oriented game merely detract from the experience?

The Daily Grind: Is there a place for diplomacy in an MMO? originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 06 Apr 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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