Sean, aka Gumby, wrote an article recently entitled “Diagnosing Player Rage: A Case Study” where he brought up the topic of player rage and discussed the motives behind rage pertaining to a particularly rageful friend of his. It was a very interesting article and the inspiration for today’s lesson. I highly suggest you check it out whenever you get a [...]

It all started during a simple walk to my nearby smoothie store. The sun was beating down from about a noonish position and I started to think, “What if an MMO’s in-game time reflected the real world on a 1:1 scale?” I immediately dismissed the idea as ludicrous. Many MMO players are only able to play during certain periods of [...]

Hello students. Now that the holiday festivities are over, class is back in session. So sit down, shut up, and pay attention. (Yes Timmy, that means you too.) Today we’re going to be talking about the dangers of, and how to avoid, MMO burnout. There are two types of burnout that plague MMO players everywhere. We’re going to start with [...]

when MMO alphas and betas used to be exclusive testing phases that only the luckiest of gamers were invited to attend? It was only ten or fifteen years ago when getting into an MMO alpha or beta required filling out a veritable job application form – and that was for a small chance in hell to actually get in. [...]

I got into video games through single player RPGs. I loved the vast amount of content and rich stories games like Breath of Fire IV and Final Fantasy IX offered – Baldur’s Gate II remains one of my favorite games of all-time. But good RPGs are hard to come by nowadays, and have been for a while. When the trend [...]

For decades MMOs have been using random number generators (commonly referred to as RNGs) to determine everything from drop rates to attack damage and accuracy. Older MMOs were especially liberal with their use of RNG, quickly separating the lucky from the unlucky and causing envious strife across servers everywhere. If you’ve been playing MMOs for a little while now you’re [...]

Budding MMO players are spoiled nowadays. Grinding isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. A lot of games hold your hand to max level with massive questlines, events, and various experience buffs that make the climb from level one to max a cake walk compared to the MMOs of yesteryear. That isn’t to say newer MMOs don’t have [...]