I am not good at Guild Wars 2. My experience began during the original beta, where I died so many times in the Ascalonian Catacombs instance that I polished the floor with my corpse. From such a promising start, I progressed to mediocre, gradually nurturing an Engineer and a Guardian to level cap. I avoided…
Author: Gazimoff
Developer Interaction By Design
I’ll start with a disclaimer: although we’ve never met in person, I’ve known Leithart since 2012 when we were both fans of the then-upcoming MMO WildStar. Since those early days, he went into game development (coincidentally for the studio behind that same game), and I moved into game journalism. We still ping each other tweets from…
Warcraft: Legion – Endgame Perfected?
With a few notable exceptions, levelling in MMOs is a temporary experience. We get a few weeks of meaty questing and cinematics, followed by months of waiting for content updates. It’s the Achilles Heel of the theme-park experience – rich and deep while it lasts, but bland and repetitive once the cap is reached. I’ve…
The Legion Dungeon Love-Affair
‘Thank you for fetching my tools, Wilkins. But, before I can teach you the secrets of Mid-Legion Tailoring, you must carry out one more task’ ‘Yes, Master?’ The scruffy young apprentice looked up, hope welling in his big eyes. ‘Indeed. You see, we have run out of Milk. I’ve heard tales of the Naga breeding…
Crowdsourcing MMO Design
Today, I’m going to look at two related topics. The first came out of a new initiative from Carbine Studios called DevConnect, where the studio asks players for input on potential changes to WildStar. The first topic is about faction barriers – a subject that had grabbed my attention following Liore’s blogpost on it earlier this…
Why VR Matters to Me
Not long ago, I was asked about my thoughts on virtual reality. I’d played EVE: Valkyrie, Elite: Dangerous, and Star Citizen on my Rift DK2, and I was sent a couple of questions. One of them asked if VR actually added anything to the experience, over and above playing them with a standard display. As I…
The Changing Face of MMOs
Sometimes, MMO commentary feels cyclical. Back in 2014, we were musing how Blizzard’s cancellation of Titan signalled an end to the grand MMO genre. Now that Daybreak Games has shoved EverQuest Next out of a similar airlock, the same opinion is doing the rounds (although with a little less doom-mongering this time around). Some existing MMOs…
The Stardew Valley Fallacy
Recently, I’ve been playing Stardew Valley a lot. It’s a charming retro game, featuring a young hero who shuns being a corporate slave, trading it for a new life on his grandfather’s farm. But it’s not just about growing crops and tending animals; there’s a little bit of adventuring on the side, and the entire game…
WildStar: Seeking an Artist
Over countless years spent playing MMOs, I’ve explored scores of fantastical virtual worlds, seen incredible creativity manifested in breathtaking beauty, and taken part in some legendary stories. Fortunately though, I’ve not been a solo adventurer, left to wander the wilderness alone; at each step in the journey, I’ve shared these experiences with an amazing person, who…
WildStar Free-to-Play Competition – The Winners!
Wow, that was hard. My recent WildStar competition earned a flurry of responses, both in the comments and by email. And so many of them were very, very good – it made choosing winners very difficult. But winners had to be chosen, and so here they are. First Place – OxTube I said that submissions…