For any MMO that features a healing mechanic necessary for groups, the phrase 'LF healer and GTG' is so overused, players will often get creative with new ways of begging for a healer for their group. Players will wait hours for the illusive healer, and they'll take what they can get, even if it ends up being under geared, poorly specialized, or on trade for specific favors to the player. I don't have to explain it to any of you beyond that; we have all at times suffered the lack of a healer in a group (unless you've always played a healer.)

Continue reading Breaking Free from the Healing Dependency.

I was discussing upcoming MMOs with a friend a few weeks ago when she mentioned a term I hadn't heard before: The Warhammer Mistake. She explained that the Warhammer Mistake is when an MMO developer decides to make PvP the only viable means of end-game entertainment. She argued that this same problem was to plague Aion, a PvPvE game.

Continue reading The Warhammer Mistake - The Same Problem Aion Encountered.

In late July, a news story surfaced about Dr. Richard Graham, a psychiatrist who is seeking to open in-game counseling services in World of Warcraft. The claim was that World of Warcraft is more addictive than crack – and there's certainly some evidence that players have, at times, taken their virtual world experiences too far. There's the real world cases of stabbing upon selling a sword loaned in-game, the suffocation death of a 4-month-old child due to parents neglect while playing World of Warcraft in an Internet Cafe, and a player committing suicide because he couldn't beat his addiction to EverQuest. There are dozens more cases, and at least half a dozen studies, about the addictive nature of virtual worlds.

Continue reading Subscription-based MMOs Breed Addicts.

There's an argument that's been floating around the internet, saying that girl gamers haven't experienced sexism from fellow players. And frankly, it's invalid, an argument made mostly by nice men, and some women, who have only been gaming in the last few years – neither group which have been playing MMOs from their darker roots. The truth is, video game sexism has come a long way in recent years, and is far from what it used to be – but that doesn't mean it was never dark or ugly, especially in MMOs.

Continue reading Sexist Attitudes in MMOs.

It seems that every action, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, and animated movie that comes out these days is preceded, accompanied, or followed by a video game release. Most of these games pass under the radar, even after making decent bank on sales: their purpose, it appears, is more to cash on the success of the movie release than to provide quality gaming based on a movie. There are a few exceptions of course, but most of these games pass on with below average ratings, and wait to be mocked in later years. Indeed, it's usually the video game to movie transition that succeeds better – as evidenced by Resident Evil or Tomb Raider.

Continue reading Will We See More Franchise MMOs?.