Author Archives: SynCaine

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About SynCaine

Former hardcore raider turned casual gamer.

Smed talks sandbox

Posted on February 12, 2014 by SynCaine

Smed has a new blog that yells at you with giant text. I wish he had named it “MMOs are still a niche market”, but no dice on that. His first post is about sandbox design. “When we first began … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, EVE Online, MMO design, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments

Stay in school kids

Posted on February 12, 2014 by SynCaine

A few of us have been laughing ourselves to tears over the latest ForumFall post-of-the-year entry, and someone insisted I share with the rest of the class. Fair warning, the rage is very strong here. “You have no clue what … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online, Random | 35 Comments

EVE: Learning skills in a F2P world

Posted on February 11, 2014 by SynCaine

A few years ago CCP removed the Learning skills from EVE Online. To quickly recap, the Learning skills took about three months to train, and their only benefit was a boost to training other skills faster. They were, overall, a … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, RMT | 13 Comments

ESO: Sand in unexpected places

Posted on February 10, 2014 by SynCaine

Quick ESO beta weekend update: At one point the three different quests I had were all bugged out (named mob not spawning), which initially made me log out because whaaa I can’t progress. Wanting to play the game more (a … Continue reading →

Posted in beta, The Elder Scrolls Online | 2 Comments

EVE: CCP you are the worst, besides everyone else

Posted on February 7, 2014 by SynCaine

Jester has, as always, a great post up about the reaction to the real life EVE monument CCP recently unveiled, which as his post shows, has largely been negative. EVE is famous for having lots of bitter vets, and as … Continue reading →

Posted in Age of Conan, Darkfall Online, EQNext, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Rant, SW:TOR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 7 Comments

Pathfinder Online: What 1.9m gets you

Posted on February 6, 2014 by SynCaine

The latest dev blog from Goblinworks, makers of the upcoming Pathfinder Online (currently holder of the very distinguished “Next sandbox MMO least likely to suck” award) talks money, specifically that they spent 1.9m in 2013. Numbers are fun, especially once … Continue reading →

Posted in Kickstarter, MMO design, Pathfinder Online, Star Citizen, SW:TOR, Warhammer Online | 9 Comments

SOE is going to pleasantly surprise you because they are SOE

Posted on February 5, 2014 by SynCaine

Oh Smed. The guy knows he works for SOE right? The “we haven’t done anything right since EQ1” studio? The studio that NGE’ed SWG probably shouldn’t be trying to get people back by reminding them of that, especially since the … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, FreeRealms, Mass Media, Random, Rant | 6 Comments

Might and Magic X: Legacy review

Posted on February 4, 2014 by SynCaine

Gaming nostalgia is a weird thing. Sometimes the idea of playing something again is a lot better than the actual act of doing it. Ultima Online is one such game for me. It still holds up in many ways from … Continue reading →

Posted in Random | 3 Comments

EVE: Required reading

Posted on January 30, 2014 by SynCaine

CCP dev blog about the longest and one of the largest battles in MMO history. If you consider yourself an MMO fan, consider it required reading, start to finish. A few quick notes: CCP gets it. Not only does the … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, Mass Media, MMO design | 24 Comments

ESO CE: Racist

Posted on January 29, 2014 by SynCaine

The only pay-to-play (beyond, um… having to pay for the box and the sub…) race in ESO will be Imperials, found ‘only’ in the collectors edition. Imperials are the ‘white people’ of ESO. So if you pay extra, you get … Continue reading →

Posted in The Elder Scrolls Online | 25 Comments