Author Archives: SynCaine

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About SynCaine

Former hardcore raider turned casual gamer.

e-Sports growing pains

Posted on December 10, 2013 by SynCaine

Quick non-MMO note for today. Recently Riot wanted to ban their professional players from showing/playing competing games on their streams. After some uproar, they have backed away from this somewhat. e-Sports are still in their infancy right now, but I … Continue reading →

Posted in League of Legends, Mass Media | 7 Comments

SC: Developer deja vu

Posted on December 5, 2013 by SynCaine

The 2013 Chris Roberts cult worship reminds me of 2006 Richard Garriott cult worship. If you look at their Wikipedia pages, their careers look amazingly similar. RG has Ultima, CR has Wing Commander. RG has Tabula Rasa, CR has Wing … Continue reading →

Posted in Random, Star Citizen, Ultima Online | 30 Comments

Star Citizen: Whale-sized expectations

Posted on December 4, 2013 by SynCaine

There is only one option for Star Citizen at this point; it’s going to be a huge explosion. Now, that explosion could be a birth of an awesome MMO, or it could give us the greatest rage bubble burst of … Continue reading →

Posted in Random, RMT, Star Citizen | 61 Comments

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition review

Posted on December 2, 2013 by SynCaine

More tales from the Steam sale, this time a very positive one; Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition. When BG:EE was first announced, I was excited about it. Then as more news on what exactly was going to get enhanced came out, … Continue reading →

Posted in Random | 4 Comments

EQNL preview went about as well as expected

Posted on December 2, 2013 by SynCaine

I picked up Castle Story off Steam because :Steam Sale:, and while the game itself is not really worth your time, it has provided today’s blog content, so we have that going for us. Castle Story is a voxel-based “build … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, Random | 6 Comments

DF:UW – Take care of the sheep to keep the wolves

Posted on November 27, 2013 by SynCaine

The biggest challenge for any PvP sandbox developer is figuring out how to keep the sheep around. The easiest challenge is figuring out how to keep the wolves. If you look at the history of this MMO sub-genre, it’s not … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP | 28 Comments

SOE Kickstarting EQNL

Posted on November 21, 2013 by SynCaine

Let’s circle back to that EQNext:Landmark thing, shall we, because I think there is some interesting stuff going on between SOE and the way they have approach this. The $100 “get in beta, possibly get ‘power’ if location is a … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, Kickstarter | 4 Comments

Fact not Opinion

Posted on November 20, 2013 by SynCaine

Forumfall: Your blog post makes you sound like an egotistical asshole and takes a “my way is the only way” approach. I mean, if the shoe fits and all that.  

Posted in Darkfall Online | 23 Comments

XCOM: Enemy Within is good, but perhaps not $30 good

Posted on November 20, 2013 by SynCaine

Having finished XCOM: Enemy Within, I’m a bit torn on exactly what I think of it. On the one hand, the additions do spice up the standard campaign, making what was already a solid game all around better. On the … Continue reading →

Posted in Random | 3 Comments

DF:UW – Economy, MVPs, and Forumfall noise

Posted on November 17, 2013 by SynCaine

Warning, the following is a long post centered around Darkfall, but in many ways applies to MMOs in general, and skims many concepts in order to prevent this from being an even longer novel. Apologies if I lose you along … Continue reading →

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, Rant | 25 Comments