Category Archives: MMO design

WoW is dead. Long live WoW!

Posted on September 12, 2019 by SynCaine

WoW Retail, born Nov 23rd, 2004, has sadly passed away at the age of (almost) 15 on Aug 26th, 2019. Cause of death: WoW Classic. RIP in peace. Ever since WoW Retail become a monster hit sometime around 2005, ‘WoW … Continue reading →

Posted in MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Tobold being Wrong, Trion being Trion, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

WoW Classic: It’s not a hard game, but it does reward player skill

Posted on September 5, 2019 by SynCaine

As we continue to see mountains of feedback about Classic via blogs and forums, one topic keeps coming up that is being misunderstood and/or misrepresented: the difficulty of WoW Classic, either as its own entity or compared to Retail. I’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 4 Comments

WoW Classic: The case for an expansion, and I don’t mean TBC

Posted on September 4, 2019 by SynCaine

We are just over a week in, but considering Blizzard is STILL opening new servers and now offering server transfers, I think its safe to say that Classic has been a hit beyond what Blizzard originally projected. How big of … Continue reading →

Posted in MMO design, World of Warcraft | 6 Comments

WoW Classic: Deadmines have been run, a server queue has been spotted

Posted on September 3, 2019 by SynCaine

As a guild we ran the Deadmines on Sunday and again on Monday night. Both runs were successful, though the Sunday run had a few wipes and had to deal with respawns, while the Monday run was clean start to … Continue reading →

Posted in Inquisition Clan, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 2 Comments

WoW Classic: I love the difficulty so much I installed a mod to remove it!

Posted on August 30, 2019 by SynCaine

Reading some of the early reaction posts to WoW Classic has me mentality returning to the older days of this blog, specifically the thing where I pick apart another post because it always amuses me that people say how they … Continue reading →

Posted in Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 10 Comments

WoW Classic: Day one is 100% exactly like the first day of WoW in 2004!

Posted on August 26, 2019 by SynCaine

And by that I mean Blizzard, 15 years later, still doesn’t understand the basics of how to not get in their own way, and I’m sitting in a queue 18k deep that is going to, at best, get me into … Continue reading →

Posted in MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 7 Comments

WoW Classic: The gentle nudge towards being social

Posted on May 22, 2019 by SynCaine

WoW Classic beta has started, and people are posting about it. This post from Rohan, who’s blog I can’t comment on without jumping through a dozen hoops thanks to the Blogger platform, highlights a major reason why I think overall … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogroll, MMO design, World of Warcraft | 4 Comments

Potential return to Life is Feudal MMO?

Posted on February 20, 2019 by SynCaine

Quick note: We might be heading back to Life is Feudal MMO. The game recently released a major update, which among other things includes a new massive map (everyone on basically one ‘server’ ala EVE), offline training (EVE), vulnerability windows … Continue reading →

Posted in Inquisition Clan, Life is Feudal, MMO design, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Blizzard confirms that Blizzard stinks now

Posted on December 14, 2018 by SynCaine

It took longer than I expected, but Blizzard has announced that Heroes of the Storm’s days are numbered. I’m sure all three current players are very disappointed. The news is significant for one major reason; this is the first time … Continue reading →

Posted in DoTA, EQ2, League of Legends, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, SOE being SOE, World of Warcraft | 16 Comments

Friday Conspiracy Theory – WoW Classic edition

Posted on November 2, 2018 by SynCaine

First, the fact that WoW Classic won’t be out until Summer 2019 is a joke, even by Blizzard ‘soon’ slow ass development standards, but we aren’t here to talk about that. What we are going to talk about is the … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 10 Comments