Category Archives: Rant

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

Pay-2-Win is fine

Posted on November 13, 2013 by SynCaine

I’ll post more about SOE being SOE with EQN once I’m not fiending on XCOM, but I just wanted to throw something out real quick; P2W is fine. Lots of games across history have had the P2W model and been … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, Rant, RMT | 41 Comments

One last bonus of playing DDO for 15min

Posted on November 8, 2013 by SynCaine

Now Turbine emails me all the amazing deals they have going in the cash shop! Awesome! It took longer to download your trashheap than I spent playing it, but yea, totally email me about buying more garbage, please. F2P… ALL … Continue reading →

Posted in DDO, Rant, RMT | 5 Comments

MMO Future: Suits and timebombs

Posted on October 24, 2013 by SynCaine

A lot of good back and forth dialog happened yesterday, which you should go read if you haven’t. Thanks go out to Brian (Psychochild) Green for putting up more of a fight than the hotbar salesmen from SW:TOR. I’d like … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, EVE Online, Kickstarter, MMO design, Rant, RMT, SW:TOR, The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft | 77 Comments

People of F2P MMOs

Posted on October 23, 2013 by SynCaine

Nope. First, can we stop linking to that 2011 LotRO announcement of how great it’s doing? Please link to the 2013 “still doing great” announcement. Same goes for DDO. Last I heard, Turbine was releasing a response to in-game protests … Continue reading →

Posted in DDO, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, RMT | 38 Comments

Today’s Kool-Aid flavor is grape. Grape and failure

Posted on August 28, 2013 by SynCaine

A lot of funny stuff is happening in this post over at TAGN, please go check it out. My only major complaint is that Wilhelm was light on the actual insults. I’m going to try and correct that here. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Allods Online, DDO, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, RMT, SW:TOR, The Elder Scrolls Online, WildStar, World of Warcraft | 51 Comments

The cure for F2P disease is quality

Posted on August 22, 2013 by SynCaine

In the comments section from yesterday’s post, Rohirrim raised the issue that with so many failed MMOs being demoted to the F2P minor leagues, gamers today might be weary of jumping on a new game that is sub-based for fear … Continue reading →

Posted in Camelot Unchained, EQNext, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, RMT, SW:TOR, The Elder Scrolls Online | 33 Comments

Shocking news; F2P is dead

Posted on August 21, 2013 by SynCaine

Well that didn’t last long, huh? Wish someone had called F2P a fad, that would have been pretty insightful of them. Am I happy that the F2P plague is dying? Of course. Will F2P still exist in some capacity? Yes. … Continue reading →

Posted in EQ2, League of Legends, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, RMT, SW:TOR, The Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft | 61 Comments

WildStar – I can’t say it sucks, yet

Posted on August 20, 2013 by SynCaine

TAGN beat me to posting about the WildStar PLEX plan. /agree It works in EVE because EVE has a balanced economy. WildStar being a themepark, it won’t (feel free to bookmark this and come back 6 months into release and … Continue reading →

Posted in EQNext, EVE Online, Guild Wars, MMO design, Rant, SW:TOR | 8 Comments

EQN: The next big AAA disaster

Posted on August 5, 2013 by SynCaine

In case you don’t want to sit through the EQNext showing, here are the cliff notes: “If someone should do it, it should be EverQuest. Again” (UO…) Lighting Lighting Lighting Lighting Adventure Lighting Lighting How do you like it? :mild … Continue reading →

Posted in DDO, EQ2, EQNext, Guild Wars, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, The Elder Scrolls Online, Ultima Online | 33 Comments