Category Archives: Rift

The sky is green, Rift is a WoW-killer, and other fun facts

Posted on October 7, 2011 by SynCaine

A lot of laughable quotes from Trion here (the only MMO out five years ago was WoW? Really…), but can you really outright lie about how well you are doing these days? I know Xfire is not an exact science, … Continue reading →

Posted in Aion, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, Rant, Rift, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

It’s Friday somewhere

Posted on October 6, 2011 by SynCaine

(Source) After losing 20% of their players this year CCP apologized for having developed EVE in the wrong direction and promised to do better. (Actually the promise was to re-focus on FiS, which is a big deal to current EVE players that, you know, … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, World of Warcraft | 15 Comments

Rift is a fun game, but you don’t really want to live there

Posted on October 5, 2011 by SynCaine

-Warsyde on Syp’s post about Rift. Is it just me or is that the absolute worst thing you could say about an MMO?  

Posted in Rift | 2 Comments

Bad content burns you out

Posted on September 28, 2011 by SynCaine

While talking about the fun curve, Tobold addressed something he and I have been going back and forth on for a bit: do you burn-out on an MMO, or do you quit because the game changed? Before we go on, … Continue reading →

Posted in Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, EVE Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 33 Comments

30 minutes to cap

Posted on September 23, 2011 by SynCaine

Tobold’s post today does a nice job of summarizing what’s gone wrong with MMOs in the last few years in terms of design. The best example is this part: If you consider a theoretical MMORPG with an infinite number of … Continue reading →

Posted in Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 20 Comments

2000 hours with EQ, 5 minutes with the kids.

Posted on September 22, 2011 by SynCaine

2000 hours to hit the original level cap in EQ1 is not the reason EQ1 was ‘hard’ (not a great way to really look at this, but more on that later). A harsh death penalty wasn’t it either. Nor was … Continue reading →

Posted in Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Global Agenda, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 14 Comments

Twit generation is in my MMO

Posted on September 19, 2011 by SynCaine

First, can we please stop qualifying Facebook games? “Not bad, for a Facebook game”. We don’t do it with TV (oh that show was terrible, but it was on a 3rd rate network so it was decent), we don’t do … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, Dark Age of Camelot, EQ2, EVE Online, Global Agenda, iPhone, Mass Media, MMO design, Mount and Blade: Warband, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 28 Comments

Rift: Happy half-birthday, welcome to Azeroth!

Posted on September 1, 2011 by SynCaine

Prompted by Tobold (its Thursday blog noob, not Friday), let’s talk about Rift 6 months after release. Pre-release, Trion was hyping Rift with “You’re not in Azeroth anymore”. Yes, Rift was never pitched as more than yet another fantasy themepark, … Continue reading →

Posted in beta, MMO design, Rift, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

Breaking news: Games pitched as MMOs are not actually MMOs!

Posted on August 31, 2011 by SynCaine

Borderlands is more of an MMO than Global Agenda. It has a bigger “open world”, a longer character progression path, more itemization, more quests, more lore, etc. Both games are limited in how many people can be in one area, … Continue reading →

Posted in DoTA, Global Agenda, League of Legends, Mass Media, MMO design, Random, Rant, Rift, RMT, World of Warcraft | 17 Comments

The more-of-the-same train just keeps on rolling

Posted on August 19, 2011 by SynCaine

Watching this video of the upcoming MMO Wildstar told me all I needed to know about the game (pass), but I find it interesting that what I see as “yet another WoW-clone” others see it as, well, here is one … Continue reading →

Posted in Combat Systems, MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, World of Warcraft | 14 Comments