Category Archives: World of Warcraft

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

Redsox: Cataclysm

Posted on September 29, 2011 by SynCaine

I don’t normally do this, given that this is mostly an MMO blog, but what happened last night in Baseball was stunning, historic, and gut-wrenching. This piece by Tom Verducci sums it up well. As a resident of the City … Continue reading →

Posted in Random, World of Warcraft | 12 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

Why Hogger is famous

Posted on September 22, 2011 by SynCaine

Because he killed you, made you stop and think, and made you either move on in defeat or find others to take him down. Read that WoWWiki entry and tell me that it’s a ‘problem’ that Hogger could be defeating … Continue reading →

Posted in Rant, 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

Raid or Breed

Posted on September 21, 2011 by SynCaine

Going to attempt to tie the previous two posts together, to hopefully reach some sort of conclusion. It might work… The Sims Social is just as good, or even better as The Sims in short play sessions. Empires & Allies … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 18 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

Diablo 3, AH, Accessibility

Posted on September 14, 2011 by SynCaine

The ongoing debate about who will use the Diablo 3 auction house and why seems very odd to me. D3 won’t be an MMO, it certainly won’t be persistent, and the main activity for the game is bashing monsters/barrels to … Continue reading →

Posted in MMO design, Rant, World of Warcraft | 14 Comments

Cogs are greater than heroes: Games and choice

Posted on September 7, 2011 by SynCaine

Choice in videogames has about as successful a history as games that will “make you cry”. 99.9% of the time the claim is BS, and that other .1% you had something in your eye. Point being when some marketing guy … Continue reading →

Posted in EVE Online, Rant, SW:TOR, The Witcher, World of Warcraft | 13 Comments