We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Standard Jedi pose: squat, extend lightsaber in right hand, pet imaginary dog with left

I have a thing about betas. I used to love them and try to get in as many as I could. I remember being giddy as a school boy for the Age of Conan beta, as desperate as a lumberjack for the Aion one, and horny as hell for RIFT’s. Then recently something in me changed. A switched was a flicked, a lever was pulled, a light bulb went off in my brain and I realised that playing betas were killing the overall enjoyment for me. It’s like celebrating Christmas early.

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The backstory for my character was a Nord who recently went on vacation to work on his tan

I’m quite enamored with Skyrim. Partially because it makes me say things to my wife like, “honey, I’m going to play Skyrim, come get me in three hours” but mainly because it gives me everything I’ve always enjoyed in a RPG and always wished for in a MMORPG: freedom, immersion, exploration and a real sense of satisfaction.

Skyrim’s not perfect. The UI is awful, the combat is a little clunky and a lot of the voice actors sound like poor Arnold Swarchenegger impersonators but all of these things, for me anyway, are easy to overlook as you get sucked into a pure, honest and unashamed role-playing experience. The game doesn’t pander to you and it doesn’t patronise you but neither does it make your life hard for the sake of creating artificial challenge or immersion. There’s no mandatory grinding and practical concepts like fast travel and providing exits at the end of long, winding dungeons keep you from getting frustrated. It’s the perfect blend of hardcore and casual (something I’m hoping MMOs will get right one day).

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Guild Wars 2 - "Look ma, no healer!"

My post last week about MMO designers using class flexibility as a way to keep the Holy Trinity on life support rather than find alternative solutions drew a lot of great feedback, fantastic comments and interesting discussions. I always love it when readers know more about a subject than I do and aren’t afraid to get stuck into a debate about it, however it did raise a lot of good questions about my motivations for writing the article in the first place. To be clear, I don’t hate the Holy Trinity (in fact, I’m rather fond of it), it’s just that I don’t think it works in today’s MMORPG.

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