https://massivelyop.com MMORPG news and opinions Mon, 24 Apr 2023 14:21:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/25/choose-my-adventure-endgame-in-neverwinter-nearly-rocks-my-bards-face-apart/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/25/choose-my-adventure-endgame-in-neverwinter-nearly-rocks-my-bards-face-apart/#comments Tue, 25 Apr 2023 15:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=436812 So as that headline suggests, I made it to level 20 in Neverwinter. That’s not really too surprising to regular players, I imagine – the leveling curve in this game has been smoothed to the point of being a pinball – but it did mean that I got to see just how well my favorite […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/25/choose-my-adventure-endgame-in-neverwinter-nearly-rocks-my-bards-face-apart/feed/ 7 https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/18/choose-my-adventure-rocking-my-way-to-max-level-bard-play-in-neverwinter/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/18/choose-my-adventure-rocking-my-way-to-max-level-bard-play-in-neverwinter/#respond Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=435801 The journey in Neverwinter continues with pure, unadulterated focus on my Bard, as suggested by the voting public. And I promise, I won’t ask the same question a third time. No, seriously. I’m pretty much on-rails at this point, there is no divergence available to me, and I am bereft of choices for polls for […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/18/choose-my-adventure-rocking-my-way-to-max-level-bard-play-in-neverwinter/feed/ 0 https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/11/choose-my-adventure-the-songblade-makes-neverwinters-bard-rock-even-harder/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/11/choose-my-adventure-the-songblade-makes-neverwinters-bard-rock-even-harder/#comments Tue, 11 Apr 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=434784 Most of the time when I’m beaten over the head by an MMORPG’s meta, I tend to thumb it in the eye and tacitly ignore it. In the case of the Neverwnter Bard and the overwhelming player opinion of choosing the Songblade paragon path, I would have made the same choice and gone with the […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/11/choose-my-adventure-the-songblade-makes-neverwinters-bard-rock-even-harder/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/04/choose-my-adventure-the-neverwinter-bard-continues-to-rock-even-as-the-challenge-level-rises/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/04/choose-my-adventure-the-neverwinter-bard-continues-to-rock-even-as-the-challenge-level-rises/#respond Tue, 04 Apr 2023 15:30:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=433796 This week in Neverwinter could be best described as broken up into two halves: a half of chicken time and a half of regular gameplay time. In case you missed my stream, I made my first foray into the April Fowls’ Day event of the MMORPG, and then I continued on with normal Tiefling Bard […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/04/04/choose-my-adventure-the-neverwinter-bard-continues-to-rock-even-as-the-challenge-level-rises/feed/ 0 https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/28/choose-my-adventure-neverwinters-bard-rocks/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/28/choose-my-adventure-neverwinters-bard-rocks/#comments Tue, 28 Mar 2023 15:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=432566 Neverwinter is another one of those MMORPGs that I just put on the shelf and walked away from after being generally bored by it. I don’t remember the combat being that great. I don’t remember the setting being compelling. And I definitely don’t remember the classes that I experienced being too dynamic or interesting. All […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/28/choose-my-adventure-neverwinters-bard-rocks/feed/ 6 https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/14/choose-my-adventure-embers-adrift-defeats-me/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/14/choose-my-adventure-embers-adrift-defeats-me/#comments Tue, 14 Mar 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=430533 You know how last week I mentioned I was mad? Well now I’m just disappointed. Mostly in myself, but also in Embers Adrift. To preface, I feel the need to point out that I’m not new to the old ways of things; my first major game was Final Fantasy XI after all. Nor is this […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/14/choose-my-adventure-embers-adrift-defeats-me/feed/ 11 https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/07/choose-my-adventure-starting-out-in-embers-adrift-is-just-as-tough-as-expected/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/07/choose-my-adventure-starting-out-in-embers-adrift-is-just-as-tough-as-expected/#comments Tue, 07 Mar 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=429579 It took me an alarming amount of time to get to level two. That’s pretty much as good of a summary as I can come up with regarding my first foray into Embers Adrift for this week. And not just because this game is hard-bitten, old-school, or whatever other descriptors you can come up with […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/03/07/choose-my-adventure-starting-out-in-embers-adrift-is-just-as-tough-as-expected/feed/ 12 https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/28/choose-my-adventure-new-tutorials-and-old-habits-see-destiny-2s-hooks-set-in/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/28/choose-my-adventure-new-tutorials-and-old-habits-see-destiny-2s-hooks-set-in/#respond Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=428408 I’m going to admit it to myself: In spite of my misgivings about what awaits me at the endgame, I can feel myself getting wrapped up in Destiny 2 all over again. You know the feeling when you can sense a game’s hooks getting into you? When you realize that you’ve lost a few hours […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/28/choose-my-adventure-new-tutorials-and-old-habits-see-destiny-2s-hooks-set-in/feed/ 0 https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/21/choose-my-adventure-returning-to-destiny-2-was-both-bumpy-and-engaging/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/21/choose-my-adventure-returning-to-destiny-2-was-both-bumpy-and-engaging/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=427455 As we close out this random whim of mine to enter shooter MMOs for this month’s Choose My Adventure, we clear out our list of games with Destiny 2, a shooter title that I didn’t expect to love quite as much as I did when it launched and one that also made it abundantly clear […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/21/choose-my-adventure-returning-to-destiny-2-was-both-bumpy-and-engaging/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/14/choose-my-adventure-slowly-cracking-the-code-of-how-warframe-works/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/14/choose-my-adventure-slowly-cracking-the-code-of-how-warframe-works/#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=426491 For the longest time last week, the Choose My Adventure voting was extremely close – it was at a three-way tie at one point – and by the end of polling this week it was a split between Destiny 2 and Warframe, leading to a coin flip and Warframe getting the nod. This game and […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/14/choose-my-adventure-slowly-cracking-the-code-of-how-warframe-works/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/07/choose-my-adventure-global-agenda-provides-a-classic-mmo-ass-beating/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/07/choose-my-adventure-global-agenda-provides-a-classic-mmo-ass-beating/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=425506 I’ll be one of the first to admit that in spite of my desire to get into a shooter MMO/multiplayer game this month, I’m not particularly skilled at them. You would think that would mean I’d want to stay away from a sub-genre that I am objectively bad at, but once in a while I […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/02/07/choose-my-adventure-global-agenda-provides-a-classic-mmo-ass-beating/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/31/choose-my-adventure-classic-guild-wars-just-makes-me-want-to-play-guild-wars-2/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/31/choose-my-adventure-classic-guild-wars-just-makes-me-want-to-play-guild-wars-2/#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=424413 Well I suppose this was a foregone conclusion if people had been following along with this month’s series of Choose My Adventure articles, but I think I can pretty confidently say that the original Guild Wars is just not meant for me, someone who hasn’t really had deeply fond memories of the game at launch […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/31/choose-my-adventure-classic-guild-wars-just-makes-me-want-to-play-guild-wars-2/feed/ 9 https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/24/choose-my-adventure-landing-on-a-stable-character-in-the-original-guild-wars/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/24/choose-my-adventure-landing-on-a-stable-character-in-the-original-guild-wars/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=423365 Last week in Choose My Adventure, Nightfall proved to be the more suitable starting experience for classic Guild Wars. This week, the Dervish won out in the voting and also turned out to be the suitable class for my playstyle, meaning that the pieces of this game that previously felt disjointed and scattered are finally […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/24/choose-my-adventure-landing-on-a-stable-character-in-the-original-guild-wars/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/17/choose-my-adventure-nightfall-might-end-up-being-the-superior-classic-guild-wars-starting-experience/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/17/choose-my-adventure-nightfall-might-end-up-being-the-superior-classic-guild-wars-starting-experience/#comments Tue, 17 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=422454 I was pretty sure I was going to go into Factions after last week’s Choose My Adventure, but a final surge in voting saw my Classic Guild Wars path shift direction from Prophecies to Nightfall instead. As I wrote last week, this was the campaign that was recommended as the real starting point for the […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/17/choose-my-adventure-nightfall-might-end-up-being-the-superior-classic-guild-wars-starting-experience/feed/ 6 https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/10/choose-my-adventure-how-good-advice-led-to-some-minor-comfort-with-classic-guild-wars/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/10/choose-my-adventure-how-good-advice-led-to-some-minor-comfort-with-classic-guild-wars/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2023 16:15:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=421514 I have to admit, the Choose My Adventure voting did not fall the way I had expected it to last week. Apparently folks were really eager for me to continue in Prophecies during this month’s trip through Classic Guild Wars. That poll result brought up a lot of advice overall, from commenters as well as […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/10/choose-my-adventure-how-good-advice-led-to-some-minor-comfort-with-classic-guild-wars/feed/ 11 https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/03/choose-my-adventure-guild-wars-delivers-a-shock-to-the-system-after-months-in-the-sequel/ https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/03/choose-my-adventure-guild-wars-delivers-a-shock-to-the-system-after-months-in-the-sequel/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2023 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=420830 We’re starting the new year of Choose My Adventure by hopping in to an older game, the original Guild Wars. I’m honestly not too surprised by the results here, especially since last month was all about the sequel. It has been literal years since I’ve even hopped into this game; the first time I fired […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/03/choose-my-adventure-guild-wars-delivers-a-shock-to-the-system-after-months-in-the-sequel/feed/ 16 https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/27/choose-my-adventure-my-time-inside-guild-wars-2s-dungeons-and-elon-riverlands/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/27/choose-my-adventure-my-time-inside-guild-wars-2s-dungeons-and-elon-riverlands/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=420296 It was partially a letdown, partially a surprise in my trip through Guild Wars 2 this time around. The objectives were pretty clear: GO back to the Path of Fire journey and peek at a dungeon or two, and since I was still kind of fixated on base Tyria, I elected to try a couple […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/27/choose-my-adventure-my-time-inside-guild-wars-2s-dungeons-and-elon-riverlands/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/20/choose-my-adventure-all-the-mmos-you-made-us-play-in-2022/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/20/choose-my-adventure-all-the-mmos-you-made-us-play-in-2022/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:30:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=416089 This has been a pretty challenging year for a lot of reasons, and my 2022 in Choose My Adventure certainly didn’t feel any different in that regard. We had a lot of games that were a bit harder than normal to get through, but we got through them together, which is always the strength of […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/20/choose-my-adventure-all-the-mmos-you-made-us-play-in-2022/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-my-stride-in-another-round-of-guild-wars-2-tyria-mapping/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-my-stride-in-another-round-of-guild-wars-2-tyria-mapping/#comments Tue, 13 Dec 2022 19:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=418576 I was almost certain our last Choose My Adventure vote would be a blowout one way or the other, but you fine folks had some pretty differing opinions about what “mapping” in Guild Wars 2 means. Ultimately, base Tyria won out over the Crystal Desert by just three votes, so this week was pretty much […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-my-stride-in-another-round-of-guild-wars-2-tyria-mapping/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/06/choose-my-adventure-going-back-to-guild-wars-2-basics-through-tyria-mapping/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/06/choose-my-adventure-going-back-to-guild-wars-2-basics-through-tyria-mapping/#comments Tue, 06 Dec 2022 18:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=417284 One of the surefire ways I know that I’m loving a game is when I swing my wallet like a shillelagh at it – hence the plush round bird friend you see pictured up there. Another way I know I’m loving a game is when I don’t mind playing catch-up to the wider community. Those […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/12/06/choose-my-adventure-going-back-to-guild-wars-2-basics-through-tyria-mapping/feed/ 2 https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/22/choose-my-adventure-genfanad-is-nostalgic-in-almost-all-of-the-wrong-ways/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/22/choose-my-adventure-genfanad-is-nostalgic-in-almost-all-of-the-wrong-ways/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=415258 I don’t envy any development team that wants to make something that’s “nostalgic.” Making a game that hearkens back to predecessors or a time in gaming history is very clearly a challenging line to toe – any step in one way or the other can make your title either too much of a nuisance or […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/22/choose-my-adventure-genfanad-is-nostalgic-in-almost-all-of-the-wrong-ways/feed/ 2 https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/15/choose-my-adventure-broken-ranks-is-a-grim-and-fascinating-bit-of-rpg-gaming/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/15/choose-my-adventure-broken-ranks-is-a-grim-and-fascinating-bit-of-rpg-gaming/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=414223 Most of the time when you hear something call itself “grim,” “dark,” or “grimdark,” it often translates into being some 17 year-old’s idea of what maturity and adult behavior is like; that is to say, it’s often hyper-violent and actively monstrous simply because people are perceptually dulled to misery by now. That said, my brief […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/15/choose-my-adventure-broken-ranks-is-a-grim-and-fascinating-bit-of-rpg-gaming/feed/ 4 https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/08/choose-my-adventure-mist-legacy-manages-to-somehow-be-both-an-idle-and-punishing-mmorpg/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/08/choose-my-adventure-mist-legacy-manages-to-somehow-be-both-an-idle-and-punishing-mmorpg/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=413277 When I first took a look into Mist Legacy during a livestream, I was both intrigued and charmed. The game basically looked and played like a virtual tabletop program and a classic JRPG combined into one, with a significant emphasis on worldbuilding, lots of text to read, and a potentially interesting overall narrative to dig […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/08/choose-my-adventure-mist-legacy-manages-to-somehow-be-both-an-idle-and-punishing-mmorpg/feed/ 4 https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/01/choose-my-adventure-running-face-first-into-the-brick-wall-that-is-neocron/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/01/choose-my-adventure-running-face-first-into-the-brick-wall-that-is-neocron/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=412228 It’s not often an MMO makes me ragequit, but hoo baby did I ever do that with Neocron. I’ll digest on why I think I noped myself into space over this one, but first I’ll elaborate on just what happened when I first booted the game up. The first half of my time spent with […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/11/01/choose-my-adventure-running-face-first-into-the-brick-wall-that-is-neocron/feed/ 6 https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/25/choose-my-adventure-alone-in-the-crowd-of-lost-arks-endgame/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/25/choose-my-adventure-alone-in-the-crowd-of-lost-arks-endgame/#comments Tue, 25 Oct 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=411051 Even at the max level in Lost Ark, I find that I’m still kind of playing alone. A little bit. Though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Still, it’s hard not to feel let down regardless of the fact. Before I start to process those feelings, let’s get into the second poll’s results, which […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/25/choose-my-adventure-alone-in-the-crowd-of-lost-arks-endgame/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/18/choose-my-adventure-getting-into-the-routine-with-lost-arks-machinist/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/18/choose-my-adventure-getting-into-the-routine-with-lost-arks-machinist/#comments Tue, 18 Oct 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=410004 The polling for last week’s Lost Ark Choose My Adventure was pretty clear: stay in the lower levels and focus on the Machinist. I appreciate the sentiment here; I read the poll results as people hoping to see what else this class is capable of. I have to say that, now in the 20s in […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/18/choose-my-adventure-getting-into-the-routine-with-lost-arks-machinist/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/10/04/choose-my-adventure-returning-to-the-very-beginning-of-lost-ark/ Tue, 04 Oct 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=407824 I’ve been away from Lost Ark long enough that I’m effectively being left in the dust in terms of endgame – presumably, anyway – but I’ve also not been gone so long as to wholesale forget how the game is played. Which, honestly, I’m pretty pleased by. I suppose playing a game for a couple […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/27/choose-my-adventure-temtem-is-just-not-for-me/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/27/choose-my-adventure-temtem-is-just-not-for-me/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=406832 I’ll open with a little personal opinion: I’ve never liked the baseline Pokemon games. It never appealed to me when it first released, the later versions of what all essentially read and looked like the same game didn’t really strike me as all that interesting, and in my opinion there were a large number of […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/27/choose-my-adventure-temtem-is-just-not-for-me/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/20/choose-my-adventure-the-joy-of-hunting-for-new-critters-to-add-to-the-temtem-collection/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/20/choose-my-adventure-the-joy-of-hunting-for-new-critters-to-add-to-the-temtem-collection/#comments Tue, 20 Sep 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=405934 I’m going to be honest, the initial worry when I saw what won last week’s Choose My Adventure poll was that I had already found most of what I could find in Temtem. After all, I was reasonably sure that I was being thorough in the run-up to the first major boss fight of the […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/20/choose-my-adventure-the-joy-of-hunting-for-new-critters-to-add-to-the-temtem-collection/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-the-reset-button-and-getting-hit-in-return-during-temtems-launch/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-the-reset-button-and-getting-hit-in-return-during-temtems-launch/#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=404824 To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting my full reset to the launch version of Temtem to feel too different, but I also was sort of hoping for a little bit of night-and-day difference between last week’s playthrough and this week’s. Still, there were some things that at least felt subtly adjusted. Sort of. As […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/13/choose-my-adventure-hitting-the-reset-button-and-getting-hit-in-return-during-temtems-launch/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/06/choose-my-adventure-getting-the-measure-of-temtems-early-access-build-before-launch/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/06/choose-my-adventure-getting-the-measure-of-temtems-early-access-build-before-launch/#comments Tue, 06 Sep 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=403929 Knowing that the Temtem character I was running was going to be reset at the time of launch, as voted on by you fine folks last week, did kind of dull my drive to dig into the game too deeply before launch, but I nevertheless have a pretty good feel of how the game’s early […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/09/06/choose-my-adventure-getting-the-measure-of-temtems-early-access-build-before-launch/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/30/choose-my-adventure-chimeraland-lets-its-freak-flag-fly-one-last-time/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/30/choose-my-adventure-chimeraland-lets-its-freak-flag-fly-one-last-time/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=402986 You remember how I wrote last week that Chimeraland was becoming comfortable and routine? That its weirdness had sort of become kind of expected but not surprising? Yeah, I was pretty much wrong. It all started earlier this week during the tail end of a livestream I was doing of the game. On a whim, […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/30/choose-my-adventure-chimeraland-lets-its-freak-flag-fly-one-last-time/feed/ 2 https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/23/choose-my-adventure-chimeralands-weirdness-routine-continues-to-become-a-comfortable-cadence/ Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=401951 There’s always a point when you’re playing a new game that things become comfortable. A lot of folks tend to refer to that as an end of a honeymoon, but I kind of dislike the negative context associated with that. What I’m referring to is the point where you’re still enjoying yourself all the same […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/16/choose-my-adventure-making-a-house-and-making-character-progress-in-chimeraland/ Tue, 16 Aug 2022 15:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=400967 This week in Chimeraland was all about growth – not necessarily for my big round boy Chonkhonk but for my abode and for McFishy himself, thanks to the voting public’s suggestion. I kind of figured both of these tasks could be burned in rather short order, but I ended up being pretty incorrect. The first […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/09/choose-my-adventure-the-winding-and-confounding-road-to-make-chonkhonk-stronger-in-chimeraland/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/09/choose-my-adventure-the-winding-and-confounding-road-to-make-chonkhonk-stronger-in-chimeraland/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=399930 I am pretty much resolved to making my round bird mount the strongest it possibly can be. It’s my long-tail goal in Chimeraland – very possibly one I will continue to pursue even after this column’s visit to the game is done. But I have to say that the actual process of getting there isn’t […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/09/choose-my-adventure-the-winding-and-confounding-road-to-make-chonkhonk-stronger-in-chimeraland/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/02/choose-my-adventure-the-monster-eating-adventures-of-mcfishy-the-squid-man-in-chimeraland/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/02/choose-my-adventure-the-monster-eating-adventures-of-mcfishy-the-squid-man-in-chimeraland/#comments Tue, 02 Aug 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=399023 I’ve not had a great deal of time in Chimeraland, but one thing is being made pretty immediately apparent to me: This game really is at its best when you lean in to its general silliness and let it all just flow over you like a wave. Considering that the polling told me to make […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/08/02/choose-my-adventure-the-monster-eating-adventures-of-mcfishy-the-squid-man-in-chimeraland/feed/ 2 https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/26/choose-my-adventure-feeling-like-a-vampire-is-not-the-problem-with-or-the-solution-for-v-rising/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/26/choose-my-adventure-feeling-like-a-vampire-is-not-the-problem-with-or-the-solution-for-v-rising/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=397909 After these few weeks and hours playing V Rising in its early access state at the time of this column’s publishing, I can pretty confidently say that the vampiric power trip that I was enjoying is not the injection of nitrous I was hoping it would be to the overall gameplay engine. Don’t get me […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/26/choose-my-adventure-feeling-like-a-vampire-is-not-the-problem-with-or-the-solution-for-v-rising/feed/ 4 https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/19/choose-my-adventure-customizing-my-v-rising-experience-because-my-other-server-was-closed/ Tue, 19 Jul 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=396768 As that title would suggest, the V Rising server that I was originally playing on just decided to go kaput. The people who were running it clearly were not into the game and so elected to shut down their server, it would seem. All of that progress gone in a flash. However, this ended up […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/12/choose-my-adventure-boredom-and-frustration-rear-their-head-in-v-rising/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/12/choose-my-adventure-boredom-and-frustration-rear-their-head-in-v-rising/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2022 15:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=395727 This week, V Rising decided to remind me why I deeply dislike survival sandboxes. It all started off pedestrian enough for the most part. Over the course of time, I managed to finally scrape together the materials needed to build a proper castle with stone and a roof and everything. It was nice to finally […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/12/choose-my-adventure-boredom-and-frustration-rear-their-head-in-v-rising/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/05/choose-my-adventure-v-rising-provides-moments-of-chaos-and-comfort/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/05/choose-my-adventure-v-rising-provides-moments-of-chaos-and-comfort/#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=394975 There’s often a moment I’ve experienced when playing survival sandboxes where I hit my stride. The mechanics make perfect sense, I have a plan for what I want and the things I need to get there, and progression kind of just hums along forward. That’s where I’m currently at in my run through V Rising, […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/07/05/choose-my-adventure-v-rising-provides-moments-of-chaos-and-comfort/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/28/choose-my-adventure-forewarned-is-forearmed-in-my-return-foray-to-v-rising/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/28/choose-my-adventure-forewarned-is-forearmed-in-my-return-foray-to-v-rising/#comments Tue, 28 Jun 2022 17:30:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=393924 There’s something extremely valuable in hitting a reset button when you’re able to. Failure is always an option in MMOs and multiplayer titles, to be sure, but sometimes you have to ball up what you were doing before and start from scratch, learning from the prior mistakes of an initial run and applying those lessons […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/28/choose-my-adventure-forewarned-is-forearmed-in-my-return-foray-to-v-rising/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/21/choose-my-adventure-what-final-fantasy-xi-taught-me-about-games-preservation-and-the-good-old-days/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/21/choose-my-adventure-what-final-fantasy-xi-taught-me-about-games-preservation-and-the-good-old-days/#comments Tue, 21 Jun 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=392867 Well. This has been a journey. I wasn’t really expecting my return trip to Final Fantasy XI to be all sunshine, rainbows, and easy street, but I also was clearly not prepared for the wall that would be in my way, like the parapets of an old castle from ages long ago that still manage […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/21/choose-my-adventure-what-final-fantasy-xi-taught-me-about-games-preservation-and-the-good-old-days/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/14/choose-my-adventure-final-fantasy-xi-shows-its-age-and-its-nostalgia-in-equal-measure/ Tue, 14 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=392002 Once again, this week in Final Fantasy XI continues to deliver nostalgia and aggravation in mostly equal amounts. First off, I will admit that deciding to switch back to a gamepad has been both a great idea and an annoying one. First off, it appeared that my gamepad wasn’t working correctly, meaning I had to […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/07/choose-my-adventure-slow-going-through-final-fantasy-xis-more-recently-added-systems/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/07/choose-my-adventure-slow-going-through-final-fantasy-xis-more-recently-added-systems/#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=391041 First thing’s first: I have sorted out the way the aspect ratio option works. No more squished kitty! You’d think that’d be a pretty easy option to figure out, and it ultimately was, but I also wasn’t really ready to have to use the arrow keys to adjust it instead of, you know, my mouse […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/06/07/choose-my-adventure-slow-going-through-final-fantasy-xis-more-recently-added-systems/feed/ 2 https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/31/choose-my-adventure-the-long-awaited-and-slightly-bumpy-return-to-final-fantasy-xi/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/31/choose-my-adventure-the-long-awaited-and-slightly-bumpy-return-to-final-fantasy-xi/#comments Tue, 31 May 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=390221 So as you can see, I got Final Fantasy XI working. More specifically, I got the help of our resident expert on all things FF MMORPGs. I’ll not drone on about the whole annoying process again – I’ve already said my peace on that – but I will at least confirm that the solution was […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/31/choose-my-adventure-the-long-awaited-and-slightly-bumpy-return-to-final-fantasy-xi/feed/ 6 https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/24/choose-my-adventure-sampling-a-quick-serving-of-player-creativity-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/24/choose-my-adventure-sampling-a-quick-serving-of-player-creativity-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/#comments Tue, 24 May 2022 15:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=389223 Even though City of Heroes Rebirth is a smaller rogue server in comparison to others out there, I was happy to notice that there were some people who decided to put together some missions in the Architect Entertainment feature. I was also happy that the polls from last week saw fit to let me take […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/24/choose-my-adventure-sampling-a-quick-serving-of-player-creativity-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/17/choose-my-adventure-some-classic-mission-running-in-the-city-of-heroes-rebirth-rogue-server/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/17/choose-my-adventure-some-classic-mission-running-in-the-city-of-heroes-rebirth-rogue-server/#comments Tue, 17 May 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=388232 So yes, it would appear that missions are indeed the most rewarding thing to do in City of Heroes: Rebirth. That would probably be the end of it all, but then that’s not really much of an article, is it? To be fair, though, uncovering that isn’t much of an article either, and I have […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/17/choose-my-adventure-some-classic-mission-running-in-the-city-of-heroes-rebirth-rogue-server/feed/ 1 https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/10/choose-my-adventure-my-life-as-a-guardian-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/10/choose-my-adventure-my-life-as-a-guardian-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/#comments Tue, 10 May 2022 17:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=387292 Can the introduction of a completely different class change the entire makeup of an MMO’s experience? That is often the bet pushed forward by other games like Black Desert or Lost Ark, but somehow when I rolled up a Guardian character on the City of Heroes rogue server Rebirth, the decision felt more impactful than other […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/10/choose-my-adventure-my-life-as-a-guardian-in-city-of-heroes-rebirth/feed/ 3 https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/03/choose-my-adventure-final-fantasy-xis-playonline-decides-to-not-let-me-play-online/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/03/choose-my-adventure-final-fantasy-xis-playonline-decides-to-not-let-me-play-online/#comments Tue, 03 May 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=386212 This was not how I was expecting to return to Final Fantasy XI. I always knew about the completely goofball account system that is PlayOnline – this game was the one where I cut my teeth on the MMORPG genre, and I played on my PS2 for a number of years, but I was keenly […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/05/03/choose-my-adventure-final-fantasy-xis-playonline-decides-to-not-let-me-play-online/feed/ 7 https://massivelyop.com/2022/04/26/choose-my-adventure-a-walk-into-the-yellow-zones-and-realm-warfare-in-albion-online/ https://massivelyop.com/2022/04/26/choose-my-adventure-a-walk-into-the-yellow-zones-and-realm-warfare-in-albion-online/#comments Tue, 26 Apr 2022 16:30:00 +0000 https://massivelyop.com/?p=385322 After all of the time I’ve spent in my return trip to Albion Online, I can comfortably say that it’s not the kind of sandbox game that I can get in to. However, that’s not because I feel like I’m being pushed out or made to feel unwelcome, necessarily; it’s more just a matter of […]]]> https://massivelyop.com/2022/04/26/choose-my-adventure-a-walk-into-the-yellow-zones-and-realm-warfare-in-albion-online/feed/ 3