This week, there were some interesting posts about games in (early) testing- namely Atlas Reactor and Black Desert Online, a discussion about solo play in MMORGs and ingame adventures from The Secret World and Final Fantasy XIV as well as some thoughts about map/zone design.
Beta Impressions
Black Desert Online’s reception seems to remain mostly positive, although i have to say Ironweakness’ impressions were worse than i expected while still being quite positive all things considered, while Syl mostly worries about cash shop prices and PvP but still thinks BDO can deliver in terms of exploration.
Atlas Reactor is a game i’m somewhat eyeing: a turn-based multiplayer battle arena sounds like fun! So i was happy to see Nerdy Bookah’s First Impressions review of the game- and it seems they’re quite impressed. While i’m generally quite forgiving and not too bothered by cash shop weirdness, these days i’m not entirely sure Trion has a good plan for earning money with the game. Having no plan – or a bad one- might result in some strange moves on the way to figuring it out. Other than that, though, i’ll probably check it out sooner or later.
Opinion
There are a few topics in MMO-land that surface from time to time- one being the Solo-play-in-MMOs-topic. However, i think it isn’t boring or tiring at all, because perspectives and game design shift all the time- just take a look at the way SWTOR does things now. This week, Wolfy wrote about solo dancing after Syl asked why people would play an MMO solo.
J3w3l took Ironweakness’ post about zone fatigue and shares her own thoughts on that, stating that she doesn’t feel it as much when maps change themes slowly instead of shifting from one map design to another.
Ingame Adventures
Syp brings us another tale from The Secret World, this time revolving around the quest “Wetware” which takes place in Tokyo. Aywren shares her observation that sometimes, healers are killjoys in pick-up-groups. Personally, i’ve had much worse experiences with tanks- and WoW hunters, and healers are probably more sensitive because wipes will ultimately be blamed on them, but i can still see where she’s coming from. Ironweakness takes a look back at the games he played in 2015- this week’s post was about Final Fantasy XIV.
Party Business 