breetoplay

@nbrianna.bsky.social got heavy back into GW 1 with this revival. It's so amazing to see the game brimming with people.

Got me thinking.

This time of year is really hard for a lot of us. Playing an old game allows me to feel nostalgia without pain.

That's harder than it should be to find

Hear, hear. This is one of the reasons I really dislike the idea that gaming for nostalgia's sake is bad. Holy crap let people play and sooth their hurts with nostalgia if that's what works for them. I am so glad you're finding a cozy home for the season! <3

Rereading this still hits me like a ton of bricks. Eliot did good work.

Totally, if you can either luck into (or can train yourself) to think "curation" over "collection," it's much easier to be like "nope, not cute enough, easy pass, next!"

Somehow I have already jumped a different toon ahead to Bava Nisos - I'm not sure how I did it! Maybe teleport-to-friend? :D The artists did an AMAZING job, don't get me wrong, but it's so unnerving. <3

Oh that looks way fancier than what we're having. Delish! <3

Yes this! I just want to sit back and drink my eggnog and listen to a podcast or watch a movie and click and be content. Fishing and chill.

I have read people say that eventually you memorize the patterns of the fish panic spasm, but mehhhhhhhhhhh.

Ug yeah. I'm not even sure how exactly I would change it, either. I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a *good* fishing mechanic in an MMO - but I do know I'd rather have boring than annoying. It could be such a relaxing thing, but no.

Oh man I dunno - editorials and reviews are much more expensive to run than news. I'd almost see that as a good sign! :D

Yeah, same - had noticed the "going for pennies/peanuts" etc. spam for a while, but this weekend, it seemed worse, so I isolated it and yikes. I empathize with the need to make money, but a gaming blog with only ad posts is not a gaming blog. :D

As if regular ads don't suck enough! Ours do!

last two days of Kotaku's feed, all ad spam

last two days of IGN's feeds, almost entirely ad spam

Kotaku and IGN just awash in ad spam now. Good luck finding the gaming posts in that morass.

PC Gamer, Eurogamer, RPS don't look like this fwiw. (And neither do we.)

Hey at least people stopped sending us weird stuff about his tax liens. Nobody Pepe Silvias like gamers who wanna watch the world burn and have too much time on their hands.

Extremely cool, like playing Ultima Online in 1997 (earnest)! Also nice to see Blizzard catching up to pre-millennium MMORPG ideas (exhausted)!

I am so hyped.... and a little concerned about making my heroes do stuff on my SteamDeck. Oh no... :D

Totally. It was a piece on the collapse of mid-budget movies that provoked me to write that initial post 10 years ago, and it's only getting worse in both sectors.

If you don't step in to control it, the chaoslords will do it for you, and you will live to watch them burn it all down. Thirty years of online communities proves it over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Yep, that's exactly what happens. When they can't get funding for big, high-quality games, people start pumping out indies hoping to get lucky, making it an even worse time for indie devs too. They're not the problem, though; they're the symptom.

Basically, what's been happening to MMORPGs over the last 10 years is happening to the rest of the industry now.

massivelyop.com/2015/02/20/w...

Some mainstreamers (not Tomas) are hoping it's just an MMORPG problem, but we were just the canary in the coal mine b/c of the timescales involved.

I have been on a rit the last few days too, and I love it! Luminary was fun in beta too. So much is account-wide in GW2 that you can have several main alts w/o much lossiness. Having a few mains makes leveling masteries painless too. I have ~5 that I sink time into, but some people have dozens.

I think it's better than a lot of people thought based on past rumors (which is also why I am suspicious of it. :P).

Oh one clarification - the bunny isn't perfect, but you'll be surprised how far it can get you, esp. post-EOD, since Anet put in lots of ziplines. The warclaw from Janthir, too, can get you most places you need (and it's less work than the skyscale). Skyscale is the best, though! You got options!

I am not! I have a shell guild of people who don't play, so it's mostly my kids and me, hehe. But I see a lot of guilds recruiting, and guilds are flexible (because you can join more than one). I say pull a Justin and join several to get a feel for them to find one that does your content!

I would say try to get the big bundle on sale when they're all cheap! Maybe over Thanksgiving? But if you wanna buy in an order, I would do either SOTO or POF next, specifically for the mounts. Post-EOD expansions are accessible without, but having a skyscale (or bunny) makes a big difference IMO.

It's dawning on me that not only has my generation (1970-2000) been singularly lucky in terms of peace & prosperity before the Skynet age, we've also experienced a singular window of opportunity for MMORPGs.
We were the perfect audience with a working attention span. It is basically over now. 😬

I think it's worse! It's not that it's unenjoyable, just not joyous, maybe. It taps into my obsessive hyperfocus and not necessarily my joy. I am trying to do more joy. I need it. :D

🌟👩‍🍳🍳 manifesting 🍳👩‍🍳🌟

It was the only cheek I allowed myself in this post. :P

Wow also never heard of it, but I have now! That is a hell of a cast on an obscure flick.

Always crediting vias, tipsters, and sources was absolutely drilled into my brain by the OG Joystiq and Massively crews, and I ain't quitting, even if we live in the "steal everything that isn't nailed down" era now! There's just a few sites that still keep the old ways. We see you.

I had so, so much more fun playing this past spring than I did at launch. It's much more fleshed out now, and tons of people populating servers. :D