Back in high school a bunch of friends and I were all playing WoW, it was the early days of TBC at the time. I'd get home and log into WoW before I even ate anything, just to check the friends list and see who was already on. 

Usually somebody would whisper me asking what we were doing today, and we would group up for some world pvp shenanigans or dungeons. I can’t count the number of times I ran people through scarlet monastery, literally got sick of the place. But in hindsight, I actually remember many evenings where we would literally just hang out and show each other cool spots in the game, not really doing any of the “content”. It just felt amazing having this other world to explore with my friends.

We all stopped playing eventually (I dropped near the end of wrath) but everyone misses those days. We kind of migrated our group to discord and we still hang out there all the time, but we don’t really have that one game we all play anymore. Lately we have been talking about trying to find a game we could hang out in like that. We were thinking about hosting a minecraft server potentially, but also talking about trying an MMO again, something casual this time. A few people in our group are saying we should all try Loftia when it comes out, they played the playtest when it was going and really liked it. To me it looks good, I always liked the floating island zones in WoW like netherstorm.

I don't have experience with these types of MMOs since I only really played WoW and GW2. None of us really have time for “proper” MMOs like that anymore, and we are kind of over the whole gear treadmill kind of loop. It’s kinda funny I used to look down on anything casual (which is funny cuz wow was pretty casual looking back) but now it really sounds appealing to play something like that, with no pressure of gear or levels to fall behind in.

Did anyone else have that kind of experience with MMOs when they were younger? All my friends were playing and I have so many fun memories of all sorts of stupid in game stuff that went on, I hope we can recreate that magic at least a bit.

Get them beep boobs at it. Who the fuck cares about Adobe

After raising nearly $40 million and developing for years, why doesn't Stars Reach feel better to someone who has spent decades playing MMORPGs?

I’m very sad about the state of the MMO(RPG) community because I remember the days where it used to be different. Where it used to be fun and like an adventure.

But those days are over and the people don’t even realize the irony behind it.

You want to have the nostalgic feeling from the old MMORPGs from your childhood. The adventure, the sense of changing the world and be the strongest and hence play WoW (Classic, Forever, whatever).

But you don’t think like in that time. You don’t think about killing mobs because it’s fun. You don’t think about running around the town and using emotes. You don’t think about having deep conversations with the person that you got to know 15 mins ago while grinding.

All you think about is how to “get ahead fast”, how to min max your equipment, where to grind to get to max level the fastest.

Not the journey is the goal anymore. The goal is the goal.

That’s why you cannot enjoy any MMO anymore. You take your days off of work and put in the hours when a new MMORPG is launched.

“Oh Aion2/Lost Ark/New World/… gets launched, let’s try it out”

After having 40h in 3 days you slowly realize you’re doing the same over and over. Everything starts feeling like a chore. You burnt out.

But you have to keep up to not “be behind”!!! But for who? And why do you think you have to be the strongest? Why is no newly released MMORPG in the last years enough for you?

“Because it lacks of content.”, you say. “Because it’s designed to get money out of me”.

While partly true, I think it’s more than that. It’s that you are desperately trying to have the dream MMO from your childhood and you don’t give a chance to anything less than that.

How about we go back to enjoy MMOs again? How about we go back to focus on the journey and not on the goal again? That would be so healing for this community.

PS: English is not my native language.

How far away are we from getting a personal companion with AI where we can personalize their personalities, traits and uses. Or if it’s even possible? I recently rewatched the anime Overlord and thought “damn with how AI has been progressing how far away are we from getting something similar from the minions/champions from the anime overlord.” I think the closest concept to this ive seen is from Dragon’s Dogma, but even with the 2nd title that came out a couple years ago it still felt alil one dimensional? So a question to all experts/dev in this area, how far away are we and if its even possible to cram all it in a game?

Seems like Wonderbane is heading into an open beta this week. If you like Shadowbane stop on by do a search for Wonderbane for more information.

I've always wondered what makes "open world" feel good? Like if i watch an isekai RPG, it seems like any random path I might take feels pretty fun? (or may be fun?) Im sure thats narrative at work but what about games? I know being able to find random artifacts or stuff makes it.. kinda worth it at first but what about late game? Do you guys feel like exploring every inch of the land is worth it from early to late game?

And what about real life? Personally I love the idea of being able to collect anything around me and be able to manipulate them.

Can you guys tell me what makes "open world" worth it? Especially when off the beaten path. Would it really be worth making the world soo vast when most people wouldn't bother combing through a giant forest?