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This website is intended to be an easy way for me to write reviews, commentary and general opinions and post them without having to worry about losing them. I'll figure out a better layout soon, so it's not just a giant wall of text on the first page. I might even link images or show openers, but we'll see. I don't want this to become work, just something fun to do while I enjoy stuff.
For now, new sections will be added to this page at the bottom, and slowly sorted into their pages. If you're looking for new stuff, scroll down - I bold every new section.
To Do
Add separate pages, sorting by medium, add relevant images and screenshots to reviews. This isn't a job, just a side hobby, but I'd like some organization and flair.
General Thoughts on MMORPGS
Here are some generalized, vague thoughts on MMOs, Everquest, and what makes progression in a video game satisfying to me.
The thoughts:
- MMORPGs are a genre of game designed to around these core pillars: 1) They are virtual hangouts that provide a sense of place so that people want to log into the game and open up its in-game chat and say hi to their friends. 2) They provide activities for players to do so they aren't just sitting doing nothing in a chat room. 3) The activities they provide have progress benchmarks (achievements, per se) so that players have a sense of progression that they can brag about. 4) Not a deliberate design goal but a side effect of being a program that requires money to host, run, and develop content for: there must be a lot of content in an MMORPG. If players "win" the game with max stats and all quests complete, they will not return, so they must not be able to 100% it. (...permanently. Final Fantasy 14 has shown that "you have finished it, come back next year for the next expansion" is a viable structure.)
- Everquest is a MMORPG from 1999 that is still, despite the odds, up and running... but it is also clearly a dead game on life support. Why? Because it has not modernized and does not have enough video game in its design to attract new players. It is, to an absurd degree, meant to be discord but in 1999. This is best demonstrated in how its primary gameplay loop is grinding. And I don't mean clicking on rats until your character levels up, I mean going "I am level 18 and should be here" and trekking slowly to that zone, then clicking on rats for days. And these zones are massive, and combat is mostly automated with auto-attack and so on, so that you are grinding while chatting with your friends.
And I seriously mean trekking, travel between areas is lengthy with (afaik) no mount system. You go slow in this game. The graphics are nice but not that nice, either. There is more, of course, to Everquest. I'm not going to cover all of it. I'm going to instead say that it has failed a fundamental promise that I expect out of an MMO: that your progress will exist, forever.
- The longevity of anything online is a lie. I know this. Setting aside facts like my mortal lifespan or the heat death of the universe, we're still left with these facts: hosting even the simplest of content online on the internet costs money. Someone has to host the server, pay the bill, keep the electricity running. So without becoming existentially depressed, let's focus instead on a comforting illusion: if you undertake a lengthy project, and set it down for whatever reason, you can return in a year or two and find it where you left it. Perhaps dusty, but intact. The same goes for video games and online content. I trust that I can log back into my Guild Wars 2 account today and find my characters where I left them. I trust that I can load my computer and find my save files for Factorio. I trust that I can go downstairs and pick up my notebook and find my draft exactly how I left it. As an MMO, Guild Wars 2 is in the most precarious position of these projects, but I trust - from its already lengthy track-record as a stable MMO - that it will continue to exist. The company in charge of it has gone out of their way to support their games for years. Guild Wars 1 is still up. 2 is still up, and their primary cash cow. Whenever 3 hits, I trust that they will continue to host 2, if only because enough people will keep giving them money in order to justify the cost of hosting it. This doesn't account for out of context problems, but barring nuclear war I can look forward to picking up that game whenever I want, as little or as often as I want.
This matters to MMOs more than other games, based on their very nature: they're extremely long-form projects you cannot reasonably complete. I can back up my Factorio save, even the version of the game and the mods I was using. I can't do that for an MMO. I know I can get into the world of emulating and hosting my own server, but that's a level of difficulty I'm not willing to tackle currently. So the idea that the game will be there in the future matters more to me. And yes! I know that by the very nature of my brain that I am unlikely to finish any MMO, or consistently stay with a lengthy, difficult project. ADHD is like that. But in order for me to comfortably start any of these projects, I need the dream to be plausible. If I start a novel, I can finish it. If I create a new alt on Guild Wars 2, I can level it without anyone removing that progress. If I can't have that dream, it nags at me. It bothers me, like a rock in my shoe, and prevents me from settling into my groove of having fun.
- Everquest is run by a company that is not taking care of it. Yes, it receives new content. Yes, it receives new servers. Yes, it is monetized so the company is making money. The facts would seem to disagree with me, yet - yet I do not feel that it has any permanence. Why? Because, frankly, the sheer emptiness of the servers I play in get to me. I don't play MMOs for the social aspect, yet without it I feel adrift. I am a stranger in a crowd, watching chat fly along, helping with co-op segments, etcetera. If I roll up to a world boss in Guild Wars 2 and no one shows up, there's no point in playing. Everquest is empty. Every city, every location, global chat. I am wandering an abandoned world. All of the players are in high-level zones or paid servers or private servers.
And so, while playing, there is a persistent intrusive thought: the company will wake up one day, realize the game is dead, and kill it. True or not, it prevents me from playing.
What about those private servers? Well, they're present and full of players and busy, but they present the other side of the coin: these are being run by fans, and will only exist as long as they have the time, resources, and will to keep it up. They're people with an unproven track record, and - well, we're back to my own insecurity. "Now host the game yourself, with an emulated server! If they can do it, so can you!" Yes. We are, once again, back to the final topic of this essay.
- What makes progression in a video game satisfying to me? Obviously this varies by game. Play Tetris with me and discover that I don't care about improving my skill at tetris or chasing scores, I'm playing it for fun. Play a visual novel and I'm playing it to see how the story unfolds. Play Factorio and it's to follow all of the logistic chains until my rocket launches. I am the kind of person who plays a game to have a satisfying experience, not necessarily a fun one. I'll put up with an unfun time in order to experience something, such as Indika, which is deliberately anti-fun to fuel its storytelling. Some games ask me to work on improving my skill at the game until I'm satisfied - optimizing solutions, understanding mechanics, etcetera - but in general I came for the experience, and I decide how far I go.
One of the aspects of video games I find most fulfilling is that initial tutorialization process. I think, in some ways, it might be the most fun part of a video game for me! It's the classic ADHD reason again: new things excite me, learning is fun, and I will obsessively chase down a subject until I know enough to become familiar, and then I am bored and it's time to find something new. So, of course, MMOs are catnip to me. Gigantic games full of content, built to be comfortable treadmills that offer new things on a regular basis. Learning how all of the systems work in something like Final Fantasy 14 took me hundreds of happy hours. And I don't mean just gameplay! Does the game work on my computer? How is the membership fee, do I have to pay, how does that work? Once I'm into the game, what's the UI, how are the controls, how does it feel to play? Then we get into things like learning how combat works, how crafting works, how exploration works, how progression works... and the story! The lore of the world, everything about it. On and on, there is so much to learn, so much to entertain me. Tetris is a toy by comparison, something I can learn and know the whole of in ten minutes. (Which is not to say Tetris is inferior! Tetris is explicitly what it is and nothing more. A rubber ball is not worse than a race car, and if I wake up and want to throw that ball around the yard, by god I'll enjoy that more than the race car!)
Everquest is fascinatingly obtuse. Combat has so many calculations going on, and skills to track that it does not tell you about. The UI is fiddly. Maps are huge. Don't get me started on crafting, or drop rates. I can feel my brain latching on to how much there is to grasp. It's a slow, terrible grind blockaded by the intrusive thought that the official servers are dead and the private ones are transient. It's a game played only by those who have already poured thousands of hours into it, so I won't be able to exist in a community while I play it without sacrificing my comfort.
- I think, ultimately, this is what I am wrestling with. Forbidden fruit, where the barriers aren't just on my end. Most of the time I can assess a potential experience and decide if I want to get into it fairly quickly. I can, at minimum, at least come away from a game within half an hour knowing if I want to put another half hour in. Long-form games make this more difficult, of course - try getting into Persona 4 in just half an hour. MMOs are in a weird state where you can assess them in half an hour, but you won't know the full extent of the depth for hundreds of hours. So I can play a game like, say, Runescape and know in that short time frame if I want to keep going. "Leveling up this skill felt fun, and the quest text was funny, so I would like to see more of it," I can conclude. (And Runescape's barriers to entry are simple: that game is alive, making money, and still going. I can play as much as I want, and if I decide to pay for membership, I can assess it on my own terms when I'm ready.)
My first half hour of Everquest was confusion, more confusion, and some of the slowest gameplay I've ever seen, and I don't mean animation speeds or how long it took to kill something. I don't mean how long it took for me to read a guide. I mean in that just navigating the city I was in took time to travel, figuring out what to prioritize was a struggle - just, so much of it is obtuse in ways I haven't seen outside of King's Field or other games of the era. This is not a negative! This is a challenge! But it isn't necessarily fun? I'm left feeling confused. Which is part of why I'm writing all this. I was going to keep it as a private journal entry, then it was all... no, let's hash this out. Or rather, let me hash this out in a public space. If you read this, take the time to think about how you enjoy games, and if you like the learning process, and so on.
- MMOs fascinate me. Everything about their design is such a symptom of the modern age. We want to reach out to other people, find communities, exist in public spaces. We want to have fun, and wave at neighbors. But in 2025 America, there are fewer and fewer third spaces. Go to work, go home, go to work, go home. Transit to work is in a private vehicle, probably. Home is isolated. So come home, go to your computer and log onto an MMO and there's your community. Even as software like discord erodes the function of MMOs, they live on because of what they offer: that third space. Log into Guild Wars 2 to find friends working on their legendary weapon, running fractals, exploring. It's all fun, it's all at their own pace, so join in and chat with them while you work on your own goals. Even if you wind up doing most of the chat with your friends in discord while you play, that's still - you're sharing experiences, hanging out. Socialization in a modern electronic age.
Remove the social aspect and what's left? A lot more than you'd realize: a genre hybrid that doesn't really exist outside of MMORPGs. Take Final Fantasy 14 as an example. Name me one video game that contains: a full jrpg narrative arc, with dramatic boss battles, lots of side quests, NPCs to talk to, etc...and in the same game, simultaneously, a full crafting system with multiple crafting jobs to work on, alongside a full PVP mode (full of players!), with a full roster of minigames (mahjong, platforming, racing, etc), and a housing system so you can customize your own little virtual hangout space. I'm sure there's more I'm leaving out, but the point is: MMORPGs are overstuffed by design. You log in and go "today I will enjoy activity 5, out of a list of 200 choices" complete with interlinked progression - rewards in one area contribute to another one, with currency or cosmetics or skill points or so on tying it all together. The full casino experience in one game, with no reason to leave. For all that's positive and negative about this model, there's something captivating about its ambition. I guess my closest comparison would be deliberate compilations like UFO 50, or just buying a random set of games on steam, but - again, no cohesion. Most games, indie or AAA, try to create a coherent experience. Slay the Spire is about shaping your deck while surviving turn based battles. Doom 2016 is about engaging first person shooting. They don't have any desire to bolt on a rhythm dance game, or any other modes - and by god they should not!
I also want to emphasize that MMORPGs aren't trying to be party games, either. Most of the activities they offer are as deep and complex as any full video game would be, because if they were quick little minigames you'd move on, and stop playing, and whoops you're not paying your monthly subscription fee or logging in.
The evil and the good: these games are designed to be bloated, complex monsters (yet with a friendly, fun, streamlined process so you can get into them easily) that occupy your life forever. You are supposed to bring your friends and make friends and learn the lingo and be excited by all of it. I'm fascinated. I'm wary. I am, in some ways, completely safe from their predatory ways by being ADHD as I will inevitably jump ship and leave because I enjoy learning about new things too much, and MMOs can't be new and complex forever. But - that's okay too.
In conclusion - I would love to learn more about how MMORPGs are designed, and why they're designed like that. I'll seek out more GDC talks about it, I suppose. Everquest remains an open question and I'll probably figure out how to run a private server at some point, just because I'm too fascinated to look away. I'll keep picking up and putting down Guild Wars 2 and Runescape as I go between fascinated and bored as the cycle turns. I will continue to be frustrated at how monthly subscription fees are difficult for me, as the obligation of spending money makes me feel like I need to wring all of the value out of the purchase, but that's not how I enjoy playing these games. Playing Final Fantasy daily was exhausting and I don't want to return to that.
In conclusion, there is a piece of me that's still looking for some extremely long comfort game to put time into, where I grind and grind and work towards varying goals and see number go up, and be rewarded with new zones to explore, new quests to read, but without stressing me out or boring me. This ideal will probably never exist because of how I work, but I keep looking anyways - it's the same desire that drives me to read extremely long books, or watch very long TV shows, because I do love the idea of mentally 'living' in a world like that for so long. (Because I do, for some franchises, and at this point watching an episode of Star Trek makes me feel like I'm coming home, even though it's all actors on a screen performing a script written decades ago.)
In conclusion, there's a lot of choices about what to do with your time, and instead of choice paralysis I am engaging in consuming the entire buffet all the time. Or something. I don't know, but life is cool and there's so much cool stuff to look at and play and think about. Anyways, good night, website! Hopefully I'll return with another review or essay or something soon. -5/4/2025