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CuddleCryptid posted:I signed up to fight and die for the glory of the Yellow Adders because their city is relaxing. I also chose to die for the chill wood
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Sep 20, 2023 16:46
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That Little Demon posted:“Solved” by making it extremely boring not fun bullshit, sure. FFXIV tick rate/animation first damage second makes it extremely bad.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:05
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Factions are fine, older games did it best: factions offer a baseline level of interaction with the wider world, but you can distinguish yourself by joining or allying with factions yourself as well based on your ingame actions and who you help/kill. It's cool to have big and small races who physically interact with the world in different ways by struggling to fit through hallways or having trouble to walk up stairs in areas inhabited by larger sized races, as long as racial differences are used for flavor and don't become must-haves or annoying. Player factions provide some shared storytelling you can't skip past, and which you can interpret/use as you want. EQ1 for all its flaws and lack of game design conventions at the time really had some absolute masterstrokes. In EQ1, factions are roughly aligned with good/evil, with deities across the spectrum. Necromancers (and warrior-necro hybrids, Shadowknights,) are considered evil, but you can be a good race necromancer. This would ordinarily mean you would be kill-on-sight in your own starting town. This was solved by essentially creating little necro-enclaves in most cities. Little cultist settlements inside sewers hidden by illusory walls, secret magic schools inside caves with lots of undead mobs wandering outside, etc. You're not forced to stay there either, since you get invisibility spells early on, and conveniently enough, most city guards do not see through invisibility, though of course the ones surrounding the Paladin/Cleric guilds do. You're also always able to check whether an NPC can see you when invisible. All those little details add tons of inconveniences to the game. You can't start where you want, there's fewer vendors, you can't play with your friends right from level 1 if they're another faction. But you're given enough options to overcome those inconveniences, you're never 'stuck', and actually overcoming those hurdles teaches you stuff about the game as well.
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Sep 20, 2023 17:39
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lineage 2 was funny because orcs started in bumfuck nowhere and you'd never meet anyone else until like level 30, and they were last on the list of races so i bet most people picked something else because they never scrolled that far, so even post-30 they were quite rare but they had insanely broken spellcasters. where other races had supports that had to hand out a dozen buffs one person at a time and took like 3 minutes and then had to sit down to regen mp, warcryer/overlord had partywide buffs and they would just equip an axe or a polearm and go to town along with the other melees because their light armour mastery gave them stupid mana regen even in combat
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Sep 20, 2023 17:55
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an iksar marauder posted:Factions are fine, older games did it best: factions offer a baseline level of interaction with the wider world, but you can distinguish yourself by joining or allying with factions yourself as well based on your ingame actions and who you help/kill. It's cool to have big and small races who physically interact with the world in different ways by struggling to fit through hallways or having trouble to walk up stairs in areas inhabited by larger sized races, as long as racial differences are used for flavor and don't become must-haves or annoying. Player factions provide some shared storytelling you can't skip past, and which you can interpret/use as you want. this post is quality. faction grinding was a wonderful RP/flavor thing as well. It was mildly impressive seeing a troll or ogre sitting at the Freeport gate, untouched by guards in the early days. later on when faction grinding became a thing to do for advancement, I had a lot of fun going off the beaten path and factioning as friendly to Kael (as a Warrior worshipping Rallos Zek, of course!) and getting the Kael-specific armor instead of the usual Coldain->Dragon route.
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Sep 20, 2023 19:51
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Note that I don't think using your MMO to tell a specific story to players, and using the persistent online shared world as a backdrop to that, is bad or wrong or anything. To me the idea of a shared online world kind of screams 'sandbox', giving players the option to do what they want and create their own social structures which will inevitably result in feuds, alliances, slapfights, etc, all with the mechanics of a game underneath it to give players a way to channel those feelings into in-game actions. But I realize that setups like these result in wildly inconsistent gameplay experiences, with players in less-populous time zones, players who are a little less socially forward etc, or just players unlucky enough to be targeted for any reason whatsoever, getting the short end of the stick. I think panning specific games isn't really a cool way to use this thread, though, personal opinions aside. One of the ways in which I passed some downtime recently involved playing old MMOs and just seeing what was iterated on, and what was left behind. Some stuff that was left behind one way or another over the years actually is pretty cool. Take spell reagents. Nobody uses spell reagents anymore in newer MMOs, because older systems essentially turned them into trading inconvenience/doing chores for power. But builder/spender rotations are extremely common in newer MMOs, and there are some similarities there. Is there a way to get the aesthetic of 'spellcaster using bag of esoteric reagents to create magic' without it feeling like a chore, or detracting from gameplay? I imagine you'd need the ability to conjure them up on the fly, and also they'd need to disappear on logout, else prep work would become either optimal or mandatory.
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Sep 20, 2023 20:13
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an iksar marauder posted:Note that I don't think using your MMO to tell a specific story to players, and using the persistent online shared world as a backdrop to that, is bad or wrong or anything. To me the idea of a shared online world kind of screams 'sandbox', giving players the option to do what they want and create their own social structures which will inevitably result in feuds, alliances, slapfights, etc, all with the mechanics of a game underneath it to give players a way to channel those feelings into in-game actions. But I realize that setups like these result in wildly inconsistent gameplay experiences, with players in less-populous time zones, players who are a little less socially forward etc, or just players unlucky enough to be targeted for any reason whatsoever, getting the short end of the stick. This, so much this.
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Sep 20, 2023 20:14
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Truga posted:lineage 2 was funny because orcs started in bumfuck nowhere and you'd never meet anyone else until like level 30, and they were last on the list of races so i bet most people picked something else because they never scrolled that far, so even post-30 they were quite rare Man I remember the crazy buffers standing in town. I thought they were just the coolest and it made my day when some of them would throw low level buffs at me for free and I'd be "super strong" for like an hour lol I was like 10
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Sep 20, 2023 20:29
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an iksar marauder posted:Take spell reagents. Nobody uses spell reagents anymore in newer MMOs, because older systems essentially turned them into trading inconvenience/doing chores for power. But builder/spender rotations are extremely common in newer MMOs, and there are some similarities there. Is there a way to get the aesthetic of 'spellcaster using bag of esoteric reagents to create magic' without it feeling like a chore, or detracting from gameplay? I imagine you'd need the ability to conjure them up on the fly, and also they'd need to disappear on logout, else prep work would become either optimal or mandatory. Imo a comparison to tabletop gaming like D&D could be drawn. Technically speaking you're supposed to be counting the arrows in your quiver and buying reagents to use for spells in town before going out, but because the components for normal spells are dirt cheap it's often abstracted under the assumption that your character just bought some chalk and copper wire with a single piece of the 600 gold you have on hand without you specifically tracking it. But if you have a big, expensive spell that requires a large cash investment, like Raise Dead, then you do actually have to buy that item and have it to cast the spell because it's both a significant investment and not having it on hand adds to the drama. The same could be applied to games. Runescape could be a good example, all spells have runes but you can equip a staff that will cover the cost of basic spells indefinitely. It's only when you need to cast a fancier spell that you have to dive into your pouches to draw out the actual materials.
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Sep 20, 2023 20:40
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Yeah, but I think these days you should also mind the inventory slot tax. Maybe instead of a mana bar, or on top of a mana bar, you've got some UI element underneath that fills up with reagents as you cast different spells, or spells with utility riders. Maybe your wizarding job has a familiar that collects reagents. I've thought about it a lot, but I don't think there's a way to bring back the old style of reagents where you could have 10 nerds looking around in their bags for a pearl because the cleric forgot to bring one. Bring back to a current gen game at least, it'd feel clunky and weird due to all the design conventions made over the years. I thought WoW's soul shards were pretty cool (note that eventually they removed the inventory tax and moved them to spell slots). It's cool to see game design happen in real time. Look at those soul shards. They started off as permanent objects you could hoard, quickly bags specifically for those items (larger than normal bags) were added to hoard them without hurting your inventory space too much, and over time getting them was streamlined until now, where they're just a bar below your mana bar. I think this streamlining was inevitable in a raid-forward game like WoW where in-combat utility is part of the arithmetic which impacts class balance, and everything needs to be balanced so much that there's not a lot of room for unique abilities left (you can't just have 1 or 2 classes which are a must-include because they can do X), but I also think something got lost along the way. The more I think about this stuff, the more I think that instanced raid content being the focus of MMOs adds in a lot of pressure to balance classes vs one another which directly limits how wild you can go when doling out unique abilities.
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Sep 20, 2023 20:55
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an iksar marauder posted:Yeah, but I think these days you should also mind the inventory slot tax. Maybe instead of a mana bar, or on top of a mana bar, you've got some UI element underneath that fills up with reagents as you cast different spells, or spells with utility riders. Maybe your wizarding job has a familiar that collects reagents. Yeah much like Rogue poisons got streamlined from a mechanic with a class quest chain, separate skill you need to train, dedicated trainers and vendors and reagents, to a buff you learn at level x and click to toggle on. I kind of like the idea of venturing into a dangerous zone for loot and having to balance your bag space between preparing for every contingency and having room for loot to bring back, but if your game is mostly a social hub that sends you into instanced content, none of that poo poo matters and streamlining away pointless busywork only makes sense.
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Sep 20, 2023 21:16
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I don't think it's just raids so much as, like, anything beyond sandbox-y 'players make their own fun in the world we design' is going to demand tighter balance than what vanilla wow provided.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:01
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CuddleCryptid posted:Imo a comparison to tabletop gaming like D&D could be drawn. Technically speaking you're supposed to be counting the arrows in your quiver and buying reagents to use for spells in town before going out, but because the components for normal spells are dirt cheap it's often abstracted under the assumption that your character just bought some chalk and copper wire with a single piece of the 600 gold you have on hand without you specifically tracking it. A reminder that BG3 doesn't track arrows or even distinguish them from crossbow bolts because that'd be busywork garbage. It's funny to find some vestigial plain-rear end 'arrow' items 44 hours into the campaign and realize immediately that they were left there as a mistake. I always liked just having a flat gold cost per rest in tabletop. Covers armor repairs, weapon sharpening, spell reagents... hell, most players misinterpret needing a 300gp emerald as it being consumed per cast, but it's just as a focus and being deprived of it on capture is supposed to parallel having ammo or weapons taken away without it being strictly a consumable.
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Sep 20, 2023 22:21
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I had a "forester" character way back in the glory days of UO who became my most fantastically wealthy character simply because I picked up every spell reagent I found while out harvesting wood for carpentry. I rented two vendor spots in a house right near Brit bank – with one I sold furniture and with the other I sold reagents and the latter was constantly sold out to the point where I had to frequently buy cheaper, extra reagents from other people's less easily accessible vendors to fill my stock. Playing a caster was fun and I liked the preparation reagents required, but there was nothing more frustrating than getting deep into a dungeon only to realize you were out of the one specific reg you needed for your best damaging ability.
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Sep 21, 2023 14:37
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Are there any thriving private server MMO's these days beyond SWG/UO? I've been curious about the DAOC stuff since I never did get to play, but I can't get a clear read on the populations. Since I've been having such a good time on Legends after dismissing private server stuff for so long I figured I might give some others a shot.
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Sep 21, 2023 17:30
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Noise Complaint posted:Are there any thriving private server MMO's these days beyond SWG/UO? Project 1999 EverQuest
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Sep 21, 2023 18:21
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Return of recokoning has about 800 people on right now
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Sep 21, 2023 18:22
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Is the City of Heroes one still going? That was fun.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:25
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Third World Reagan posted:Return of recokoning has about 800 people on right now I have a couple characters on RoR, but I must have started during a serious lull in the game. I will have to download and give this a shot again as it's probably one of my favorite PvP MMO's of all time.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:30
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There are a few city of heroes private shards and some are doing more insane things than others. Some are even adding new classes or effects. One of them fixed the arachnos soldier animation issue to where you can now no longer worry about pulling out a gun to do certain attacks.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:32
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Remember how wack the whole City of Heroes private server stuff was. Running for years in secret, with admins and mods across reddit instantly taking down any post that mentions it to keep it hidden, and it only came to light cuz someone who had access whistleblew about it.
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Sep 21, 2023 18:34
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Kaysette posted:Is the City of Heroes one still going? That was fun. Yep! Homecoming is still going, at least, and still kicks rear end.
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Sep 21, 2023 19:12
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I wish I could get into the whole superhero aesthetic, but it just doesn't do it for me. I might hop back on RoR and give it a shot. Last time I did I was able to get it looking/running rather nice with a vulkan wrapper and some of the UI mods as well. The leveling was a little dry which is why I stopped.
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Sep 21, 2023 20:40
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Noise Complaint posted:Are there any thriving private server MMO's these days beyond SWG/UO? I've been curious about the DAOC stuff since I never did get to play, but I can't get a clear read on the populations. The DAOC Eden shard (by far the most ambitious shard ever) will launch season 2 in the next few months, new server/season launch is a great time to start playing. No other shards are really active/imminent at the moment.
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Sep 21, 2023 21:27
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Someone said there's a Rift private server and is that true because there was a point in Rift's history when it was probably the best MMO of its kind
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Sep 21, 2023 21:52
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gradenko_2000 posted:Someone said there's a Rift private server and is that true because there was a point in Rift's history when it was probably the best MMO of its kind Afaik there isn't even a rough emulator. Trion lost the source code to the original game and no one really seems to care enough to reverse engineer the live game
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Sep 21, 2023 21:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:Someone said there's a Rift private server and is that true because there was a point in Rift's history when it was probably the best MMO of its kind There was a sweet spot where Rift had some of the most fun dungeon content I've played. Chloromancer owned.
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Sep 21, 2023 22:14
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Pre-Renewal Ragnarok online lives on in private servers and still rules. It won't ever be the same but it's still chill and nostalgic to go click on some porings
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Sep 21, 2023 22:18
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has anyone tried the last descendant? is it just another warframe clone?
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Sep 22, 2023 07:14
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Noise Complaint posted:There was a sweet spot where Rift had some of the most fun dungeon content I've played. Rift was my first 'true' MMO experience and holy poo poo it was so good back in its day. Really fun endgame. I hopped into it last year to see if I could recapture some of that nostalgia and was immediately bombarded with a billion pop-ups about store sales, cash shop incentives, 'loyalty rewards', and I got sad.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:59
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Still remember creating an alt goon guild in rift since waiting 8 hours to log in was dumb as hell and the 'main goon guild' starting calling us out like we were trying to split the guild instead of just play a game without waiting. As is tradition, the main goon guild exploded into drama, disbanded, and only we were left. Thinking about it, most of the MMOs I have played with goons started and ended exactly like this.
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Sep 22, 2023 15:06
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Third World Reagan posted:Still remember creating an alt goon guild in rift since waiting 8 hours to log in was dumb as hell and the 'main goon guild' starting calling us out like we were trying to split the guild instead of just play a game without waiting. I think Classic WoW and FFXIV are the only cases where that hasn't happened, and maybe Age of Wushu? Every other mmo I've played with goons or heard about goons playing there's been at least one major catastrophic drama bomb that's resulted in a big split or dissolution or some other insane poo poo. Archeage and New World are two of my favorite examples but there are so, so many.
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Sep 22, 2023 16:07
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age of wushu is one of those mmos where that didn't happen despite me hitting the vote to disband guild button daily
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Sep 22, 2023 16:11
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Pryce posted:I hopped into it last year to see if I could recapture some of that nostalgia and was immediately bombarded with a billion pop-ups about store sales, cash shop incentives, 'loyalty rewards', and I got sad. I have no clue how is that game even online still.
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Sep 22, 2023 16:34
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Fajita Queen posted:I think Classic WoW and FFXIV are the only cases where that hasn't happened, and maybe Age of Wushu? Every other mmo I've played with goons or heard about goons playing there's been at least one major catastrophic drama bomb that's resulted in a big split or dissolution or some other insane poo poo. when i played it with goons ~10 years ago the primary goon guild and Starfleet Dental seemed to coexist pretty harmoniously in gw2 with the understanding that because of its history SFD was more inclined towards having fun and planning elaborate goofs and gags. haven't run with either since then but afaik they still get along.
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Sep 22, 2023 16:38
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Fajita Queen posted:I think Classic WoW and FFXIV are the only cases where that hasn't happened, and maybe Age of Wushu? Every other mmo I've played with goons or heard about goons playing there's been at least one major catastrophic drama bomb that's resulted in a big split or dissolution or some other insane poo poo. from my understanding the ff14 guilds have pretty regular eruptions of drama that all happen in-game or on discords, and just nobody takes it to the forums
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Sep 22, 2023 16:58
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I hopped back onto Return of Reckoning and not only does it run great with the 64 bit client and DXVK Vulkan wrapper, it looks great still. They're running a double XP/Renown event until tomorrow and just patched to bring in a big fall pirate event. Warhammer pirates own. I'm playing Order right now but I'd be willing to switch to play with Goons. I'm leveling a swordmaster named Gearan. Edit: Also their status seems to be nearly as legit as P99 given they're running a straight up Twitch Drop event right now, and the population was in the 800's online last I checked.
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Sep 22, 2023 17:28
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Third World Reagan posted:age of wushu is one of those mmos where that didn't happen despite me hitting the vote to disband guild button daily Lol there was a vote to disband button at all times?
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Sep 22, 2023 17:56
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I think only officers or guild leader could press it. It required 50% +1 to pass. It would pop up with Guild leader wants to disband the guild. do you agree y/n and would keep track of how many people voted one way or the other. We got very close to comedy votes actually winning many many times. Any time the guild started to give me poo poo I would just hit the button. I would also hit the button if they did not give me poo poo.
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Sep 22, 2023 17:59
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Fajita Queen posted:I think Classic WoW and FFXIV are the only cases where that hasn't happened, and maybe Age of Wushu? Every other mmo I've played with goons or heard about goons playing there's been at least one major catastrophic drama bomb that's resulted in a big split or dissolution or some other insane poo poo. New World was my first experience with a Goon Guild so now anytime the subject comes up for an upcoming game it's a hard pass.
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Sep 22, 2023 18:09
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