Free to Play versus Pay to Play

Also known as "Why I dislike most MMOs' gameplay"

(and the return of the meme faces)

Hey all, Little Miss Squish here. Now, before y'all freak out and such that I'd be posting two reviews within one week... I'm not. For those that have poked around old posts and such, every now and then I put aside the reviews to discuss MMOs in general, particularly relating to the healing classes ("uh, durrrr, LMS. That's obvious, you retard."), and all that good stuff. I'd been thinking about what to review next, whether I wanted to replay something I'd played before or play something new entirely. I'd poked around www.mmorpg.com (which you should totally also check out!) and found an article on free-to-play versus pay-to-play gaming, specifically, RIFT versus WoW. While the article itself isn't exactly about free-to-play games versus pay-to-play ones, it did make me think about why exactly I play free-to-play ones specifically and question why I tend to review those more than the pay-to-play ones.

Well, there are a few answers, most of them fairly straight-forward, honestly.

Guide: Healing 101

Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here again. Sorry for my lack of posting over the past few weeks. I've been a bit busy between starting a new job, moving, and working lots and lots of hours lately, so I haven't really been able to play any new MMOs as of late. I'm working on getting my hands on something new to play so y'all will have something to read soon. I'm considering replaying Mabinogi as I have a friend who was curious about my thoughts on the game. I've also been told by several people now to play Star Wars: The Old Republic and I'm looking into that as well. (If you have any thoughts on the subject, feel free to contribute.)

That being said... I've decided to make another healer's guide. Why? Because I think that there's more to healing well than just knowing what skills you have, which is what I focused on in my last guide, Bandaids and Disinfectant Required. I'm aiming for this guide to be more beginner-healer friendly than the last one and I'll explain things [hopefully] a little better than I had the last time. As a warning, this will probably become a little long, so I hope you're prepared! (Though, I hope it'll be more entertaining and less textbook-ish.) So let's get started, shall we?

Clerics: What I Want to See

Hey guys, Little Miss Squish here. I've been thinking about posting an anticipatory review of TERA Online, reviewing some other MMOs I've played before, not really sure what I was going to do. I was looking at some of the class choices and things for TERA Online and I was really excited about what the Cleric class looked like and some of the features it offered. Then it occurred to me... I've been posting about what I don't  like about cleric/priest classes in MMOs and I've never sat down and explained what I do like about the class, what I'd like to see the healer class become, and things of that nature. So! I've decided to write on the healer class as a whole, what I would like to see happen for healers, and things of that nature. A lot of this will be my own opinion, where you may not necessarily agree with me, but I hope this at least will entertain you guys. I'll also be using terms like healer, priest, cleric interchangeably, so unless otherwise stated, consider it all one thing.