In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "Your favorite NPC in MMO?" by Emrendil.

My favorite NPC currently is Fionasinna the Vivid, a dye vendor in Rift. Love here outfit. Almost always when I log in to Rift I go visit here. Too bad she doesn't talk much :)

Anyway, is there any NPC out there that you particularly like?

Read below for some highlights from the thread!

ZombieKenn picks "Budd" from WoW: Cataclysm:

WoW Cata: Budd

Ahoy!
I'm saaaailing!
Out on a boat... way far away from the dock...
Into the wind with the sky and everything...
Oooh... shiny!

*Budd jumps overboard*

free2play picked Momodi from FF14:

Momodi FF14

She was sassy. She had help though because there was Lalafell at the first camp, you had to turn in crafting quests to and I always wanted to punt her out on to a cactus. It didn't matter what grade you got on your craft, 0 to 300, "I suppose it will have to do". She irked me.

Sevenstar61 enjoyed SWTOR's Lord Mechedas for his entertaining VO:

SWTOR has plenty of really cool NPCs. For some reason for me the most memorable was Lord Medechas from Belsavis. I am always excited when I go to see this guy in my countless alts LOL. His voiceover  is the best in SWTOR

My favorite NPC is City of Villains' Westin Phipps. While CoV was a fun game, you didn't really feel like a cold-hearted villain until you undertook the missions offered by Phipps later in the game. Poisoning food, destroying books meant for schoolchildren, and even kidnapping a teacher and turning her over to Arachnos knowing you've sealed her to a fate of torture and who knows what else. Phipps is a real bastard and anyone who played City of Villains to level cap will likely remember him for the deplorable tasks he sets you on.

What are your favorite MMO NPCs? Share 'em with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "What MMO do you believe had the best potential but failed in execution?" by Esorono.

This is the thread of the MMOs that could have been. Some MMOs out on the market had great potentials, they promised great mechanics, fluid combat, great graphics, ect. But then you log in and just notice the game fell flat on their face and never recover years later because the developers just don't seem to care. The games that make you say "This game could have been a lot of fun if the developers decided to save it." What MMO do you believe had the most potential but failed in execution?

Read on below for a couple of highlights from the thread!

Martinmas notes the failure of MXO:

I will say the Matrix Online just because of the IP alone. Talk about a  setting that just seems like a no-brainer for the perfect MMOG.

Tholdornas brings up the short-lived The Chronicles of Spellborn:

I´d say Chronicles of Spellborn. I only played it shortly due to the 2-week-trial when it launched, but lost interest ... I don´t even know why, exactly. I always thought the skill system was brilliant and PVP was fun as hell (coming from a non-PVP player). On the other hand, combat looked quite unspectacular and most of the endgame was politics and stuff, controlling different parts of the world. My lucky guess is that it wasn´t the right time back then (2006, if i remember right) to introduce a sandboxy themepark that TCoS was. Such a shame, had a stunning graphical style, too (second best imho, only beaten by Shin Megami Tensei:Imagine).

Gorwe echoes many others in the thread with his WAR pick:

WAR-I didn't even expect RvR(or even knew what it was back in the day), but it felt good. Art was awesome as were some of stories there and ToK and RvR. It also introduced me to Warhammer fantasy(prior to playing WAR I thought that WHFB sucked donkey ass and after playing it, I fel in love with WHFB). Anyhow, this game fails on so many levels that it is ridiculous. It could've been DAoC 2 in Warhammer. It could have been WoW in Warhammer. It wasn't either. It was some strange mix with only marketing(banner ads) directed towards Hardcore PvP player, instead of all of us Warhammer fans. Not to mention bugs, weird working atmosphere in Mythic, blatant lies from mr.Barnett and so forth. You can say whatever you want about Tor/Vanguard/GW 2/AoC-but all of those games are rather playable and FUN right now. WAR never left its hellhole.

I could probably be here all night going through our Game List and picking MMOs that would be a great fit for this topic, but I am going to go ahead and limit myself to one:

The Matrix Online: Echoing what Martinmas essentially said, The Matrix IP fit the MMO genre like a glove. After all, what is the Matrix itself if not the ultimate MMO? Sure, it wasn't voluntary, but it was basically an example of the best virtual reality one could ever dream of. The MMO was a huge favorite of mine for a number of reasons. Unfortunately, due to the game's undercooked state and the fact the studio didn't capitalize on getting this game out before the Wachowskis' ruined the series with the sequels, the game just fell flat with most of the MMO populace.

What are your picks? Share 'em with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "How was your very first feeling when you logged in for the first time in a MMORPG?" by Torgrim.

For me It was quite odd, I used to play Quake and other MP games but when I first logged into Ultima Online I felt I didn't belong there.

The chat was going and I the noob was there for the first time in a new world of gaming, I had no qlue what to do and I was scared to even write in chat to ask questions because for me this was a new experience for me, not like Quake.

Still I felt for the first time in my life that this was global, I played with Americans, Kiwis, Germans, French, Canadians in the same world in the same game.

This was really my best experience of MMO gaming, the virgin fruits.

How was your ride for the first time?

DrunkWolf describes his first feelings in the world of Asheron's Call:

It was pretty crazy at first, i got dropped off into Dereth ( asherons call ) with some bread a knife apples and no clue wtf to do. before i knew it i had bodys all over the place, running for my life from wasps and drudges and finally i made my way to a town where i met up with some people and they showed me the ropes.

it was a pretty wild experience to sit back and think that i was playing a character in another world. I could go anywhere and do anything i wanted. hell just traveling to other towns to meet new people was cool, in that game you didnt advance to new areas depending on levels. people actually called the towns home and hung out in them.

Briansho migrated from games like Quake to Ultima Online:

I migrated from Quake TF back in the day to Ultima Online! It was wild logging in for the first time and seeing people run by me! At first everyone was trying to raise fighting skills on dummies throughout town. There were also really long lines and waiting to get reagents for spells. The NPC merchants/server couldn't keep up with the demand.

Stepping outside I quickly learned I needed to get my hiding skill. Reputation was a big thing and people knew who they could trust and who to stay away from. Guilds formed and communities grew stronger. There were very few Grandmasters of any skill on the server. You could remodel your character by letting skills decay and increasing others. No 2 characters were exactly the same. Even bard were a playable class. I GMed musicianship, peacemaking, and provocation. People would try to attack me but couldn't stand a chance against a provoked wisp.

Eventually whiners infiltrated the UO stratics forums and started making demands to the developers to change the game to fit their playstyles. The developers got spooked and started making changes to try to make them happy and people started leaving.

VastoHorde didn't even know what an MMO truly was when he first logged into Lineage II:

Lineage 2 was my first mmo I logged into and I did not even know what a mmo really was. I thought it was an online game like Diablo or Baldurs Gate. Never did I know it was thousands of players in the same world as me. All I did everday was run outside of town and kill mobs till I got killed and logged off. Did that for the whole trial month and of course I did not sub. It was not till I tried private servers about a year later did I find out what a mmo really was. Did private servers for about a year before I went back to retail and have been there ever since.

Gosh, I remember my first time logging into Star Wars Galaxies. I forget what the actual starting town on Tatooine was, it may have been Mos Eisley. In any case, there were tons of people everywhere and an incredibly confusing interface set in front of me. Anyone who played SWG knows that the controls and interface were something you definitely needed to get used to. But what stuck out most of all was all the gibberish in chat. The different species spoke different languages and I remember people standing around willing to teach other players the languages so that they could all understand each other.

Believe it or not, this notion wasn't actually alien to me (pun intended!). I used to play Star Wars MUDs that also had learnable languages, but I was sure surprised to see this in an MMO. SOE eventually abandoned the concept and I believe all players knew all the languages by default by some point, but it definitely added to the confusion of starting out in a game like that.

What was your first MMO experience like? Share your tales with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "What RPG would you make into an MMORPG?" by Wakygreek.

Wakygreek says:

Hey,

I was playing a couple of old classic RPG's on the SNES-PS1-PS2-PS3 and thought to myself which one of these would actually make a good MMORPG in todays modern market?

So let me ask you this, which RPG from any system prior to the PS3/Xbox360 do you guys think would make an awesome MMORPG. Please include a few suggestions as to what the world would be like etc.

I would like to see The Witcher made into an MMORPG. I think there is plenty of lore to create a masterpiece if made correctly with a talented team. Offer faction combat by dividing the races between the Humans and Non-Humans. You could even throw some RVR into it and create a bunch of different classes.

P.S. You can use any RPG from the PC as well as long as it pre-dates the PS3/XBOX360.

Read below for a couple of highlights from the thread!

Kaneth picks Secret of Mana/Chrono Trigger:

The world of Secret of Mana and/or Chrono Trigger would make for interesting mmos. For Secret of Mana, you could set it during the time of the War of Mana 15 years prior to the SNES version. Multiple weapons and magic skills that you would have to level up, like in the SNES version.

Chrono Trigger itself would be a hell of an accomplishment in a mmo space. You would have to have the time travel element present, so you're making a world for Pre-Historic, Kingdom of Zeal, Dark Ages, "Present Age", and then the Future. Not to mention you could probably make an "End of Time" zone that could be like a personal housing instance of sorts. Along with all of the ages, you'd have to create appropriate creatures and content for the time period. You could even go as far as adding a "new game+" feature in place of a leveling system. Where completing certain tasks, achievements, story elements, etc would then allow you to unlock a new tier of powers for your character. At that point you could choose to continue your original character, or perhaps make a new character with the stats you've unlocked, but perhaps with new race/class options after completing certain time period tasks. Then you could play as Tribal People, Magic Race of Zeal, Robot, Modern Human, and possibly even add some monster races.

Rednecksith offers up Arcanum and Dark Souls:

Arcanum would make an excellent MMO. There aren't enough steampunk or dieselpunk games out there as it is, and I'd love to see one finally done competently. The world of Arcanum would be a near-perfect setting for an MMORPG.

Dark Souls, or at least the world of it. Part of the atmosphere of the game is derived from just how lonely & desolate the world feels however, and I don't know how they could replicate it in an MMORPG format. Then again, being surrounded by people can sometimes be just as lonely as standing by oneself...

BethelsBoy is feeling the Legend of Zelda:

I know it's been said to death, but Legend of Zelda, IMO, would be an awesome MMO!

Just imagine, you can pick from all the different races: Goron, Kokiri, Gerudo, Hylian, Sheikah, Zora, etc. You start in their home villages, and it is action-based combat like TERA and RaiderZ.

The series is singler-player based, but with enough thought put into it, it would be an amazing MMO. You could include gathering, crafting, a ton of skills for each race, and all the amazing landscapes that you traveled through in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. 

You could bring back all the old dungeons, make them harder, so that you will have to form raid groups to complete them. Boss fights would be harder, mini-games would be fun additions for players to go against each other. 

I honestly feel like it could be done. The storyline is so deep with The Legend of Zelda and there is so much content they could put into the game. Using the newer game engines that are coming out like the Unreal Engine, they could design a high def Zelda MMO that looks amazing and has an awesome gameplay.

There are so many options! It'd be hard to choose just one. But if I had to, I would say Final Fantasy Tactics and in particular the setting of Ivalice. There really aren't any MMOs other than Atlantica Online or Dofus that really tackle that sort of turn-based tactical RPG combat system and it's a real shame. Sure, it'd be pretty niche. I don't doubt the logistics of recreating Final Fantasy Tactics as a viable MMO would be challenging, but I definitely feel there is a missed opportunity here.

If the gameplay can't happen for whatever reason, I'd still love to see the world of Ivalice come to life in an MMO. Or even the world of Final Fantasy VII. Midgar would be an awesome sight to be hold in an MMO.

Runners-up? Pokemon. I'm not even a huge Pokemon fan, but this game series fits the MMO genre like a glove. Come on, Nintendo!

What are your picks and why? Share 'em with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "How much weight do you give to metascores?" by PWN_FACE. PWN_FACE simply wants to find out how much stock the community puts into MMO game reviews and scores:

When you consider buying a game, do you look into reviewer scores? How much weight do you give to meta-scores?

I consider a lot of factors. I don't always consider such scores knowing they can be off for certain games that I might really like if I had given them a try. On the other hand, they can influence my decision to take a risk in certain situations.

I've been looking at a game on Steam which had a metascore rating of 70 yesterday. I checked a little while ago and it's down to 67. 

How do you look at metascores when making your decisions about whether to buy or not?

EDIT: Has there ever been a game that had a relatively low metascore (on Steam for example) that you bought and enjoyed and thought deserved better?

Menzeldinho relies more on gut feeling than scores or reviews:

Metascore gives you a vague idea of the game, and if its really really low then you know its not worth it. i think anything 60ish plus has potential, so if i feel im interested in the game i'd look it up a bit more, maybe a few gameplay videos and infomation on what the game has to offer. Obviously if there is a demo available try that but they don't always give a full representation of the game either.

Normally you just have to use your gut feeling whether you will like a game, and you are normally right.

Rusque avoids extremes on either end:

I ignore the extremes, those 0's are going to be useless feedback from trolls and angry fanboys. The perfect 10's just mean the person is either a fanboy or refuse to have a critical view of a game they like.

D3 is the perfect example, lots so people gave it low scores due to rmah and being opposed to some of the design decisions. Even people who put in 100-150 hours of game play into it gave it paltry scores. And that's because they were not rating the game as its own entity, but rather rating it against d2 and their expectations.

i also tend to avoid major "official" reviews as so many of them are bought these days that its all noise. So I look for players taking the time to outline what works and what doesn't and then I can decide if its something that I'm interested in.

Bananaramaa refuses to purchase anything under an 80 in most cases:

Excepting the rare occasions when I'm convinced reviewers are wrong I won't buy anything below 80 or 4 user rate. No way in hell.

Same with movies, generally I find reviews are spot on my taste. Excepting a very small amount of the time.

That said, I'm still dissapointed with many things that get above 80, so I have to again be picky about what I want in that bracket.

Like many of you, a game's Metascore will give me a general idea of what to expect from the game. Something with a Metascore of 36 is probably not going to be worth looking at in most cases, while something higher up may warrant closer inspection. However, reviews and Metascorse are only part of the checklist. If I haven't heard of a game at all and I've only found out about it once reviews have begun to roll in, I'll use tools like Metacritic to give me an idea of whether or not I should even bother looking into the game further. 

In this day and age, it's pretty easy to get yourself a hands-on experience with a game's beta test, especially towards the launch of the game, so going into a new MMO completely uninformed is a pretty rare occurence. Of course, the fact that most new MMOs are also F2P these days means the barrier to entry is even lower. If you're curious about a game -- it shouldn't be too hard to simply give it a spin for yourself!

How much stock do you put into MMO reviews and Metascores? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "How long does it take you to know whether an mmorpg is for you?" by PWN_FACE:

Whether you buy a game, play f2p, or download a trial: From the time you log in and make it to character creation, how long does it take you to figure out whether this game is for you?

What are the variables that influence you the most? 

What is the fastest you've made your decision?

Have you ever changed your mind about a game you had judged harshly and then found yourself going back to and enjoying?

Read below for some highlights from the thread!

thecapitaine offers a comprehensive response:

Most games never make it to install because I know they're not for me based on their description.  Of the ones I do try, it most takes me 10-20 hours after character creation to know.  Any game that requires that I install an unfamiliar set of programs to make it run gets the boot before I can click install.  For the most part, it comes down to the fun I'm having and the fun I can foresee myself having in the future. 

Maybe I'm one of the 'new generation' of gamers, despite having grown up with arcades and tabletop games, but I don't play a game expecting to hang my hat there for years and years.  If it entertains and shows promise of continuing to entertain for the foreseeable future, I'm all for going with it. As for the games that got uninstalled quickest, probably Forsaken World.  It may actually be a great game later on, but the tutorial and early levels were so insultingly easy that I could have played the game with the quest log covering the whole screen and randomly clicking tab and firing off attacks.

As I've ranged farther afield from my MMO comfort zone, I've had to go back and re-evaluate some of the games I gave up on earlier.  I got TERA on sale and it exposed me to action combat which led me to trying other actiony games that had never clicked before (like DCUO and GW2 and, now, Defiance).  My experience with MMOs has been much enriched recently by going out on a limb to play a game like Rift, which I avoided for over a year thanks to this site-- I won't make that mistake again-- and by realizing that it can sometimes be worthwhile to discount a first impression and dig deeper.

for treelo it can start as early as the game's website:

The state of a games website is usually enough to make or break a title.  The cookie cutter F2P sites with a huge emphasis on cash shop items, no thanks.  Generally speaking if information is hard to find, I just won't bother.

Character creation is the next hurdle, a lack of options can put me off but isn't a game breaker, I'll simply be more inclined to pick a game with more variety.

Assuming I make it past this point, five minutes of gameplay is more than enough.  MMO mechanics are fairly generic so it really boils down to if I can stomach the game engine.  Poor environments, woeful animations, a terrible interface, these are what ruin games.  I like a good grind, but if I can't stand watching it take place... well, what's the point?

A quick trip to youtube is the most efficient method of judging a game.

Jaedor has a checklist of sorts:

I have three tiers of "check":
1st tier is character creation and the first couple noobland/intro quests.
2nd tier is after about 8 hours of game time.
3rd tier is midway to cap.

For TSW I almost didn't make it past character creation because it was terribad. But I'm glad I stayed with it. Great game for explorers and lore hounds and I'm happy to have bought the lifetime.

Slowest fail was Aion; I made it to tier 3 before discovering the endless grind. Was very disappointed because I had invested significant time and money, and it was decent up to that point.

Fastest fail was Wizardry Online beta. Failed the intro and I deleted the game as soon as it finished loading.

I have a pretty similar checklist to many of those who posted in the thread. The first major checkpoint is character creation. If I don't like how my character looks, then it really doesn't matter what else your game has going for you. I play MMOs to get lost in a world and I want my character to feel and look unique. If the game can't fulfill this basic desire for me, it's hard for me to get into it and stick with it.

Beyond that, it's hard to say. I tend to tailor my expectations to the type of MMO I'm playing. For example, I get quite a lot of flak for enjoying Star Wars: The Old Republic. Some people probably wonder how I can like it as much as I do. For me, it's simple: it's Star Wars and the content is fun. I like the game for what it is, even if I prefer a Star Wars game along the lines of Star Wars Galaxies as an ideal game. I don't compare SWTOR to SWG. It's a themepark game; I knew that going in.

I can kind of gauge what a game is and tailor my expectations to that. I'm not going to fault a game like Vindictus for not being a sandbox, for example. Different MMOs offer me different things and as long as they do what they seek out to do well I may find them enjoyable if they fit the type of experience I'm looking for at the moment.

I can tell you when I know I am NOT enjoying an MMO. The first time I catch myself idly running around in circles? That's the beginning of the end for me. It always sneaks up on me, too. I just catch myself running in circles and then I know that I am starting to get bored of the game and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that I am going to quit sometime in the next few days or weeks.

How about you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "What Brought You To MMORPG.com The First Time?" by AlBQuirky. This discussion is more about our community than MMOs themselves, but it's an interesting topic nonetheless:

Were you searching for info on a specific game?
Maybe you came just looking for general info on MMOs in general?
Did a friend or guildmate tell you about the site?
Did you come across it in a Google (or other search engine) search on MMOs/MMORPGs?
Were you bored one day and just type in the web browser "www.mmorpg.com"?
(I did the above sometimes, just type in random addresses in the web browser when I got bored...)

What was it that brought you here that very first time?

For me, I originally came before making this account looking for general MMO info back in 2003 when my fun in EQ was waning. I think I did the "bored web address" thing... I don't think I created an account and certainly never participated in discussions :)

A few computers/hard drives later (and lost bookmarks) I found it again and created this account to keep abreast of the MMORPG industry.

What's your story?

Read below for some highlights from the thread!

Cecropia came to us in search for an MMO beyond WoW:

I started coming to this site in 2005 in search of a new MMO home after WOW began heading in a direction that I was not comfortable with. I am very thankful I did as mmorpg.com led me to discover the MMO I would eventually spend more time playing than any other video game in my life: EVE.

Thanks mmorpg.com.

Fearum too came to us in search of a new MMO:

I think the first time I came to this site was around when WoW launched. I was looking for a game after ToA came out and ruined DAoC for me and typed MMORPG in the search engine. Had some interesting articles, a nice game list and an active forum. I forgot my user name and password from way back when so I had to make this new one when I came back into looking for another mmo recently. Back then most games had a free trial so I would search through them trying to find a game to try out before purchaseing it. Never found a game I really enjoyed though so I kind of forgot about MMO's for years until Rift came out, which grabbed my attention and brought me back into the genre. Still havent found a game that can hold me longer than a few months, but I will keep looking.

Brenelael came to us in order to participate in some forum PvP ;):

When I was a clan leader in Lineage II way back in late 2004 my second in command suggested I come here instead of L2Blah to get a more moderate forum to read about game tips and features. I came here and have been here ever since although I lurked for about 2 years before actually creating an account. What spurred me to create an account was that I was getting a little tired of all of the SWG vets flogging SOE in any thread where it was mentioned even if it had absolutely nothing to do with SOE or SWG. When this started to creep into even the L2 forums I had enough and had to create an account to tell them to... Well what I told them back then would probably get me banned now so I'll leave it up to your imaginations.

In truth, before I started working here at MMORPG.com, I only lurked and dropped by occasionally. I can't really pin down what first brought me here, but I suspect it may have been an internet search for Star Wars Galaxies, as we've always had a strong SWG forum community here. In any case, I am glad to have ended up here, as you guys are a great, lively community that I'm proud to work with each and every day!

What brought you to MMORPG.com? Share your tales with us in the comments below!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "Danger in MMORPGs" by BigHatLogan. In the thread, BigHatLogan muses on the lack of danger in MMOs and polls the community on their thoughts:

I recently received an email from ArenaNet about GW2: The Razing.  It states "New Allies! New Dangers! New Items!"  So the first two are certainly reasonable and expected in MMORPGs, but the middle phrase struck me wrong, and even felt a bit insulting.  New Dangers?  Really?  Well I got to thinking about the concept of danger in MMORPGs and realized it really is missing from MMORPGs and single player games in general. 

When is the last time something actually scared you in an MMORPG?  Even if the monster I am fighting is challenging, it kills me and I have about a minute of downtime with no penalty whatsoever.  Even worse is MMORPGs that allow a player to self resurrect, they might as well just skip the dying part.  At worst a player will get a minor debuff for an inconsequential amount of time.

A can recall a couple instances of being scared.  EVE online will scare players.  This is because a mistake can cause you to lose virtual treasures.  That's a bad sign when one of the scariest multiplayer games is based on spreadsheets.  I know Wizardry Online released with perma-death which certainly causes fear, but the game itself was pretty bad at least at lower levels.I never played EQ1, but i heard horror stories from players that certainly sounded like they felt fear.  Perhaps due to xp loss penalties and impossible corpse runs. 

Single player games are often times even worse than MMORPGs with the overall lack of danger.  Many many SRPGs let you save your game whenever you want.  Which of course translates into saving your game every few feet, or even between swings in battle in case a mistake is made.  Dark Souls is a notable exception to this with their soul loss and bonfire system.  Even the old Final Fantasy games required you to get to a save point rather than save every couple steps.  Final Fantasy is far scarier than Skyrim because you don't get to save where you want, and Final Fantasy is loaded to the brim with retarded monkeys and big goofy birds. The new X-Com has a brilliant ironman mode and is a quite scary game, its actually nice to see a game with a scary theme actually play scary. 

Does anyone else feal that lack of danger makes MMORPGs and sRPGs feel stale?  Are their any games out there that I am missing that have successfully caused terror in players?  I'd especially love to hear about MMORPGs that pull it off.  To be clear I dont't mean dark theme or scary graphics, those may scare a 5 year old.  When I talk about fear and terror I mean that a player will be scared or upset when they are defeated.  I don't care how scary a boss looks when it jumps out at me, if i can just hop back up and fight him again when I die that is not scary in my book.

Read on for some highlights from the thread!

Wizardry offers a couple of examples:

I felt scared in EQ2 when first came out and in FFXI because for the most part,you couldn't run,so if something went bad you had to either fight or die.MOST games you can simply run a short distance and the mob/s retreat.

Sometimes the fear factor was totally unrealistic and actually pissed me off.Example in Vanguard,there was an outpost and as soon as i came within a certain dsitance the whole outpost would attack me at unreal speeds.There was no realism in the aggro or range or speed at which they caught me,like 200 yds in 5 seconds lol.

The only real time ,i have actually been on the edge and kind of freaked out was playing an old xpansion for Quake.it was an expansion done by NIN,so the whole sound and music was eerie.Turn off the lights and it was really freaky lol.

MMORPG's are basically linear,connect the dot questing games now,hardly anything there realsitic or scary.I can't imagine whoever thought ,that if i was a Warrior in real life,i would be going around asking every npc/person if i can do a quest for them.

WHOA kill 10 armadillo in Commonlands???No WAY .,that is frightening.

Take that Stein to your friend?? Wowsers,i don't think i can handle that frightening task as an elite Warlock.

Wolfenpride discusses the good ol' corpserun:

Only game that scared me in that manner was EQ1 when it had harsher death penalties.

The risk of loosing my stuff in the bottom of a dungeon somewhere made going into them very scary. The general mazelike/claustrophobic designs for many of them added a bit to my fears as well, once you were deep in one, you were pretty stuck with no where to run if something went wrong.

It happened occasionally, but I was always able to get a rogue/necro to drag my corpse back to me before it expired.

I was hoping Wizardry would deliver similar experiences, but with the way souls work characters feel really disposable. Same with Eve online, replacing a lost ship didn't seem that big of a deal, but then again I never bothered buying anything that I couldn't afford to replace. Still enjoyed both games though.

Ironmanning Xcom EU was fun and challenging as well, but again there was that sense of disposability once you had a bunch of ranked soldiers. Starting off was pretty rough though.

Rusque hasn't ever experienced that sense of dread that others are describing:

The only video game that would cause fear is one in which someone comes to my house and chops off my arm in real life as punishment.

I really never understood the appeal of perma-death games or severe consequence games. I don't feel scared, I actually care about my avatar less than I would in a game in which I get to keep him. Whenever I play hardcore mode in PoE or some game with similar death system, I just view my character as a temporary resource for some entertainment, but my main is always invariably on the softcore side. That's the character I care about, the one I want to develop and see grow because I know I'll always have it.

I must be missing the fear factor so many people experience from those games, I never get the adrenaline rush or the near death high.

The only time I really felt any sense of fear in an MMO was back when Star Wars Galaxies was still using corpse runs. Running back to Ft. Tusken or some such area where my corpse is deep behind enemy lines was always something I looked to avoid back then.

Other than that, it's really only PvP servers that can create that feeling for me at all, even if there aren't permanent consequences to dying. That feeling of possibly being attacked at any given moment can really keep you on your toes.

What about you? Have you ever felt a real sense of danger in an MMO? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Dynamic opening of packs with glows, sound effects. Players can build their own decks.

Earn or buy packs. Around $1 as it's being tested at the moment. 

3D graphics, fully active game board. We want the game for WoW players to be really intuitive. If you're used to playing a mage, you can quickly and intuitively play the game.

Make it simple and intuitive to play but with interesting special effects, fun to watch as players go back and forth.

Set in the Warcraft universe, make it something anyone would play.

Collectible card game, free to play game, Blizzard's first.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft!

Team 5: Very different, 15 developers, smaller than the SC team. Old School team of scrappy and versatile devs with multidisciplines. Experimental. Doesn't rely on building new tech. Need different type of games. What is the game we'd make?

History lesson....development time for each of the Big 3 Games: WoW, Diablo 3, Starcraft

And so it begins...

Blizzard Entertainment will be making a major announcement at PAX East beginning in about ten minutes. We'll keep you posted about the big news through our Live Blog! Keep your eyes on this spot!

In this week's Community Spotlight, we focus on the thread, "XP grind. Mob or Quest?" by Arclan. Arclan offers up some examples of games where we grinded out mobs or quests to progress:

In EQ, we earned xp several hours at a time by killing mobs. Much of that time involved joking around with newly met friends. Often, you came to respect their wit and skill and made a game-long friend and in some cases a lifelong friend.

In Vanguard, I earned xp by doing quests. This never involved staying in one place for more than just a few minutes. If you are busy moving or fighting, you don't have time to chat. So no new friends were made in Vanguard.

Most games require xp, and many refer to that as a 'grind.' So pick your poison.

What's your 'poison' then? Read below for highlights.

Theocritus leans towards mob grinds:

I made more friends in EQ than I have in all other MMOs combined...The reason was because of the way we had to gain XP..... Liek the OP said, once we started questing we weren't in any one place long enough to make new friends and often didn't need anyone else anyway.....IMO quests should have been in MMOs only if they involved a great task (like class epic quests in EQ) and should involve other people....Otherwise its basically a single player game with other people in the game world.

For AlBQuirky, it's a bit of both:

It is a matter of a combination for me. Sometimes, I feel like being in a group and tearing through MOBs for hours on end. Other times I feel like following quests, where I can do as I please without worrying about others in my group. It is 2 very different types of gameplay and I enjoy them both.

The "grind" is so variable. With quests, I am engaged in the game. With MOB killing, I am not as engaged. If I get in a good group and we chat, the "grind" becomes less "grindy" and levels seem to come much more quickly.

The downside to EQ for me was the feeling that I could not do much without getting into a group. Even crafting was tough because it costs money and money was much easier to get fighting MOBs in groups. I could get to level 20 fairly easily without the "need" of others to help, but after that, soloing was very tough, indeed.

I do miss the Epic Quests that EQ had, though. They seemed to involve everyone in the group, not just the player doing the quests.

Psychow is a clear fan of quests:

I would rather quest.  Mindlessly killing mobs for no other reason than to gain XP is not a gamestyle I would want to participate in.

I'm sure developers would LOVE it if we did prefer mob grinding tho. Just think of all the costs they can save from having to provide content for it's players!

I'm going to take the easy route and say both. I actually prefer questing as the main form of progression, but I do enjoy grinding on mobs when the mood strikes. I spent a ton of time in my teenage years just grinding mobs in JRPGs and MUDs, so there's a bit of a soft spot for that in there for me, but it can get boring if it's the only source of progression.

Which do you prefer? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!