Tell us how you really feel (Episodes 1, 2 and 3)
If there’s one oddly common theme I’ve been getting since my YT channel has received a ton of attention, is those who keep mentioning how they’re “confused by the video” and are “unsure if I liked the game or not, or even recommend it.” If you are new here, that is not, nor will it even be what MMO Grinder is about. I like to think of MMO Grinder as a resource. An account of a firsthand experience with a game, and explaining some of the odder nuisances of the game without letting personal preference completely steer the tone of the video. It’d be like looking at a reference guide or encyclopedia that said something along the lines of “Pac-Man came out in 1980 and it’s stupid and dangerous because it got my son addicted to video games.” …actually there was an “anime encyclopedia” that did pretty much exactly that, and it was as terrible as it sounds… moving on.
Sure, I will occasionally voice my like or dislike for a game or mechanic within the game, but that is never meant to personally influence anyone’s decision. I don’t want anyone hanging onto my every word as gospel. We are not kindred spirits, trust me, and I don’t need any more moments of someone thinking we have similar thoughts and personalities, have that illusion shattered by the first time we disagree on something, resulting in a violent over-steered rebellion against everything I do. That shit’s creepy.
I’ve never considered myself a “personality” reviewer anyway, but there’s still a ton of people who want to know my thoughts. I usually make those thoughts WELL known if you ever join us in a game when in Grindstone’s Raidcall channel (instructions can be found on the forums). Still I also understand that while many people watch, less people comment and even fewer participate… so in order to placate this, I’m going to write up three quick opinionated thoughts a day, about every game I previously looked at, with a solid YES or NO recommendation from myself. I am well aware of what kind of can of worms I’m opening here, and eventually this will lead into something like this following every MMO Grinder episode. Beats the hell out of calling a 3-month gap between articles an “off week update”.
I don’t entirely remember why I chose to look at this game first. I’m also positive I would NOT have liked it nearly as much as I did when I looked at it, as opposed to having the experience I do now. It was grindy. The fights were cheap, and the plus upgrade just neutered the charm out of the game, taking away it’s most memorable feature: the OST. LUNA’s music was my driving force than that absolutely weaksauce BS they replace it with just killed the game for me.. and everyone else, apparently. LUNA still exists over on it’s private server “celestialuna.com” which I hear uses the original format and soundtrack.
Recommended?: PLUS UPGRADE, NO. ORIGINAL GAME: YES
Episode 2: Pangya
Can I start this with a story before getting into the meat of this? I find it difficult to play this game now. As those of you who might keep up with online personalities and specifically one of my hosts, “Channel Awesome” aka TGWTG, may remember, Justin Carmical a.k.a. JewWario took his own life back in January of 2014, mere weeks after we all saw him at MAGfest. One of the major reasons Justin was so influential in getting this show off the ground, is he was a major fan of this game and episode. We would even play on occasion, on stream, or just for fun. It was one of Justin’s streams where he was playing this game where I met MegaGWolf as well, so there’s a lot tying this game to the show. Even one of my stream highlights on the MMO Grinder/ChaosD1 Youtube page was Justin hitting his first Hole-in-One in the game. I just wish it wasn’t so painful to play with those memories in tow…
Because I LOVE this game. Yeah, it’s “golf” but fantasy golf games were always strangely intriguing to me, and this one was the culmination of everything I liked about the genre. Interesting, fun and scenic courses, sexy wacky characters, and over-the-top “FUs” to physics. Pangya is the perfect online party golf game, and a lot of fun to play casually and just BS around while playing. Unfortunately that’s all I can say on this game. I love it, but I really need to get over the emotional hurdle.
Recommended?: YES
Episode 3: Maple Story
Can I just admit something right now? This episode wasn’t a review. It was revenge. This will be one of the least necessary entries in the mini-series of articles, because watching that episode should be clear where I stand on the game… But to be completely honest, I don’t hate it nearly as much as I let on. This was pretty much me giving into the “caustic critic” shtick and these jokes were planned YEARS in advance. Nowadays, a good amount of that stuff is alleviated. Fast travel is more of a thing, and is legit fast, not just a 10 minute scrolling screen where monsters might attack you because lol. I wanted to like the game, because it CAN be fun to play, it’s pretty as hell and has an AMAZING soundtrack, but holy shit can problems be escalated by a sea of bad apples. This would not be the last time this became an issue of course, but it was my most definite first. To quote myself several times throughout this video: “Seriously. Fuck this game.” Play LaTale is you want a decent 2D platformer MMO.
Recommended?: NO
Posted on June 1, 2015, in Miscellaneous and tagged chaosd1, mmo grinder, mmogrinder, opinion. Bookmark the permalink. 15 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
Maple was once a good game. A grind and a half, for sure, but that was part of the charm. It was almost zen to just mindlessly grind away while talking to friends. I played back when 10% per hour was average. Needless to say, things power-creeped *hard*. That in and of itself is not a problem. Leveling became easier, the character card system was introduced, and the game changed focus from having your character to a “gotta catch ’em all” for alts. Free slots every time a new class came out, each of them with a shared skill to unlock at a certain level, granting itself as a buff across your account to your main, collecting alts became a fun way of extending the gameplay experience while also in pursuit of minmaxing, an a way of allowing the much faster EXP curve to exist without players worried about simply “capping”.
Community was always great for me, but that might have varied from server to server. Guess you picked poorly. Older servers like Scania, Bera, Broa, with tons of much older players, tended to do pretty well in that department. Plenty of good people to meet, guilds to join for chatting, and I actually met by still to this day best online friend there. Hell, back in the day those long boat rides were a social gathering place for fellow travelers. Even later on, ch1 always had groups waiting for the boat together, chatting or playing minigames with strangers as they flew.
Then came the Nexoning. The devil incarnate, mother of all p2w that destroyed the game entirely, and its name was miracle cube. Everything went to hell. Cubed items gave players exponentially more power than could ever be obtained for free. Even worse, unlike Korea where f2pers at least had a CHANCE to obtain similar levels with fairly common boss-dropped cubes, Nexon NA restricted them to the cash shop alone. Power behind multiple layers of RNG behind a massive paywall. And it only got worse. More and more cash shop items to augment cubing, a secondary form of cubes to stack on top of the first one, each step widening the gap and increasing the paywall further and further.
The game stopped being playable. With p2w that severe, there is no satisfaction to be gained anywhere within it.
Soundtrack really is great tho.
You know you can still play Pre Big Bang Maplestory. You have a choice between ClassicMS & MapleLegends.
I don’t dislike MapleStory at all, especially after they introduced some story to it, but I have to admit that the soundtrack & landscape/monster design are the best things about it. I will admit that the gameplay is a repetitive soul-sucking grindfest, that the air ship waiting time is ludicrous, & that you can burn out on the game so hard you won’t touch it again for another 4 years, but it has it’s charms, just like Trickster Online.
Actually, now that I’ve started playing it again…Wow this game has added a fuckton of new content. It doesn’t feel so grindy anymore, there’s crafting, a homestead, no cap on how many characters you can have, like more than 20 classes with branching job trees & their own story lines. This game has changed for the better.
How we really feel?
1) Your more of a consol single player reviewer. You are no where in touch with mmorpgs and the community. It is like hating on alcohol but keep reviewing bars.
2) “my YT videos tons of attention”. Like here, all 5 fan bois XD. (For reason number 1)
3) TERA is the best mmorpg. TSW sucks.
Wow, Nathan Rivadeneyra. It only took you a YEAR to get back to me? You’re slipping, broheim. I thought you would be too busy deleting comments from that ridiculous Heroes of the Storm review you did that everyone hates, on that trash website nobody reads. You posted a pic of the main character of Starcraft AND Starcraft 2 Jim Raynor, and thought he was Tychus Findlay’s “family friendly edit”? You are either a brilliant troll, or the delusional fuck I always thought you were. Granted, I figured a troll would come up with something better than the same 5 stupid lies every time they posted on here. If you were projecting your own personal insecurities onto me any harder, IMAX would have to sue for patent infringement.
So here is my proposal, you stop your obvious trolling of my website, and act like the normal human being you seem capable of being on your Facebook page, and I don’t reveal screenshots of what a lying, trolling sack of shit you’ve been onto the parts on MMOshite that you can’t personally delete. Capiche?
You know, as long as we’re telling everyone how we really feel…
Wow, Shit Mouth, it been two years, TWO YEARS BRO! If you are legit a troll, you have some fucking dedication, I’ll give you that, dude.
So what you gotta say? *reads comment*…….Huh, still nothing of any form of importance, glad to see you’re still dedicated to having absolutely no legitimate worth as a human being at all, good for you. ^-^ You stay the course, man.
Hey look it’s the insecure fuckwit we all laugh at. Still as delusional and pants on head retarded as usual I see. I had hoped when you started your shitty review site that everyone makes fun of, you would have gotten the hint that you are a disgusting human being that is pitied at best. Your lack of writing talent is an embarrassment to anyone calling themselves a reviewer, and your lack of intelligence further drives home the fact you have no business opening your mouth, let alone complaining about anyone else especially when your stupid ass does the exact same thing and worse.
Your site doesn’t even manage 1/10th of the views we get on our least popular videos, and your recent review of Heroes of the Storm single handled proved how much of a dipshit you are. Your work ethic is so laughable that you can barely manage to put up a review that is not only poorly written with spelling errors and a lack of research, but in the same amount of time it takes us to do several videos with critical analysis and actual thought put into it.
So my final thoughts to you Nanbo are this, go back to school to try and fix that elementary school writing you seem to think doesn’t make you look like a complete moron, learn how to actually be a critic instead of some delusional half brain dead fuckwit that wouldn’t know what good judgement is if it was beaten into him, and delete your entire site as a humanitarian gesture to the world in the name of good taste and to stop acting as a disgrace to anyone within the critical field.
You should also try to review something more on your level, like proper mouth wiping techniques your nanny shows you every morning when she cleans the drool dribbling down your chin Nanbo.
You know so long as we are sharing how we really feel here.
yay more of the dipshit maybe if your mmosite icon wasn’t made in ms-paint people would care about what you sa hahahah no
No, he’s definitely a social gamer, have you not seen any of the reviews with the Grindstone party? I’m also fairly certain he’s mentioned he’s strictly a PC gamer.
I don’t want anyone hanging onto my every word as gospel. We are not kindred spirits, trust me, and I don’t need any more moments of someone thinking we have similar thoughts and personalities, have that illusion shattered by the first time we disagree on something, resulting in a violent over-steered rebellion against everything I do. That shit’s creepy.
tldr:
MMO GRINDER. DOESN’T. WORK. THAT WAY!
I find this very baffling, while I know reviewers whom truly never say what they think and always put on a show, you always felt like a very objective reviewer who makes his opinion very clear. I mean… even before this was standard, your reviews were around 30 minutes long, I really got across how you felt about the game, especially during the ending where you summarize everything. It seems really weird for someone not deeming that enough.
“I think this and this about the game. Here’s what you might like about it, here’s what you can pay for in it, and here’s what you might dislike about it”
Viewer: Woah, MIGHT ? Dude, don’t strain my brain by forcing it to use imagination or just giving the game a try. Personal opinion does not exist, tell me if its good or not!
Also emmm…. It surprised me to hear about Justin and his relation to Pangya. I know I barely had contact with him, but I do still have that “You’re not stupid” video in my favorites on YouTube. I always feel really odd and uncomfortable playing it, because of what happened, but when I do, I actually feel the positive emotions and message behind it, and it does help me. Sorry, just felt like sharing.
I personally never felt that I needed anything like this and feel like I got how you felt about a game and why. while it may of helped shape my opinion of a game and if I might enjoy trying it.. It was never my end all reason. and In the end I still end up picking up a game because I give it a whirl.. the reason I enjoy your videos is you do a great job introducing them and showing what might my experience be like with them.
That said… These are great, If you really want to do one for every video in the future.. I think thats great too.. but I can see you doing a lot of work if you tried to do every video. I think you should just limit your reviews to titles still current or the most current review of the game.. like the last backtrack for warframe. (btw I did give that a try and sorta liked it.)
Also if game gets canceled, there is really no point into putting any more thought then you need to, or want to. I can understand if a title you really love needs a long heartfelt note on why it was great, and how you will miss it. It happens and a lot because so many of these titles need masses of people to keep them running.
In any case, keep up the great work!
What this will likely become is “The Elder Council” (name pending) where I take a few words on my unfiltered opinion of a game, as well as my co-writer and maybe one or two others that will have had a lot of time in the game. We’ll see how it goes.
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