Feeling a bit in a routine funk as of late, I pulled on the emergency cord by my desk to activate a good old-fashioned MMO tour. I have a list of MMOs I either haven’t tried, haven’t played much, or haven’t visited in a while, so until the funk is over, I’ll be visiting one of these on a week-by-week basis. Worst case, I get some fun blog posts. Best case, I find something that’s surprisingly fun and sticks.
First up? AdventureQuest 3D. MJ over at MOP is a huge evangelist for this game and keeps saying how it’s incredibly underrated, so I must give it more than a passing time of day, I suppose.
If you’ve played any MMO, ever, then AQ3D is not going to trip you up. It’s a very straight-forward — and slick! — MMO with tab-target combat, loot, stats, etc. What seems to distinguish itself is the generally wacky humor (I am a fan of the drackens — the dragon-chicken hybrids) and the ability to collect and swap between classes. But for the first night, I worked on getting my game legs with combat, gearing up, and getting to know a questing system where there is no mini-map or bigger map. There is insta-travel between regions, though.
By the time I got to the main town, I felt in over my head. There were so many quest givers and things to do and places to see that I didn’t know what to do first. So I focused on popping my head into the first zone, doing a couple of Ranger quests to get tokens for that class, and hung out with the weird band at the inn. Oh! And I picked up my free Massively OP cloak that I had totally forgotten I unlocked several years back.
Mini-dungeons are something that I discovered about Guild Wars 2, thanks to dailies. They’re not much, usually a corridor that’s topped with a puzzle or a small boss. Interesting experiments, if nothing else.
Meanwhile, while there are plenty of things to be doing and appreciating in Guild Wars 2, I keep logging in to find my interest pulled in a dozen weak directions without any strong goal in sight. And then I just join whatever world boss squad is going around killing baddies mindlessly. It’s something to pass the time, but it’s not going to keep me here long.
Bio Break 
MJ is right about AdventureQuest 3D. Hugely underrated and undercovered. I only wish it ran better on my Kindle Fire.