MMO Week in Review: A new race for LOTRO (January 22, 2017)

January 22, 2017 8:00 PM

Were you too busy gaming this week to pay attention to MMO news? Get caught up every Sunday evening with Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!

The new-old Lord of the Rings Online team at Standing Stone worked the gaming press corps this week, sprinkling reveals like candy at a Mardi Gras parade as they went. Topping the list is info MOP’s Justin Olivetti acquired: Not only are new character models for the game confirmed (not just a wish-list item!), High Elves are coming to the game. Huh. Plus housing is due for updates in the very next patch.

Meanwhile, MOP’s Andrew Ross penned a detailed research piece on whether lockboxes and their associated business mode trappings legally constitute gambling.

Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

MMO lockboxes, keys, and booster packs: Gambling or gaming? - Lockboxes have become a hot topic over the last couple of years. Last month, both our writers and readers crowned SWTOR worst business model of the year in part over its…

Massively OP Interview: Standing Stone on LOTRO, DDO, and Daybreak - [AL:LOTRO]It's been quite a month since Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online announced that they were breaking off from Turbine as part of a new studio called Standing…

LOTRO starts testing player housing improvements - [AL:LOTRO]One of the most requested and most delayed requests by the Lord of the Rings Online community over the years is a revamp to the game's limited housing system. While…

World of Warcraft posts initial patch notes for patch 7.2 testing - The initial build of World of Warcraft patch 7.2 is up for testing now, but be fairly warned: It's not all of the patch. It's not even necessarily a majority…

Massively OP Interview: Exploring LOTRO with the Tolkien Professor - [AL:LOTRO]If you are looking for a bridge between you and the sometimes dense (but quite popular) works of J.R.R. Tolkien, then you could do no better than to sit at…

Perfect Ten: The MMOs with the most unclear futures in 2017 - A little while back, I took a look at the healthiest games in the MMO space at this time. That was a nice, uplifting list, wasn't it? And all of…

Dungeons and Dragons Online hypes Dragonborn race, Ravenloft expansion, and sentient weapons - [AL:DDO]In 2017, Dungeons and Dragons Online will officially add its third campaign setting to its melting pot with Ravenloft. Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini wrote in his producer's letter that the…

EverQuest senior game designer Josh Augustine moves over to World of Warcraft - Former PC Games editor and EverQuest senior game designer Josh Augustine announced yesterday that he's made a move to a position on a different MMORPG: World of Warcraft. "I'm overjoyed to…

Examining the potential for exercise and exploration in Pokemon GO - Just in time for your New Year's resolution, we reported on how Pokemon Go was featured in a peer-reviewed study on getting people to move more. But truthfully, Pokemon and Nintendo have built exercise games…

Quantic Foundry’s findings on WoW, SWTOR, and gender - Quantic Foundry, the gaming analytics consulting firm we've been following since late 2015 thanks to its Gamer Motivation Model, has a new blog post out this week that purports to…

Marvel Heroes rolls out ‘biggest update ever’ successfully - Last night, MJ and I were nervous about scheduling her Marvel Heroes stream -- would the game really be back up and functional when it had gone down only six…

Funcom announces $29.99 price for Conan Exiles, posts ‘domination’ trailer - [update]Update down at the bottom -- Funcom just announced the game will run $29.99 in early access.[/update] If giant squid, oversized snakes, or massive automatoi are among your phobias, seriously,…

Choose My Adventure: The most depressing road trip in Lord of the Rings Online - [AL:LOTRO]You know, if my first exposure to Elves had been in Lord of the Rings Online, I would probably think that they were the most depressing species in existence because…

Revelation Online’s third closed beta has begun - As promised, the third round of Revelation Online's closed beta begins in the west today. "The third phase of testing will last until February 2 and will allow players to explore…

Wizards of the Coast forms new digital games studio led by Jeffrey Steefel - Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons might be getting an online upgrade in the near future. In a letter written this week to the Wizards of the Coast community, President Chris…

Blizzard defeats Bossland bot-maker in German supreme court ruling - Score one for Blizzard: The gaming giant managed a win in its long struggle against German bot-maker and plague-on-honest-gaming Bossland GmbH. The German Federal Court of Justice this week overturned earlier…

Elder Scrolls Online launches Homestead housing on February 6th - Ready to move into a swanky new house or just a barely furnished hovel in The Elder Scrolls Online? You won't have to wait too much longer. The game's Homestead…

Path of Exile is coming to Xbox One this year - [AL:POE]Path of Exile is coming to Xbox One in 2017, Grinding Gear Games just announced. "The Xbox One version is also free-to-play and will contain all the content from the…

Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR Creative director discusses a ‘new adversary’ - [AL:TOR]For the last five years and more, Star War: The Old Republic told the story of Tenebrae, a Sith of humble origins who rose to great power and ultimately corruption.…

Black Desert introduces the family fame system with today’s patch - Live in today's Black Desert patch is what Kakao is calling the "family fame" system, which looks like a way to encourage alting and broadened accounts. "All characters stats within…

Atlas Reactor launches its fully free-to-play patch with a new freelancer - [AL:Atlas]No more half-measures of being free-to-play for Atlas Reactor; with the game's most recent patch, the title is entirely free-to-play. Not just mostly free-to-play or sort of free-to-play. Get out…

Final Fantasy XIV patch 3.5 launches today - [AL:FFXIV]First and foremost, a public service announcement: If you want to avoid any potential spoilers for today's Final Fantasy XIV patch, you may want to turn off character titles (it's…

Touring Marvel Heroes with Gazillion before January 19’s big update - While it's true that you can see a good share of Marvel Heroes' mega January 2017 update for yourself on the test server, who could pass up a walkthrough and…

Massively OP Interview: Why Ship of Heroes is taking City of Heroes into space - What happens when a group of dislodged City of Heroes fans attempt to bring back the spirit of their favorite MMO while marrying it to another favorite geek pastime (in…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH

WoW’s Call of the Scarab micro-holiday

Everything you need to know about WoW’s Nighthold raid

Know Your Lore: Dangling plot threads in World of Warcraft

Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.