MMO Week in Review: The Secret World is out of secrets (July 2, 2017)

July 2, 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 Secret World formally relaunched as Secret World Legends this week, complete with a launch trailer, bans, and compensation for headstart issues. We added another impressions piece to our archive as well. Still wanting to play on Steam? You’ve got another few weeks to go.

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

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Chaos Theory: Week one impressions of Secret World Legends - [AL:SWL]It's been a week since Funcom threw open the doors of Secret World Legends' headstart to everyone and removed the NDA. That's seven days of choosing factions, meeting handlers, blasting…

Watch Secret World Legends’ official launch trailer - [AL:SWL]If you're a The Secret World fan who hadn't already given Secret Worlds Legends a shot -- and given this weekend's exploits and downtime, we wouldn't blame you -- today is your day…

Secret World Legends bans weekend currency exploiters - [AL:SWL]Yesterday's Secret World Legends downtime turns out to have been a serious one indeed. Players began noticing that the price of Aurum on the Exchange was fluctuating oddly over the…

Secret World Legends prepares to re-open currency exchange following rampant duping - [AL:SWL]With Secret Worlds Legends relaunch last past weekend, one of the tentpoles of the new free-to-play business model came under attack almost immediately thanks to an exploit in the currency…

Marvel Heroes clamps down on Fantastic Four characters due to licensing issues - Something bizarre and decidedly non-fantastic is going on over at Marvel Heroes. Gazillion made an earth-shattering post on the forums yesterday to say that the company was ceasing sales of…

LOTRO Legendarium: Simply walking into Mordor - [AL:LOTRO]It has been a whirlwind week of news and reveals for Lord of the Rings Online players. Standing Stone Games finally pulled back the curtains of the new expansion, simply…

RIFT makes Prophecy of Ahnket free forever, preps a Celestial Storm for July 19 - [AL:Rift]Trion World's experiment this past spring with making RIFT's newest expansion free for a limited time is now becoming a permanent fixture. The studio announced today that Prophecy of Ahnket…

Massively Overthinking: Do MMORPGs aspire to pro-social mechanics? - Massively OP reader and Patron Avaera has a thoughtful question for the team and readers this week. "I wish more virtual world games thought deeply about what impact they can have…

Anarchy Online celebrates its sweet sixteen - Maintenance mode or no, Anarchy Online is going to celebrate its birthday in style. The MMO, which launched back in 2001, turns 16 this month and is bringing back its…

Ghost Widow gets a spotlight on her Master x Master incarnation - While very few veteran City of Heroes fans were happy about the inclusion of Statesman in Master x Master for a variety of reasons, the inclusion of Ghost Widow should…

Kritika Online slams into open beta - [AL:Krit]No delays. No excuses. No mercy. Action MMO Kritika Online is not slowing down in this final pre-launch period, moving into open beta today as it prepares for its western…

Survival sandbox Rust has refunded $4.38M to players so far - Have you ever wondered how many copies of any particular game players return for refunds on Steam? In the case of the popular survival sandbox Rust, we now know the…

Choose My Adventure: Launching new in DC Universe Online - [AL:DCUO]Looking at the the three big triple-A superhero titles, DC Universe Online has always felt like the odd one out. City of Heroes was the first, of course, but it…

Black Desert update makes adjustments to Sausan Garrison mobs, offers compensation for lag - This week's Black Desert update is of particular interest to players tackling quests and enemies around the Sausan Garrison. The team has bumped up XP rewards for those mobs and…

An EVE Online player tried (and failed) to send CCP Games a big bag of tallywhackers - [AL:EVE]Sending someone a message containing the phrase "eat a bag of dicks" may feel good to type, but it raises a number of logistical questions about how that would even…

World of Warcraft starts testing Argus and Patch 7.3 - While the World of Warcraft raiding community soldiers on through the new Tomb of Sargeras and everyone else curses their luck at legendary item drops, Blizzard has activated Patch 7.3…

Hyperspace Beacon: An open letter to all roleplayers in MMORPGs - [AL:TOR]I really hate when non-RPers get their kicks out of making light of what roleplayers are doing to have fun. Many times, the roleplayer will be standing at the bar…

Perfect Ten: MMO zones I love to hate - Let's be frank: Not every MMO zone can be a masterpiece of art, design, quest flow, and navigability. I mean, they totally should be, but that's not how it shakes…

Final Fantasy XIV is temporarily logging everyone off once a day to keep login queues moving - [AL:FFXIV]Nobody likes having to sit through a queue to log in to a game. Absolutely no one. Part of the reason Final Fantasy XIV instituted a 30-minute kick timer with…

New World of Warcraft emulator project takes players back to The Burning Crusade era - The muddy waters of emulators and the contentious conversation around World of Warcraft legacy servers is getting a whole lot more crazy this summer, thanks to a new emulator project on…

Diablo III releases the Necromancer today - If you've been waiting for the newest class in Diablo III to make you feel alive again, the good news is that it's arriving today. The Necromancer is here with…

Flameseeker Chronicles: Fashion Wars wishlist for Guild Wars 2 - I've recently been spending an increasing amount of my time improving the looks of my Guild Wars 2 characters: Although I have always greatly appreciated the wardrobe and dye options available to…

Marvel Heroes is removing a la carte costumes and making lockboxes easier to get on consoles - If you're playing Marvel Heroes on console and were hoping for a change in how the game handles lockboxes and individual costumes, the good news is that a change is…

EVE Evolved: How much trust is too much in EVE Online? - [AL:EVE]Of all the headlines to come out of EVE Online over the years, the biggest and most far-reaching have been the stories of massive thefts and underhanded scams. The MMO community…

Check out Black Desert Kamasilvia Part II’s Korean teaser trailer - [AL:BDO]Want a peek at Black Desert's Kamasilvia Part II? We're getting one today, and though it's a tease for the Korean version of the game, which is getting the update…

Cloud Imperium rejects wild claim that Star Citizen is ‘owned by a bank’ - The Star Citizen subreddit is aflame this weekend after bloggers on multiple sites and social media platforms, seemingly spurred on by a certain self-proclaimed Internet Warlord, have held up recently…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH

What we know so far about WoW’s 7.3 patch

WoW’s patch 7.3 is on the PTR now, new dungeon, raid, and sandbox feature to come

Know Your Lore: Warcraft’s Sargeras

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.