MMO Week in Review: Guild Wars 2 specs and traits – April 26, 2015

April 26, 2015 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!

This week, ArenaNet finally unveiled just how Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns’ revamped specialization and trait system will work. Massively OP’s own Tina Lauro posted her experiences with the game’s Stronghold PvP, and the studio further promoted its ongoing e-sports efforts.

Fancy classic Guild Wars instead? It’s in the midst of its 10th anniversary celebrations. Happy birthday!

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

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Elder Scrolls Online’s PS4 beta starts tomorrow - If for some reason you want to play Elder Scrolls Online on a console (I dunno, maybe you hate UI mods and bleeding edge graphics?), you don't have much longer to wait. ZeniMax's themepark MMO officially…

GTA Online: All the open world feels, none of the MMO grind - Any minute now I'm going to log out of Grand Theft Auto Online so I can finish this not-a-review. Seriously, I've played this game for, oh, 65 hours since it launched on the PC last week?…

The Powerplay update will change how you play Elite: Dangerous - The next big update for Elite: Dangerous centers around the Powerplay system, and it's enough to change the way you see the game world. Powerplay allows players to ally themselves with various galactic powers, at which…

The Secret World’s Issue 11 is launching on May 6 - The Secret World's Issue 11 content now has a release date. Lead designer Romain Amiel tweeted the news this afternoon, so mark your calendars if you're a fan of Funcom's horror-conspiracy MMO. Issue 11 drops on May…

WildStar’s Zero to Fifty livestream goes on hiatus - Carbine is closing down WildStar's Zero to Fifty livestream show, at least temporarily. Community and creative content manager Tony Rey posted briefly on the forums and said that Carbine will "re-evaluate and improve our current content…

Crowfall reaches its graphics programmer stretch goal - Like many big crowdfunded projects, Crowfall didn't stop reaching for stretch goals just because the game's main Kickstarter project ended. The project has hit its first post-Kickstarter stretch goal this week, so the team will be…

Warcraft movie delayed once again - If you were making plans to head to theaters in March of next year to see the Warcraft film as soon as it opened, your plans were apparently rather premature. Not just because that's 11 months…

Here’s a quick preview of WildStar’s new Star-Comm Basin zone - WildStar's getting a new zone and it's called Star-Comm Basin. Carbine senior game designer Scott Hafner has penned a dev blog that previews the new content, which includes "fiendish" new enemies, daily rotating quests, new loot, and…

Jacobs elaborates on spirit pets in Camelot Unchained - Camelot Unchained's Mark Jacobs has posted a Thursday afternoon update that's basically required reading if you're a fan of the fantasy RvR title. He talks about a whole bunch of stuff including last week's successful 24-hour…

Take a look at Landmark’s overhauled landmasses - Landmark's landmasses are getting a major facelift in the sandbox's last big wipe coming up next week. Not only are more biomes (underwater, volcanic, and deciduous) being introduced with their own unique flora, materials, and props,…

Perfect Ten: The 10 things every MMO’s official site should have - Are you ready to have you mind absolutely blown open? Because I have an astonishing truth to lay at your feet: While doing this job, I visit a lot of official game sites. A lot of…

Disney’s Club Penguin suffers layoffs - Club Penguin may not be one of the first games you think about when it comes to virtual worlds, but that's kind of a blind spot; the title has been operating now in the family-friendly market for…

SWTOR ‘Fallen Empire’ teaser prompts expansion rumors - [AL:TOR]The team behind Star Wars: The Old Republic posted a single image with a simple hashtag: #FallenEmpire. No further explanation or extrapolation was offered. You can check out the image yourself on the official site at…

EverQuest test server accidentally discounts cash shop items to pennies - Let's try to walk through this particular sequence of events; it isn't pretty. EverQuest puts a new patch update on the test servers with some minor but important shifts to how the game plays. That's a…

Koster on Star Wars Galaxies’ dynamic world - Raph Koster isn't done talking about Star Wars Galaxies yet, and that's good news for fans, aspiring designers, or really anyone who realizes that MMORPGs can do more. Koster's latest blog post focuses on Galaxies' dynamic world,…

TERA gets the Gunner class and a Steam launch on May 5 - [AL:TERA]TERA is adding the Gunner class in its May 5th patch. The fantasy MMO is also arriving on Steam that same day. The Gunner is a ranged DPS archetype that makes use of AoE attacks, arc…

Anarchy Online overhauls its world and professions - Anarchy Online is deploying patch 18.7.0 to the live servers on Tuesday, but if you play the game, you'll probably want to look at the patch notes now. Seriously, there's a lot of stuff going on…

Heroes of the Storm launches June 2nd - On May 19th, Heroes of the Storm goes into open beta testing, allowing everyone in the world to download and play the Blizzard crossover MOBA with no further restrictions. On June 2nd, the game goes live,…

Neverwinter disables promotional codes following exploits - [AL:NW]Last week, the Neverwinter team distributed a little bonus code via email to player accounts in celebration of the Elemental Evil update -- just a little item that could be used to unlock several different toys…

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s big finale - [AL:FFXIV]Let me warn you upfront: If you have not yet finished the last major story patch of Final Fantasy XIV and you want to make sure not to see or read any spoilers, please, do not read…

THIS WEEK’S STREAMS