World of Warcraft raised eyebrows this week as Blizzard revealed a three million sub drop in the last quarter, the sharpest three-month drop in the game’s history. The heavy losses don’t appear to worry MMO players, however, and they don’t appear to worry Blizzard, either, as the studio preps WoW’s 6.2 patch and enjoys absurd success with Hearthstone and Diablo III.
Meanwhile, Massively Overpowered — that’s us! — launched our Patreon campaign. We appreciate your support! Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THE DAYBREAK SAGA
Daybreak’s John Smedley: EverQuest Next isn’t ‘vaporware’ - Even though the big SOE-to-Daybreak transformation happened three months ago, the entire ordeal still feels fresh to many fans. An air of uncertainty permeates speculation about the studio's future, and questions still swirl around regarding the fate…
Smedley has bright predictions for PlanetSide 2’s future - It's been said before and will be said again a few more times before it's no longer true: Fans of Daybreak games are a bit jittery at the moment. The company's sudden shift away from Sony…
EverQuest Next invites players to the Elf workshop competition - The games aren't explicitly linked quite the same way any longer, but there's still plenty of space for Landmark players to strut their stuff in EverQuest Next style. Hence the new forum posting that gives players…
Daybreak’s John Smedley: ‘Modders getting paid is an awesome idea’ - Where do you come down on the subject of paying for game mods? While the reality of the issue might be off the table right now thanks to Valve pulling its paid Skyrim mods program, it's…
Landmark’s new island shapes revealed - If you are eager to scope out Landmark's new landscapes in order to find the perfect spot to construct your next home, you can get a headstart on your plans even while the servers are still down.…
Daybreak releases EverQuest progression server details - Daybreak has announced the results of its EverQuest progression server polling. The shard's name will be Ragefire, and the initial unlocked expansion vote was a close one with "classic only" winning out over "classic, Kunark, and…
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
SWTOR players harass a BioWare dev and his family - [AL:TOR] What do you do when MMO devs mess with your favorite class? If you're a handful of Star Wars: The Old Republic players, you spam invective at BioWare systems designer John Jarynowski on social media. But…
WildStar’s massive INVASION: Nexus patch is live - Do you want a pet? Do you want to take on some contracts? Are you excited to play around with an expanded wardrobe? Is it time for a new raid? Literally all of these things are…
Chaos Theory: Reaping the Whirlwind in The Secret World’s Issue #11 - To spoil or not to spoil; that is the question. When it comes to The Secret World, that's a very serious question indeed! As much as I really, really hate spoilers, how could I ever decline a…
Guild Wars 2 unveils the Guardian elite spec: Dragonhunter - Here we are in the wilds of Guild Wars 2 once again, and you can see we've got a big old dragon right there. He's a beauty, he is. The worst thing you could do here,…
Perfect Ten: Ten MMOs still going after ten years - It struck me, very recently, that a decade is a long time for MMOs. If we're going to count Ultima Online as the first proper MMO as we think of them - and I am -…
Crowfall’s store is (partly) up and running - You have not played enough of Crowfall to form an opinion on how it plays. You haven't. It isn't playable yet. But that doesn't mean you can't start buying in-game goodies to have when you finally…
Elder Scrolls Online video demonstrates freedom and choice - Do you like freedom? Do you like choices? Well, of course you do; you're a living person, not RoboTron 2010. Elder Scrolls Online purports to love both of these as well, which will make you best…
Star Citizen releases retro-themed browser arcade game - Forget Arena Commander -- the new hotness in the Star Citizen universe is Hyper Vanguard Force IV. And you can play it right now without a beta key. So what is this? Hyper Vanguard Force IV…
Why Eternal Crusade can’t do a global megaserver - The dream to create a PvP-centric game on a single global megaserver might be just that -- a dream. Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade Senior Producer Nathan Richardson said that current tech can't support such a server,…
Talking with Trion about the future of Trove - If you dismissed Trove early on as an insignificant game or a thinly veiled Minecraft clone, then it might be time to take a second look. Trion Worlds' colorful sandbox has been growing by leaps and bounds…
Star Wars: The Old Republic cracks down on RMT ring - [AL:TOR]In the MMO community, shady websites selling game currency for real currency are considered especially heinous. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, these operations are shut down by an elite squad known as the Creditseller Destroyers.…
Neverwinter announces its next major update, Underdark - [AL:NW]Neverwinter is heading into a dark place with its next major update. Darker than dark, even. Tenatively dubbed Neverwinter: Underdark, the next module will bring players into the eponymous Underdark, exploring kingdoms of Drow and featuring…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Unpacking Guild Wars 2’s beta drop RNG - Never before have I seen Guild Wars 2's Dry Top and the Silverwastes hive with such activity as we've seen this week. In case you've been living under a rock since the announcement, the bright sparks…
Everything you need to know about Crowfall’s combat testing - As nifty as Crowfall's mechanical goals are, they're not going to help the game much in the long run if the fundamental combat engine of the game isn't fun to play. It's a game that lives…
TERA arrives on Steam with the Gunner class patch - [AL:TERA]TERA fans have been anticipating the game's newest class for a while now -- and today, it's here. Patch 31.04 debuts the Gunner, a Castanic and High Elf female class that wields a rifle bigger than…
ArenaNet strips, kills, deletes, and bans Guild Wars 2 cheater - Today's lesson is that you shouldn't cheat in online games. Alas, a Guild Wars 2 character had to die to provide this valuable information if you couldn't come up with that one on your own, as…
LOTRO’s update 16 arrives with new instances and LI imbuement - There are phrases you never expect to hear from Lord of the Rings Online patch notes. Like "giant mecha battles" or "featuring voice work by Sting" or "new instance cluster." But that last one is actually…
Massively Overthinking: The return of ‘consequences’ to MMOs - This week's Massively Overthinking topic comes to us from Kickstarter donor Antonia "Toni" Phillips aka ToniLyran, who's hit on a sore point with our writers, it seems: In indie game development, we are seeing a resurgence of games…
LOTRO Legendarium: The return of the dungeon - [AL:LOTRO]While I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online as one of my main MMOs for almost a decade now, it's primarily been for the single-player experience through the majestic and detailed world. I suspect that…
Ubisoft Annecy joins the many teams working on The Division - You remember The Division, right? We sort of do. It was supposed to be released... eventually. Was it supposed to be now? Meh, doesn't matter, it's not here yet. But another team has taken on some…
E-sports, permadeath, and completionist are now in the dictionary.com - Dictionary.com has granted a bit of legitimacy to a trio of gaming terms. E-sports, permadeath, and completionist were among the latest batch of words enshrined in the online reference site's ever-growing lexicon. The site relies on…
THIS WEEK’S STREAMS
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Shaking up how WoW’s encounters are tanked
