Were you one of the three million people who ditched World of Warcraft earlier this year? Did you leave in part because you could fly virtually everywhere in the game but not the new expansion and found it irritating, illogical, and design-poor? Were you expecting to resub at some future point once Blizzard addressed the feature? Good news: Blizzard has nixed flying in Draenor forever; it doesn’t want your money, so you can now spend it on the hundreds of other MMORPGs on the market. You’re welcome!
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
BLADE & SOUL SAILS WEST
Blade & Soul hits western shores this winter - Remember when comic books had little call-outs on the front cover proudly proclaiming that something happened because the readers requested it? I always thought those were kind of hilarious. "Because you demanded it, here's the latest issue…
Hands-on: Blade & Soul’s western port is a cheerful cliche storm (and I want to play more) - I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Blade & Soul just moving around. Most of the time in a given game, I'm moving around because I'm trying to explore the game world I'm inhabiting. But during…
Blade & Soul’s announcement livestream features gameplay and Q&A - Surely by now you've heard that Blade & Soul is heading west. You probably even read our hands-on impressions from a recent NCsoft event. You may not have seen the inaugural Blade & Soul livestream, though,…
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
John Smedley talks smack to nearly 25,000 banned H1Z1 players - Do you like people who cheat in online games? Daybreak president John Smedley does not. After 24,837 H1Z1 accounts were banned for cheating (7,000 of them esp hackers banned just in the in the last few…
EverQuest’s new progression server comes online (again) - After a disasterous initial outing and subsequent wipe, EverQuest's Ragefire server came back online last night to welcome players back to the classic era of the game. The latest progression server for EverQuest struggled mightily as…
The Repopulation to launch in Q4 2015 - Just when you thought The Repopulation was doomed to be in eternal testing, Above and Beyond Technologies announced that it's releasing. This year. This winter. For real. The studio said that it's targeting a launch window…
ArcheAge preps a barrel racing daily event - ArcheAge is gearing up for its annual Rum Runner Rapids event, which looks to involve drinking, whitewater rapids, and barrels out of bond. More specifically, you can "construct colorful casks to use in a series of…
En Masse says that TERA is ‘the most played MMORPG on Steam’ - [AL:TERA]Steam and TERA are a match made in F2P heaven, apparently. The latest En Masse press release heralds the action fantasy title as "the most played MMORPG on Steam." The firm is basing its statement on all-time peak concurrency numbers,…
Guild Wars 2 denies expansion date rumors, addresses ‘peaceful’ WvW bug - Don't believe everything you read from online retailers. This is the lesson that we must learn again as a supposed summer release date for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns was denied by ArenaNet. "Retailers have…
Neverwinter’s Strongholds expansion is coming this summer - [AL:NW]Neverwinter's next expansion is called Strongholds, and it's coming to a PC near you this summer. Players will work together with their guild mates to claim an abandoned keep and rebuild it on "the largest map…
Crowfall locks down forums for backers only - If you still want to take part in discussions on the official Crowfall forums, you'll have to back the game. The game has locked down its forums for all non-backers, giving new registrations access to a…
Blizzard takes cigar from Heroes of the Storm character, internet flips tables - Tychus is now on the nicotine patch. Blizzard has removed the cigar from its depiction of the Starcraft II character in its upcoming Hereoes of the Storm, setting off a minor internet conniption. "We know smoking…
Linda ‘Brasse’ Carlson on ArcheAge, community management, and her new role at Trion - Linda "Brasse" Carlson is one of the MMO industry's most beloved community specialists, and genre fans everywhere boggled just a bit when Daybreak laid her off along with a number of other high profile employees last…
Guild Wars 2’s Lion’s Arch reconstruction has begun - Guild Wars 2's Lion's Arch reconstruction has begun, declare patch notes and a new dev post released today by ArenaNet's Gaile Gray. The patch notes, which also include a number of PvP and PvE tweaks, begin with this in-character announcement from…
League of Legends tests automated punishments for bad player behavior - [AL:LOL]Getting on top of bad player behavior in League of Legends may be an impossible job -- for mere people, that is. But what if you could create an automated system that could be the judge,…
Ultraviolence, virtual worlds, and why I hate myself for loving GTA Online - OK, maybe that title is overly dramatic. Still, I feel guilty for liking Grand Theft Auto Online. I've touched on this before, as have a number of you in the comments of a previous article, but…
Age of Conan adds new content for its anniversary… for a price - It seems like it's been a while since Age of Conan last got a major update, but for its anniversary the red carpet has been rolled out once again. Shadow of Vanaheim is new content offering…
Funcom financials trend downward, new CEO appointed - While it could have been worse, Funcom's Q1 2015 financials could have been a heck of a lot better, too. In yesterday's financial report, the company announced that its revenues dropped $144,000 from the previous quarter,…
Landmark dev: Dungeoneering will become a large part of the game - Landmark is a sandbox MMO that allows players to engage in a number of non-combat activities, but playing as a pure pacifist might be difficult -- especially if you like to explore the game's world. Daybreak…
CCP Games buys back $20m in bonds, drops Legion trademark - News is circulating in the EVE Online blogs and forum that developer CCP Games has just bought back $20 million in publicly traded bonds. The bonds were sold to the public back in 2013 and required…
ArcheAge spawns fresh Reddit drama over pay-to-win - Third time's a charm with Reddit! Remember back in March when a Skyforge moderator threatened to ban anyone using the term pay-to-win and was summarily excoriated by the community for his trouble? Apparently the ArcheAge Reddit…
THIS WEEK’S STREAMS & CASTS
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
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The Warcraft movie’s first look at Orgrim
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