The aftermath of CitizenCon has been glorious for Star Citizens: We learned more about the 2.0.0 alpha patch, read up on the Starmap, rounded up the highlights of CitizenCon itself, and celebrated the game’s one-millionth member.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
GUILD WARS 2
Guild Wars 2 begins Heart of Thorns countdown, announces ESL Pro League - It's a week until Guild Wars 2's first expansion launches (at 3:01 a.m. EDT on October 23rd, to be precise), and ArenaNet's Colin Johanson has a pep talk for those about to embark on the next…
Guild Wars 2 dives back into Halloween on October 23rd - Expansion? Who is thinking about expansions when Halloween is prowling about? Guild Wars 2 players will have plenty with which to keep themselves occupied later this month, as The Shadow of the Mad King event returns right…
Guild Wars 2’s Heart of Thorns economy and legendary weapons - ArenaNet has published two Guild Wars 2 dev blogs today: one on the economy and one on legendary weapons. ANet economist John Smith begins by explaining how GW2's economy will be impacted by scarcity tweaks in Heart…
ArenaNet isn’t ‘leafing’ us out of Guild Wars 2’s Heart of Thorns hype - A mystery box arrived on my porch today containing a cryptic message... ... and a tree. Unfortunately for this lovely tree, I don't have my Sylvari's green thumb. Fortunately for me, this tree has exactly zero... ahem...…
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Black Desert Online confirms early 2016 launch with buy-to-play model - The race for 2016 is officially on. Daum Games confirmed this week that Black Desert Online will be coming out in North America and Europe in early 2016. This Black Desert will be significantly different than the existing Russian…
World of Warcraft patch 6.2.3 is bringing Valor back - Between the Timewalking token system and Apexis Crystals, World of Warcraft has been providing players with a variety of currencies to purchase rewards after specifically removing those currencies at the start of the current expansion. Patch…
Nexon and NCsoft part ways - After a turbulent partnership, MMO companies Nexon and NCsoft have finally parted ways. Nexon sold its 15.08% of shares back to NCsoft today, ending the two companies' intertwined and sometimes hostile relationship. The sale of 3.37 million…
ArcheAge has been live for 1,000 days in Korea; here’s a trailer - ArcheAge recently celebrated its 1,000th day as a live game in Korea. Developer XLGAMES published a trailer to mark the occasion, which is pretty slick as far as trailers go. Depending on your experience with ArcheAge, you…
Nexus Telegraph: Six little WildStar elements that I love - With the free-to-play launch calming down somewhat (look man, I can log onto the server!) and fall events kicking off in WildStar, I've been enjoying watching a new crowd come into the game and coo over…
WildStar offers up a free-to-play feature trailer - The fact that WildStar is free-to-play means that people who've never bought the game can try it out, and the people who were already playing have every reason to continue. But the new feature trailer for…
Camelot Unchained talks stretch goals, frost giants, and more - Camelot Unchained posted a new update on its website last night. It describes another productive week on the crowdfunded RvR sandbox, and it confirms that stealth is now an official thing thanks to the completion of the…
EVE Online plans to let players buy and sell skillpoints - EVE Online has always been pretty unique in the MMO genre, not least of all due to its time-based skill training system. Instead of earning experience or skills through gameplay, EVE characters train skills in realtime…
Tree of Savior closed beta 2 begins on October 27 - The next Tree of Savior English closed beta test is right around the corner. On the official site, the team announced that the second closed beta test for the beautiful isometric game will commence on October 27th…
H1Z1 adds female zombies and a bloody hospital - H1Z1 has become an equal opportunity undead employer. The zombie sandbox patched in female zombies yesterday, expanding the variety of the walking dead that players will encounter. The update didn't stop there but also included the blood-splattered Kurama…
Perfect Ten: MMO systems that could be great (but I haven’t seen it yet) - Before I start this column, I want to say two important things. First, my experiences do not extend outward to the limits of the MMO genre; it's quite possible that the good versions of these systems…
The Secret World continues Manufactory dungeon, increases gear cap - Hey, would you like a heap of The Secret World fixes and improvements today? Either way, you're going to get them. Update 12.5 is out, hauling with it a wagon-load of wendigo corpses, instances, and tweaked features.…
Funcom’s The Park coming out on October 27th - Funcom's The Secret World spin-off The Park finally has a release date that gets it out in time for Halloween: October 27th. In addition to its launch date reveal, The Park also has its own Steam page now…
Tamriel Infinium: Orsinium makes me forget the things I don’t like about ESO leveling - Anyone reading this column regularly understands that I have a bit of a tiff with ZeniMax because of the way it's handled the leveling process in Elder Scrolls Online. And I honestly don't think the devs are going…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 33: Ascent’s James Hicks
Massively Opinionated: Which is the best open-world PvP, WvW or FFA?
The Stream Team: 12 Days of SWTOR, companion bonus day
The Stream Team: Playing Sword Coast Legends with devs
The Stream Team: Celebrating Pirate101’s birthday with free gifts
The Stream Team: 12 Days of TOR, Day 10
The Stream Team: Taking on WildStar’s first dungeon
The Stream Team: Duty calls in Final Fantasy XIV
The Stream Team: Heaping helpings of EverQuest II Heritage Quests
The Stream Team: 12 Days of TOR, Day 9
The Stream Team: Aerial taming adventures in ARK: Survival Evolved
The Stream Team: Going gangbusters with Marvel Heroes’ Spider-Gwen
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
New Timewalking dungeons and more coming in WoW’s patch 6.2.3
Role Play: How to handle player housing in WoW
WoW’s Murloc pet Terky can now be found in Borean Tundra
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 Monday’s Not So Massively for MOBA and multiplayer news, 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.
