After months of struggle with HeroEngine drama, Above & Beyond finally announced this weekend that it wasn’t giving up on indie sandbox The Repopulation: In fact, it is undertaking a massive port of the entire game to Unreal Engine, which should get the game out from under the heel of HeroEngine and allow some improvements to boot. In the shorter term, the studio will be pushing out smaller-scale, non-MMO survival sandbox version of the game called Fragmented to Repopulation owners for free, which should help tide everyone over until the port is complete.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
The Repopulation switches engines, announces survival spin-off ‘Fragmented’ - The Repopulation has finally issued its promised announcement to the community following the long HeroEngine drama that drove it offline last month: Above & Beyond is porting the indie sandbox to Unreal Engine. "Although we have…
PSA: Star Citizen’s free-fly weekend and Squadron 42 split - We've got a double Star Citizen PSA for you this weekend. First, Star Citizen is open this weekend for yet another "free-fly" event; anyone can sign up to check out the 2.1.2 build of the alpha (aka…
Guild Wars 2 promises less grind, faster progress with spring update - Can you believe that it's already been more than three months since Heart of Thorns came out for Guild Wars 2? As players settle into a Tyria full of gliding and masteries, the development team is…
Conan Exiles includes purges, human sacrifice, and nudity - While the upcoming Conan Exiles will take place in the same fictional universe as Age of Conan and be made by the same studio, it's not going to quite be the same game. The survival title,…
The Secret World increases membership rewards - Today's Streaming Ones dev livestream announced a big change coming to The Secret World's membership benefits in February. Game Director Romain “Tilty” Amiel emphasized that it's all about making membership a better value. To that end,…
How MMO studios wield ‘YouTube influencers’ - Kotaku has posted what it's calling "a behind-the-scenes peek at what it looks like when YouTubers shill for game companies." Perfect World Entertainment, well-known to MMORPG players for its stewardship of multiple Cryptic MMOs and Chinese imports,…
Waitlisted for The Division’s beta? ‘Check back tomorrow,’ says Ubisoft - Were you assuming that handing over a stack of cash would secure your spot in The Division's beta this weekend? Well, that much is true -- but if you're on Steam, you might have to wait…
Trove makes major business model adjustments - [AL:Trove]RIFT isn't the only game under Trion Worlds' umbrella that's reevaluating and adjusting its business model to become more profitable. Yesterday, the Trove team announced that it, too, would be making some changes so that the…
Divergence Online abandons Steam sales over ongoing review harassment - [update]Update: We have continued our reporting on this story here.[/update] Yesterday, an eagle-eyed reader noticed that Divergence Online had seemingly been pulled from Steam and was no longer available for purchase. Last night, we reached out…
EA says SWTOR’s sub numbers were way up last quarter - Good news for MMORPG players coming from the preliminary EA quarterly financial results: "In Q3, STAR WARS™: The Old Republic grew to its highest subscriber level in nearly three years." The third fiscal quarter ended December…
Testing for Landmark’s next update is currently underway - No, Daybreak hasn't abandoned Landmark: Producer Terry Michaels tweeted yesterday evening that the team has sent the next update to the QA server and is still sorting out the timeline. https://twitter.com/terryjmichaels/status/692400908416761856 And the hecklers in the Twitter…
Elder Scrolls Online video previews the Thieves Guild DLC - The Thieves Guild is pretty much my favorite part of the Elder Scrolls series, full-stop. Will it be equally epic in The Elder Scrolls Online? We're about to find out, as the game's Thieves Guild DLC lands…
RIFT addresses paywall controversy, explains F2P finances - The recent decision by Trion Worlds to set up what many see as a gear-related paywall in RIFT certainly has cause quite the discussion this week. The studio hasn't been ignoring the controversy, but unleashed Director of…
Funcom announces Conan Exiles, a multiplayer open-world survival game - Funcom has just announced that one of the Conan games it's working on is Conan Exiles, a multiplayer, open-world survival game. 'CONAN EXILES' is first and foremost a multiplayer game that can be enjoyed on both…
Superdata says League of Legends makes more money than any other game you play - Let's just get this out of the way: Superdata is a research firm that sells its data analysis. It doesn't disclose its methodology or sources if you don't pony up for them. However, what it does…
SWTOR is putting lockboxes inside of other lockboxes - [AL:TOR]Star Wars: The Old Republic apparently couldn't stand to see RIFT hogging the business model drama spotlight today and has issued a new proclamation about the "Grand Packs" currently for sale on the game's Cartel Market…
RIFT forces players to use cash shop for expansion gear upgrades - Back when RIFT launched Nightmare Tide, it introduced earring slots and a new type of gear that required a "Planeswalker: Water" label. Both of these could be obtained by purchasing one of the special editions, buying…
Eternal Crusade is now live on Steam early access with a new publisher - As promised, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade has closed down its founders program and gone live on Steam's early access platform. Now labeled a "massively multiplayer shooter" giving a "massive-scale third-person shooter experience," the game is apparently…
Guild Wars 2’s gliding patch is live alongside Lunar New Year festivities - Guild Wars 2's winter patch is now live, complete with the promised gliding in vanilla Tyria and the start of the Lunar New Year event, the latter of which runs through February 9th. Players can also look…
John Smedley’s Hero’s Song Kickstarter project is cancelled - John Smedley has just announced that the Hero's Song Kickstarter has been cancelled: https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/692005956482256896 He went on to stress that the game's development is ongoing, but it was obvious that the game would not meet its…
How Star Wars: The Old Republic won me over with its endgame - [AL:TOR]I walked away from last week's Star Wars: The Old Republic livestream pretty happy. Considering that I repeatedly say how much I absolutely loathe information presented as a video rather than just a nice solid block…
Blade & Soul hits one million players in the west - A week after its launch in North America and Europe, Blade & Soul claims to have surpassed one million players in the game worldwide in the west. The game launched in South Korea in 2012 and…
Alleged WildStar ex-devs gripe about Carbine - A series of quotes on WildStar's subreddit this past weekend has caused quite a stir in that game's community, as alleged former Carbine developers have come out to badmouth the company and the issues the team has…
Modders turn Fallout: New Vegas into an online co-op game - Fans of the Fallout series have been asking for an MMO or online game for years, and there was much disappointment online when the legal dispute between Bethesda and Interplay ended with the development of Fallout Online shutting down. Now it…
Massively Overthinking: The cynicism of modern MMO Kickstarters - This week we've been abuzz about Smed's Hero's Song Kickstarter cancellation - the KS more than the game, mostly because the game is happening regardless, but the Kickstarter might be more a window into the genre…
Bless Online stumbles in its open beta - If you're not part of Bless Online's Korean open beta, you might want to count your... um, blessings right now. Instead offering a fun-filled exploration of a new title, Bless Online is showering players with headaches and…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 48: Blade & Soul runner
The Stream Team: Summoning more adventure in Blade & Soul
The Stream Team: Heading into HEX’s new PvE tutorial (+ giveaway)
The Stream Team: Going for all the golden goodies in The Secret World
The Stream Team: Sneaking into EverQuest II’s Darklight Wood to shop
The Stream Team: Storm takes on Marvel Heroes’ Danger Room
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
A look at WoW: Legion’s updated Rogue class hall
New models in latest WoW: Legion alpha build
New Warcraft movie trailer debuted this evening
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.
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