We’ve been creeping ever closer to World of Warcraft: Legion this week, with a glimmer of hope in WoW’s “growth,” a look at the new leveling system in Legion lands, and a big trailer intended to rope you in.
Meanwhile, we got a peek at RIFT’s upcoming Starfall Prophecy expansion, celebrated the arrival of Elder Scrolls Online’s Shadows of the Hist, and gave Star Wars: The Old Republic the side-eye over its new lockbox enhancements initiative, which we should totally call NLE.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Activision-Blizzard Q2 2016: Overwatch at 15M users, WoW sees growth - Activision-Blizzard has released its Q2 results for 2016. No, you won't be getting hard World of Warcraft numbers -- that all came to an end last year. But the company…
Here’s everything you need to know about RIFT’s Starfall Prophecy expansion - [AL:Rift]When RIFT players cast their minds back to the last expansion, Nightmare Tide, chances are that two aspects that stick out more than the rest. Naturally, the first is the…
Five IPs that could tackle ARG gameplay features Pokemon Go lacks - Following the news that Niantic is now in fact working on a Harry Potter AR game, I realized that even as someone who enjoyed the first three books and most of…
SWTOR wants to make your lockbox experience better - How do you feel about opening lockboxes? Is there anything MMO devs can do to make you feel less like you just emptied your wallet into a digital trashcan? BioWare thinks…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Shadows of the Hist DLC goes live - If the world seems a little darker and a smidge more dangerous today, do not fret: It simply means that Elder Scrolls Online has rolled out its newest DLC pack, Shadows…
Star Citizen deep-dives catastrophic capital ship damage - On this week's Star Citizen: Around the Verse, you can safely skip to about 19:30 and peel your eyes wide open. Not that the rest isn't interesting -- there's a series…
Elder Scrolls Online explains how to conquer Cyrodiil - One of the interesting features that came with Elder Scrolls Online's Update 11 this week was the option to take a ragtag band of heroes (or a finely honed zerg)…
Black Desert: Community uproar and analysts on Kakao - Black Desert forumgoers dug up an article in the Korea Herald from a few weeks ago that suggests publisher Kakao is using its games business (which extends well beyond Black…
Crowfall teases the Guinecean Duelist, shifts development to focus on foundations - Small and deadly: That might just be the motto of the Guinecean Duelist, Crowfall's newest archetype in development. ArtCraft teased the pint-sized class yesterday and discussed how the team was shifting…
World of Warcraft shows off its Legion leveling experience - The leveling experience of World of Warcraft: Legion is going to be rather different from previous expansions, starting with the fact that the answer to "what level is this zone"…
Here’s why Niantic shut off Pokemon Go’s third-party apps - Niantic has a fresh blog post out (communication! yay!) that takes a stab at explaining just why it put the kibosh on third-party Pokemon Go apps, maps, and trackers last…
Revelation Online will boast giant turtle housing - [AL:Rev]Housing is definitely becoming more accepted across the MMORPG genre, so while it may not be a surprise that the upcoming Revelation Online will allow players to deck out their…
Massively Overthinking: One more chance for WoW Legion? - The World of Warcraft subreddit went nuts this week over a response to a player who told Blizzard that it had "one more chance... again" to win his heart. Blizzard's PR…
WildStar introduces you to the evil pirates of Redmoon Rising - Call me Ish'amel. Sorry, we couldn't resist the opportunity when WildStar wants to talk about Ish’amel the Bloodied and Captain Mordechai Redmoon. Moby Dick puns aside, these are two key enemies…
EverQuesting: Let’s lay the Landmark hate to rest - May I respectfully make a request to my fellow gamers? Let's lay off the hate. It's time to for us to throw down that torch (extinguished, of course!) and and…
TERA is assessing interest in that rumored console port - [AL:TERA]Back in May, TERA's South Korean publisher confirmed that the MMORPG was destined for console ports to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 -- at least in that region. At the…
Black Desert players explode over plan to allow cash shop items on the in-game market - Did you hear that noise? It's the sound of Black Desert players flipping tables. "Game went from FFXIV to ArcheAge in span of 2 months," wrote one Redditor. "What happened?"…
Perfect Ten: The ten things I look forward to with MMO launches - It's not long now until World of Warcraft: Legion launches, which is all that I've been waiting for now for a while. Sure, technically I could have experienced everything in…
Blizzard holds firm on Overwatch’s Olympic promotion - Players who want to collect all of Overwatch's limited-time Olympic goodies will have to deal with disappointment. Blizzard said that it will be staying the course on its Summer Games promotion…
Guild Wars 2’s Mike O’Brien on the Gaile Gray hack - Earlier today, Redditors began circulating a forum thread filled with pictures of a character named Gaile Gray running around classic Guild Wars spouting nonsense (and worse). The claim that followed was that…
RIFT’s Starfall Prophecy is on sale before it’s been officially announced - [AL:Rift]If all the rumors from the last month about RIFT's Starfall Prophecy expansion didn't convince you it's happening, how about the fact that it's currently for sale on the Glyph…
Marvel Heroes’s 59th character will be Thor’s sister Angela - Siblings can be a pain in the tuckus or a best friend (or both!). Thor is about to find out which it is, as his birth sister Angela is heading…
Trinium Wars will sunset at the end of the the month - Get your playtime in now, folks: Trinium Wars will sunset at the end of the the month. A spokesperson for InselGames confirmed to us that the game's final day will be…
Marvel Heroes’ dynamic combat scaling is live now - Dynamic combat scaling is live today in Marvel Heroes, affecting enemies and zones in both story mode and challenge mode. The game launched with fixed levels for every area of…
Hyperspace Beacon: Five reasons I still play Star Wars: The Old Republic - [AL:TOR]It’s hard not to be negative about your favorite game when it appears that it’s changing its original goals. “What? You’re just now realizing this, Larry?” you might be thinking.…
Pokemon Go: Niantic addresses community, New York panics over sex offenders - Niantic has finally addressed the Pokemon Go community's uproar over the weekend patch that fixed the three-step-bug by taking it out and silenced location and map apps in one fell…
Overwatch banwave crashes into cheaters - For some of Overwatch's cheaters, August 1st could be the date that lives in infamy. From the sound of it, it looks like Blizzard triggered a banwave today that's reaching out…
World of Warcraft trailer touts Legion features, locations - Blizzard has just posted up another World of Warcraft: Legion video, this one an "extended look" at the zones, dungeons, artifact system, combat animations, world quests, honor system, class halls,…
No Man’s Sky subreddit loses its space marbles over spoiler streams - The No Man's Sky subreddit went into wacky meltdown mode over the weekend as players with leaked copies -- one purchased for $1300 on Ebay, some that may or may…
Livelock’s launch delayed, no new date set - [AL:LiLo]Friends, the headline pretty much says it all: Livelock has decided to delay its launch without announcing a new release date. The delay affects all platforms on which the robot MMO…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 76: The fall of Firefall
Battle Bards Episode 79: Combat music
The Stream Team: Compy carnage in ARK
The Stream Team: Whisperings of Black Desert’s black wisp
The Stream Team: Contagions and cracking codes in The Secret World
The Stream Team: SWTOR’s Battle of Rishi
The Stream Team: Launching into Livelock’s open protocol mode
The Stream Team: A visit to the Elder Scrolls Online Style Parlor
The Stream Team: Attempting to live through Path of Exiles’ labyrinth
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
The best Hunter talents for leveling and world quests in Legion
WoW patch 7.0 hotfixes for August 1
Will you be rolling a Demon Hunter day one?
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.
