Halloween is almost upon us! This week, as we gear up for candy night, we took a listen to some favorite Halloween MMORPG tunes in long-gone games and took advantage of the seasonal sales. Don’t forget our guide to spooky MMO events!
Meanwhile, Massively OP’s Brendan Drain has been reporting back from EVE Vegas, where CCP has been deep-diving its plans for Ascension, the new tutorial, the new PvE modes and AI, and what it’s like to play as a permanent alpha.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Here’s everything you can expect from BlizzCon 2016 next week - Every year, BlizzCon arrives. And every year, Bree and I sit down and liveblog about the most pertinent event for our readers to follow along at home because we love…
Blizzard isn’t announcing WoW legacy servers at BlizzCon - Blizzard's J. Allen Brack has a post on the official forums tonight that ought to temper expectations players might have about World of Warcraft vanilla servers and a possible BlizzCon…
EVE Vegas 2016: Ascension expansion detailed, new trailer released - [AL:EVE]While the main event of the EVE Online social calendar is unmistakably the annual EVE Fanfest convention in Iceland, smaller gatherings are held throughout the year all over the world. Hundreds of…
EVE Vegas 2016: Bridging the gap between PvE and PvP - [AL:EVE]While EVE Online is typically thought of as a cutthroat PvP game, players spend a substantial amount of time engaged in PvE activities such as missions, exploration, and farming nullsec…
Tencent, Activision Blizzard, and EA among top-grossing game companies this year so far - If someone were to ask you which video game company was absolutely dominating the revenue charts in 2016, what would you say? Unless you cheated and read the headline, we're…
Apparently hacked No Man’s Sky account tweets that the game was a ‘mistake’ - [We're updating as we go here!] A Hello Games representative -- or at least someone with access to the right email account -- told Polygon this morning that it was indeed…
Star Citizen dishes on alpha 2.6 progress and procedural planets - This week's Star Citizen Around the Verse is ostensibly a check-in with the Frankfurt team, but there's quite a bit of teasing for 2.6 as well. "Alpha 2.6 has been…
SWTOR explains how Uprisings work, compensates for removal of content passes - [AL:TOR]When Star Wars: The Old Republic: Knights of the Eternal Throne lands upon us like a Star Destroyer made out of words, players will have a brand-new type of group…
Massively Overthinking: Our five favorite MMORPGs of all time - Earlier this week, Redditor maxpower888 started an epic thread on the /r/mmorpg sub asking everyone to chime in and name his or her top five MMORPGs of all time. I thought…
Neverwinter fixes ‘bug’ that allowed players to preview lockboxes, ragestorm ensues - [AL:NW]When it comes to lockboxes, enticing players to pay money for a random chance at goods has always been the hook behind this system. But when if players could shortcut…
Star Trek Online reports over a million console captains in a new infographic - [AL:STO]A couple of players have been attracted to Star Trek Online on console, and by "a couple" we mean "a little over one million." That's the biggest takeaway from the…
Chaos Theory: First impressions of Funcom’s Hide and Shriek - Have you been hiding and shrieking? I have! Hide and Shriek, the 1v1 Secret World spinoff that pits the much-loved Innsmouth Academy against the newly introduced Little Springs High in…
Weird Al Yankovic will headline this year’s BlizzCon - Satirical music star Weird Al Yankovic will headline this year's BlizzCon, Blizzard announced this afternoon, closing out the convention with his show on November 5th. "I'm very excited to be…
Superdata’s September report shows Destiny, WoW, GW2, SWTOR, and TERA doing well - Superdata's September games market report is up, and the console revenue rankings have a new old king: Destiny. Yes, Destiny has returned to the top of the pile. "Destiny highlights…
ArcheAge is rolling out a massive 3.0 ‘Revelation’ update in December - [AL:Arche]Trion Senior Producer Merv “Khrolan” Lee Kwai announced today that ArcheAge: Revelation, aka ArcheAge 3.0, will roll out to the western servers on December 10th. Revelation (yeah, that's gonna be…
Perfect Ten: My demands to MMORPGs after 13 years - I've mentioned many times that my first MMO was Final Fantasy XI. It released in North America 13 years ago as of tomorrow. I remember that very well, as I…
TERA: Patrick ‘Treeshark’ Sun departs, Halloween arrives - [AL:TERA]Seattle claims another MMO dev: TERA Producer Patrick "Treeshark" Sun told players that he's leaving En Masse tomorrow. "In my stead, Matt 'Denommenator' Denomme will take over primary TERA duties,…
EverQuest accidentally deletes many guilds and their homes - What if you woke up one day and your MMORPG guild and its housing was completely gone? This nightmare scenario is what some are facing in EverQuest right now. A…
LOTRO mini-patch disables premium housing upkeep for the time being - Following last week's release of Update 19 in Lord of the Rings Online comes the traditional "fix all the things we done broke in the patch" patch. Update 19.0.1 primarily…
Black Desert acknowledges infinite gathering bug, promises ‘action’ against exploiters - Last weekend, Black Desert devs disabled some unusual items in the game: shovels and empty bottles. While at the time, Kakao said it had merely discovered a bug, players across…
Evolve has pretty much gone into maintenance mode - Yesterday, 2K all but announced maintenance mode for Evolve: "No future updates are currently planned, as development on Evolve Stage 2 is complete." "Today, Turtle Rock finishes development on the…
Kakao permabans Black Desert shovel exploiters - This past weekend, Black Desert devs disabled some unusual items in the game: shovels and empty bottles. It turned out that exploiters had been using the items to take advantage of…
Black Desert’s patch today buffs the Tamer with her awakening weapon - Today's Black Desert update adds the Tamer's awakening weapon, a bo staff that expands the Tamer's melee abilities: "The Celestial Bo Staff allows Tamers to more easily target small groups…
Player fakes a suicide attempt in EVE Online as part of an extortion scheme - [AL:EVE]One of the most universal facts about most MMO communities is that we band together when one of our own is hurting or in danger. That's why EVE Online players…
Why you should never preorder a Bethsoft game again - Don't expect to see any more detailed, in-depth reviews of upcoming Bethesda products on day one of release: The studio announced yesterday that it has made the decision to stop…
World of Warcraft releases Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan today - O frabjous day, Patch 7.1: Return to Karazhan has arrived in World of Warcraft! The content update marks World of Warcraft's first patch in the Legion cycle, coming less than…
TERA becomes Spellbound with its newest update - [AL:TERA]Believe it or not, but Karazhan isn't the only major MMO patch coming out today. TERA would like to make a bid for your attention, as the fantasy game has…
SWTOR starts laying the foundation for expansion’s new endgame - [AL:TOR]Less than a week after Star Wars: The Old Republic announced that it will be making sweeping endgame changes with Knights of the Eternal Throne, BioWare is taking actions to lay the…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV console support, storage woes, and PvP servers - [AL:FFXIV]First things first. If you missed this before, I already did put together my thoughts about what little we know of Final Fantasy XIV's next expansion and what my initial…
Guild Wars 1 fans petition ArenaNet for HD remake - Here's some food for thought on an October morning: Would you be interested and/or willing to play a high definition remake of the original Guild Wars? Some fans are petitioning…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 88: Miles per hour
Battle Bards Episode 85: Desert Calling
The Stream Team: The DodoRex returns with ARK’s Fear Evolved
The Stream Team: Harvesting pumpkins for RIFT’s Halloween festival
The Stream Team: Halloween Harvest Hall fun and TERA giveaway!
The Stream Team: Death doesn’t stop SWTOR’s Emperor
The Stream Team: Happy 3rd birthday Path of Exile!
The Stream Team: Chronicle: RuneScape Legends PvE campaign mode and giveaway
The Stream Team: Looking into a Gigantic new MOBA
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Smart casting comes to WoW with 7.1’s new macro conditionals
Is it time to end the faction divide in WoW?
Summon WoW’s Nightbane for your chance at the Smoldering Ember Wyrm
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.
