PAX East is over, and Eliot is home safe with a zeppelin-full of stories. The best bit so far has been our interview with Final Fantasy XIV’s Naoki Yoshida, but we also covered TERA’s console port, the FFXIV panel, and our Funcom chat about Conan Exiles. And there’s plenty more to come! Stay tuned for tomorrow and Tuesday, when we’ll be spilling the rest of our PAX interviews, including a super secret one you veteran MMORPG fans are going to love! In the meanwhile, read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
PAX EAST 2017 – SO FAR
PAX East 2017: Naoki Yoshida on Final Fantasy XIV’s new jobs, old jobs, and future patches - [AL:FFXIV]It would be fair to say that Final Fantasy XIV fans treat Naoki Yoshida like a rock star, and he carries himself like one: not with unnecessary swagger but with…
PAX East 2017: En Masse tells us all about TERA’s console port - [AL:TERA]Putting TERA on consoles seems like it's the most obvious combination of games and platforms ever conceived. Even more than Super Mario Bros. and the NES controller, or Star Wars…
PAX East 2017: Final Fantasy XIV’s Q&A panel - [AL:FFXIV]At the time of this writing, there's just over a hundred days until Stormblood launches, expanding the world of Final Fantasy XIV for the second time. We'll no doubt learn…
PAX East 2017: Elite Dangerous and its ‘slightly cowboy free-for-all’ - Frontier is hyping Elite Dangerous' expected Q2 PS4 release at this year's PAX East (colon still MIA, sorry), complete with confirmed HOTAS support. Frontier's David Braben has a long video…
PAX East 2017: Dauntless reveals new trailer, plans 2017 launch - Keeping an ear to the ground for Dauntless news? You should be: It's a co-op ARPG from Phoenix Labs, an indie studio made up of former BioWare, Riot Games, and…
PAX East 2017: Talking Conan Exiles on the show floor with Funcom - If you're a fan of Funcom and the games it makes, Conan Exiles probably has you breathing a bit easier than you have in a while. It's an indisputable success for…
PAX East 2017: TERA is coming to Xbox One and PS4 this year - [AL:TERA]Remember those rumors last year about a console port for TERA, buffeted by the surveys to selected TERA players about which consoles they play on the most? Time to drop…
PAX East 2017: Chronicles of Elyria teases its PAX demo - Chronicles of Elyria's devs recently streamed a "speed-run" version of their planned PAX East demo for players. But we think that to really get a feel for how convention demos…
PAX East 2017: Shards Online changes its name to Legends of Aria and goes full MMORPG - Shards Online is no more: The game is now officially called Legends of Aria. Better still? It's now being marketed by Citadel Studios as a full-fledged MMORPG. Citadel's Derek "Supreem"…
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
The Soapbox: Everyone’s being dumb about Star Wars: The Old Republic’s lightsaber - [AL:TOR]A couple of years ago, The Force Awakens introduced us to (among other things) a lightsaber that looks poorly made, like a little kid made it. So Star Wars: The…
Valve is trying to make it harder to review bomb Steam games - Hate how Steam reviews work? Maybe you'll hate them a little less now. Valve says it's changing how review scores are calculated, so it's a little bit harder to maliciously…
EVE Online players lead $14,000 massacre in a busy trade hub - [AL:EVE]It's said that you're never truly safe in EVE Online unless you're docked or logged off, and sometimes not even then. If someone wants you dead badly enough, he can get to…
Shroud of the Avatar raised $142,000 in crowdfunds yesterday - If you've been following Shroud of the Avatar a while, you know that Portalarium periodically puts on wild telethons for its Twitch viewers, streaming deep-dives into game content, Q&As, and…
World of Warcraft expands its arena world championship series - World of Warcraft is cranking back up its Arena World Championship series for another run -- and this year it looks to be bigger than before. Blizzard announced that the…
John Carmack is suing ZeniMax for breach of contract as the Oculus drama lingers on - One round of the Oculus lawsuit may be over, but the saga isn't going away. Oculus CTO John Carmack is now suing ZeniMax Media for breaching his asset purchase agreement.…
Massively Overthinking: That moment when your MMO looks like a ‘fire sale at an exotic pet store’ - Massively OP Podcast listener John recently sent us a really great question that saw Justin and me sharply divided in terms of our responses, so naturally, we decided to kick…
Elder Scrolls Legends plans PvE update, major expansion, and multiple platform rollouts - [AL:ESO]Elder Scrolls Legends, the online TCG spawned from the ever-popular Elder Scrolls franchise, has a massive infodump and launch today. For starters, the game formally landed on PC; the beta tag…
Crucible gets Westwood co-founder as its new boss - Hands up: Any Massively OP readers play the crap out of Command & Conquer back in the day? In the '90s, Westwood Studios was a legend for that series (and…
No Man’s Sky reaches 1M players in its Foundation era - Love it or hate it, No Man's Sky was the buzz around the video game water cooler last year. And while the space exploration title received major backlash following its…
Choose My Adventure: Poisoning the well in WildStar - It's amazing how some things stick in your mind while others don't. I honestly had forgotten about the whole questline in WildStar that involves showing off just how awful the Dominion…
The Elder Scrolls Online: Content for PvPers, content for decorators - [AL:ESO]The Elder Scrolls Online has a new dev blog out this week all about the game's planned Morrowind PvP additions. Thanks to our discussion with Lead Designer Brian Wheeler a…
WildStar player analyzes the Primal Matrix and finds it wanting - The most recent WildStar patch hit just yesterday. You would think it would take a little bit longer for people to get really upset about it. But a player has…
Nexon is heavily affected by China’s new game import laws - Getting non-Chinese games into the Chinese market is a lengthy and challenging ordeal as it is, but the latest set of Chinese restrictions for South Korean companies makes it a…
The Repopulation will be playable Sunday, back on Steam later in March - The Repopulation is indeed on track to resume early access later this month as planned. "Servers will be opening up to all current players on the 12th of this month,"…
Leaderboard: Will WildStar’s free max character influence you to play? - Eyebrows flew up earlier this week when Carbine announced it would be granting free max-level WildStar characters to players who log into the game with the patch launch today. In…
Black Desert rolls out two new anniversary events today - [AL:BDO]Black Desert's anniversary month patches continue to roll out this week. This morning, Kakao updated with the NPC's Gratitude Event, which is similar to the Valentine's Day events last month.…
Tamriel Infinium: The secret plot of Elder Scrolls Online’s Morrowind - [AL:ESO]More than a handful of die-hard Elder Scrolls fans do not like the direction that Elder Scrolls Online Morrowind is taking. As someone who did not play TES III: Morrowind,…
The Perfect Ten: A plague of MMO bears - I have long been of the opinion that there are few more terrifying animals on this planet than bears. Sure, there are sharks, the mighty kraken, and that little fish…
World of Warcraft nixes bonus traits on relics, cracks down on raid RMT - There's always a disclaimer for patches and expansions on test servers that things can and will change over the course of their stay there. This is proving true for World…
Conan Exiles will have no boners on Xbone - As it stands right now, players in Conan Exiles may stride across the land with mighty swords or short stabbing implements held high in the breeze, and also you can…
Star Wars: The Old Republic opens up direct sales of the Unstable Arbiter’s Lightsaber - [AL:TOR]When Star Wars: The Old Republic first introduced the Unstable Arbiter's Lightsaber with one of its random item packs, players were unhappy about it. It was a highly desirable item…
VR MMO OrbusVR has not only funded but doubled its Kickstarter goal in one day - Did you chuck any cash at OrbusVR, the blocky-cute virtual reality MMO sandbox with the unusually small and short Kickstarter? It's a sure thing now: It's already met its $10,000…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Getting to grips with Guild Wars 2’s Bastion of the Penitent - [AL:GW2]ArenaNet launched a new standalone raid tier, dubbed Bastion of the Penitent, alongside The Head of the Snake Living World chapter, but I've not had a moment to discuss it…
Elder Scrolls Online opens preorders for the official Morrowind guide book - [AL:ESO]Remember before the internet, when printed guide books were actually a thing and we would drop ridiculous sums of money on these tomes to help us get through our favorite…
Mass Effect: Andromeda will have free DLC expansions - Worried about getting bored with Mass Effect: Andromeda's multiplayer component? If it's anything like the previous game in the series, it should be robust, but eventually the maps and abilities…
Gigantic developer Motiga lays off roughly a fifth of its employees - It seems fair to say that Gigantic's development has had a troubled history, what with the game having hopped publishers, changed platforms, and seen several rounds of layoffs hit its…
Dean Hall’s space sandbox MMO Ion is dead - Way back in 2015, Dean Hall announced Ion, a ridiculously ambitious sci-fi space sandbox MMO built using Improbable's SpatialOS. And now it's dead. Eurogamer went digging and got statements from…
Leaderboard: Will The Secret World’s relaunch entice you to play? - Last week, the MMO world was startled to learn that instead of getting an expansion, The Secret World is getting a complete relaunch as part of a big Funcom push…
WildStar is giving away max level 50 toons for logging into its next patch - Happy Monday! Who wants free stuff? It's better than candy: It's a free max level toon in WildStar for its "Free 50 Frenzy" promo. "Just log in after the Power…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 107: Dark Knight rises
The Stream Team: More monkey (raid) business in ARK
The Stream Team: Subduing the savage land in Conan Exiles
The Stream Team: Experiencing more Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Softly launching into Revelation Online
The Stream Team: Senya’s secret is out in SWTOR
The Stream Team: A belated Black Desert anniversary
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Does WoW need more alternative play modes?
Should DPS be kicked from WoW’s LFR for low performance?
Would you like queueable Scenarios in WoW?
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.
