Eyebrows across the MMOverse rose in unison this week as Johnny Depp’s production company announced it was working on a TV show based on none other than The Secret World, which in its current Secret World Legends incarnation has launched Tokyo and fiddled with currency. Don’t miss our piece on what we hope to see in the show!
Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 hosted another Path of Fire preview weekend, Daybreak dropped the “H1Z1” from Just Survive, and Dauntless kicked off its founder alpha.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Johnny Depp will produce a TV show based on The Secret World - [AL:SWL]Your eyes aren't deceiving you, though I did a double-take too: Deadline is reporting that The Secret World aka Secret World Legends is getting a TV adaptation produced by Johnny Depp…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Impressions of Guild Wars 2’s Path of Fire preview weekend experience - [AL:GW2]I'm delighted to have found a moment to bring you an extra edition of Flameseeker Chronicles that outlines my thoughts on the first Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire preview weekend. From…
Chaos Theory: What we want out of the Secret World Legends TV show - [AL:SWL]Wow. So I had no intention of crafting another Chaos Theory this week. I had plans. Other plans. But then the Secret World Legends announcement hit the airwaves on Monday…
Secret World Legends allows players to convert Funcom points into Aurum - [AL:SWL]If you were sitting on a Scrooge McDuck pile of Funcom Points back when The Secret World announced its switchover to Secret World Legends and were steamed at all of…
Tokyo is now open in Secret World Legends - [AL:SWL]Secret World Legends continues to refill the content pool to bring it back up to the level of its predecessor. Today, the conspiracy reboot opened back up the doors to…
Wild West Online counters griefing with a rep system - So many sandbox MMOs claim to have cracked the problem of griefing with an open PvP system -- but could Wild West Online actually do it? In a new post on…
Camelot Unchained teases beta with a new ‘guiding principles’ doc - If it feels like we've been waiting for Camelot Unchained's beta forever, well, it hasn't - it's only been half of forever. And the wait is almost over, if the…
Interview: Daybreak’s Just Survive drops H1Z1 branding for massive revamp and relaunch today - Remember the survival version of H1Z1? If not, we can't say that we blame you: Since Daybreak split the game in two, the bulk of development and attention has gone…
Dauntless’ founder alpha has begun - [pullquote]Don't miss our hands-on with Dauntless from E3![/pullquote]We've been keeping an eye on Dauntless, the sci-fantasy online co-op action RPG from the former BioWare, Riot, and Blizzard devs now fronting…
Guild Wars 2’s second Path of Fire preview weekend is about to begin - Update: It's live! [AL:GW2]Didn't get a chance to jump into Guild Wars 2 during last weekend's Path of Fire preview weekend? You're getting another chance today, although this leg of…
LOTRO Legendarium: A trip back through LOTRO’s expansions - [AL:LOTRO]Now that we're in the thick of Lord of the Rings Online: Mordor (which I'm still enjoying very much), my mind has taken a turn back to look over 10…
Camelot Unchained’s player progression will be a ‘long-term investment’ - Is that... is that Camelot Unchained's Beta 1 peeking over the horizon? From the tone of this week's newsletter, it certainly sounds as if the long-fabled test is growing nearer…
Massively Overthinking: Alone together vs. forced grouping in MMORPGs - I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that everyone has at some point seen the xkcd called Isolation, but if not, there it is. No matter what the…
Watch 13 minutes of Wild West Online exploration and treasure hunting footage - Still skeptical about Wild West Online's proposed PvP system? A brand-new video today may or may not help. PC Gamer spends 13 minutes narrating a dev-led demo of the game world showing…
Choose My Adventure: Finding my way in Shroud of the Avatar - Heading into Shroud of the Avatar for the first time was a bit of a strange experience for me, right from the start. Usually, when I start playing a new…
Otherland is revived on Steam as Drago takes over publishing duties - Over this summer, we've been getting tips suggesting that the Tad Williams Otherland MMORPG was in serious trouble, as first it went dark on Steam and then it returned, silently,…
Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds whupped League of Legends on Twitch last week - [AL:PUBG]Playerunknown's Battlegrounds may have one of the worst video game names in history, but it set a new record on Twitch last week. Gameloco founder Nicolas Cerrato points out that…
World of Warcraft shows off the caster animation changes coming in patch 7.3 - Casting spells has been a cornerstone of World of Warcraft since the game launched, and while the models and particle effects have gotten better, not much has been done about…
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR’s Umbara is shrouded in darkness - [AL:TOR]Have you heard of the planet Umbara before? The Star Wars fan who has seen only the movies will likely say no, and even if you are a BioWare or…
Perfect Ten: MMOs obsessed with the floating islands trope - One of the fun things about this hobby is that certain tropes repeat themselves constantly. And they're usually weirdly specific tropes, too. Poop quests, for example. So many MMOs have…
Conan Exiles rolls out The Frozen North expansion to PC and Xbox One - It's a two-for-one special on news for Conan Exiles today! First up, the game has officially released into "game preview" on Xbox One, bringing the survival sandbox to a console…
Young adults are the prime market for virtual reality - It's a well-known maxim in gaming circles that younger players have more time but lack disposable income while older players have the money but find themselves short on that "free…
EVE: Valkyrie allows players to ditch the VR headset - This is just your weekly reminder from CCP that EVE: Valkyrie wasn't a figment of your imagination, it still exists, and please for the love of all that is holy,…
Destiny 2 teases PC open beta with sweet Nvidia trailer - [AL:D2]Hey, graphics junkies and PC fans. Are you hyped for Destiny 2's PC launch yet? In case you're not, Bungie and Nvidia have a brief video out effectively demonstrating why…
Guild Wars 2 deep-dives Path of Fire’s elite specs for every class - [AL:GW2]ArenaNet has a new dev vlog out today focusing on the development of Guild Wars 2's Path of Fire elite specs. Some of the class specs were born from a…
Cliff Bleszinski thinks streaming the LawBreakers testing was a mistake - Hey, kids! Want to read a big long interview with Cliff Bleszinski about launching LawBreakers? Because you probably shouldn't read it if you're an actual kid. There's a lot of…
The Repopulation-spinoff Fragmented has reached release on Steam - Gosh, I had almost forgotten about Fragmented - it's been a while! But it's formally launched on Steam as of today for a discounted $5.99. "Today we have moved Fragmented…
Conan Exiles to partially restrict nudity on Xbox One - Can barbarians experience censorship and shame? On a recent livestream, the Conan Exiles team briefly explained that there will be one significant difference between the European and North American versions…
Blizzard has decided to keep Battlenet around after all - Remember last September when Blizzard said it would be "transitioning away from using the Battle.net name" for the "central nervous system for Blizzard games"? Remember when Blizz came up with…
EVE Online revenge war update: The war machine stalls - [AL:EVE]Last week we brought you the news of a massive new war brewing in the north of EVE Online, and The Imperium's threat of revenge to the alliances that live there.…
Leaderboard: Did Guild Wars 2’s preview weekend convince you to buy Path of Fire? - [AL:GW2]This past weekend, the gaming segment of my Twitter feed was positively dominated by chatter about Guild Wars 2's Path of Fire expansion free preview weekend. I even saw a few of my…
VR is still on the table for Star Citizen - VR-centric website Road to VR has a brief quote from Cloud Imperium Games that might be good news to those of you still hoping to someday see Star Citizen in…
A Dota 2 pro was beaten by Elon Musk’s OpenAI bot during this year’s International - Dota 2's The International 7 tournament is over, having concluded this weekend by crowning EU group Team Liquid -- which arrived to the finals by way of the loser's bracket…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 131: Just surviving
Battle Bards Episode 103: Wurm Online
The Stream Team: Dabbling in the Dauntless alpha
The Stream Team: Rescuing the raptors in ARK
The Stream Team: Exploring Bloodroot Forge in Elder Scrolls Online’s Horns of the Reach
The Stream Team: Following Secret World Legends’ Tyler Freeborn into the sea
The Stream Team: Trekking into Conan Exiles’ new Frozen North expansion
The Stream Team: A first look at Just Survive’s big revamp
The Stream Team: A Jackal assassination in Warframe
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
A quick guide to WoW’s Trial of Style
WoW’s Argus has several new Hunter pets to tame
Argus has its own lore museum to preserve its pre-Legion culture
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.
