MMO Week in Review: The war on lockboxes is just beginning (November 26, 2017)

November 26, 2017 8:00 PM

Were you too busy gaming this week to pay attention to MMO news? Get caught up every Sunday evening with Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!

If you’re sick of lockboxes… well, I’m sorry because the gripes MMO players have had for half a decade have finally reached the mainstream thanks to EA’s overreach, leading multiple countries’ gambling commissions and politicians to take up the cause and analysts to lament that they would’ve gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for the press.

Meanwhile, in spite of a letter from Gazillion’s CEO to laid-off employees stating that the plug would be pulled on Marvel Heroes Friday, the game appears to still be up. Wouldn’t count on that lasting long, though…

Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Gazillion is dead and Marvel Heroes is shutting down Friday, NOT at the end of the year - Massively OP has received a credible tip from a former Gazillion employee who told us under condition of anonymity that Marvel Heroes will be over significantly sooner than Disney and…

Massively OP’s guide to MMO Thanksgiving 2017 - Stately resting between the gaudy purple and orange of Halloween and merry red and green of Christmas is the earth tone-saturated Thanksgiving. While no one's favorite color scheme, Thanksgiving does…

All the best MMO sales of Black Friday 2017 - Step aside, turkey and fambly rage: It's time to buy stuff. Because we don't already unload our wallets the rest of the year on MMOs! Oh wait, yes we do.…

LOTRO Legendarium: They’re taking the Hobbits to Erebor! - [AL:LOTRO]With some depressing news bouncing around the MMO genre as of late, it was particularly welcome to read an upbeat and exciting producer's letter from Lord of the Rings Online…

Destiny 2 deactivates scaling system after players discover XP throttling - Internet speeds aren't the only things that are in danger of being throttled, as Destiny 2 players learned this past week. Apparently Bungie was stiffing players of experience points during…

Darkfall: New Dawn launches on January 26, 2018 - At this point, it's an odd year when Darkfall isn't launching. Darkfall: New Dawn has announced that the game will launch on January 26th, 2018, complete with a new launch…

The Soapbox: The long tail of game development isn’t an excuse for gouging - Don't be too mad at Star Wars: Battlefront II. It's a symptom of a problem, not the cause. I mean, be mad at people dumb enough to put the blame…

Star Citizen opens up alpha 3.0 on the PTU to a ton of new testers - This week's Star Citizen Around the Verse doesn't pull any punches: Indeed, it heralds the expansion of 3.0 testing to several more tiers of backers and testers, meaning you should…

Australia turns up the heat on lockboxes - The controversy over lockboxes and their legal status continues to draw more attention from governments, with Australia now weighing in on the issue. Not the whole country, mind you, but…

MassivelyOP’s 2017 PC hardware gift guide - Since you're reading this, there's a good chance that you own a PC that you at least occasionally use for gaming, and there's an equally good chance that you don't…

EverChaosing: Counting my EverQuest II and Secret World Legends blessings - [AL:SWL]Good things come in three's right? Well this is the third installment of the EverChaosing column, which melds Chaos Theory and EverQuesting together. Why a written equivalent to a Turduckin?…

Ship of Heroes resurrects the crowd controller playstyle - Do you miss playing your Controller in City of Heroes? One of that game's spiritual successors wants to resurrect the concept of a mez-happy superhero who throws down crowd control…

Lord of the Rings Online makes Mordor and High Elves available for points - [AL:LOTRO]Some people would rather spend points on expansions and races in Lord of the Rings Online rather than parting with real money. Good news for those who waited for just…

Hyperspace Beacon: What potential lockbox gambling laws could mean for SWTOR - [AL:TOR]Late yesterday I read these words Google-translated from Belgian news site VTM: "The Minister of Justice wants to prohibit purchases in video games if you don't know exactly what you're…

Perfect Ten: MMO things to be thankful about this year - It's kind of hard to be thankful this year. Sure, some good things have happened this year, but we also have some things that, to put it politely, are unqualified…

MassivelyOP’s 2017 gift guide for the Blizzard fanatic - With the new expansion, official vanilla servers, and all of the other news from BlizzCon this year, it's a great time to be a World of Warcraft fan. But Blizzard…

City of Titans vows ‘no lockboxes’ for its business model - You might have missed the riots in the streets over lockboxes these past few months, but we assure you, the controversy is very real. One game where this won't be…

Star Wars: The Old Republic’s new character boost advances through levels — not story - [AL:TOR]Not all character level boosts were created equal. Star Wars: The Old Republic is experimenting with a new type of boost that will offer an interesting alternative to the one…

Belgium seeks to ban lockboxes as gambling, plus Hawaii and France weigh in - Capping off the Great Star Wars Battlefront II Fiasco of November, Belgium's Gambling Commission and the Dutch Gaming Authority both began investigating lootboxes/lockboxes to determine whether they constitute gambling and necessitate appropriate…

Lord of the Rings Online is heading to Northern Mirkwood, Erebor, and Minas Morgul - [AL:LOTRO]Don't get too comfortable in Mordor just yet, because Lord of the Rings Online is preparing to send its players to the far reaches of the explored map come 2018.…

Neverwinter Nights’ new enhanced edition will support old modules - It's the thing to do lately: rerelease a classic video game with just enough enhancements to charge for it all over again. In this case, however, I suspect it's a…

Life is Feudal’s soft launch is off to a shaky start - You might want to consider holding off on jumping in with both feet to Life is Feudal for a little while, at least. The MMO version of the game soft…

Jukebox Heroes: Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire’s soundtrack - [AL:GW2]I feel comfortable in saying that I hold the Guild Wars franchise's soundtrack in high regard. There's excellent music across the board from a variety of composers, and in my…

Analyst blames EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 fiasco on the press, Reddit, and video game purists - KeyBanc Capital Markets financial analyst Evan Wingren, who surely makes more money than you do, wants you to know that he's a gamer too! And he assures you that you're…

Check out Guild Wars 2’s ‘Daybreak’ living story season 4 trailer - [AL:GW2]If you were excited about last week's Guild Wars 2 living story season 4 announcement but found the recap trailer wanting, welp, you're going to be much more enthused this…

Saga of Lucimia says it’s turned down two publishers to avoid going free-to-play - It's a good time to pile on predatory cash-shop models, especially if you've got a better one, and in-development hardcore MMORPG sandbox Saga of Lucimia is doing just that. While citing…

MMO Mechanics: What can be learned from Guild Wars 2 Mountgate? - [AL:GW2]Most often, MMO Mechanics articles focus on the gameplay mechanics that both make the MMO genre unique and those that diversify MMOs from one another, but this time I'm focusing…

For Science! Researchers find link between fluid intelligence and elite MOBA play - In a new paper released last week, University of York researchers sought to examine whether research that strategy gaming (like chess and arcade games) correlates with intelligence holds true in…

Cyberpunk 2077 will avoid ‘greed’ with its business model, goes on a hiring spree - CD Projekt Red is definitely increasing the profile of its sci-fi open world RPG as of late after years of mostly silent development. After confirming that Cyberpunk 2077 is being…

Star Wars Battlefront II lockbox controversy prompted Disney intervention - To put it simply, it has not been the best of weeks for Electronic Arts, DICE, or Star Wars Battlefront II. The publisher's decision to push exploitative and pay-to-win lockboxes…

Marvel Heroes players seek refunds in the face of the game’s closure - With the shutdown of Marvel Heroes looming about a month and a half away, players are scrambling to see if they can obtain a refund for some of the funds…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH

The thorny problem of Classic WoW and class balance

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Know Your Lore: Jaina Proudmoore’s battle

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.