This week, crowdfunded MMORPG Camelot Unchained announced it had raised $7.5 million dollars from investors, intended to speed up production of the game, which is already quite delayed. Studio head Mark Jacobs spoke to us at length about the influx of money, the state of the game, and the impending beta launch; he reassured players that nothing about the game’s design or planned business model.
Meanwhile, Trion Worlds delivered two huge announcements this week: It’s sunsetting Devilian in March, and it’s opening up a sub-only, lockbox-free, specialty fresh-start server for RIFT this spring.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Camelot Unchained lands $7.5M investment to hasten development: Our chat with Mark Jacobs on funding, VR, and beta one - If you know one thing about indie MMORPG Camelot Unchained, it's that CEO Mark Jacobs appears to dwell perpetually in internet comment sections amiably sparring with gamers and attracting loyal…
RIFT announces ‘prime’ subscription-only server for spring 2018 - [AL:Rift]Challenge servers are so last year. It's 2018, and RIFT is changing course with its idea for a fresh start by creating a server for this spring called RIFT Prime.…
World of Warcraft patch 7.3.5 is live in the wild after extended downtime - Some patches just don't go down smoothly. World of Warcraft wound up extending its patch time for patch 7.3.5. pretty thoroughly yesterday, with the game's servers not coming back up…
Hell freezes over: Devilian to sunset in March - Two-year-old Devilian will not make it to its third birthday, we are sorry to report. Trion Worlds announced on Friday that it will be shuttering the Diablo-style MMO on March…
Town State Leisure: Camelot Unchained responds to absurd scraper article as only CSE can - If by chance you've ever run a blog about literally anything, you surely know about scrapers - those jerks who use scripts to steal your stuff in full and put…
WildStar pens a retrospective on the game in 2017 while looking ahead to 2018 - How would you rate the year 2017 for WildStar? As far as director Chad Moore is concerned, it went pretty well as a whole. And he certainly does make his…
Perfect Ten: The MMOs with the most uncertain futures in 2018 - This is, bar none, the column I hate doing most on a regular basis. None of the games I highlight in here is something that I actually like pointing to;…
PSA: Darkfall New Dawn is free-to-play right now ahead of next week’s launch - If you've been curious about the indie spinoff Darkfall: New Dawn but aren't sure yet about plunking down pre-order cash, then you'll be interested to know that Ub3rgames has set…
Whatever happened to Ascent: the Space Game, Aura Kingdom, and Fragmented? - Ever pause during your day and find yourself wondering, “Whatever happened to that game?” With hundreds upon hundreds of online titles these days, it’s surprisingly easy for MMOs to fall through the…
Chaos Theory: Secret World Legends 2018 – new year, new game, new goals - [AL:SWL]What does Secret World Legends have in store for 2018? For the world, or for me? Either answer includes Season 2 of the story! Of course I anticipate much more…
Destiny 2 admits poor communication on weapons and the latest faction rally - [AL:D2]The first time Destiny 2 ran a faction rally, its mechanics had a problem where players could basically just earn tons of tokens without firing any weapons or anything. This…
Massively Overthinking: Tackling our hoarding problem in MMORPGs - By coincidence, two articles in my feeds this past week both centered on video game hoarding - not hoarding the actual games but hoarding stuff inside of them. Blizzard Watch…
The Division stocks up on gas masks for next week’s event - Need a stylish gas mask to cover that thing on your neck that could be charitably called a mug? Jump in to The Division next week for its Ambush global…
Ashes of Creation team answers tons of fan questions, gives a preview of the Underrealm - Have a burning curiosity about pixies, testing, and soundtracks? They might have been answered yesterday. In the span of an hour, the Ashes of Creation team tackled around 30 player…
Albion Online characterizes layoffs as downsizing to ‘pre-release beta testing’ levels - Earlier this week, we got a tip claiming that the Albion Online team had been severely cut back before Christmas, perhaps as much as 50%, owing to poor performance. Turns…
Black Desert banned 647 cheaters over the last month, mostly fish botters, which is a thing - [AL:BDO]Thinking about cheating in Black Desert? Probably not; cheaters are hiding out in the bowels of the internet trading hacks with the other script kiddies. Our readers, then, will surely…
Choose My Adventure: Yes, Project Gorgon is a weird game - I want to start this column by saying the absolute meanest thing I have to say about Project Gorgon, and that one is probably pretty obvious. This is not a…
Ex-Cryptic devs are making an Aliens shooter set in a persistent world - Way back in 2016, a trio of former Cryptic developers -- Craig Zinkievich, Shannon Posniewski, and Matt Highison -- struck out on their own to form a new company called Cold…
Fortnite’s map update spawns a new city and biomes today - It may not be exactly all-new, but Fortnite's battle royale map is definitely improved thanks to today's loudly trumpeted update. Patch V.2.2.0 expands and enhances the current battle royale map by…
Bless Online team promises that the game is coming to early access ‘as soon as possible’ - The whole saga of development for Bless Online has been a lot of false starts and half-launches (the short version is that the game had its publisher pull out and…
Hyperspace Beacon: The case for mature-themed guilds in the SWTOR community - [AL:TOR]I am a huge advocate for guilds that can remain friendly to the under 18 crowd. One of my favorite Star Wars: The Old Republic guilds, Unholy Alliance, is open…
Destiny 2 players erupt over token throttling bugs - Another day, another Destiny 2 subreddit meltdown, and it's not over the Eververse cash shop, holiday items, or lockboxes this time. Redditors report a multitude of major bugs with the…
Perpetuum to shut down official servers next week - Time is running short for robotic MMO Perpetuum Online -- but plans are moving forward to keep the game alive with a couple of jury-rigged solutions. Last September we reported…
Sea of Thieves talks about closed beta preparations and future plans - With the pre-orders going on, closed beta coming next week, and launch arriving in March, Sea of Thieves and its team has a lot to talk about in the first…
CCP addresses EVE Online botter problem, saying it’s at the ‘top of the list’ - Last week, we reported on a situation brewing on the EVE Online subreddit, where player after player spoke out about the game's botting problem, exacerbated by a recent post about a…
The Survivalist: Another year, another Survival Game guide - A new year, a new batch of survival games! Yes, the genre has become so popular that one guide, no not even two guides could contain all of the survival…
Fortnite racks up 40 million downloads, boasts about its success - Forty million downloads. That's the staggering number that Epic Games is tossing around concerning its incredibly successful Fortnite after a busy holiday season. That's 10 million up from a month…
Tencent helps Chinese law enforcement arrest 120 people linked to PUBG cheats - If you thought Epic Games was being too rough on cheaters in Fortnite by smacking kids with personal lawsuits, wait until you hear what Tencent is up to. The Chinese…
World of Warcraft’s patch 7.3.5 abolishes expansion-specific flight skill requirements today - Since the ability to fly was added in the first expansion to World of Warcraft, there's always been the question among players about when we get to fly in every…
Cyberpunk 2077 could be coming to E3 with a playable demo and new trailer - Following a single "beep" of Twitter activity last week, CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 holds the rapt attention of gamers across the world who are eager to see development on…
Amazon’s New World page is back again [Updated] - On Monday of last week, we reported that a video of the anticipated and rather mysterious New World from Amazon had been leaked... and the game's Amazon landing page vanished…
The Daily Grind: How much worse could MMO business models get? - During the roundtable podcast a few weeks ago, when we had the whole Massively OP staff on to chat, we tackled a question from Teviko on the future of MMO business…
Life is Feudal MMO has launched into early access on Steam - Builder-centric sandbox Life is Feudal has officially launched into early access with a buy-in of $29.99, and that's the MMO version, mind you, not the Your Own survival sandbox. Consider…
LOTRO players pull off massive multi-day Winterstock concert - [AL:LOTRO]In case you missed it, over the past few days the Lord of the Rings Online community has been running one of the largest MMORPG player concerts in history. Winterstock…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 153: It’s a whole New World
The Stream Team: Going further into Life is Feudal: MMO
The Stream Team: Welcome to Miscreated
The Stream Team: Happy birthday, Blade & Soul!
The Stream Team: Back to the Egyptian sandbox in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Hopping into Hyper Universe on launch day
The Stream Team: Odessen is not the target in SWTOR’s KOTET
The Stream Team: Launching into Life is Feudal: MMO’s early access launch
The Stream Team: Must play Paladins’ Moji!
The Stream Team: A look at Eternal Lands
The Stream Team: Saving the city from undead in Guild Wars 2
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
How important is soloing old WoW content to you?
Everything we know about WoW’s Allied Races
What’s leveling like in WoW 7.3.5?
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.
