World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth expansion preorders went live this week, with a summer launch date that could be as late as September 21st – still a pinch earlier than most predictions.
Meanwhile, this week saw the end of MOBA Master X Master and MMORPG Linkrealms, as well as the announcement that Gigantic is closing up shop, Anthem and RD2D are delayed, and Alganon is offline.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth preorders are live, launching by September 21 - It's official: World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth preorders are live on the official store. You're looking at $49.99 for the base package and $69.99 for the digital deluxe. The expansion has a…
Alganon has been offline for two months, is now owned by Derek Smart’s 3000AD - Nine years ago on Massively-that-was, we began covering the MMORPG known as Alganon - you'll recall it as a bit of a World of Warcraft clone, long before that phrase…
Guild Wars 2 proposes massive overhaul of WvW with world restructuring and creation - [AL:GW2]World vs. world content has long been a sore spot for Guild Wars 2, at least as far as world PvPers are concerned, which is why the upcoming world restructure…
PWE will sunset MOBA Gigantic in July because it couldn’t ‘break through in a crowded market’ - Gigantic is on the short road to sunset, I'm sorry to report. The move by publisher PWE won't surprise many players, as the development studio behind the game, Motiga, was…
Elite Dangerous community thwarts griefers’ attempt to ruin final in-game voyage of terminally ill player - Elite Dangerous has once again become the battleground between griefers and everybody else, this time with real-life stakes. A few weeks ago, the Elite community banded together to come to…
Interview: Trion Worlds goes in depth on RIFT Prime - [AL:Rift]Following the initial announcement of RIFT Prime and the ensuing details that started to come out of Trion Worlds on the progression server, we had many of the same questions,…
Star Citizen: Subber PTU access ‘perk’, developments in the Crytek lawsuit, and patch 3.0.1 - Who says subscriptions are dead? Not Star Citizen. The alpha MMORPG has long taken a page out of the Pathfinder Online playbook by offering a subscription service for backers. But…
Greed Monger has actually begun refunding Kickstarter backers from 2012 - Way back in 2015, Kickstarted MMORPG Greed Monger was dead in the water, ripped apart by development delays, infighting amongst the developers, lawsuit threats, and then abandonment. The word "scam"…
Star Citizen touts Squadron 42 progress, monthly studio report, and the 3.0.1 alpha - The Star Citizen crew is back to work on Squadron 42 in 2018, as chronicled in the latest episode of Around the Verse. The Frankfurt studio, now up to 79…
LOTRO Legendarium: The 10 best pages on Lotro-Wiki - [AL:LOTRO]Earlier this week, one of my online friends and fellow Lord of the Rings Online player put out a notice that there was now an official Lotro-Wiki Discord channel. In…
Nexon America hit with a round of layoffs Nexon says is insignificant - GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Nexon America has undergoing a round of layoffs. The number of affected employees is currently unknown, though a source reportedly told the publication that it may…
Massively Overthinking: What are your criteria for recommending MMOs? - Last week, we got a well-intentioned email from a reader named Rick, who proposed a column in which readers tell us what they are looking for in an MMO and…
EverQuesting: EverQuest II is a packrat’s paradise - While some consider the acquisition of stuff to be distracting to gameplay, others of us know that it is actually a vital part of of the experience. Everyone needs a…
TERA’s console versions are coming in the first half of 2018 - [AL:TERA]In the works since its conception in 2013, TERA's console version is finally coming to North America and Europe in the first half of 2018. En Masse published a video…
RaiderZ posts plans for its revival changes and future development - It's not enough just to say that RaiderZ is coming back and be done with it, and Masangsoft has finally shared some of the studio's plans for the reborn title…
Red Dead Redemption 2 has been delayed yet again, this time to October 2018 - Red Dead Redemption 2 is suffering another long delay, this time to October. The new official launch date is October 26th, 2018. "We apologize to everyone disappointed by this delay,"…
WoW Factor: So Battle for Azeroth is out for pre-order - Well, folks, I hope you've made your pre-purchases of World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth and started playing your allied races. I found out about the opening of pre-purchases when…
Blade and Soul’s Call of the Deep aims for next week release - [AL:BaS]Better get everything done you need to do in the rest of your life right now, because Blade and Soul is going to demand your full time and attention next…
Watch 15 minutes of Ashes of Creation in action - For Ashes of Creation fans, January has provided a video bonanza to help with the lengthy wait to beta and launch. Last week we were treated to a look at…
Black Desert players are up in arms about a very nice (and very expensive) tent - [AL:BDO]So let's talk a little bit about camping! Black Desert recently added the option of setting up campsites to the game, which gives you a chance to repair, buy buffs,…
Lord of the Rings Online patch adds plenty of attractive loot — in lockboxes - [AL:LOTRO]The lockbox movement continues to cover the entirety of Middle-earth in shadow as Lord of the Rings Online's Update 21.3.3 focuses more on moneygating attractive loot than on other content.…
Tamriel Infinium: Where will the next Elder Scrolls Online ‘chapter’ take place? - [AL:ESO]In case you missed it, a couple of weeks back there were a couple of spoilers datamined from the testing files that seem to point in one direction for the…
Perfect Ten: Ten more World of Warcraft races fans would like to play - Sometimes, you write a column more or less as a mental exercise, and then World of Warcraft drops an expansion pre-purchase that makes it all feel highly relevant. The world…
EA pushes BioWare’s Anthem to 2019 but denies that it’s a delay - When is a delay not a delay? When Electronic Arts says so, obviously. The video game mega-publisher announced today that it was moving BioWare's Anthem to 2019, seeming to confirm…
Linkrealms is sunsetting today - Sad news this morning: Linkrealms is sunsetting, today if our read of the letter sent to players yesterday is correct, since today is the end of the month. Players posted…
Re-examining Asheron’s Call’s Shard of the Herald event on its first deathiversary - Although the Asheron's Call series has now been dead for exactly one year today, it's far from forgotten by fans. It was admittedly a cult classic, and as the youngest of the "Big…
Guild Wars 2 makes SuperData’s top 10 list of ‘premium PC games by revenue for 2017’ - If you want SuperData's complete 2017 Digital Games & Interactive Media market brief, you're... not going to have to pay for it. It's free, or at least the "executive summary"…
Best not be toxic on YouTube, Overwatch players, because Blizzard is watching you - Back in 2013, when Linda "Brasse" Carlson still fronted SOE's community branch, she made headlines for making SOE's anti-toxicity policies very clear. "If we know who you are and you're…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 155: Pirates, progression, and patches
Battle Bards Episode 114: Vroom vroom!
The Stream Team: A first look at the shooter Ironsight
The Stream Team: Celebrating eight years of Star Trek Online
The Stream Team: A peek at closed beta of Conqueror’s Blade
The Stream Team: Farewell, Master X Master
The Stream Team: Dark Reunions in SWTOR’s KOTET
The Stream Team: Checking out Age of Conan’s Saga of Zath server
The Stream Team: Exploring ECO with devs
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
New Battle for Azeroth weapons will make for great transmog
New character slots are live in WoW, plus plenty of bug fixes
Know Your Lore: Who are the Proudmoores?
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.
