Funcom is up to something: This past week, the studio announced that it will announce (you gotta love announcement announcements) a new game on Wednesday. We don’t know much about what it is, save that it’s a post-apoc setting with possibly prefab characters. So MMORPG players will probably be watching curiously on Wednesday… but our bet is Funcom fans will go back to poring over Secret World’s agent system previews instead.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls Online’s new outfit system is close to perfect - [AL:ESO]I can spend hours with an outfit designer in an MMORPG. When APB was a new thing, I literally spent whole game sessions in front of its customization terminals. And…
WoW Factor: Why can’t Blizzard stop messing with everything? - It's funny to me that people had such an aggressive reaction to the changes coming to Hunter pets and damage formulas in Battle for Azeroth. The latter in particular should…
Funcom is working on a mystery game, to be announced February 28th - Funcom is announcing something big next week. And it's not the Secret World Legends update you're still waiting on, nor is it another Conan franchise spinoff. The long-running MMO studio…
Star Citizen deep-dives Squadron 42 living AI, opens up Aegis Vulcan sales - This week's Star Citizen Around the Verse episode is actually more about Squadron 42 than Star Citizen. To illustrate how the game is coming along, CIG digs into the Idris…
Riot discloses the drop odds for League of Legends lootboxes - [AL:LOL]Mentioning lootboxes at this point is a good way to send players into paroxysms of rage regardless of how fair or unfair they are; any goodwill about the random crates…
Black Desert players take their first peek at the game’s next region, Drieghan - [AL:BDO]Yes, players have finally gotten a sneak peek at the next new land arriving to Black Desert, a vast and mountainous region to the south of the existing map. The…
The Game Archaeologist: EverQuest Mac - In 2003, Sony Online Entertainment tried an experiment to reach out to the (then) small-but-growing community of Mac users. The company released EverQuest Macintosh Edition -- quickly abbreviated to EQMac…
Dungeons and Dragons Online celebrates 12 years with giveaways and bonuses - [AL:DDO]Twelve years on, and Dungeons and Dragons Online continues to tick along with its loyal fanbase and regular features. To celebrate the MMO's anniversary, Standing Stone Games is giving away…
Choose My Adventure: Farewell to Project Gorgon - Out of all the titles that I've played for Choose My Adventure, Project Gorgon is probably the earliest in its development cycle. It's also, by a sizable margin, the best…
TERA introduces new lootboxes for purchase, and they’re full of money - [AL:TERA]A lot of games have found ways to play with the idea of buying gold, usually with some form of currency exchange regulated by the game: You buy an item…
Massively Overthinking: Why doesn’t video game marketing reflect our demographics? - This week's Massively Overthinking topic comes to us from Steve, and it's a frustration for our team as well, I promise. "If the following statistics industry execs and analysts put…
The Survivalist: A tale of two early accesses (and why Conan Exiles comes out on top) - It was the best of early access, it was the worst of early access. We needn't even stop there: It was the age of wisdom and it was the age…
Pre-teen Fortnite YouTuber gets swatted after achieving a high profile - In one story here we have the best and worst of humanity on display. It all begins with 12-year-old YouTuber Peter Varady, who goes by Rolly Ranchers and has been doggedly…
Perpetuum Online developer: MMO felt like a ‘no-win scenario’ - At the end of the game's life, when the lights are going out and the developers drifting off to different positions, the most interesting thing that can be said of…
Leaderboard: Do you use built-in voice chat systems with strangers in MMOs? - I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter World when time permits, and while I'm enjoying the game, I've noticed it's been, well, oddly silent. Initially, I thought maybe it was…
Perfect Ten: What I discovered after returning to Dungeons and Dragons Online - [AL:DDO]When I look back at last year, the most surprising turn in my MMO gaming career was staging a successful return to Dungeons and Dragons Online. Initially I had only…
RIFT Prime progression server launches March 7, with pack preorders available now - Can you believe RIFT's been around for almost seven years? Neither can we. Trion is celebrating by releasing the long-awaited progression server, RIFT Prime, on March 7th. The server will…
Black Desert’s Arsha PvP server is live today, while absolute skills for all classes go live next week - [AL:BDO]Brand-new PvP server Arsha is live as promised in Black Desert today. It's running an alternative ruleset with "notably increased defense" stats, extra debuff immunities, altered damage calculations, and no…
ArenaNet delays Guild Wars 2’s next living world episode to ensure it ‘lives up to standards’ - [AL:GW2]Were you expecting Guild Wars 2 to drop a new living world episode trailer today, complete with deets on when the episode is rolling out? We were too. Turns out…
Daybreak’s zombie battle royale game H1Z1 has lost 90% of its playerbase since July - Polygon has a report out this afternoon sourcing data aggregator GitHyp, both of which are casting doubt on H1Z1's future viability as a game and as a professional e-sport. Daybreak-watchers…
The ESA is fighting proposed DMCA exemptions that would preserve sunsetted MMORPGs because of course it is - Over the last couple of years, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been petitioning for changes to the DMCA to help preserve old video games - to eliminate server-based DRM and…
Get a bird’s eye view of LOTRO’s new Mirkwood map - [AL:LOTRO]Sometimes you can learn an awful lot from an in-game map. Take for example Lord of the Rings Online's Northern Mirkwood map, which testers have accessed during the Update 22…
Elder Scrolls Online dataminers spoil the heck out of the upcoming chapter - [AL:ESO]Ever since ZeniMax promised a new expansion-scale chapter for The Elder Scrolls Online this year, dataminers have been champing at the bit to be the first to dig up all…
Elite Dangerous’ Beyond – Chapter One launches next week – here’s the trailer - We're just a week away from the launch of Elite Dangerous: Beyond - Chapter One, that fascinating space abomination of colons and dashes! Frontier made the announcement this morning, pleasing…
Secret World Legends shows off its new Agent system in brief - [AL:SWL]If you're eagerly awaiting new missions to run in Secret World Legends, you're going to have to keep waiting a bit longer. But you do have new content coming with…
World of Warcraft player dings level 60 on boars alone - A triumphant expression of the human spirit or a sad attempt to provide meaning in a content-mined world? You can decide where this story falls on the spectrum. We just…
Leaderboard: What kinds of MMORPG purchases do you consider pay-to-win? - I know I'm not alone in noticing that MMO gamers of late seem to have become sharply divided on how to define the term pay-to-win - indeed, the debate raged…
Wisdom of Nym: Actual mechanical issues for jobs in Final Fantasy XIV, part one - [AL:FFXIV]There are a lot of people who are quick to complain about issues with their personal favorite jobs in Final Fantasy XIV. No matter what job you're playing, there are…
EVE Evolved: Solving EVE Online’s botting problem - [AL:EVE]Practically every MMO on the market today has had to contend with botting and the range of issues that come with it, and EVE Online has always been a favoured target…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 158: We are all heroes
The Stream Team: A free day in Dofus
The Stream Team: Hunting rock drake eggs in ARK Aberration
The Stream Team: Conan Exiles and the Temple of Frost
The Stream Team: Total War: Arena launches into open beta
The Stream Team: Where Dreams Die in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Investigating Khalid’s unburnt bush in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Getting excited for Shroud of the Avatar’s launch
The Stream Team: Peeking back into Project Gorgon
The Stream Team: Playing on Paladins’ test maps
The Stream Team: A new day in Osiris: New Dawn
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Proposed changes to Battle for Azeroth’s raiding make transmog farming easier
Are you still crafting items in WoW?
Know Your Lore: The Lightforged Draenei
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.
