Undeniably, the biggest story this week – and it’s even on track to be one of the biggest of the year – is the story of how a bizarre altercation on Twitter wound up generating a massive flamewar across the MMOverse, landing on the front page of every gaming site, and cutting loose two ArenaNet employees from the Guild Wars 2 team.
But there was more to the week besides the still-smoldering dumpster fire! We got sweet news about Warframe from TennoCon (it’s coming to the Switch!), Camelot Unchained briefly delayed its beta one phase, and Defiance 2050 rolled into its launch head start.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
ArenaNet has let go two Guild Wars 2 devs following a heated Twitter confrontation - Please note that this article has been heavily updated over the last week as this story has continued developing. New additions are at the bottom, but the beginning of the…
Camelot Unchained has briefly delayed its 4th of July beta launch because ‘the client crash rate is too damn high’ - Camelot Unchained has postponed its planned 4th of July beta launch in what Mark Jacobs is characterizing as a "short" delay. "It's not going to be a year delay or…
TennoCon 2018: Warframe is coming to Nintendo Switch, some cross-platform a possibility - [AL:WarF]Do you love surprises? Digital Extremes is banking on your liking this one: Warframe is coming to Switch. In a fake-out move tonight at TennoCon 2018, one dev hopped off stage…
TennoCon 2018: Warframe expands into open-world Venus plus space - [AL:WarF]Eidolon expanded the scope of Warframe immensely, but that doesn't hold a candle to the content coming. The playable universe is growing by open-world leaps and bounds... and rocket thrusts!…
It’s starting to look like Valve is trying to murder SteamSpy on purpose - Back in April, Valve announced new supposedly privacy-oriented changes for Steam that had what everyone assumed to be an unintended (and unannounced) side-effect: It would hide everyone's owned games by…
Tamriel Infinium: All the lore you need to know for Elder Scrolls Online’s Wolfhunter DLC - [AL:ESO]Lycanthropy has been a part of the Elder Scrolls lore since Daggerfall, even if it did kind of skip Oblivion. Elder Scrolls Online introduces lycanthropy as its own skill line…
LOTRO Legendarium: Are the new seasonal instances a win or a whimper? - [AL:LOTRO]Let us travel back to 2009, when Lord of the Rings Online released its second expansion pack, Siege of Mirkwood. This pint-sized expansion seemed underwhelming with its options (although it…
Journalists and academics clash over the World Health Organization’s ‘gaming disorder’ classification - Ever since the World Health Organization decided it will include its "gaming disorder" classification in its upcoming disease classification manual revision, game journalists, mainstream journalists, and academics have been enjoying…
Todd Howard says ‘Elder Scrolls Online is one of the biggest online games in the world’ as Ubisoft and Bethsoft weigh in on games as a service - Are you all in on games as a service? Are single player-games over, replaced by much more profitable eternally online (and lockbox-ridden) titles? Bethsoft's Todd Howard doesn't think so. Speaking…
Pokemon Go’s second anniversary report card sees high marks for content and innovation - Today is Pokemon Go's second-year anniversary. Last year's report card had to grapple with things like the game's rapid rise and fall as a fad, its severe lack of promised content…
Choose My Adventure: Final Fantasy XI in review and choosing our next MMO - Here's the weird part about this week's column: I'm going to tell you, in short, that Final Fantasy XI is still a good game once you get past the initial…
Headstart begins today for Defiance 2050 - The time has come for Defiance 2050 to enter the wild... in a limited sense. Head start access begins today, although the general "anyone can jump in" of the full…
ArenaNet is working on inventory tweaks and bug fixes for Classic Guild Wars – yes, a real patch! - ArenaNet isn't giving up on Classic Guild Wars, it seems, and it's not stopping at the basics. "In the spirit of cupcakes, here's a sneak peek at some upcoming changes,"…
Fortnite players download a hack and wind up hacked themselves - It turns out that when you download third-party hacks designed to help you cheat in a game, the people you are downloading them from may not be paragons of moral…
Former Star Citizen dev refutes fake Glassdoor review made by troll on his behalf - The battle of the trolls in the Star Citizen community reached new lows this week as someone apparently impersonated a former dev on Glassdoor in an attempt to defame or…
Richard Garriott rejects idea that Shroud of the Avatar is a ‘flop’, says the game will run ‘forever’ - Shroud of the Avatar has long been an odd bird in the MMORPG crowdfunding space. Driven by the eccentric Richard Garriott, it raised large sums of money and managed to…
Black Desert offers new swimwear for players in its latest patch - [AL:BDO]Based on geography and weather patterns, it is probably hot where you live right now if you live in the United States. Quite possibly unusually hot, even! Your characters in…
Conan Exiles has set another Funcom record, announces Jewel of the West DLC and patch - Funcom's fortunes continue to rise thanks to Conan Exiles: The company announced today that it's "both the best-selling and fastest-selling game" in its history, passing up 2008's Age of Conan,…
Sandbox sci-fi MMO Rebel Horizons resurfaces with new videos - It's been a little while since we heard anything from Rebel Horizons, the self-billed "interplanetary sandbox MMORPG" from Entrada Interactive, but it would appear that the devs have been hard…
Bless Online’s 4th of July patch adds new PvE dailies and a PvP battleground this evening - Live in Bless Online on the holiday today is the 1.3.0.0 patch as promised, with its two big chunks of new content. PvE players are getting a new series of dailies…
Pokemon Go apologizes for technical issues at its EU event by making the event a complete waste of time - All right. Let's walk back through this. Pokemon Go holds an event in Dortmund, Germany. Because this is Pokemon Go, the event hits technical snags, which at this point is…
Ashes of Creation claims it’s ‘now among the largest MMOs in production’ - Ashes of Creation claims it's "now among the largest MMOs in production" thanks to the addition of a large crew of new hires and more on the way. Intrepid Studios…
France’s gambling authority condemns but does not ban lockboxes - The international community is becoming aware of the problems of lootboxes, and that means that laws are being formed in response to the business model. But there is another approach…
Interview: Neowiz on Bless Online’s tech, class balance, gems, PvP, and more - Neowiz’s Bless has been the subject of much chatter lately (not least of all my own), with its troubled, let's say, launch raising a bevy of questions and concerns among…
Online games are avenues for hate group recruitment, according to former white supremacist leader - Playing a game of linking awful online activities to white supremacist movements is like the worst possible variant of the old Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but it's important…
Todd Howard blames Fallout 76’s lack of cross-platform play on Sony - The reason you won't be able to play Fallout 76 with your friends on consoles is because of Sony, according to Bethesda studio director Todd Howard. A recent interview with…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
The Stream Team: Into ARK’s underwater cave
The Stream Team: Summer festival fun in Star Trek Online
The Stream Team: Waiting for Warframe’s big TennoCon announcement
The Stream Team: Taking Alata’s parkour challenge in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Celebrating freedom in Shroud of the Avatar
The Stream Team: Protecting your property from Conan Exile’s purges
The Stream Team: Beating the heat (literally) with EverQuest II’s Scorched Sky Celebration
The Stream team: Aiming for Angry Feet in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Hunting for pets in Trove’s Geode
The Stream Team: Testing the Will to Live Online
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
How World of Warcraft has changed since launch
Leveling toons Hearts of Azeroth on the beta now costs more, but don’t panic
Extreme soloing has been taken to a new level with this 3-man Argus kill
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.
