Guild Wars 2’s “PR nightmare” and the industry reaction to it dominated headlines and comments this week, but that’s not all that happened in the realm of MMORPGs. Defiance 2050 officially launched, Star Citizen players waged a protest, Wild West Online floated a reboot, Trion began compensating Marvel Heroes refugees, Crowfall announced plans to license its engine, and MJ brought back the Warframe goods from TennoCon. Plus, we got some useful dates for Monster Hunter World, Rend, and WoW’s expansion pre-patch.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Flameseeker Chronicles: Unpacking Guild Wars 2’s PR nightmare - [AL:GW2]Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have noticed that two Guild Wars 2 developers were cut loose last week after a heated Twitter exchange that was initiated by narrative…
IGDA calls for transparent guidelines on game studio social media and harassment following Guild Wars 2 dust-up - Regardless of who you believe had the right and wrong of the ArenaNet Twitter fiasco last week, game developers have expressed concern over the way it was handled and the…
Game Workers Unite condemns ArenaNet for Guild Wars 2 developer firings - Grassroots advocacy group Game Workers Unite posted a statement on Pricegate today, "emphatically denouncing" ArenaNet for firing Guild Wars 2's Jessica Price and Peter Fries over last week's Twitter/Reddit meltdown.…
Former Guild Wars 2 developer criticizes ArenaNet boss for ‘solicitation of harassment’ and minimization of her work - Former ArenaNet developer Jessica Price has just made a string of new statements on Twitter discussing some of the issues surrounding the ongoing Guild Wars 2Â PR nightmare, in which she…
Defiance 2050 officially launches as a free-to-play reboot on PC and console today - Trion has a big launch on its hands today as it pushes Defiance 2050 out of beta into a live state on PC and both core consoles. As we've been covering, Defiance…
Disgruntled Star Citizen players blockade a space station in protest over Arena Commander - Cloud Imperium has dropped a couple of new tidbits for Star Citizen fans to dig into this week with a new lore post and the latest installment of the studio's weekly…
Wild West Online plans ‘soft relaunch’ to boost playerbase, says playable women are a ‘cosmetic feature’ - The latest Wild West Online patch landed on July 5th, and it brings in some changes like a full Sheriffs vs. Outlaws faction setup and the ability to taunt your…
Interview: ArtCraft’s J. Todd Coleman on prepping Crowfall’s Artisan Engine for the broader industry - Yesterday, Crowfall studio ArtCraft announced it was spinning off a brand-new company dubbed ArtCraft Technologies that would basically turn Crowfall's engine into a marketable product for other studios, "providing game…
TennoCon 2018: Deep-diving Warframe’s Fortuna and Railjack - [AL:WarF]Many fans, including me, are talking about still riding high after Warframe's amazing TennoCon 2018 announcements this past weekend. That was some pretty epic stuff (I have to admit IÂ …
Interviewing Frostkeep’s CEO as Rend announces July 31 early access - Are you looking for a new way to survive? It's coming. We've watched as Rend wandered down its closed alpha path since May, but now the unique survival game is…
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth pre-patch arrives on July 17 - Say goodbye to your artifacts and hello to War Mode, because World of Warcraft's expansion pre-patch is almost here. When July 17th rolls around, players will no longer be able…
Today in why we can’t have nice things: Roblox players were banned after ‘raping’ little girl’s avatar - [AL:Rob]Please note, this article covers a sensitive subject - please skip it if the title is already crunching up your stomach. If you've got kids, you probably know all about…
The Game Archaeologist: A history of EverQuest’s expansions - I don't know if EverQuest holds the crown title for the MMO with the most expansions, but I'm sure it's among the top three if not at the number one…
Three quarters of European gamers don’t even understand what the heck lootboxes are - A new report on GIbiz suggests that most gamers are pretty darn clueless about lootboxes, which probably won't surprise anyone reading here. Researchers for the publication surveyed gamers in Western Europe…
Exploring Pokemon Go’s real-life communities: MOP staffers revisit the game from opposite corners of the world - It's year two of Pokemon Go. While there's always room for improvement, enough has changed that I feel comfortable recommending the game to at least pre-World of Warcraft MMO fans. Why…
Today in why we can’t have nice things: How a No Man’s Sky griefer exploits design flaws to screw with communities - A No Man's Sky griefer purporting to roleplay an evil emperor, monologuing and all, decided to up his griefer game by taking it out of game and erasing a 400+ member strong Amino…
Black Desert launches a cross-regional ‘Global Lab’ test server - [AL:BDO]So many games have test servers of one form or another that we seldom even need to spell out the acronym PTS - and now one more MMORPG is moving…
Interview and excerpt: The ‘Braving Britannia’ book preserves Ultima Online’s oral history - Earlier this week, we wrote about the launch of a new book that's right up MMORPG fans' alley. Dubbed Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online,…
Star Wars Galaxies book takes fans back to this late, great MMO - Unless you're willing to venture out onto the wild space of emulated servers, you won't be getting Star Wars Galaxies back. That doesn't mean that you can't reminisce about this…
Overwatch League gets ESPN and Disney XD television contract - Count this as a huge victory for Blizzard's attempt to legitimize and popularize its fledgling Overwatch League. The studio announced this week that it has signed a deal with both…
Hyperspace Beacon: Take your SWTOR PvP to Rishi! - [AL:TOR]OK, I'll come right out and say it: I love the Rishi stronghold. The Star Wars: The Old Republic developers have outdone themselves. I will unlock that whole stronghold as…
World of Warcraft’s communities will bring players closer together than ever before (unless they’re in different factions) - The common consensus in the World of Warcraft community is that Patch 8.0 -- the Battle for Azeroth pre-patch -- is due to arrive next Tuesday. And speaking of community,…
Perfect Ten: Best MMO debuts by year, 2007-2017 - Continuing from my previous column that went back to 1997, I'm going to be running through the second decade of graphical MMORPG launches and picking the best title to debut…
The ESA claims crunch issues in the industry have been declining over the past decade - Crunch - the act of putting in way too much overtime to get a video game completed and out the door - is a sensative topic in the industry and…
TennoCon 2018: Why Warframe will never launch (and why that doesn’t matter) - [AL:WarF]There's a question that floats around our Massively OP office discussions occasionally, especially when updating which game is labeled what: Will Warframe ever launch? Or did it? We've even been…
Shroud of the Avatar opens up optional ‘rewards’ subs, stretch goal cash shop to fund episode 2 - With release 55 now behind it, Portalarium is focused on the future of Shroud of the Avatar. Specifically, that means episode 2, which is basically the second season of content…
Monster Hunter World will launch for PC early on August 9 - Oh right, Monster Hunter World hasn't launched on PC yet. But that's changing soon, as Capcom just announced it's coming not in fall, but earlier than expected, on August 9th.…
Saga of Lucimia chides MMO players for having ‘forgotten’ how to properly group and socialize - How important is grouping in Saga of Lucimia? Very. In fact, it's so central to the idea of what the devs believe MMORPGs should be about that they reject the…
TennoCon 2018: Warframe enhances sights and sounds with new skins, ‘Frames, pet skins, music, and more - [AL:WarF]What does a great game look like to you? More and more it looks like Warframe to me. Looks and sounds like I should say. Have you seen those reveals…
Trion Worlds offers free MMO goodies for Marvel Heroes refugees - [AL:Arche]Ever since Trion Worlds announced that it had snapped up all of the remaining assets from Gazillion and Marvel Heroes, we have wondered what the studio was planning to do…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 177: ArenaNet A-bomb
Battle Bards Episode 124: Old MMOs, new music
The Stream Team: Chest-birthing critter companions in ARK
The Stream Team: Another fun Friday the 13th in AQ3D
The Stream Team: Hot stuff in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Working through Outpost Zero pirate invasions
The Stream Team: How about that Warframe news?!
The Stream Team: Conquering KOTET’s Chapter IX in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Trove celebrates three years!
The Stream Team: Heading into Defiance 2050’s headstart
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
What was your favorite WoW Legion moment?
Don’t forget to spend your battle pet charms before WoW’s pre-patch!
You officially have less than a week for WoW’s Mage Tower appearances
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.
