As MOP’s Justin Olivetti reminded me this week, there’s are good reasons behind Blizzard’s plan to pre-launch World of Warcraft’s expansion mechanics before its content, and some of those reasons manifested this week – let’s get the rough start and comparisons to old expansions out of the way now, while it doesn’t fully count and before the real hype begins, right?
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
WoW Factor: World of Warcraft’s Battle for Azeroth feels like Cataclysm all over again - It took me a long time to identify what felt off about World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion. Something was definitely bothering me, but the thing was is that we know…
Trion Worlds has been hit with layoffs, loses ArcheAge associate producer - Trion has confirmed the layoffs - we've updated below. [AL:Arche]Trion Worlds in general and ArcheAge in specific are going through a turbulent time this week as the studio has levied…
Star Citizen backer took CIG to small claims court over his refund request – and lost - The Star Citizen refunds subreddit is often the home of big words and tall tales, but Redditor firefly212 did more than just talk: He actually tried to take Cloud Imperium…
Secret World Legends adding new South Africa and faction rank missions soon - [AL:SWL]The anniversary event has kept Secret World Legends players' attention pretty rapt for the past month, but that distraction ending tomorrow. What will fans do then? Well they won't get…
Fallout 76 doesn’t want to be labeled as ‘survival,’ shows off emote wheel - What is Fallout 76? Even Bethesda doesn't seem to have a clear grasp on terminology to label it, avoiding both the MMO and survival labels for the upcoming multiplayer post-nuclear…
World of Warcraft’s pre-expansion patch has a rough start as Blizzard levies bans and grants past content to subbers - The rollout of yesterday's pre-expansion patch for World of Warcraft could have gone smoother. Much, much smoother. During the day, many players were completely unable to log in, and the…
Digital Extremes’ retro permadeath MMO Survived By has entered closed beta - Digital Extremes has officially launched Survived By into closed beta today, accompanied by a hefty patch including a new 10-man raid, hardmode dungeons, UI buffs, and a graphics upgrade. The game…
No Man’s Sky received death threats over butterflies - On the verge of expanding into a full multiplayer experience, No Man's Sky has rocketed back into the spotlight with July 24th's NEXT update. In many ways, it's absolutely amazing…
Perfect Ten: Endless dungeons in MMOs - Most MMO dungeons are normal songs. You start out and you have a pretty clear picture of the beginning, middle, and end; they don't really change up much. But the…
World of Warcraft Hunters launch #SaveHati campaign - With this week's World of Warcraft pre-expansion patch, Blizzard has made one group of players deeply unhappy by putting down their pet dog. Some -- but not all -- Beast…
Sea of Thieves’ devs have realized that community comes from not constantly fighting each other - Hey, kids, did you know that players feel more like a community when they're working together rather than constantly fighting one another? Of course you did, you've paid attention to…
World of Warcraft answers pressing prepatch questions in its latest video Q&A - The prepatch for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth is out now, but the expansion is still a bit further off, so players have questions about it. For that matter,…
SuperData: Fortnite’s success hit League of Legends and PUBG hard, but not all online games are struggling - There's a new thinkpiece out on how Fortnite happened and what it all means every week lately, but SuperData's latest might be a comfort to the rest of the industry.…
Tamriel Infinium: The bizarre lore of the Hist in Elder Scrolls Online – and how it could matter in Murkmire - [AL:ESO]Although our next Elder Scrolls Online venture into Black Marsh is still many months away, I thought I would take a moment to talk about the Argonians. But as intriguing…
MapleStory 2’s second closed beta begins today; here’s a look at the founder packages - Nexon's MapleStory 2Â is barreling toward its western closed beta launch today, complete with new dungeons, quests, the market, and plenty of network stress testing on deck for this round of…
Fantasy Life Online launches in Japan this month, no word on Western release date - Game historians might recall that way back in 2002, game development studio Level 5 and Microsoft were collaborating on bringing the cel-shaded True Fantasy Life Online to Xbox. The project…
Stardew Valley is finally really truly launching PC multiplayer on August 1st - Stretch your mind back over two years ago, when the much-loved Stardew Valley first confirmed it was getting a multiplayer version, thereby justifying our burning desire to write about it…
EVE Online has banned almost 20,000 accounts since February for botting and RMT - [AL:EVE]Y'all remember the wild mess in EVE Online last winter and spring, when CCP Games said it was "coming for the bots" and getting tough on botting in the space…
Blade & Soul buffs up its subscription benefits in its False Idols update - [AL:BaS]It's always a great feeling when you get a good bang for your buck. While Blade and Soul isn't changing the cost of its subscription, it is making the premium…
Warlords Awakening just sunset in Korea, and now it’s coming to Steam early access here - As we reported in June, Paywith's Warlords Awakening MMOARPG is coming westward, with a launch planned for October and an early access date now set for July 26th. The base…
Black Desert overhauls node and conquest wars, extends and buffs its summer events - [AL:BDO]It's been a rocky morning for Black Desert, as its planned patch maintenance took a few extra hours and is currently causing some unresolved file corruption issues over on Steam,…
The Culling 2 has been canceled as devs agree it was ‘not a game that you asked for’ and return to work on The Culling - Earlier this week, we covered the shaky launch of Xaviant Games' The Culling 2, a battle royale title that was billed as a new-and-improved sequel to The Culling. The game wasn't…
Champions Online puts its lifetime subscription on sale for the price of its freeform slots - [AL:Champ]We still don't know exactly what the plan is with Champions Online's subscription. The plan to take subscriptions off the table entirely was postponed due to how subscriptions interact with…
World of Warcraft confirms that allied race requirements aren’t changing any time soon - Today is the day of World of Warcraft turning to the first page of Battle for Azeroth with the expansion prepatch going live today. Next week sees the story buildup…
Guild Wars 2 is bringing back the Festival of the Four Winds next week – it’s the next best thing to Cantha - [AL:GW2]You know what Guild Wars 2 could use right about now? How about a festival? Yeah! How about the return of a festival that's been dormant for years? Yassss! How…
Dauntless counts 2M players since open beta, announces city-reshaping ‘Coming Storm’ expansion - [AL:DNT]Well now, here comes Dauntless with some nice big numbers to boast about from its open beta: Phoenix Labs has apparently counted 2 million players since the start of its…
Massively Overthinking: What important lessons are MMORPGs failing to impart? - MOP reader and Patron Brett has a burning question about the lessons we're learning (and not learning) from playing MMORPGs. "In his book Theory of Fun, Raph Koster suggests that games…
The Survivalist: Using Conan Exiles for a virtual tabletop campaign - So I've been thinking. (A dangerous pastime, I know!) And I have actually been formulating an idea. And that is using a survival game like Conan Exiles to run a…
No Man’s Sky’s Next update drops next week with absurd amounts of space and land content - Don't call it an MMO yet, but Even More Multiplayer is making its way to No Man's Sky with its "Next" update. Hello Games today dropped a new trailer showing…
German courts rule against companies using ‘coming soon’ marketing for preorders - Making its way through the German court system right now is a case that could be of considerable importance to consumer protections, and not just in Germany. As German website…
Defiance 2050 performs better than its predecessor but hasn’t won the community over - With last week's launch of the revamped and rebooted Defiance 2050, Trion Worlds was betting on players flocking back to the sci-fi MMO shooter now that it's seen improvements and…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 178: #womenarecosmetic
The Stream Team: Go west, young Conan Exiles
The Stream Team: Surviving the first steps in Survived By
The Stream Team: Looking at Legends of Aria’s closed beta
The Stream Team: Solving Scorched Desert mysteries in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Star Trek Online’s Victory is Life story through Jem’Hadar eyes
The Stream Team: Taking puppy for a Warframe walk
The Stream Team: Sunfest fun in Trove
The Stream Team: Walking that Path of Exile journey
The Stream Team: Happy anniversary Skyforge
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
What to look for and do when you jump in to WoW’s patch 8.0
Don’t forget to fix your WoW addons
What did (or didn’t) you complete before WoW 8.0?
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.
