2018 just cannot be stopped – not even the holiday season can put the brakes on this train. This week (and after several false starts and delays) Atlas finally set sail for early access, for the fee of $25 and the promise of a lengthy test, throttled servers, and endless cries of “ARK 2.0.” We also got a look at Ashes of Creation’s brand-new “Apocalypse” battle royale mode, raised eyebrows over Squadron 42’s huge delay and Star Citizen’s private investment, chatted with Amazon Game Studios about the closed alpha MMO New World, and debated the merits of Daybreak’s new lifetime pass.
MassivelyOP has been dishing out more awards this week, with our picks for biggest MMO story, biggest blunder, best not-so-massively game, stormiest future, best MMO crafting, best studio, and best indie MMO. We’ve also kicked off our more silly end-of-the-year awards and our monthly recaps of 2018! Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in our Week in Review, and please, everyone have a safe and happy holiday!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
The continuing early access launch saga of Wildcard’s new pirate MMO Atlas - (We're updating this post at the bottom as the drama unfolds!) Marking its third delay since its announcement just two weeks ago, Wildcard's pirate MMO Atlas is not going to launch…
Hands-on: Dipping into Ashes of Creation’s Apocalypse battle royale - The first question we need to ask is: What am I, the sheepiest of all PvE sheep, doing in a PvP battle royale game? The second question follows: How quick…
Star Citizen ATV, Squadron 42’s projected 2020 beta, and Cloud Imperium’s $46M private investment - This week's Around the Verse does touch on the 3.4 release of Star Citizen, but the big news is definitely from Squadron 42, which has released its big roadmap as…
Interview: New World’s Rich Lawrence on solving PvP problems and defining the sandbox - I think it's fair to say that New World is the biggest MMO currently under production in the west, at least among those games not under wraps right now, which…
EverQuesting: Why I’m hesitant to jump on Daybreak’s lifetime membership deal bandwagon - Well there's something I wasn't expecting, and I admit it: I am not really sure what to think about it. Daybreak just jumped on the lifetime membership bandwagon. My first…
There are no Blizzard games in the November 2018 SuperData games revenue ranking, not even WoW - I did a little double-take when I read SuperData's November 2018 games industry revenue ranking piece today, and not because the title and intro makes the industry look grim. No,…
Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 4.5, A Requiem for Heroes, launches on January 8 - It's all coming down in Final Fantasy XIV on January 8th, 2019. Patch 4.5, A Requiem for Heroes, launches on that date, bringing with it the Ghimlyt Dark, the conclusion of…
Guild Wars 2’s next living story episode ‘All or Nothing’ launches January 8th - Guild Wars 2 players won't be surprised that ArenaNet has just revealed the key details of its next living story and its trailer, given that an advertiser unwittingly leaked it and…
City of Titans delays Issue 0 launch into 2019 – ‘We’re still here. We’re still fighting’ - You'd probably guessed it already, but Missing Worlds Media project lead Chris "Warcabbit" Hare has now confirmed the news: Kickstarted superhero MMORPG City of Titans is not going to make…
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v2.0 - While The Game Archaeologist columns take up the most time of any project I do here at Massively OP, I absolutely love doing them for a few reasons. One, personal…
Smilegate taps Mail.Ru to run Korean MMORPG Lost Ark in Russia as early access package sale goes live - Smilegate is continuing its global rollout of Lost Ark, now with the selection of a publisher for Russia and the CIS region, according to Mail.ru's own site. "Mail.Ru will be…
WoW Factor: The great Superdata fall-off - The one down side to working ahead is that sometimes your schedule gets nudged around more than expected. I promise that a further look at the changed and underused zones…
The Daily Grind: What was the worst MMO trend of 2018? - Last week, as part of MOP's 2018 awards rollout, we asked you about the best trend of the year for our genre. We were nearly unanimous in calling that one…
Massively Overthinking: Our MMO predictions for 2019 - With 2018 drawing to a close and 2019 rushing up to meet us, the Massively OP team has regrouped for another round of bold and goofy predictions for the year…
Vague Patch Notes: Understanding systems before you talk about them - Here's a fun question to consider. What were Emblems of Valor and Emblems of Heroism designed to do in World of Warcraft? Yes, they were there as currency to buy gear,…
Daybreak’s $300 all-in-one package is halfway sold out - It looks like Daybreak has hit upon a winning formula to make a quick buck: sell everything at a high price and make it exclusive. We predicted that its $300…
Wildcard’s new pirate MMO Atlas has been delayed yet again - If you've been refreshing Atlas' Steam page all day today (guilty), you might have noticed that it didn't actually launch into early access as planned. That's because it's been delayed…
The Massively Overpowered 2018 winter holiday roundup - It's that time again, the time for a roundup of all the winter holiday events going on in the MMO universe! The nice thing about this particular holiday is that…
Perfect Ten: The MMOs with the best value going into 2019 - Here we go, here we go, here we go again. This one is always an interesting column to write because there's a certain amount of back-and-forth inherent in making this…
ZeniMax says 2019 will be a ‘huge year for The Elder Scrolls Online’ - Elder Scrolls Online Creative Director Rich Lambert has a letter up for the game's community today, complete with a recap of the game's content and community in 2018 and a…
Daybreak’s offering a $300 lifetime sub for its stable of MMOs, and it’ll probably sell out - You had to figure Daybreak was gearing up for some sort of big sub thing, what with SSG doing it for LOTRO and DDO - quite successfully - under its…
Leaderboard: What was the most overrated MMO of 2018? - Every year for the last many years, we've done some sort of award for the most underrated MMO, or even the year's sleeper hit. It's one of my favorites because…
Warframe launches its 38th ‘frame, Baruuk, with today’s Fortuna: The Profit Taker - [AL:WarF]Well now Warframe's just having itself the best day ever, isn't it. Not only did it take home one of the good awards from us, but it's just launched the…
Choose My Adventure: I am not good at drug running in Star Citizen - There's a rather popular quote in military circles that goes "no plan survives contact with the enemy." This quote springs to my mind as I recount my latest Star Citizen…
Escape From Tarkov devs lodge DMCA strikes over YouTuber’s ‘misinformation’ and ‘negative hype’ - It's been a couple of years since we had one of these stories about a game studio filing DMCA complaints in an attempt to silence criticism, but here we are…
Carlton is making trouble in Fortnite’s neighborhood – by suing Epic over his dance - Alfonso Ribeiro, the actor probably best known for playing Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and now the host of America's Funniest Home Videos, is apparently joining in the…
Fallout 76 may be flipping on its no-lockboxes vow - With only days to go until New Year's Eve, Bethesda has to redouble its efforts to run Fallout 76 right into the ground. So how will the studio earn that…
Hellgate London’s latest incarnation has finally added Tokyo - When Hellgate London relaunched for like the 500th time a month ago on Steam, probably the biggest criticism, other than the fact that it's missing the multiplayer component that made…
Wisdom of Nym: No, Final Fantasy XIV reliability isn’t a bad thing - There's a common criticism of Final Fantasy XIV that I frequently see and agree with. The argument goes that basically, five years out from the relaunch, FFXIV is predictable. Every patch will…
Trove’s Crystal Combat update arrives on PC tomorrow, delays on consoles - For a moment, at least, Trove players can put aside the fears of the past couple months with the Gamigo acquisition to enjoy a nice pre-holiday content update to their…
Mortal Online devs will launch Mortal Royale to Steam early access today - So here's a thing that did not exactly make my list of favorite trends this year: MMOs transparently courting the battle royale market with sidegames. However, when they keep it…
The Daily Grind: Which MMORPG has the best graphical appeal as of 2018? - We don't give out a formal end-of-the-year award for MMO graphics at Massively OP. It'd be almost impossible to come to a consensus. As we wrote a few years back,…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 201: Under siege from new content
Battle Bards Episode 134: Halloween and Christmas
The Stream Team: Another fresh start and more codes for Valnir Rok
The Stream Team: Q is for Christmas in Star Trek Online
The Stream Team: Celebrating Christmas in ARK
The Stream Team: An Asmodian Aion Christmas
The Stream Team: Saving snow forts for LOTRO’s Yuletide
The Stream Team: Happy 7th birthday SWTOR!
The Stream Team: Getting the jump on Guild Wars 2’s Wintersday
The Stream Team: Continuing Krampusnact with Secret World Legends’ latest investigation mission
The Stream Team: Fun in AdventureQuest 3D’s Frostval
The Stream Team: A first look at Prosperous Universe
The Stream Team: Investigating more in Path of Exile’s Betrayal
The Stream Team: The Starlight season of Final Fantasy XIV
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
• See You Later Bundle says bye-bye to a pile of pets and mounts
• Help a charity with the Icecrown Challenge
• Winter Veil 2018 has arrived with toys and wonder for all
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 bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
