This week I learned that in the ’90s, the number “143” was used as code for “I love you.” There was no way my parents were buying me a pager, so maybe that’s why I’m out of it.
Anyway, 143 is also the number of people ArenaNet laid off from the teams working on Guild Wars 2 and the other two secret projects it canceled. Guild Wars 2, however, will continue on, as the studio’s Mike Z told players the company is committed to its core MMORPG. In fact, he gave more information about what’s coming to the game all at once than players have had since 2017 – and that includes the Warclaw mount, which will ultimately be delayed only a week and launch Tuesday.
Funcom also brought it this week with news of a DUNE MMO and Anarchy Online progression server, plus Elder Scrolls Online launched Wrathstone and we gave our impressions of Anthem.
In happier news this week, we relaunched our superhero column to focus on old and new superhero MMOs, and we’re still accepting application for some of our open columnist positions. Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
143 ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2 devs have been laid off as fans express #LoveForArenaNet - Last week's horrific news that NCsoft and ArenaNet would be laying off a large part of the Guild Wars 2 studio and canceling multiple secret projects had a weird sidenote:…
Funcom saw record high 2018 revenue, inks deal for DUNE games including open-world multiplayer title - Would you like a bit of good news for MMOs? Because we've got some. It's from Funcom. Funcom killed it in 2018. "2018 is our best year to date. A…
Guild Wars 2 Game Director Mike Z promises ArenaNet is ‘still committed’ to Guild Wars 2 with ‘long-term plans’ - In the wake of the massive ArenaNet layoffs that we've been covering since last week, Guild Wars 2 players have been - let's be honest - positively freaking out on…
First impressions of BioWare’s Anthem, a flawed piece of work with good bones - I'm not quite sure whether Anthem is a mediocre game that I want to be better than it is, a bad game that I enjoy, or a good game that just…
Into the Super-verse: Taking a closer look at City of Heroes’ Paragon Chat - Welcome to Massively OP's brand-new column covering superhero MMORPGs -- past, present, and future! One might even say it's a continuation of our past columns on this subgenre like A…
Blizzard posts update on WoW Classic, implies it’s still launching this summer - Earlier this week, in discussing other positions we'd like to hire extra writers for later this year, we fell on the topic of World of Warcraft and its WoW Classic…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Wrathstone DLC and Update 21 are officially live - Hey, dragon fans: The Season of the Dragon in Elder Scrolls Online has officially begun today with the formal release of the Wrathstone DLC and Update 21 for PC. As…
Experience Anarchy Online from the beginning with its upcoming fresh start server - Last December, Funcom made some waves in the Anarchy Online community with a seemingly out-of-nowhere Facebook poll asking fans if there were any interest in a fresh-start server for the…
Elite Dangerous has shifted the ‘majority’ of its live team to what sounds like a massive 2020 expansion - Last August, Frontier intimidated that it was shaking up how content in Elite Dangerous would be formatted in 2019, including a "major milestone" for the game that would be paid…
Massively Overthinking: Reconsidering the all-in-one MMO - One of the forever-arguments MMORPG players seem to enjoy having is the one about niche MMOs. There are quite a lot of gamers out there who believe that older games…
Daybreak is rearranging and hopefully salvaging Player Studio, its player designer program - It looks as if Daybreak has fresh plans for Player Studio, the nifty system that allowed players to create and submit in-game content for multiple Daybreak MMOs for compensation. MMO…
WoW Factor: Why people are mad at Battle for Azeroth, part two: The Heart of Azeroth - We're continuing on in our tour of why people are upset about the current World of Warcraft expansion, and I think it's important to note that most of these systems are…
World of Warcraft sets a date for new allied race unlocks: March 12 - It's only been a half of a year since World of Warcraft:Â Battle for Azeroth launched, and Blizzard has yet to make good on all of the expansion's promised features. One…
The Survivalist: When survival sandboxes are more MMO than actual MMORPGs - Ever since Life is Feudal announced at the end of last month its dedication to developing a deep roleplay-focused server, I haven't been able to stop thinking about how much…
Blizzard Roundup: NetEase on Diablo Immortal’s launch, plus news on HOTS, Hearthstone, and Overwatch - MMO Culture has an interesting translated bit from the NetEase conference call last week that homes in on Diablo Immortal, the game that was everyone's punchline for a few weeks…
Anthem unveils loot changes to improve gearing - If you missed it earlier, our first impression of Anthem is that it's a good game underneath serious issues and a lack of content; addressing those issues is a good thing.…
Fallout 76’s new brewing and distilling skills will let you host the ultimate video game kegger - Bethsoft's first big post about Fallout 76's journey down its 2019 roadmap begins where all posts should begin: with beer. Not kidding. It's about brewing and distilling skills, which I frankly…
Reverse Engineering: Predicting Fortnite’s earthquakes… with science! - It looks like things are literally shaking up in Fortnite. We are currently tracking a series of changes coming to the game leading up to what some people are calling…
Final Fantasy XIV’s data center migration is happening in April - One of the big changes coming to Final Fantasy XIV along with the next expansion isn't really a matter of game mechanics; it's a change of the game's data center distribution,…
Nexon’s $9B sale draws interest from Amazon, EA, and Comcast - Amazon presents Nexon? It could happen. Nexon's massive $9 billion sale of controlling interest in the company continues to attract major players. VentureBeat is reporting that Amazon, Comcast, and Electronic…
NantG continues negotiations with Daybreak to resurrect H1Z1’s Just Survive - The future of H1Z1's zombie survival component Just Survive has been in limbo for some time now, ever since a joint venture with Daybreak Games granted NantWorks -- under the umbrella…
Funcom previews Anarchy Online’s fresh start server on latest stream - It's called "Rubi-Ka 2019." That's the official designation of Anarchy Online's fresh start server coming our way in the near future. The announcement of this server took a lot of…
Warframe just launched episode one of The Wolf of Saturn Six – on ALL the platforms - [AL:WarF]You know that annoying thing where MMOs get a content update on PC, but then the console launch is like a month later, but by that point everyone's already done…
Call of Duty swatter requests the minimum 20 to 25 year prison sentence - The Call of Duty player whose 2017 swatting call resulted in an innocent man's death is now facing sentencing in federal court, where he is seeking a sentence of 20…
Perfect Ten: Ten steps for understanding MMO systems - As I write this, I'm in the middle of putting together my first impressions for Anthem. This takes some doing and would probably be easier if I had taken part in…
Ascent: Infinite Realm teases class elements and all four races - Finding out more about Ascent: Infinite Realm can be very feast or famine, but perhaps your appetite will be whetted at the prospect of some class designs. Or perhaps you've forgotten…
Black Desert turns three years old in the west as its battle royale mode leaves early access - [AL:BDO]Can you believe Black Desert is creeping up on three years since its launch here in the west? It's true! Naturally Kakao is pulling out all the stops on the…
13-year-old Dungeons and Dragons Online opens Sharn expansion pre-orders next month - Superstitious or not, a 13th birthday for Dungeons and Dragons Online feels pretty darn lucky to us in this day and age. Standing Stone Games is celebrating the title's birthday…
Brave the American frontier in Virtual Basement’s upcoming Outlaws of the Old West, published by Snail Games - Step aside, Red Dead Online; there's a new wild-west sandbox moseying into town -- the newly announced Outlaws of the Old West from developer Virtual Basement. The game, which is…
Leaderboard: What’s your biggest beef with Anthem? - If you're still a little confused as to why EA would drop something like Apex Legends right as hype was reaching its peak for Anthem... well, I suspect it has…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers overhaul jobs, part one - There are four jobs that we know of which are getting some major reworking in Shadowbringers. For a game with fifteen jobs, that's not so bad; one healer, two DPS, and…
Two weeks after Activision Blizzard’s layoffs, its stock price is barely higher than before the layoffs - You all remember when Activision Blizzard laid off 800 employees on a year that was, on balance, a very good year for the company? Of course you do. And you…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 209: ArenaNet layoffs, Blizzard layoffs, and PlanetSide Arena delays
Battle Bards Episode 139: Return to LOTRO
The Stream Team: Don, SWTOR’s Exiled Knight
The Stream Team: Rift-wrangling for RIFT’s 8th birthday
The Stream Team: Dungeons and Dragons Online turns a lucky 13 today
The Stream Team: Happy seventh birthday, Wakfu!
The Stream Team: Eyes on the holocron prize of SWTOR’s evil jumping puzzle
The Stream Team: Scoping out Elder Scrolls Online’s new zone guide
The Stream Team: Next up, Thyton’s Ninja mission in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Count down to Path of Exile’s Synthesis League
The Stream Team: Journey to the center of Astroneer
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.
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