MMO Week in Review: The LOTRO and DDO tech team deserves a nap and a hug

Did anybody else let out a cheer when Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online finally came back up on Saturday on day four of a hardware maintenance that was meant to last only Wednesday? We’d long since run out of pipeweed is what I’m saying. I always joke to the team that we are not an uptime monitor, but it sure felt as if we were last week.

In other MMO news, Anarchy Online’s first progression server went live, Ashes of Creation announced a delay, Torchlight Frontiers dropped its alpha NDA, Guild Wars 2 launched the warclaw mount, Shroud of the Avatar closed its physical office, and Path of Exile’s Synthesis expansion went live.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Torchlight Frontiers reveals update notes for alpha 3, live today with no NDA - Torchlight Frontier's closed alpha 3 is set to begin this afternoon, marking a major milestone for the game as it commits its final character wipe, lifts its NDA, and prepares…

LOTRO Legendarium: The return of skirmishes in Lord of the Rings Online - Out of all of Lord of the Rings Online's additional features that it has added post-launch, skirmishes have my vote as one of the best systems that added plenty of…

Shroud of the Avatar studio Portalarium temporarily closes office in favor of remote studio - It sounds as if Shroud of the Avatar studio Portalarium has uprooted its home office. "We are nomadic now," Portalarium's Starr Long told players on the game's livestream this weekend.…

Guild Wars 2 drops WvW warclaw mount, Lounge, and class balance tweaks in today’s patch - [AL:GW2]Last week was surely the most disastrous in Guild Wars 2 history, and that's saying a lot given the mess that was last July. But with today's patch, the ArenaNet…

Anarchy Online’s first-ever progression server, Rubi-Ka 2019, is now live - As promised, Funcom has rolled out Anarchy Online's first "fresh-start" progression server today. The studio's calling it Rubi-Ka 2019, and yes, you will need to be subbed to the original…

DDO and LOTRO’s one-day downtime is now at three days and counting - What began as a one-day downtime to work on a data center has now stretched into three days of offline status for both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons…

Path of Exile’s Synthesis expansion is officially live - [AL:POE]It's here! It's here! Path of Exile has officially launched its Synthesis expansion for both PC and Xbox One. Still wondering about that PlayStation 4 launch? It's on track for…

World of Warcraft posts a survival guide for patch 8.1.5 incoming on March 12 - Do you feel sufficiently prepared for the arrival of patch 8.1.5. in World of Warcraft? Complete with new allied races, new profession-based questlines, and the new Crucible of Storms raid?…

BioWare doesn’t think Anthem’s ‘loot is lame’ – it’s fixing damage scaling bugs next week - Anthem wasn't done when it launched. Let's just get that out of the way: The consensus across journalists and players (including ours!) is that it's buggy and unfinished, with the…

WoW Factor: Why people are mad at Battle for Azeroth, part three: Leveling and scaling - Remember earlier this week when I was talking about the difference between leveling as a part of the game vs. leveling as a chore? We can all agree that World of…

Warframe’s Operation Buried Debts, Hildryn ‘frame, and melee combat revamp are live - [AL:WarF]Digital Extremes is keeping the pressure up with Warframe's incessant content rollouts, and we are not mad about it at all. Last night, the studio dropped free content Operation: Buried…

Kickstarted MMORPG Ashes of Creation delays alpha one slightly for infrastructure refactoring - If you're one of the folks still wondering what's going on with Ashes of Creation since it began alpha testing a battle royale mode after a successful Kickstarter for an…

Massively Overthinking: The paradox MMO - Back in February, the MMORPG subreddit offered up yet another fun thread: User Friendly_Fire told the MMO community that what it really wants is a paradox MMO - a game…

The Survivalist: Space Engineers sloughs off early access and launches with revamped survival - Wouldn't you know it: One survival game has a big week and others want to follow suit! Space Engineers sheds its early access coil and then Conan Exiles and ARK…

Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss is working on a new family-friendly game code-named Project V - We know that Project V (or "Project Five" if you want to cheekily reference roman numerals) is in development from Pearl Abyss. We know that it's going to be using…

Here’s how Star Trek Online is revamping its character creation UI - If you're still upset over the impending loss of the Star Trek Online player-made quest Foundry system, make this will perk you and your imagination back up: PWE and Cryptic…

Vague Patch Notes: It’s not the MMO endgame – it’s the sudden stop at the end - When I first pitched the Vague Patch Notes that ran a couple weeks back, it prompted a big long discussion with MOP's editor Bree about design goals and how MMOs…

Diablo (the first one) is available now on GOG - Want to get your hands on some authentic SVGA 4-player dungeon-crawling? You can get in on that now with Diablo on GOG.com. Not a later title in that franchise, no. The…

Exclusive: Upcoming MMORPG Astellia Online deep-dives its skill systems - We've been keeping an eye on Korean-born Astellia for several years now as the full-scale MMORPG has trekked through development. As revealed in January, while Nexon is publishing the game…

Kritika Online is shutting down in the west in April - Sad news for Kritika Online fans today, as En Masse Entertainment has officially announced the shuttering of the game on April 30th of this year. That gives the game just…

Try out level 60 PvE characters with Black Desert’s new trial toons system - Black Desert's western anniversary celebrations continue this week with the rollout of trial characters. If you've ever hated the idea of spending tons of time leveling up an MMO character…

EVE Online and CCP Games are losing another key developer: CCP Guard - EVE Online is losing a key dev today as Senior Community Development Lead Sveinn "CCP Guard" Kjarval announced his departure from CCP Games. "After sixteen amazing years at CCP I…

Perfect Ten: Totally rad ’80s cartoons that would make bodacious MMORPGs - In another reality where our passion for MMORPGs is matched only by the power of nostalgia for the greatest era of cartoons, we would no doubt witness studios scrabbling over…

CCP Games and Hadean develop 10,000 player deathmatch demo, EVE: Aether Wars - Since the first time EVE Online developer CCP Games showed off its VR dogfighter EVE:Valkyrie, players have dreamed of having the directly controlled fighters fighting alongside massive ships in the…

Choose My Adventure: Running for my life in Legends of Aria - Welp, we're in the deep end now. Legends of Aria definitely is the sandbox that's giving me the hard knock schooling on sandbox MMORPG gaming, with its decidedly hands-off approach…

Third law firm joins the chorus threatening suits against Activision Blizzard over the Bungie split - Stop me if you've heard this one: In the wake of the split between Activision Blizzard and Bungie, with the latter regaining full rights and ownership of Destiny 2, a law…

The people best able to afford VR have the least interest in the gaming associated with VR adoption - Well, here's a fun one. Research firm Quantic Foundry took a look at the statistical breakdown for surveys about VR purchase plans and existing VR headset purchases between November 2016 and…

Watch the rise and fall of the most popular Steam games of the last four years - For those of us who are visual learners (or heck, bar chart fanatics - and you know who you are), there's an interesting animated gif that's been making the rounds this…

Nexon settles on five bidders in corporate sale as Tencent splits from Netmarble and MBK - Welp, I'm sorry, guys: You're not on the shortlist to buy Nexon. I know you really wanted it, but it's not to be. As we've been chronicling, Nexon's controlling family…

PWE is sunsetting the Foundry system in Star Trek Online and Neverwinter - Cryptic's Foundry system, implemented in both Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, has traditionally been one of the best-loved player content creation tools in the entire MMO verse, in spite of…

Derek Smart says he’s working on partnership deals to revivify 2009 MMORPG Alganon - A year and change ago, we covered the strange case of MMO Alganon, and now it's back in the news. We've been covering the game for about a decade now;…

Squadron 42 studio Foundry 42 is rebranding under Star Citizen’s Cloud Imperium conglomerate - Foundry 42, the Chris Roberts subsidiary studio that's been working on Star Citizen's singleplayer spinoff Squadron 42, is getting a bit of a rebrand this week, bringing it more clearly…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 210: The spice must flow

The Stream Team: Creating an ARK Homestead

The Stream Team: Another attempted look inside Torchlight Frontiers’ alpha

The Stream Team: Cute vs. cutthroat — PvP launches in AdventureQuest 3D

The Stream Team: Trying Torchlight Frontiers’ alpha

The Stream Team: Don, SWTOR’s Exiled Knight

The Stream Team: AQ3D’s Doomwood and Dage days

The Stream Team: Celebrating Black Desert Online’s third anniversary with battle royale

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.