As part of our planned expansion for 2019, Massively OP brought on a slew of new writers to perk up our pages with new voices and ideas. They’ve now been on the job for a few weeks, and I’d like to introduce them to you more formally along with the work they’re already doing. I’d also like to highlight their columns – and some of our other new features – in case you missed them along the way!
Here be the new folks – give ’em a hearty welcome:
- Desert Oasis – Carlo Lacsina has reinvented our Black Desert column.
- Fight or Kite – Samon Kashani has joined us as our PvP MMO columnist.
- Lawful Neutral – Andy McAdams will be tackling law and business in his new column.
- MMO Cartographer – Mia DeSanzo is covering wee and weird MMOs in her column.
- Flameseeker Chronicles – Colin Henry has joined Tina to collab on our Guild Wars 2 column.
- Tamriel Infinium – Ben Griggs has joined Larry to collab on our Elder Scrolls Online column.
- Not So Massively – Tyler Edwards has revived our pseudo-MMO column.
Lawful Neutral: The future of MMO game design in a streaming gaming world - It’s been an interesting few weeks for gaming. We saw the announcement of Google’s game streaming service, Stadia, and then Apple’s subscribe-to-access game service, Apple Arcade. The services differ, but…
Tamriel Infinium: The power of community in five-year-old Elder Scrolls Online - Given the volatility in today’s video game industry, it’s nice when an MMO is able to celebrate some longevity. Elder Scrolls Online has not only survived for nearly five years,…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Stories Guild Wars 2 could tell without dragons - Thus far, Guild Wars 2’s story has revolved largely around the six elder dragons. The base game’s personal story crescendoed with the slaying of Zhaitan, the undead dragon, and the…
Not So Massively: The Division 2 has more stuff than personality - The Division was a game with a number of flaws, but one thing it did very well was present an incredibly detailed, realistic, and immersive game world. That endeared me…
MMO Cartographer: Touching all the things in Project Gorgon - Welcome to MMO Cartographer! I'm Mia, and I'll be your guide through this winding journey through interesting MMORPGs - some small, some forgotten, and some just worth another look. Today,…
Desert Oasis: Reframing player perceptions of Pearl Abyss’ MMO Black Desert - Hello and welcome to our revival of the Black Desert column! The Desert Nomad decided it was time to reroll for the new meta, and it's back, better than ever at…
Fight or Kite: Clawing my way back into Guild Wars 2’s WvW - All aboard and welcome everyone to a brand-new series here on Massively Overpowered: Fight or Kite, our new column focusing on PvP across the MMORPG genre. Let’s get right on…
Lawful Neutral: Dancing around Fortnite’s copyright lawsuits - Welcome friends to the inaugural post of Lawful Neutral on Massively OP. I'm Andy, but you know me better as Serrenity, writer of comments too long by half and not…
Tamriel Infinium: A conversation with The Elder Scrolls Online’s Abnur Tharn - For my first assignment at Massively Overpowered, I wanted to make a statement. No fluff piece or softball interview is good enough for our readers! As my deadline approached, I…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Fear not this night – there is hope for Guild Wars 2’s future - The last two weeks of February were devastating to the Guild Wars 2 community. Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet announced the layoffs of nearly one hundred and fifty developers, some…
Not So Massively: Welcoming a new era of online games and gaming - Hello, Massively Overpowered readers! Not So Massively is back, with a new captain at the helm. My name's Tyler. If you're active in the MMO blogosphere (or read Justin's Global…
Additionally, some of our existing writers have branched out with new columns, revived columns, or even adjusted scopes for existing columns.
- Hyperspace Beacon – Larry is expanding his coverage to include Star Wars Galaxies.
- Into the Super-Verse – Justin and Eliot are teaming up for a superhero MMO column.
- Wandering Wraeclast – MJ has begun a new Path of Exile column.
- Progress Bar – Chris is deep-diving early access MMOs.
- Reverse Engineering – Larry is covering MMO sci-pop in this humorous column.
- Warframe of Mind – MJ’s thrown herself at our Warframe column too!
- Storyboard – Eliot has brought back our old roleplaying column.
- Massively Uplifting – Finally, there’s MJ’s community feel-good roundup.
Storyboard: On the art of verisimilitude in MMO roleplaying - Those of you who remember this column from Massively-that-was are invited to take a shot, as was the running joke. Because it turned out I said the word verisimilitude a…
Wandering Wraeclast: A class guide to getting started in Path of Exile - Just because Path of Exile is more than five years old doesn't mean the influx of new players has dwindled. In fact, for quite a few leagues now the player…
Massively Uplifting: Bethesda’s gift to gaming granny, friendships forged in EverQuest and Guild Wars 2 - It is no joke: There is plenty that's good going on in the gaming world, and we want to share that with you. You may have to be wary of…
Warframe of Mind: Celebrating six years of Space Ninja history - Happy birthday! Warframe commemorated its sixth anniversary this week (or last week, depending on which date you go by), and that means it's time for an anniversary retrospective! Usually my…
Reverse Engineering: The super scientific dangers of capturing Pokemon with your phone - I don't mean to alarm anyone, but there is a chance that capturing Pokemon could be the end of civilization as we know it. It could likely bring the apocalypse…
Into the Super-verse: Five reasons to be excited for City of Titans - When NCsoft closed City of Heroes' doors in 2012, it was anything but a normal MMO closure due to a lack of interest and population. On the contrary, the thriving…
Warframe of Mind: Can we catch up in Warframe’s story before TennoCon? - I have mixed feelings about TennoCon 2019. Don't get me wrong -- I am excited as all get out and look forward to going! TennoCon is always an amazing experience;…
Hyperspace Beacon: Which Star Wars Galaxies emulator should I try first? - As a longtime Star Wars fan and former Star Wars Galaxies player, I've known there were plenty of emulators out there ripe for playing on. The code for the game…
Wandering Wraeclast: First impressions of Path of Exile’s Synthesis - [AL:POE]Something's different about Wraeclast. The air, the ground... it's changed. What could it be? If I could just put my finger on it before it disappears into the blue mist…
Massively Uplifting: Black Desert’s lantern memorial, a gift of sight in Wizard101 - Gamers get a bad rap. Studios are seen as heartless villains. Mainstream media is quick to demonize us, and we can be quick to do the same to developers. But…
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…
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…
Reverse Engineering: The science of Elder Scrolls Online’s dragons - I don't think I can express how excited I am to bring this column to life on Massively Overpowered. Reverse Engineering covers the one thing I do most in every…
Storyboard: Can you diverge from lore in MMORPG roleplaying? - All right, this is new for me because most of my titles do not contain dirty lies right in the question used to kick off the column. But that question…
Storyboard: What makes an MMORPG a good home for roleplaying? - Guess who's back. I gave Star Wars: The Old Republic a lot of grief over the course of 2018 for the fact that its server merges outright demolished the game's RP…
Progress Bar: The bullet hell of Survived By - Welcome to the inaugural edition of Progress Bar! This monthly column will be my personal look at early access MMO, MMO-like, and multiplayer games to offer some thoughts on where…
Of course, we publish a lot of columns that aren’t even listed here – you can check them all out on our full columns list!
These new features and columns are a direct benefit of your Patreon donations as well as those of you who support us by whitelisting/viewing our ads and promoting our work across social media. You put your trust and your money in us – and we’re putting both right back into the site to create more original MMORPG-related content for you. Thank you, all of you, for your continuing support!
Are video games doomed? What do MMORPGs look like from space? Did free-to-play ruin everything? Will people ever stop talking about Star Wars Galaxies? Join Massively Overpowered Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce and mascot Mo every month as they answer your letters to the editor right here in Ask Mo.
