It’d be tempting to make this week’s headline all about Big Blizzard since that was far and away the biggest comment thread of the period. But in truth, we had a steady stream of MMORPG news this week that’s more worth our attention, starting with a huge expansion announcement for Star Wars The Old Republic. Nautolans, folks!
Plus, Albion Online went free-to-play, Black Desert canceled Shadow Arena but posted huge numbers, Guild Wars 2 announced dragon mounts, PWE sunsetted one of the few player-designed missions systems left in the genre, Skyforge and TERA and Blade & Soul saw big updates, Neowiz‘s Bless studio is toast, and Elder Scrolls Online reached new playerbase highs, necessitating queues and capacity upgrades.
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
Star Wars: The Old Republic announces Onslaught expansion arriving in September - It's time to get back to the faction war in Star Wars: The Old Republic this September. As announced at this weekend's SWTOR Chicago Celebration Cantina, the game's next expansion…
Blizzard bribes female employees to track their sex, pregnancy, and moods - Big Brother was so 1984. Now in 2019, it's all about Big Blizzard. Read this report over at Games Industry based on a new WAPO article and tell us if…
Albion Online is officially free-to-play today – and already ‘under heavy load’ - Fancy getting your peekay on in an actual PvP sandbox? Albion Online is officially free-to-play today, meaning you can swarm the game without paying a dime, though of course there's…
Interview: Astellia deep-dives its dungeon systems and Western tweaks - Incoming buy-to-play MMORPG Astellia has been a whirlwind in 2019 as Nexon and Barunson EA have prepared the game for release in the west: So far, we've heard about its…
Into the Super-verse: Trying DC Universe Online for the first time - While this column will no doubt be looking at the superhero MMO releases that are currently in development, it's also here, as we said, to look at the past and…
Elder Scrolls Online implements temporary queues for EU megaserver thanks to burgeoning playerbase - [AL:ESO]Generally speaking, all MMORPG developers seek more players. More players means more money, right? Except when it means server problems. That's exactly what's been going on in The Elder Scrolls…
PAX East 2019: Elder Scrolls Online Elsweyr makes playing the bad guy feel very good - During this year's PAX East, freelance games journalist Sam Prell - you might remember him from his time at Joystiq and GamesRadar - took a peek at Elder Scrolls Online.…
Desert Oasis: Understanding and critiquing Black Desert’s RNG systems - One of the main critiques readers made about my first Desert Oasis column last month was that I did not mention Black Desert's random number generator at all. I appreciate…
Guild Wars 2: Dragon mounts in War Eternal, living world mini-event, Ritualist outfit datamining, and new short story - Guild Wars 2 is getting yet another mount: the Skyscale. As detailed by Eurogamer today, what sets this particular dragon (yes, sorry everyone, it's a dragon) apart from the griffon,…
Hyperspace Beacon: I can’t believe I forgot these things about Star Wars Galaxies - For the last couple of weeks, I've been able to re-experience Star Wars Galaxies. After eight years, I noticed that I might have forgotten a few things. OK, I have…
WoW Factor: The level squish isn’t the whole solution for World of Warcraft - To be entirely honest, you might have expected this column a little bit earlier because it's been a hot minute since Ion Hazzikostas once again floated the idea of a…
PWE officially bids farewell to the Star Trek Online and Neverwinter Foundry - While we all knew it was coming, it still doesn't make saying goodbye very easy. The Foundry -- a repository and creation tool for players to make and share their…
World of Warcraft details the new zones and new Heart of Azeroth upgrades for patch 8.2, Rise of Azshara - It's almost time for players to start testing World of Warcraft's patch 8.2, the Rise of Azshara. But you won't be going into testing blind, as the developers took the…
Black Desert says it’s finished its Shadow Arena-related ‘false bans’ investigation - Since March, we've been covering a hacking wave and the ensuing fallout in Black Desert, as cheaters swarmed the now-defunct Shadow Arena battle royale mode with hacks and bots. Kakao…
Vague Patch Notes: The community is and is not the MMO - The community is not the MMO. That should be obvious. There is a game to League of Legends that exists without any of the toxic nonsense that has cropped up around…
Warframe of Mind: The Plains of Eidolon Beautification Project - Sometimes when an MMO adds new zones, previous ones are left behind and seemingly forgotten when development moves on. I am not naming names, but we all know examples of…
Star Wars The Old Republic’s guild sigils are live today in 5.10.2: Heralds of Victory - It's patch day for Star Wars The Old Republic! BioWare is patching in 5.10.2: Heralds of Victory today, complete with the guild heraldry system it previously teased, the preview window…
TERA is rolling back all progress since yesterday’s patch thanks to a nasty economy exploit - Yesterday's TERA Skywatch: New Heights update brought along a bit more than En Masse bargained for, and now the servers will see a rollback to mop it up. According to…
Daybreak devs address the Z1 Battle Royale turmoil, vow ‘minimal disruption’ - It's been a rocky week for Z1 Battle Royale, as developer NantG laid off a number of its staff before announcing that it was tossing the PC-based Z1BR back to…
Blade & Soul’s Legends Reborn is live today as NCsoft merges western servers down to two - It's time to be legendary in Blade and Soul, or at least adjacent to the rebirth of legends. Or something like that, as the Legends Reborn update in the game…
Neowiz’s Bless studio is dissolving and merging back into Neowiz - It looks like Neowiz Bless Studio -- developer of Bless Online, if that wasn't immediately obvious -- is returning to the mothership, so to speak, as it's been announced that…
Skyforge’s New Horizons expansion is officially live with a new planet and catch-up mechanics - [AL:Sky]Skyforge's next big thing has arrived! Dubbed New Horizons, the content update sends players to their first new planet ever, Terra, with all-new enemies - Draconids - to fight and…
Choose My Adventure: The married couple team arrives to RuneScape - I really should have done this sooner. This round of Choose My Adventure is starring my husband, and almost immediately the difference in having steady company in RuneScape was palpable,…
TERA releases the Skywatch: New Heights update - It's time to reach new heights in TERA. It will be, anyhow, when the Skywatch: New Heights update launches today after maintenance. And it's a big one, with players able…
Black Desert has 18M registered players as Pearl Abyss counts $1B gross sales - If you're still reeling over the news that Black Desert is unceremoniously deleting its battle royale mode, Shadow Arena, from the game tomorrow, take heart: The rest of the game…
Adventure Academy is an ‘educational massively multiplayer online game’ launching May 1 - Adventure Academy is going to mystify the typical gamer: There are no dragons to fight and no lockboxes to fight over. But if you're a teacher or you've got younger…
It’s been a whole year since Perpetuum’s devs turned the game over to the community - Back in 2017, Perpetuum Online developer Avatar Creations gave up on the game, admitting it could no longer afford to develop the title given a lack of publisher and dwindling…
EVE Online has banned a CSM member (and real-world politician) over an NDA breach and insider trading - Who wants some EVE Online political drama to cap off the afternoon? CCP Games announced today that it has removed a member of the current Council of Stellar Management, the…
Wisdom of Nym: Why Final Fantasy XIV may have needed Hrothgar and Viera now - All right. It's been three weeks, but yes, I do actually have a theory about why Final Fantasy XIV is adding two gender-locked races to the game now when the developers…
Kakao is permanently killing off Black Desert’s battle royale mode, Shadow Arena, this week - Dang, this was not the outcome we were expecting here: Kakao has announced it is outright sunsetting Black Desert's Shadow Arena mode. On Wednesday, in fact. MMO players will recall…
Fight or Kite: Falling in line with Crowfall - "Everyone group up! Keep the formation tight. Line up and do not let anyone through that door." We know that they have a siege weapon built and the walls are…
Roblox grows to 90 million players, does a crossover with WWE for some reason - Sporting a player population that Fortnite and League of Legends could only dream of attaining, global game platform Roblox announced that it has reached 90 million monthly active users. We…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 215: Anthem exposed
Battle Bards Episode 142: Sunrise, sunset
The Stream Team: Secret World Legends content conversations in the sand
The Stream Team: Concluding Elder Scrolls Online’s Elsweyr prologue
The Stream Team: Sailing to AdventureQuest 3D’s Isle of the Dead
The Stream Team: A Path of Exile mega Memory Nexus map run
The Stream Team: Icy titan bloodbaths in ARK’s Extinction
The Stream Team: World of Tanks’ 8th anniversary rolls in
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.
