E3 2019 dominated the headlines this week, even for MMO players, which isn’t always a given. We got news on Elder Scrolls Online’s next DLC, Black Desert’s PS4 launch, Phantasy Star Online 2’s westward journey, Dauntless’ record numbers, and Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers trailer, plus Guild Wars 2 dropped its next big raid.
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
WoW Factor: Does World of Warcraft have a plan? - One of the recurring jokes I use in this column's comment section is the statement that it'd just be sad to think that fans are thinking more about the future…
Perfect Ten: How WoW Classic could advance beyond its phased content rollout - It's far too early to say that World of Warcraft: Classic will get more updates beyond the planned phases of vanilla content. It could be that the player population shrinks pretty…
Wandering Wraeclast: First impressions of Path of Exile’s Legion - [AL:POE]I did the unthinkable. In honor of Path of Exile's Legion League launch, I made a melee character. Yeah, MJ playing melee: No one could have seen that coming. But…
E3 2019: Black Desert will launch on PlayStation 4 this year as the mobile version finally comes westward - [AL:BDO]Did you think the announcement about a new expansion and new class was all Black Desert had in store for E3? Nope! Pearl Abyss has just announced another whopper: The…
LOTRO Legendarium: The bounty of adventuring options in Lord of the Rings Online - I can't recall the last time I felt pulled in two different directions in an MMORPG, but over the past couple of weeks, Lord of the Rings Online has done…
A recent World of Warcraft player survey apparently confirms an incoming level squish - The nature of World of Warcraft's expansion releases and design philosophy means that every expansion adds another stack of levels on top of the increasingly daunting tower, and today the…
E3 2019: Phantasy Star Online 2 is finally coming to the US in 2020 - All right, so it has already been seven years and basically everyone who was excited about this game has probably long since given up hope on it. We're not going…
Lord of the Rings Online’s progression server treks into Siege of Mirkwood - A mere week after players on Lord of the Rings Online's live servers left Mirkwood to gaze upon the Vales of Anduin, another community is entering the dreaded forest at…
Wisdom of Nym: Examining the shocker last line from Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers’ trailer - Oh dang. I had expected to learn some new things about Shadowbringers this week, maybe the lyrics to the theme song (what I hear doesn't appear to be the accepted consensus on…
Star Trek Online considers ‘the account as the player’ - There's a hot phrase bouncing around the Star Trek Online community these days, and that is "the account as the player." This comes from both an interview and a recent…
California says Riot Games is refusing to fully cooperate with its gender discrimination investigation - The Riot sexual harassment and gender discrimination fiasco is coming up on its anniversary this summer, and from a legal perspective, it's only just now getting started. A bit of…
Tamriel Infinium: MassivelyOP’s guide to the best Elder Scrolls Online podcasts - While Twitch streaming and YouTube viewing may be the new hotness for some video game content, there’s something to be said for the simplicity and convenience of a pure audio…
The Survivalist: The perils of breeding pets in PixARK, chapter one - It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. I am going to share a story with you. At it's core, it's a tale of two games…
Wisdom of Nym: Why you should be cautious speculating on Final Fantasy XIV’s expansion balance - Whew. All right. So we've gotten the media tour information for the next Final Fantasy XIV expansion, and that means that people have gotten to see early videos, tooltips, and all…
Massively Overthinking: The one about MMO superfans, zealots, and insidious tribalism - We recently received two pieces of mail from longtime MOP readers and commenters that worked together perfectly to form a unified topic. Alex emailed us about a YouTube video that…
World of Warcraft shows off the new mounts and pets of Rise of Azshara - Yes, we still do not have an actual date for World of Warcraft's next major content update, so if you're waiting for Rise of Azshara you're just going to have to…
E3 2019: OARPG Torchlight II is launching on console, including the Switch, this fall - Torchlight Frontiers has a nice chunk of the MMO community occupied right now, but let's not forget about Torchlight II, an (O)ARPG that was just as juicy and clicky as…
E3 2019: Dauntless hits 10 million players and is heading to the Switch - All the hip kids are playing Dauntless, it seems. Phoenix Labs reported today that the game had managed to hit 10 million players, which is a whole lot of people…
Worlds Adrift’s final patch before sunset is now up – along with the game’s soundtrack - As if Worlds Adrift's impending sunset situation couldn't get worse, today the game is getting a patch. It's the biggest patch ever for the MMO. And it comes hand-in-hand with…
Choose My Adventure: Did the Gunner class make TERA too easy? - A new month means a new game here at Choose My Adventure world, and this time around we're taking a trip through what I remember being one of the more…
Guild Wars 2’s Key of Ahdashim raid is now live in the game’s latest update - [AL:GW2]Guild Wars 2 has just pushed out the next big thing for raiders: The Key of Ahdashim raid is now live. "The raid takes place immediately following the events of…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Speculation on Guild Wars 2’s gods and dragons - Let's just note upfront that this edition of Flameseeker Chronicles will have lots of Guild Wars 2 spoilers, including but not limited to the recent Living World S3E6 War Eternal.…
Indie sandbox MMORPG Dual Universe just raised another $11.2M from investors - We've had an eye on Dual Universe for the last three years, since even before its official reveal in 2016. Since that time, it's raised a significant sum of money…
Path of Exile’s Korean launch and Legion rollout topped 224K concurrency as GGG addresses the minimap - Path of Exile's Legion launch on Friday coincided with the launch of the game in South Korea, so you had to know we were going to see new concurrency records…
E3 2019: Final Fantasy XIV shows off the Shadowbringers launch trailer - We're going to go ahead and guess that Final Fantasy XIV fans do not need to be brought on board for Shadowbringers at this point. The sales pitch has already…
E3 2019: Warframe re-reveals Empyrean expansion in brand-new trailer - We're getting a peek into Warframe's upcoming Empyrean expansion today courtesy of the reveal on the PC Gaming Show from E3. "Empyrean is Digital Extremes' ambitious cooperative space combat expansion,…
E3 2019: Woodpunk survival MMO Last Oasis is set to launch in September - Back in January, we covered a brand-new survival MMO dubbed Last Oasis, said by developer Donkey Crew to be a "post-apocalyptic clan-based nomadic survival MMO" that "combines a global player…
E3 2019: Funcom’s April Fools’ Day game, Conan Chop Chop, was not a joke, and it launches September 3 - So you guys remember this past April Fools' Day, right, when Funcom "announced" its new game called Conan Chop Chop? A game about which I said, "I would play [it]…
Not So Massively: Cataclysm looks cool, but it’s not what Anthem needs right now - I am an unapologetic Anthem apologist. I think it's a great game, and I'm more than a little frustrated by the constant barrage of criticism directed toward it, as I…
Storyboard: Exploring religion in MMOs - One of the things I wanted to do in bringing back Storyboard was to expand a little bit beyond just roleplaying to the stuff that does inform roleplaying, chiefly when…
E3 2019: Everything we know so far about Elder Scrolls Online’s new DLC, Scalebreaker and Dragonhold - The Elder Scrolls Online got a spotlight during Bethsoft's BE3 showcase last night, but it was surprisingly brief, with the highlights being the trailer and the names of the two…
E3 2019: Fallout 76 details Wasterlanders, Nuclear winter, and combat revamp as the canvas-bag saga finally ends - As we previewed last night, the Fallout 76 team (re-)announced the free Wastelanders content update at the Bethsoft presentation last night. It's expected to "totally change the game" with the…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 224: Black Desert, Bless Online, and boats
Battle Bards Episode 146: More vocals
The Stream Team: Building a better PixARK base
The Stream Team: Plowing through Warframe’s planetary missions
The Stream Team: SWTOR sabotage on Dantooine
The Stream Team: A free first look at Fallout 76
The Stream Team: Downing Dantooine pirates in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Questing for kittens in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: A happy Massiversary in HEX
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.
