It was a surprisingly solid week for Guild Wars 2, not so much because of one specific thing but because of the deluge: ArenaNet announced an event, a promotion, a patch, and a big reveal for August, plus we examined how the game is one of the genre’s better starter MMOs. (Yeah, I know, it’s probs not Cantha, but a girl can dream. Reluctant but deliberate use of subjunctive in title.)
Meanwhile, we mulled over the rumored World of Warcraft expansion leak, scouted out the Legends of Aria launch and PvP overhaul, and got dates for Elder Scrolls Online’s Scalebreaker DLC.
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
The Elder Scrolls Online’s Scalebreaker launches August 12 – check out the QuakeCon 2019 roadmap - At QuakeCon this evening, ZeniMax dropped some juicy info for Elder Scrolls Online fans. [AL:ESO]The big news, of course, is the launch date for Scalebreaker, the MMO's next DLC: It'll…
Daybreak on EverQuest 3: ‘We will definitely do something with the IP’ - An EverQuest interview with several developers from early June is gaining increased attention as of late thanks to the magnifying glass of blog Inventory Full. Of particular interest are several…
Legends of Aria is finally launching August 6 – with a huge new patch friendly to PvE players - Legends of Aria has had an interesting development life the last few years. Upjumped from the small-scale Shards Online to a much broader-scale MMORPG called Legends of Aria, the game…
Guild Wars 2 is plotting a big living world announcement during PAX on August 30 - If you've been keeping a finger on the pulse of the Guild Wars 2 community the last month or so, you know there's been a tremendous amount of unrest over…
LOTRO Legendarium: The first year of LOTRO’s operation - It was April 24th, 2007. World of Warcraft players were deep into The Burning Crusade, SOE had just launched Vanguard, and the indie MMO studio of Turbine was fresh off…
Lawful Neutral: Mr. Krabs’ Wacky Bucks and currency in online games - I used to watch Spongebob religiously. I loved the days when I could put on Nickelodeon and have Spongebob on for hours. One of my favorite jokes from the show…
The Soapbox: The counterproductiveness of limited-time content in online games - While thoroughly enjoying playing Astroneer's special event in honor of Apollo 11's moon landing 50th anniversary that's happening now through August 31st, I was surprised to come across grumblings about…
Perfect Ten: Great MMOs that will run just fine on your old computer - The other day a friend was telling me that he used to play EverQuest Online Adventures very regularly back in the day, but fell away from MMORPGs following that. "I'd…
Choose My Adventure: Breaking through the obstacles of Going Rogue in City of Heroes - "Traveling the realms is no task for the meek. The underprepared. The easily overwhelmed. The challenges you face and the hardships you have to fight against are beyond the most…
WoW Factor: Is Age of Darkness really the next expansion, and is it what we want and need? - First of all, let's just get this out of the way right off the bat: It is possible that this column will contain spoilers about the future of World of Warcraft…
Star Trek Online may unveil its game-changing future next weekend - What is next for Star Trek Online? That's the million credit question this summer, as player captains have been speculating on comments that Lead Designer Al Rivera made back in…
Vague Patch Notes: Keeping it simple, oversimplification, and MMO design - People who have read my work for a while know that I really like tabletop roleplaying, and I have copies of two of my favorite systems on the shelf right…
MMO Business Roundup: Video game gambling, toxicity, post-lawsuit reconciliation, and successful UX design - Welcome back to another mish-mash roundup of MMO-business-related happenings that just don't fit in anywhere else. To wit: On game gambling: Remember the bizarrely bad optics of Rockstar putting a…
Ashes of Creation’s team talks game design, character creation, and ‘no direct nudity’ - Hoping to see some "tasteful nudity" in Ashes of Creation? That's not going to happen, according to Intrepid Studio's recent development update video. Neither is a tidal system, apparently, so…
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMORPG zones of all time - I once heard it said that a popular studio - I think it was Blizzard - made it a point of asking prospective developers what the best-designed MMO zones were…
Guild Wars 2 has officially announced collab for armor-lookalike clothing line - [AL:GW2]Earlier this week, we ran a Leaderboard poll about whether you'd wear gaming apparel - not just stuff with logos, but stuff that actually looked like armor from the MMOs…
Shroud of the Avatar’s Release 68 kicks off a new update cadence - Things are almost always changing in Shroud of the Avatar, but it sounds like some of those changes are now going to be arriving a bit more frequently, if not…
Dungeons and Dragons Online starts testing multiple patches ahead of Update 43 - There's a lot coming down the pike for Dungeons and Dragons Online -- so much so, in fact, that Standing Stone Games has resorted to testing elements of multiple patches…
Path of Exile apologizes for last night’s outage and server rollback – here’s why it happened - Yesterday's Path of Exile patch didn't quite go to plan. The 3.7.4 update was intended to add the promised stackable Fossils feature as well as multiple bug fixes and tweaks.…
Take a ride on the criminal side of Star Citizen 3.6 in this gameplay video - If you wanted to clear your criminal record in Star Citizen, you had to head to Security Post Karesh, take out some AI enemies, and hope that there weren't some…
SuperData June 2019: WoW’s back in the top 10 as Overwatch players have spent $1B on in-game content - There's good news for MMOs in the June SuperData video games global revenue charts, most notably the fact that a "real" MMORPG has finally returned to the top 10. We're…
UK’s Gambling Commission considers prosecuting video game companies that facilitate gambling - It sounds as if the UK is preparing for a bit of a crackdown on video game gambling of the third-party kind. According to a piece in The Guardian this…
Guild Wars 2 announces legendary upgrades and a community event to unlock ’em - [AL:GW2]ArenaNet appears to be taking its collaborative community event mechanics to the next level in Guild Wars 2, only this time, instead of boss-rushing for tiers and loot, you'll be…
Here’s how Legends of Aria’s new PvP ruleset changes will work when it hits Steam early access - Following Citadel Studios' announcement yesterday that it'll be launching Legends of Aria's Steam early access on August 6th, alongside a big patch that takes some of the edge of the…
Tamriel Infinium: What comes after champion points in The Elder Scrolls Online? - During the Elsweyr release announcement stream for the Elder Scrolls Online earlier this summer, ZeniMax made an announcement that was somewhat buried within the sparkle and glitz of the new…
Survival MMO Citadel: Forged With Fire announces formal PC, Xbox, and PS4 launch for October 11 - Two years ago, Blue Isle Studios dropped its new game on Steam early access: Citadel Forged With Fire, a "massive online sandbox RPG" with all the survival MMO sandbox trappings.…
Black Desert: The PS4 beta dated and the Shai’s musical talent patch previewed - It's happening! Pearl Abyss announced today that the beta for Black Desert's PlayStation 4 edition will run from August 9th to 13th, with signups open as of today. Preorders, MMO…
Crowfall’s 5.100 update, The Fortunes of War, is officially live for pre-alpha testers - A flurry of excitement has spread across the Crowfall forums today as update 5.100, more colorfully known as The Fortunes of War, has just gone live for pre-alpha testers. There's…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Why Guild Wars 2 is the ideal starter MMO - When I met my wife, she was a console gamer, but she had never played an MMO. She was interested in giving some of the games that I liked a…
Wandering Wraeclast: A gear guide to getting started in Path of Exile - So, you've picked your class in Path of Exile. And now you've started to play. Huzzah! Now you get to begin your story as an exile on Wraeclast, helping the…
Wisdom of Nym: Impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s first wing of Eden - Eden was... this week, wasn't it? It's really hard to keep track sometimes. Like, sure, intellectually I'm well aware that Eden launched in Final Fantasy XIV with the most recent…
Not So Massively: Jumping into Grim Dawn in 2019 - Now that I'm helming Not So Massively, I feel a stronger compulsion to delve into games like ARPGs and shooters so that I can speak with more authority in this…
Rumor: Supposed expansion leak claims World of Warcraft is heading toward an Age of Darkness - Many World of Warcraft players are dying to know what's the future for this fantasy MMO and don't want to wait until this November's BlizzCon to find out. Does this…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 230: A tale of geeks and gamers (and the Legends of Aria interview)
Battle Bards Episode 149: Istaria aka Horizons
The Stream Team: Deep-diving PixARK’s caves
The Stream Team: Now for Warframe’s Nightwave Series 2
The Stream Team: Say good-bye as Worlds Adrift floats into the sunset
The Stream Team: Bounty hunting in Dungeons and Dragons Online
The Stream Team: The leet Fleet datacron week in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Fighting decisional paralysis in EverQuest II
The Stream Team: Hunting for Astroneer’s moon landing memorial
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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