‘Twas a truly wild between-Gamescom-and-PAX-West week for the MMORPG genre. Not only did WoW Classic officially launch to wild queues and capacity boosts and comforting reviews, but Daybreak resurrected PlanetSide Arena, Gamigo dished on ArcheAge Unchained, SWTOR delayed Onslaught a month, and Guild Wars 2 dropped a huge reveal for its next “saga.”
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!WOW AND MORE WOW
First impressions: WoW Classic is fun but anachronistic - I'm not really one to follow trends or scamper along the zergeist (a combination of zerg and zeitgiest that I've decided perfectly encapsulates the mentality of a certain subset of…
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands rumor gains steam with new ghost ships leak - Remember that alleged World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion leak back in July? This one is picking up steam, as MMO Champion posted a screenshot from 4chan from an alleged cinematic…
Perfect Ten: Ten weird things I’m relearning with WoW Classic - It's been a strange week. No - it's been a strange year in MMO gaming, all things considered. As I'm going through old Lord of the Rings Online zones thanks…
WoW (Classic) Factor: The journal of Nieve Vinther – first entry - My name is Nieve Vinther. I am 28 years old and was born in the wake of the Second War of the Dark Portal. I am a paladin of the…
WoW Classic keeps piling on new servers while players circumvent queues - Not even dramatically expanded server capacity is keeping World of Warcraft Classic's queue boss at bay. As we head into the weekend, many of the realms are running at "full"…
Massively Overthinking: The future of WoW and WoW Classic - With WoW Classic finally launched, perfectly capping off the summer with jokes about queueing like it's 2004, we can't help but look to the future of the game and wonder…
Blizzard’s lawyers are busy again, this time suing yet another overseas company for ripping off WoW - Another day, another Blizzard lawsuit - this one lodged against the Chinese purveyor of Glorious Saga, a mobile/browser title from Joyfun/Sina Games that pretty much steals shamelessly from World of…
Blizzard is dramatically increasing WoW Classic’s server capacity to combat long queues - Hey, are you sick of people complaining about WoW Classic queues? Apparently Blizzard is too, and with today's hotfix, the studio is dramatically increasing capacity for the existing realms, eliminating…
World of Warcraft: Classic adds four new realms while retail tests is anniversary Alterac Valley incarnation - The World of Warcraft: Classic hype train rolls on as the game continues to dominate streams on Twitch and also appears to be depopulating the auction house on the live game…
Blizzard’s Ion Hazzikostas says WoW Classic’s cramped servers will reduce community disruption later - Frustrated with WoW Classic's queues? Grumpy because you expected Blizzard to have learned a trick or two about launches in the last 15 years? You're not alone, as forumgoers are…
WoW Classic’s first night smashes Twitch, sees lines form inside and outside the game - Heading into World of Warcraft Classic on its first night was a lot like going to Disneyworld at peak season: No matter whether you were inside or outside, you were…
The Daily Grind: Did you fall for WoW Classic, and what do you think so far? - They almost got me, but not in the end. Right around 3 p.m. yesterday, just before the servers went live, in spite of my determination not to play (because I've…
WoW Classic’s servers are live as queues swell to 30K+ for the launch - Just a few short years ago in 2016, the World of Warcraft community caught fire after a popular rogue private vanilla server threatened with legal action pivoted to agitate for…
Leaderboard: What type of WoW Classic player are you – is there a disconnect between the playerbase and the game? - MMO blogger Wilhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob came up with an amusing rubric for different types of WoW Classic players, perfect to pass the next couple of hours while…
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Guild Wars 2’s next living story season, Icebrood Saga, begins September 17 with the Bound by Blood prologue episode - We're updating the post with the big news at the end! At noon today, ArenaNet is expected to take the wraps off Guild Wars 2's fifth season, live on stream…
ArcheAge Unchained is launching on September 30 with founder packs live today - The rumors from that weird edited press release are indeed official now: ArcheAge Unchained is dropping on September 30th. As we've previously covered, ArcheAge Unchained is Gamigo's do-over for the…
Daybreak’s PlanetSide Arena will hit early access September 19, full launch Q2 2020 - Yesterday, Daybreak finally broke its long silence on PlanetSide Arena with a teaser trailer, and as of today, the studio's got a new dev letter. Gamers will recall that last December,…
Gamigo’s ArcheAge Unchained stream explores the Steam launch, housing, and the Shadows Revealed update - Stream notes are at the bottom of this post! Gamigo is just about to go live with ArcheAge Unchained's deep-dive stream here today, live at 1 p.m. EDT. As we noted…
Tamriel Infinium: Things we wish were in Elder Scrolls Online’s cash shop (but aren’t) - Convenience items in the cash shop are nothing new in The Elder Scrolls Online. ZeniMax has been selling experience boosts and mount training accelerators for years. But the recent addition…
Fight or Kite: Ashes of Creation Apocalypse is a doorway to an action-packed MMO - If you had told me two weeks ago that Ashes of Creation is going to be one of my most anticipated upcoming MMO titles, I probably would have blushed and…
Desert Oasis: First impressions of Black Desert on the PlayStation 4 (and the PS Vita too!) - I needed a break from Black Desert after that disappointing enchant session I recounted in the last edition of the Desert Oasis column. A few of the comments mentioned better ways…
Star Citizen FAQ justifies ‘staggered development,’ shows off procedural space stations - While the update cadence for Star Citizen will reportedly hold steady, the way the dev team at CIG approaches developing these updates is changing. There will now be "staggered development"…
Black Desert spokesperson Megan Fox talks about what the sandbox MMO can do for self-esteem - Last week we learned that actress Megan Fox is apparently a big fan of Black Desert, so it would stand to reason that she applies a lot of worth to…
Champions Online celebrates its 10th birthday with a new mission - The longest consistently operating superhero MMORPG is hitting a significant milestone this week, with Champions Online celebrating the 10th anniversary of its launch on September 1st, 2009. Cryptic is pulling…
CIG opens sales for Star Citizen’s latest concept ship, the $600 Aegis Nautilus - Earlier this week we told you about the Aegis Nautilus, a currently unflyable $600 Star Citizen ship that features mine laying and mine sweeping gameplay that hasn't been built or…
SWTOR begins testing Onslaught’s crafting overhaul, Spoils of War adjustments, and the Dxun Operation - Star Wars: The Old Republic's Onslaught expansion may have been delayed a month, but BioWare is full-speed ahead on testing it. [AL:TOR]The studio announced last night that its patched up…
Leaderboard: Do you buy the ‘Grand Daybreak Unification’ theory? - Yesterday, MMO blogger Wilhelm Arcturus of The Ancient Gaming Noob dropped a fun conspiracy theory in the comments of our piece on EVE Online covering how CCP is rather inexplicably…
Design Mockument: Plausible ideas for The Matrix Online 2 - When Bree found out that I'm a fan of the Matrix franchise of films, she said it'd be fun to see me take on the idea of a hypothetical sequel…
Daybreak just posted a PlanetSide Arena teaser after six months of silence - In December of last year, Daybreak announced its next big PlanetSide venture: a massive-scale battle royale game called PlanetSide Arena with tie-ins to the PlanetSide 2 MMO. The buy-to-play title…
Sci-fi exploration MMO Population Zero opens founder packs for September closed beta - If you're bored with modern themeparks, take a peek at this classic-MMO-inspired sandboxy title from developer Enplex Games: It's Population Zero, and it's headed to closed beta on September 18th,…
Perfect Ten: The fantasy MMO zone atlas - There are, let's face it, a limited number of different ways to design real-adjacent zones in any fantasy game. At the end of the day, what we want from maps…
Here are the performance upgrades Elder Scrolls Online is testing for release in 2019 - Back at QuakeCon in July, ZeniMax announced a huge roadmap for performance improvements and upgrades coming to The Elder Scrolls Online, mostly on PC, over the next three quarters. Today,…
Former Elder Scrolls and Guild Wars franchise composer is accused of sexual assault - The gaming industry is in the midst of its own #MeToo moment, and one of the industry vets who stands accused is popular composer Jeremy Soule, whom MMO players will…
Caravan Stories will now launch on September 10th for PS4 - After a somewhat unsettling delay for the game's open beta, Caravan Stories is once again scheduled for release, this time on September 10th. The title is launching on PlayStation 4 as…
Choose My Adventure: Anthem kept crashing, so here’s what happened in Destiny 2 - This past weekend, for lack of a better word, was a shitshow. Let me try to set the scene. My computer is about five or so years old, and it’s…
Nexon has apparently canceled Peria Chronicles as employee union organizes protest - Nexon appears to have suspended development of MMORPG Peria Chronicles, which began beta testing in Korea this past spring. According to Korean news website InvenGlobal, Nexon announced the bad news…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s sixth year is the Shadowbringers high - Let's look back at the sixth year of Final Fantasy XIV since its relaunch, shall we? Six times we've had a Rising celebration to commemorate the game's return from the…
Funcom delays Conan Chop Chop into 2020 to add ‘full online multiplayer’ - Go ahead and laugh, but one of the fall games I was genuinely looking forward to was Conan Chop Chop. It's Funcom's latest Conan game, originally revealed as an April…
BioWare delays SWTOR Onslaught to October, but it’s handing out free Nautolans - Hey you know what should be announced today that will totally not get buried by any other major events? The release date for the first Star Wars: The Old Republic…
Atlas’s new lead designer admits the MMO has ‘struggled to find its sea legs,’ plots new course - If you put any great measure of weight to Steam user reviews, the fact that Atlas is sitting on mostly negative reviews at the time of this writing is probably…
Star Citizen reveals a non-functional $600 ship at a private function for its Concierge level backers - There's apparently another new Star Citizen ship on the way. A pretty pricey one, too. That news isn't terribly remarkable considering some of the ship costs currently available, but what…
Square Enix vows to support Final Fantasy XIV instead of working on another MMO sequel - Regular readers will note that Final Fantasy XIV earned our MMORPG of the Year award last year, with many of the staff citing the game's regular, steady updates as the…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 235: The one about WoW Classic
The Stream Team: Plundering PixARK’s ice castles
The Stream Team: Do you lava AQ3D parkour?
The Stream Team: Gotta getta Gith in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: MOP celebrates Guild Wars 2’s anniversary
The Stream Team: Cornering Captain Greymast in EverQuest II
The Stream Team: Saving Silk from his spider bride in Path of Exile
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.
