This week in MMOs, what should’ve been an epic week for online gaming with the arrival of PAX East took on a dismal cast instead, as the spreading coronavirus not only caused several major studios to pull out of PAX but CCP Games to cancel EVE Fanfest and the GDC organizers to postpone GDC until late this summer.
We did get some goodies out of PAX East all the same, though, including big news on Magic Legends, Guild Wars 2, LOTRO, and Dungeons and Dragons Online. Plus, we took a peek at Dragon Raja, welcomed Elder Scrolls Online’s Harrowstorm, previewed Path of Exile’s Delirium, and cheered the return of Shadow Arena. More tomorrow from PAX!
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
CCP Games just canceled April’s EVE Fanfest over coronavirus concerns - Yesterday, we wrote about ongoing discussions in the EVE Online community about the safety and wisdom in attending EVE Fanfest, then set to run April 2nd through 4th in Reykjavik,…
Coronavirus fears prompt GDC to reschedule to late summer - If it isn't obvious already, just about nobody is messing around with the rapid global spread of the coronavirus. On top of multiple studios pulling out of PAX East this…
PAX East 2020: Hands-on with Cryptic’s Magic Legends - I’ll be honest, Magic: The Gathering is one realm of geekdom that I’ve never really gotten into. I know a bit about it, but I don’t own any cards, and…
PAX East 2020: LOTRO plans Aragorn and Arwen’s wedding plus 2021 expansion as DDO teases unicorns - If you skipped out on PAX because of contagion concerns, or just missed the Standing Stone party last night because all the MMOs piled their meetups on the same evening,…
Hands-on with Dragon Raja: First impressions of Tecent’s new mobile MMORPG - I enjoy mobile MMOs. It's a hit-or-miss kind of genre: Some are great, others are terrible. I personally love the adventure of finding those good ones. So when opportunity came knocking…
The Game Archaeologist: Tabula Rasa - The story of Tabula Rasa begins, as so many others do, with 1997's Ultima Online. Raph Koster and Richard Garriott's online fantasy sandbox proved to be a smash hit and…
WoW Factor: The World of Warcraft expansion tour – Wrath of the Lich King - The downside to a project like this one, where I'm going through each of World of Warcraft's expansions one by one, is that it starts really strong right up until…
First impressions of Elder Scrolls Online’s Harrowstorm and Unhallowed Grave - As longtime Elder Scrolls Online players well know, ZeniMax is launching the first chunk of content for the Dark Heart of Skyrim today for PC and Mac (March 10th for…
New World may consider bringing back gankbox elements, talks up its uniqueness - Amazon Game Studios did an interview with IGN this week about New World that's part puzzler, part eyebrow-raiser, part declaration of war. First, remember how a week or two ago,…
Wandering Wraeclast: Discover Delirium when Path of Exile’s new league launches March 13 - There are certain things you can count on in life, things to set your clocks by. One of those is my quarterly chat with Grinding Gear Games’ Managing Director Chris…
Funcom Q4 2019: DUNE takes priority, Conan Exiles confirms paid expansion, Tencent buyout continues - It's been an interesting financial period for Funcom, what with the Tencent buyout and investors pushing for accelerated production on the DUNE survivalbox. The Norwegian studio posted its Q4 2019…
The Elder Scrolls Online kicks off the Dark Heart of Skyrim with the Harrowstorm DLC launch on PC - Today begins the new year of adventure and yet another nod to Skyrim in The Elder Scrolls Online as the Harrowstorm DLC and Update 25 have officially gone live on…
Warframe of Mind: The mental health implications of Chains of Harrow - Previously on Warframe of Mind I extolled the virtues of Warframe’s Chains of Harrow mission. It definitely deserved praise: I loved the spooky, intense atmosphere and the Halloween-esque story behind…
SuperData and Fortnite studio Epic Games tussle over reported revenue numbers - We've been covering SuperData's monthly reports on the state of the industry for a long time - since before we were MassivelyOP, for that matter. And for as long as…
Lawful Neutral: Cheating, copyright law, and the WoW Glider lawsuit - I have fond memories of using the Game Genie on my NES. To my seven-year-old self, it was a godsend. So many Nintendo games were fun but punishing to my…
Massively Overthinking: What one piece of knowledge would you like to impart to new MMO gamers? - A while back, I was reading on a non-MMO subreddit some comments from some younger people that made my head spin: They were informing everyone, with absolutely certainty, that nobody…
Check out footage of Blade & Soul’s upcoming Unreal Engine 4 client from the Korean server - It's a well-known fact that Blade & Soul is getting an engine upgrade to Unreal Engine 4. How much will that actually do for the game, though? Sure, we've all seen…
PSA: Black Desert is zero dollars on PC right now, go get some - Free MMOs! Getcher free MMOs here! Yes, Black Desert goes on sale for PC quite a bit - everyone knows it's the cash shop that gets ya anyway. But it's…
PAX East 2020: Guild Wars 2 teases Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire video - Blink and you'll miss it: Guild Wars 2's next big thing just got teased at the tail end of a PAX promo post, complete with a half-minute video. "Our full…
Vague Patch Notes: Contemplating MMORPG exit barriers - In episode 13 of season 9 of The Simpsons, after having spent far more time than she wants in the Movementarian cult, Marge angrily declares to the gatekeeper that she…
Shadow Arena’s closed beta test has officially begun – are you trying it out? - [AL:SA]Shadow Arena, Pearl Abyss' one-time battle royale mode for MMORPG Black Desert, officially hits closed beta today as a standalone title. "Shadow Arena pits 40 players against each other in…
Coronavirus fears knock out more PAX East exhibitors, but GDC will go on as planned - Hi-Rez Studios and That Game Company have become the latest game studios to back out of PAX East 2020, which begins today. "After some internal discussion we've made the call…
The Daily Grind: Which MMO has the most toxic fan-based defense force? - Every single MMO has its own unwanted and unnecessary defense force. We could run a story tomorrow about Final Fantasy XIV selling your credit card information to the yakuza or The Elder…
Diablo IV team dishes on inventory revamp, PC vs. console UI layout, and cannibals - Blizzard's just dropped a "quarterly update" for Diablo 4, the first of apparently more planned blog posts from the team, this one focused on two core topics. The first chunk…
Desert Oasis: Understanding Black Desert’s Black Spirit - When Black Desert first released stateside back in 2016, I wasn't interested. At the time, I was deeply invested in running Guild Wars 2's fractals, and I wasn't in the market…
City of Heroes Homecoming tests new Shock Therapy powerset and Experimentation power pool - Care to see what's next for the rogue server of City of Heroes? Then get thee hence to the game's test server for a look at a new Origin power…
Preloading is live for Bless Unleashed’s headstart launch this afternoon - Neowiz is about to try again-again with the Bless franchise, as Bless Unleashed rolls into headstart today. Well, it starts today if you shelled out for the Ultimate Founder's Pack,…
Star Wars’ Project Luminous and ‘High Republic’ era aren’t spilling into games – yet - In January, we floated a poll at you all about what you'd want to see in your next Star Wars game, and it was all because of Project Luminous, which…
Guild Wars 2’s Call to Glory balancing update and newbie onboarding patch have arrived - Happy patch day, Guild Wars 2 players. Time to test out your nerfs and buffs in the flesh. The pixel flesh. You know what I'm trying to say. [AL:GW2]Yep, the…
Choose My Adventure: Sorry, I got distracted by other stuff in Black Desert - [AL:BDO]You’ll likely notice that I missed out on last week’s Choose My Adventure and for that I apologize. This past week I have been fighting off some sort of a…
EVE Echoes has been ‘hindered’ by the coronavirus but will launch in ‘late 2020’ - With CCP Games seemingly trying to sneak game cancelations under the radar, you might be wondering what's going on with EVE Echoes. The EVE Online-universe mobile spinoff is a collab…
Plaintiffs in the Riot Games class action discrimination lawsuit take up new counsel, withdraw settlement plans - A new chapter in the Riot Games legal drama has begun to be written. In August 2019, the class action discrimination lawsuit filed against Riot Games was settled to the…
Global Agenda officially died back in 2018 and (almost) nobody noticed - Back in 2017, we lumped Global Agenda in with other titles that seemed to have vanished. Why haven't we heard from them? What's going on? Are these MMOs DOA? At…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV patch 5.2 in review – the content - All right, here's the deal. Every time we get a new patch, I wind up finding that I have two of these columns' worth of material, but this week I…
Fight or Kite: New World’s switcheroo is the best thing that could have happened for PvPers - About a month ago, Amazon’s large age of conquest MMO, New World, announced a huge shift in focus from a free-for-all, full-loot PvP game to a less hardcore PvP game…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 260: New World needs new ideas
Battle Bards Episode 163: EverQuest upgraded
The Stream Team: Tombstone tipping in a Neverwinter cemetery
The Stream Team: Stepping into Shadow Arena’s closed beta
The Stream Team: Elder Scrolls Online, post reinstall or post apocalypse?
The Stream Team: Discussing Delirium while dodging death 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.
