Business is booming for MMOs and online games, as the world under lockdown nevertheless turned in a stellar games industry revenue report card for March. This week, World of Warcraft stepped right in a cowpie, Lord of the Rings Online celebrated its 13th birthday, Final Fantasy XIV announced its Reflections in Crystal patch, we got an update on DUNE’s status, and Classic Guild Wars got new skills just in time to mark its 15th lap around the sun. Oh, and as it turns out, Fallout 76: Wastelanders isn’t half bad, and now we’re looking on ahead to pets!
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
First impressions of Fallout 76’s Wastelanders expansion - Everyone thought it was impossible, but somehow, Fallout 76 actually got good. And all it took was for Bethesda to not be Bethesda. That's a taller order than you might think.…
World of Warcraft appears to be quietly ignoring Battle for Azeroth’s genocidal intro in Shadowlands - Calia Menethil: "All right, fellow Forsaken... I know a lot has happened over the past however long it's supposed to have been since this war has started. For one thing,…
Final Fantasy XIV previews patch 5.3, Reflections in Crystal - The upcoming patch 5.3 for Final Fantasy XIV might be taking a little longer to arrive than originally planned, but it's still on the way for early July at the…
Lord of the Rings Online turns 13 years old, gives players a self-crisping pig, and releases Mists of Wilderland - What do you call a pig who's toting a cart of active fireworks? A medieval bacon-making machine? Country celebration? Or the herald of an MMO's 13th year of operation? [AL:LOTRO]Perhaps…
Funcom: DUNE still ‘a few years away,’ will be a ‘more ambitious and robust version of Conan Exiles’ - This week, Funcom dropped its financial report for the entirety of 2019. It's not going to be a shock, since we covered all the quarterlies as they rolled along, but…
WoW Factor: Examining Shadowlands’ Hunter, Priest, and Mage ability changes - Here we are again, and we've got a new mess of classes that got changed! Although in many ways these are the classes that changed the least relative to their current…
Fallout 76 promises a roadmap soon, teases pets and legendary perks - Fresh from a relatively successful launch of its Wastelanders expansion, Fallout 76 is buckling back down to work on the next phase of its post-apocalyptic adventures. Yesterday, Bethesda's Jeff Gardiner…
From the Depths: Hands-on with World of Warships’ epic submarine patch - Few things in World of Warships are as polarizing as submarines. For every player excited at the possibility of playing the stealthy assassins, there is an equally passionate player decrying…
Massively Overthinking: Would you play a housing-only MMO? - Last week, MOP's Justin put up a neat post on his personal blog about the potential for bringing back just the part of WildStar that he loved the most: housing.…
Massively on the Go: How social media and accessibility blew up Animal Crossing - By now you all know that Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a thing. A popular thing, one that's been invading your feeds, your Discords, your MMO sites (sorry not sorry),…
RIFT’s newest raid world bosses are basic creatures that are super-sized and super angry - Taking out masses of basic creatures like squirrels and spiders in MMORPGs is generally an inconsequential part of the player character's journey. Today it's culling the local forest wildlife, tomorrow…
The Game Archaeologist: The history of play-by-email games - For most all of human history, people who wanted to play a game together usually had to be in physical proximity with each other. Backgammon with your next-door neighbor Bob…
TERA is swapping to properly transparent lockboxes - With the next content update on Tuesday, April 28th, the lootboxes of TERA are getting a major refresh. Soon, all of the MMO's lootboxes will see their contents switched, trading…
Classic Guild Wars RPG Maker fan project releases ‘feature complete’ version - About a year ago, we covered a wholesome fan project to rebuild Classic Guild Wars with RPG Maker, and now it's back with an update. Guild Wars: The Last Day…
Elder Scrolls Online’s ZeniMax Online Studios snapped up a BioWare vet for what sounds like its new MMO - We've known that ZeniMax Online Studios, the Bethsoft sibling behind Elder Scrolls Online, has been working on another MMORPG for a while - since at least 2018, when it began…
The Minecraft community’s insane project to build the Earth in 1:1 scale - The Minecraft community is well-known for attempting huge feats of architecture and construction, but a new project might just take the cake. Late last month, YouTuber PippenFTS announced that he…
Legends of Aria’s May update will add new PvP zones and themed seasons - With its paid Dark Sorcery DLC a few weeks behind us now, you're probably wondering what exactly is next for sandbox MMO Legends of Aria. Or at least I am.…
Choose My Adventure: Survive the Disasters 2 is a perfect Roblox game - We close out this month's little sojourn through the world of Roblox with what is easily one of my favorite titles ever created on the platform. It's actually the game…
Sea of Thieves adds new reputations to earn and a PvP-centric faction with Ships of Fortune - Pledging allegiance to your chosen Trading Company in Sea of Thieves has gotten just a bit more in-depth thanks to the Ships of Fortune update, which focuses on a new…
WoW Factor: Everything can be an allied race, but nothing *must* be one - As the alpha builds continue to mount along for World of Warcraft's next expansion, a new debate has begun that is kind of difficult to explain to anyone not... well,…
Dungeons and Dragons Online discovers Update 46: The Lost Gatekeepers - While it's all well and good to release high-level content in Dungeons and Dragons Online, sometimes you want some good, clean fun for lowbies, you know? At least you won't…
Blue Protocol’s beta test starts with delays, heavy demand, and some notable software scanning - The Blue Protocol beta finally started up! But it started up a bit later than expected because it turns out... lots of people wanted to get in to test the…
Grinding Gear Games teases Path of Exile 2’s music and art in new video - At Exile Con 2019 last November, Grinding Gear Games stunned the world by announcing Path of Exile 2 - not exactly a true sequel to Path of Exile, but more…
SuperData March 2020: Digital games spending sets achieves new highs thanks to COVID-19 - Back in in March, when SuperData was discussing February's monthly gaming revenue numbers, the analysis firm noted that COVID-19 hadn't yet had much impact on gaming revenue in the west,…
Perfect Ten: The categories of all MMO achievements - I remember when achievements were first getting a pop in the MMO space, or at least when I first noticed it concurrent with World of Warcraft's second expansion adding them…
Fallout 76 NPCs can (and will) loot your corpse and take your shiny weapon - With the addition of NPCs to Fallout 76, things in the multiplayer game have certainly shifted for the better, but it also doesn't seem we can have an update to…
Blade & Soul launches the Steel Uprising patch today - Bad news, Blade & Soul players, you are going to once again be fighting robots. This is a challenge. Reports indicate that robots are made of steel, which is quite…
PAX West 2020 is still tentatively on amid COVID-19 while GameStop re-opens - Just yesterday on the podcast we were saying that there was no way PAX West was going to happen this year, at least not in a physical sense. The COVID-19 pandemic…
Star Wars: The Old Republic’s GU 6.1.1 is live with the personal conquests revamp - It's patch day for Star Wars: The Old Republic, though the patch is a week late and short some of the content players were originally expecting. [AL:TOR]"With Game Update 6.1.1,…
Classic Guild Wars is turning 15 years old with a party, new gear, and a Guild Wars 2 gift - Let's talk about Guild Wars - classic Guild Wars, that is, one of the most beloved MMOs among veterans in our genre, assuming you agree it's actually an MMO to…
Massively on the Go: Animal Crossing’s housing islands from an MMO player’s perspective - One multiplayerish game that we've talked about a bit as the MOP team's been quarantined on the Golden Yacht is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. As several of us are fairly…
Fight or Kite: Starborne is the MMORTS I didn’t know I was missing - For about 15 years, I’ve had an MMORTS shaped hole in my heart. I didn’t even realize it was there. I used to play games like Travian and the text…
More World of Warcraft: Shadowlands covenant abilities unveiled as Classic returns layering for population issues - As the testing for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands continues, players continue to datamine the game and find new information about what's coming with the expansion. Among the latest datamining discoveries…
Here’s a visual guide to the features that have been removed from Star Citizen alpha 3.9 - To be fair, alpha 3.9 of Star Citizen is still bringing a fair number of things to the sandbox side of the game, but when you put what is confirmed…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s eternal restoration of Ishgard - As of this writing, the Final Fantasy XIV server that has made the most progress on Ishgard restoration is Tonberry on the Elemental data center, which is on stage 35.…
ArcheAge Unchained’s ArchePass season three offers new cosmetics and a brave little hamster - The newest ArchePass is now live in ArcheAge Unchained, which means there's new goodies to chase, including temporary mounts, cosmetic goodies, and a very brave and bold hamster among other…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 268: Second chances in the apocalypse
The Stream Team: Can’t keep up with the Astroneer clean up
The Stream Team: Starting Warframe’s Scarlet Spear
The Stream Team: Let’s celebrate LOTRO’s lucky 13th birthday
The Stream Team: Helping out Helm’s Hold in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Catching the Phiarlan Carnival in Dungeons and Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Have to save Heartwood in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Looking toward EverQuest II’s Luclin
The Stream Team: Glitches in Guild Wars 2’s Super Adventure Box
The Stream Team: Path of Exile Ranger danger, standard edition
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.
