MMO Week in Review: The pandemic racks up more MMO delays and cancellations

Remember a few weeks ago when we wondered how many more MMO launches and patches and events would suffer delays and cancellations thanks to the prolonged effects of the pandemic? Whatever number we thought, it’s long since surpassed that, as this week we added delays for Elite Dangerous, Neverwinter, and Final Fantasy XI to the pile, as Guild Wars 2 will launch its next episode without voiceovers and CitizenCon was canceled outright. On the upside, WoW Shadowlands is apparently still on track, and Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor won’t be delayed more than the week it already had been.

Meanwhile, the MMO community occupied itself arguing over shabby takes on the genre from former MMO devs, Star Citizen rolled out its latest major alpha patch, and Gamigo announced the sunset of classic Defiance on the Xbox 360.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime laments World of Warcraft’s social unraveling - Do you miss Blizzard's Mike Morhaime, yet? You just might after watching a new interview in which the previous president of the company took a hard look at the state…

Guild Wars 2’s next living story episode, No Quarter, will launch without voice acting thanks to the pandemic - While business is booming for online games during this pandemic-related quarantine, story-centric MMORPGs seem to be having trouble getting specific types of work done from home - most specifically voiceover…

Former World of Warcraft developer Ghostcrawler weighs in on Mike Morhaime’s ‘social glue’ discussion - So you remember Mike Morhaime's kind of nonsensical comments that treated "social" as the equivalent to "forced grouping" from a couple days ago, yes? Well, it turns out that Greg…

Amazon says New World’s territorial sieges represent a ‘social dynamism that no other game has’ - Amazon Game Studios may have delayed New World and changed its PvP up dramatically, but it's apparently going to keep on pumping out preview content. The latest comes in the…

The Soapbox: The sunsetted MMORPGs I miss the most - I'm pining for the fjords. Not in the way that would assume I'm becoming some jaded and angry MMO fan; I'm never going to stop appreciating what's new and coming…

Star Citizen alpha 3.9 Locked Up & Loaded is live with survival effects, new mission, and prison (!) - It'll probably never stop sounding silly when alpha MMOs make a bit to-do about their patches, but it's gonna keep on happening, and today Star Citizen enters the stage with…

WoW Factor: Examining Shadowlands’ Warlock, Paladin, and Demon Hunter changes - It's the penultimate column in this particular series! And that's good because if people who used to make World of Warcraft are going to keep going down the "ridiculous comment"…

Age of Conan’s Onslaught is live, the Funcom MMO’s ‘biggest update in years’ - Back in 2018 and 2019, Funcom's Age of Conan MMORPG - soon turning 12 years old, if you can believe it - ran the Saga of Blood, essentially a limited-time…

Star Citizen just canceled this year’s CitizenCon 2950 thanks to the pandemic - Add Star Citizen's CitizenCon 2950 to the growing pile of major MMO and gaming events that have been dislodged from the calendar this year thanks to COVID-19. "Out of a…

Perfect Ten: Underappreciated Guild Wars 2 features - Guild Wars 2 is not a perfect game, but then again, no MMORPG is. I've had a pull-and-push relationship with the game since its launch, going through periods of being…

Mark Jacobs says Camelot Unchained’s 90-day plan is still on track - Camelot Unchained's latest newsletter has arrived, and the key component homes right in on battlegrounds. "While we’ve had scenarios in Camelot Unchained before to test specific aspects of the engine…

LOTRO Legendarium: Wells of Langflood, River-hobbits, and free questing - With major content updates only coming to Lord of the Rings Online two or three times a year now, it's a big deal when one arrives. I found myself bouncing…

Conan Exiles shows off follower changes and Architect of Argos items in a livestream - A recent livestream from Conan Exiles had a lot of things to show off for fans of the survival sandbox, with some looks ahead to follower changes, the items arriving…

Final Fantasy XI’s anniversary content is being pushed to the future from its May update - May is the month of Final Fantasy XI's anniversary, but the content that was meant to accompany it is going to have to wait a bit longer. Indeed, the monthly…

Ashes of Creation shows off alpha gameplay, takes a stance against DPS meters - With an alpha test coming this month and another one on tap for this fall, Ashes of Creation is grinding slowly toward the full-fledged MMORPG it wants to become. In…

Elite Dangerous is delaying its Next Era content into 2021 - Still having fun in the fleet carriers beta for Elite Dangerous? Well, get comfy, because while that's already suffered one delay and is still on track now, the roadmap is…

Massively Overthinking: Canaries in the MMO coal mine - A few weeks back on the MOP Podcast, reader Danny posed us such a provocative question that we said right then we were going to turn it over to the…

Warframe of Mind: Railjack revamp, Nightwave 3, Protea footage, and other news from devstream-from-home - Just because the devs at Digital Extremes are working for home does not mean Warframe isn't getting plenty of love and attention. The work environment may not look the same,…

Legends of Runeterra officially releases with a new set and talks about randomness in CCGs - Today is the day for Riot Games' League of Legends digital CCG to officially exit beta as Legends of Runeterra has officially released, bringing along with it the Rising Tides…

Vague Patch Notes: The ESRB is not your friend, gamers - So, hey, the ESRB is taking action about lockboxes! Well, sort of. It's adding a notification about lockboxes that doesn't expressly mention or clarify them. There, that's all sorted, an…

Elder Scrolls Online promises further stability and optimization with the next two updates - The Elder Scrolls Online is back once again with another update to its performance improvements plan for April, and though the devs of the title have been working from home,…

Bethesda donates a total of $1 million to COVID-19 relief efforts - While Bethesda, ZeniMax Media, and its other games studios are all about making games to keep people entertained and safe at home, the company wants to do more. To that…

Neverwinter confirms delays to its 2020 content roadmap, work on a new class, and more in a livestream - This past Monday, Cryptic Studios went live with a number of updates to Neverwinter that will be mighty interesting to players of the MMORPG.[AL:NW] First off, due to the upending…

Desert Oasis: Deep-diving Black Desert’s Musa and Maewha classes - I think I may be in the minority of people who enjoy being home all day. It gives that much needed time to just recenter myself with some yoga, the…

Elder Scrolls Online previews Greymoor’s world-spanning, largely non-combat antiquities system - With Greymoor now scheduled to launch May 26th, we're less than a month away from Elder Scrolls Online's next big thing, and probably the most interesting non-storyline bit is the…

Star Trek Online previews its next campaign event, the Defense of Pahvo, and upcoming 2020 additions - Right now in Star Trek Online you can enjoy the winter event for 2019 right now, in the middle of the spring. Yes, it's unusual, but it's still here. But…

Astellia Online patches in advanced class flexibility and new Atra tonics - If you've ever been slaughtering you way through things in Astellia Online as a Berserker and found yourself thinking "this just isn't me," the game's newest patch has a solution…

Yes, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is still on track to release this year - If you've been eagerly looking forward to World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, this year has probably not been very calming. Also, if you live on the planet Earth, this year has…

PSA: Guild Wars 2 puts Path of Fire on sale, grants free cape, living story episodes, and XP boost - If you've been sitting around during quarantine wishing ArenaNet would put Guild Wars 2 on sale so you could jump in or pick up an expansion, today is your day.…

We’re definitely going to Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor on May 26, ZeniMax confirms - Earlier this month, ZeniMax admitted it was delaying Elder Scrolls Online's Skyrim-themed Greymoor chapter an extra week thanks to the pandemic, which had forced the staff to work remotely and…

Choose My Adventure: Seriously, the Roblox community is pretty impressive - Over the course of my time in Roblox for this round of Choose My Adventure, I've come to appreciate the value of community creativity. I already appreciated this enough when…

Flameseeker Chronicles: Reviewing ArenaNet’s Complete Art of Guild Wars 20th anniversary edition book - Talk long enough to Guild Wars fans about their favorite franchise, and chances are that sooner or later, they will start gushing about the game’s gorgeous art. And they should;…

RuneScape studio Jagex finally confirms it was sold for $530M to a new ‘global asset management company’ - Over the course of 2019, we covered the news that RuneScape developer Jagex was being put up for sale by the Chinese holding company that purchased it back in 2016, largely…

Chronicles of Elyria boss insists work on the game continues in spite of team layoff - As we've been covering over the last month and change, Soulbound Studios shocked backers and watchers when it announced that MMORPG Chronicles of Elyria, the recipient of millions in crowdfunding…

LOTRO and DDO extend free questing through May 31 – and toss in bonus goodies for subscribers - It's generally agreed that Standing Stone Games' promotion this past month to offer free questing (including all expansion packs) for both Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons…

City of Heroes’ rogue servers mark their first anniversary as the game itself turns 16 - It's now been over a year since the City of Heroes community discovered the existence of a secret emulator, a discovery that led to the broad distribution of the code,…

Wisdom of Nym: The Final Fantasy XIV 5.3 Live Letter in review - Well, that sure was a thing, huh? Another live letter in the books, and given the circumstances it's a lot more understandable why Final Fantasy XIV didn't have the whole thing…

Not So Massively: Exploring the Reign of Terror Diablo II mod for Grim Dawn - Unlike a lot of ARPG fans, I was never a big player of Diablo II back in the day. I enjoyed the story and the ambiance, but I found the…

Former RIFT dev on instant adventures: ‘We wanted to do more of them’ - In RIFT, there are many ways to level your character, including questing, dungeon delving, and PvP. But perhaps the most fun and social way was through instant adventures. Instant adventures…

Astellia Online is no longer run by Barunsun E&A, which might explain its new blockchain promotion - This weekend, we thought to take a peek in to Astellia Online to see if there's been anything happening recently, and as it turns out, there have indeed been some…

Gamigo is sunsetting classic Defiance – on the Xbox 360 – next month - Ever since the Trion Worlds buyout by Gamigo back in 2018, we've been holding our breath just waiting for Gamigo to slowly cut the underperforming MMOs from the roster of…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 269: Pre-Searing parties

The Stream Team: Taking a May Day look at Warframe’s Titania Prime

The Stream Team: TERA turns eight today

The Stream Team: Is Dungeon & Dragon Online’s Kind of a Big Deal a big deal?

The Stream Team: Becoming an AQ3D behemoth hunter

The Stream Team: Completing the SWTOR datacron collection

The Stream Team: Stop in for an EverQuest II showdown at the Diaku Corral

The Stream Team: Frolicking about for Allods Online’s 9th birthday

The Stream Team: Lineage II celebrates sweet 16th

The Stream Team: Diving deeper into Conan Exiles’ Warmaker’s Sanctuary

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.