As part of our recaps at the end of every calendar year, we always do a piece here on MOP about developer quotes and related shenanigans. This week offered up a whole bunch of contenders for that piece that I suspect we’ll be seeing again, as Chris Roberts, Tim Sweeney, and Raph Koster all went on the record with commentary our readers clearly wanted to argue about. Plus, LOTRO raised eyebrows with a mini-expansion, WoW struggled with covenants, and ArcheAge 2 is on the way.
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
Chris Roberts says Star Citizen is ‘not a pipe dream’ in spite of taking longer than planned - It's been some time since we've heard a peep from Star Citizen's Chris Roberts -- the 10 for the Chairman video series has ended, and we haven't had a roundtable…
LOTRO’s next ‘mini-expansion’ content update includes boar mounts and a $100 edition - We already knew that Lord of the Rings Online is working on a Gundabad expansion for 2021, but before that arrives, there's a big fall update on the way. However,…
WoW Factor: Covenants have become a Shadowlands prison of Blizzard’s own making - If there was any remaining question about what stage of the expansion development we were at with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, this week marked the "we hear the things some of…
Tim Sweeney insists Epic Games’ legal battle is meant to stop a monopoly - In an interview with NPR, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is continuing to explain that the motivation for his company's legal battle with Google and Apple over Fortnite is meant…
Raph Koster argues MMOs are much more than ‘a series of kill and fetch quest pellets’ - As many of us know, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning will be the only leavings we may ever see of 38 Studios' ambitious MMO Project Copernicus after the studio famously burst…
Corepunk is aiming for a ‘WoW Classic difficulty level,’ with housing and farming in the works - With closed beta on the way for this December, Corepunk is generating some degree of interest among cyberpunk MMO fans. To feed the hype machine, Producer Eugene Kiver appeared on Reddit…
XLGAMES finally confirms ArcheAge 2, a next-gen large-scale AAA MMORPG - ArcheAge 2 is more than a rumor now - it's a sure thing. The news comes according to Korean website Ruliweb, which reports that Jake Song has put together a…
LOTRO Legendarium: The quiet consistency of Lord of the Rings Online - I want to start this LOTRO Legendarium column today by talking about, well, by talking about World of Warcraft. Like probably many of you, I play several different MMOs, and…
Legends of Aria makes plants extremely mad with the launch of Season 5: Raging Undergrowth - Are you ready to piss off plants? Then you're prepared for Legends of Aria's latest season Raging Undergrowth, which tasks players with thinning the growing threat of the Tree Lords…
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s new event includes problematic features and stat bloat - Yes, more not-great-news in Pokemon Go, and yes, it's once again mostly about Mega Evolution. While it's been nice that the official Pokemon Go Twitter account has been trying to…
Project Gorgon’s latest patch sends you to the dungeon(s) - At this point, it wouldn't surprise us if Project Gorgon never actually launched but rather stayed in its early access cocoon indefinitely. At least we know that the MMO would…
Amazon is apparently working on a new unnamed sci-fi MMO - Former SOE and Daybreak boss John Smedley has been a fixture at Amazon Game Studios for the last few years, working on at least one unannounced game that we know…
Massively Overthinking: Contemplating in-game advertising - Last week, EA announced that it would finally be removing all the in-game ads from UFC4 after a few days of intense complaining from fans. Not only were the ads…
Albion Online player steals an in-game billion’s worth of assets from a guild in a self-described ‘long con’ - On the one hand, you have to respect a good caper, but on the other hand, this particular bit of thievery that happened in Albion Online saw assets stolen from…
Ubisoft’s long-delayed Skull and Bones promises new ‘vision’ and a ‘comeback’ next year - If it seems as if you've been hearing about Ubisoft's Skull and Bones for an absurdly long time without a game to show for it, that's because you have. It…
Perfect Ten: How to speak with your family members about playing MMOs - The nice part about growing up with serious social awkwardness as "the weird one" in my family is that really, every strange fixation I had was more or less already…
Elder Scrolls Online’s final DLC of the year is now called Markarth, not Darkstorm - Elder Scrolls Online's chapters and DLC run almost like clockwork every year, so we all knew there was one last DLC comning in 2020, and now we know its name:…
World of Warcraft struggles to come up with a Covenant compromise - With less than two months to go until World of Warcraft: Shadowlands releases, it's not a great time to be making major adjustments to the expansion's (arguably) tentpole feature. But…
Star Wars The Old Republic finally adds Steam achievements with today’s patch - [AL:TOR]When Star Wars The Old Republic surprise-launched on Steam back in July, it came with a few caveats - namely, that achievements weren't ready yet. But as of today's 6.1.3…
Desert Oasis: Checking back in on Black Desert Mobile, almost one year later - It's been a while since I checked in on Black Desert Mobile for Desert Oasis. In fact, I haven't really played it since my initial first impressions. I did play it…
First impressions: Small World of Warcraft is a fun boardgame with a touch of Azerothian flavor - One of the interesting things about this job is that I am pretty regularly presented with a new set of things to review and try out that I never would…
Apple’s new countersuit decries Epic’s ‘subterfuge’ and ‘brazen’ rule-breaking with Fortnite ‘Trojan horse’ - Another day, another pile of paper filed in the Epic Games v. Apple Inc. lawsuit. The latest is actually a counter-suit pressed by Apple against Epic, accusing Epic of essentially…
Elite Dangerous compromises on Odyssey’s VR capabilities, but ‘walking in ships’ won’t make launch - When Frontier announced Elite Dangerous' Odyssey expansion earlier this summer, it came with a belated caveat: that the expansion wouldn't include VR compatibility at launch. VR players were understandably grumpy…
Wizard101 is getting an Amazon Prime documentary. Yes, really. - If you live and game outside of the Spiral, you may not have noticed that Wizard101 just celebrated its 12th anniversary this year. And despite the game entering its formative…
Choose My Adventure: Mining misadventures in Wurm Online - Well, I have to say, following the advice of the poll from last week did help a little bit while also unfurling the multiple layers that are waiting in Wurm…
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning is live today - If you have already properly reckoned with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, now is the time for you to reckon again, as the remastered Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning is live today on PC,…
Fight or Kite: New World’s beta hasn’t made me a true believer – yet - The New World beta preview came to an end a few short nights ago. Like some of the other members of the MOP crew, I spent the majority of my…
Jukebox Heroes: Six great ArcheAge tunes - ArcheAge is well-known for being one of the more beautiful MMO game worlds out there, but does its music stack up in comparison? The answer to that is a little…
Massively Uplifting: MMOs from LOTRO to ESO bring comfort, healing, camaraderie, and charity - Summer may be ending, but good deeds and uplifting stories aren't! Throughout August we've been surrounded by stories of kindness, generosity, and goodness within our gaming universe. These moments of…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 287: Rep grind
The Stream Team: Mo Mania the Third, stream-athon extravaganza
The Stream Team: Following the Path of Fire story in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Discovering Secrets of the Sand Sea in AQ3D
The Stream Team: Plundering a pirate fort in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: To Hell with Honor in Star Trek Online
The Stream Team: Moon poetry and flames in EverQuest II
The Stream Team: Talking Heist as the time of Path of Exile gardening grows short
The Stream Team: Laboring through Elder Scrolls Online’s PvP event
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.
