This week in MMOs, we learned that Guild Wars 2’s Steam launch and Path of Exile’s next league would be delayed, which is a bummer. But World of Warcraft Shadowlands issued a brand-new launch date of November 23rd, all against the backdrop of Acti-Blizz’s latest investor report and the news that Blizzard lost another 2M total players over the last quarter. Finally, on the other side of the pond, Elyon: Ascent Infinite Realm (say that 10 times fast) got a Korean launch date of December 10th, meaning we’re that much closer to a western launch.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Activision-Blizzard Q3 2020: Blizzard MAUs fell to 30M as overall ActiBlizz revenues hold steady - It's time for another round of Activision-Blizzard financials as today covers Q3 2020. It's been a weird couple of years for the company as 2019 saw mass layoffs, the Blitzchung…

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will launch November 23 - All right, let's give this a shot one more time. World of Warcraft: Shadowlands now has a release date... you know, again. On November 23rd, players will be starting their trips into…

Don’t look now but Cyberpunk 2077 just got delayed for at least the third time, now to December - I know you're all going to be super surprised, but CD Projekt has gone back on claims that it would not delay Cyberpunk 2077 further and in fact... delayed it…

Guild Wars 2 postpones November Steam launch indefinitely to focus on End of Dragons expansion and living world - Just three months ago, ArenaNet told Guild Wars 2 players the game was bound for Steam with full crossplay in November. You might have forgotten that, what with the fact…

Guild Wars 2 outlines content plans through May 2021, with next chapter, Truce, coming November 17 - Roadmap roadmap getcher Guild Wars 2 roadmap here! Yep ArenaNet's dropped a roadmap for the "final arc" of the Icebrood Saga this afternoon. "The Icebrood Saga: Champions is a multichapter…

Elyon aka Ascent Infinite Realm just dropped a new trailer and Korean launch date - We haven't heard a whole lot from Krafton's in-bound MMORPG Elyon, not since the April news that the game had pivoted from being a steampunk-fantasy MMO dubbed Ascent Infinite Realm…

MassivelyOP’s 2020 guide to Halloween across the MMO world - Take a pro-tip from a Halloween gaming expert: If you shout "Bloody Mary" three times at any MMO login screen, you'll unlock a secret mode in which you will be…

Lawful Neutral: The Epic vs. Apple lawsuit – when titans are tweens - The MassivelyOP Golden Yacht was anchored someplace off the coast of Maine when the first news about Epic suing Apple hit. We had sailed north to avoid the hurricane from…

The Game Archaeologist: Fallen Earth - I remember back when Fallen Earth first came out, I had some friends who were raving about it and doing everything in their power to drag me kicking and screaming…

Path of Exile’s patch delay stems from lessons learned launching opposite WoW Classic - Earlier this week, Grinding Gear Games told Path of Exile players that it was delaying the release of the 3.13 update and league to January, largely to get the heck…

Vague Patch Notes: The wax and wane of MMOs and genres - I started writing for Massively-that-was in October of 2009. That was 11 years ago. Oh... oh my word, no, that was so long ago. More than a decade. I have…

Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs that you can play on the Nintendo Switch - Nintendo hasn't held the title of "serious gamer console" in a while, with specs that lack the sheer graphical and processing muscles of the Xbox and PlayStation. Yet it's always…

Judge enforces a Dutch government order for EA to remove FIFA lockboxes or face over $11M in fines - This has been a long and drawn-out battle, so let us review: Back in 2017 when the outrage against lockboxes was at its highest point after EA's flagrant cash grab…

Massively-on-the-Go: Gotta cash’em all in Pokemon Go - In the last few editions of the Massively-on-the-Go column, I've been covering the deluge of events and updates Pokemon Go has received quite suddenly (not including recently announced Animation week…

The MMO Cartographer: In the Echo of Echo of Soul - How much would you pay to play a game that has been shut down as a free-to-play game and then re-released as a buy-to-play game? Your answer is probably something…

Lord of the Rings Online is seeking a new senior game producer - The Lord of the Rings Online team is looking to grow by at least one significant role, as Daybreak posted a job listing for Standing Stone Games in search of…

Massively Overthinking: Doing crimes and getting punished in MMORPGs - A couple of weeks before Dual Universe's snafu banning beta players for taking advantage of a developer's poorly permissioned structure, I saw the game's founder, J.C. Baillie, posting on Twitter…

Desert Oasis: Is Black Desert’s lore actually a time-travel narrative? - In the last edition of Desert Oasis, I wrote about an absolutely dismal week in Black Desert that ultimately ended with my taking a sabbatical from the game's endless grind.…

EVE Online’s World War Bee 2 refreshed its hold over two Guinness World Records - [AL:EVE]It's officially official: EVE Online broke another Guinness World Record. Two of them, in fact, and it already held them, but now it holds them both even harder thanks to…

Path of Exile pushed its 3.13 patch to January to dodge Cyberpunk 2077’s launch - Grinding Gear Games isn't playing any games with the launch of Path of Exile's next league: The New Zealand studio just flat-out delayed it to make sure it won't be…

Aion KR confirms the release of a classic server for the region on November 11 - Well, it turns out that earlier bit of supposition held true. An earlier tease of a classic server from the Korean version of Aion has been formally announced by way…

Lord of the Rings Online tweaks War of the Three Peaks, talks more about classic server difficulties - The first post-release patch for War of the Three Peaks has hit Lord of the Rings Online, bringing a bundle of changes and tweaks for Update 28. In addition to…

No Man’s Sky: Next Generation brings the game to next-gen consoles, graphical upgrades for all - Back in September, No Man's Sky studio Hello Games revealed Origins as merely "the beginning of something new." Now that the update is well behind us, you might be wondering…

EverQuest II’s newly announced Reign of Shadows expansion offers playable Vah Shir, huge AA revamp - It was only a matter of time until Daybreak announced its yearly EverQuest II expansion, and this week it's happened. EverQuest II: Reign of Shadows is coming to the MMO…

Choose My Adventure: Counting the ways I love Dauntless - Thank you all for letting me close out this month with some Dauntless because I seriously love this game so very, very much. I’ve been following this game pretty actively since…

Massively-on-the-Go: Niantic’s ‘Mega’ missteps in Pokemon Go - Previously in our Massively-on-the-Go column, we covered the deluge of events and updates Pokemon Go has seen this season, with a bit of commentary. While we normally don't cover every little…

Epic’s latest legal clapback says it couldn’t steal from Apple something Apple never owned - The Epic v. Apple lawsuit is slated to begin in full next May, which means 10 more months of smaller salvos between the companies. The most recent came Friday, when…

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s borrowed power is generously loaned - If you've been active in the larger MMO discussion sphere over the past few months... well, thanks! It's the field I work in, after all. Also, you have probably seen…

Not So Massively: StarCraft II’s maintenance mode doesn’t mean game over - Earlier this month, we learned that Blizzard was effectively putting StarCraft II into maintenance mode. Considering what a massive fan of StarCraft II I am, you may be surprised to…

World of Warcraft players are embracing the new leveling challenge of reaching level 50 without a spec - The launch of the pre-patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands has brought with it an entirely new way to level via each individual expansion and plenty of adjustments to the low-level…

PSA: Oculus users who delete their linked Facebook account will lose their entire app library - So, remember when Facebook commanded that Oculus Rift or Quest users link the device to their Facebook accounts? Wasn't that such a grand idea? Well, it would appear that bottom…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 294: Butterfly in the sky, I can game twice as high

The Scream Team: Finding ghosts in Phasmophobia

The Stream Team: Trick-or-treating in Trove

The Stream Team: A night of Dungeons and Dragons Online Night Revels

The Stream Team: Halloween happenings in Lord of the Rings Online

The Stream Team: Black Desert brings Halloween to Florin

The Stream Team: Going mad for Guild Wars 2’s Halloween events

The Stream Team: Golden Saucers and Halloween in Final Fantasy XIV

The Stream Team: A Halloween-y hunt in Dauntless

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.