It was a surprisingly huge week for MMORPGs, even setting aside the fact that WoW Shadowlands launches tomorrowday. Guild Wars 2 released Truce, we got our hands on New World’s latest alpha content, Pokemon Go announced a massive update, we mused on Crowfall and sandboxes, and LOTRO outlined its 2021 content plans in one of the biggest info drops the game has seen in years. And then, just to keep things spicy, an outgoing WoW dev posted a video criticizing the state of the game.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

World of Warcraft dev posts exit manifesto: ‘I was unhappy with the state of the game’ - While people are hired, fired, and leave Blizzard all the time, it's certainly not very often that we get a lengthy manifesto on the state of the game from someone…

Amazon’s New World demo: Fishing, Reekwater, and hands-on havoc - It's certainly been rough seas for Amazon's upcoming New World over the past year -- especially with a significant change of development direction for the title and several delays --…

Huge Lord of the Rings Online Q&A talks Gundabad, River-hobbits, Brawlers, and 2021 plans - Lord of the Rings Online players have been clamoring for a lot more communication from SSG this year, especially from the game's higher-ups. This is their week, then, because Executive Producer…

LOTRO Legendarium: Getting a glimpse of LOTRO’s 2021 plans - For a good long while now -- years, really -- I've joined the chorus of voices that have been asking Standing Stone Games to talk to its fans more and…

Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga: Truce - So here we are, we’re finally entering the home stretch of the Icebrood Saga. Today sees the release of the first chapter of Champions, the four part finale of this…

WoW Factor: A wild theory for World of Warcraft’s Shadowlands - I don't have quite as much as I would have expected to say about Shadowlands so close to its launch. Part of that is, of course, timing; the surprise delay sort…

World of Warcraft’s pre-patch Scourge event is being used to kill freshly made characters - Well, this seems rather familiar to World of Warcraft players, doesn't it? The two week-long pre-patch event leading into Shadowlands, which sees players turning into or otherwise fighting off the…

Fight or Kite: Is Crowfall ready to be your daily MMO? - A question that comes up consistently for any Kickstarter MMOs is whether or not the game is ready to be played. Love it or hate it, Kickstarter games have often…

Perfect Ten: The 10 qualities of MMO sandboxes - What is a sandbox MMO? At first glance, it seems like a pretty easy question to answer, especially if you're going by Kickstarter projects, which will inform you that sandboxes…

Niantic just announced Pokemon Go Beyond, the game’s biggest content update ever - Pokemon GO has already had an overwhelming number of events since late September, with both hits and some misses, but Niantic’s looking to close out 2020 with a bang with Go…

World of Warcraft makes good on its new multiboxing policy, confirms delay of endgame grinds until post-launch - Earlier in the month, we reported on a shift in World of Warcraft's multiboxing policy that was going to leverage action against those who use input broadcasting software to mirror…

Star Citizen talks about the Nomad, the IAE free fly event, and player shenanigans in alpha 3.11 - There's a whole gaggle of stuff coming out of Star Citizen today, the headliner of which is the start of the free fly event and its promise of over 100…

New survey points to increase in hate and harassment in online multiplayer games - The behavior of people in online games does not appear to be improving for the better. According to national survey results from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), people are experiencing an…

Massively Overthinking: No-thank-you bites in MMO gaming - One of the things I always try to have my kids do is take a no-thank-you bite of new foods. They have to at least try it to be able…

Elite Dangerous’ free Epic Games Store promo is plagued by access issues - Frontier had a big promotion for Elite Dangerous planned today: It was meant to be fully free on the Epic Games Store, including Horizons, which was recently merged into the…

World of Warcraft posts survival guide and profession primer ahead of Shadowlands - We're less than a week away from World of Warcraft's Shadowlands launch, which means Blizzard is running out of days to preview stuff - but it's certainly not running out…

Vague Patch Notes: Players aren’t the only people who should prepare for their MMO to die - There are certain realities that developers need to reckon with that start with acknowledging a certain degree of reality, and one of those bits of reality is acknowledging that the…

Activision-Blizzard lays off more support staff, this time in the Asia-Pacific region - (This piece has been updated with Blizzard's confirmation and an updated headcount of those affected.) UK publication MCV/Develop is reporting today that the global redundancies for Activision-Blizzard are continuing. According…

First impressions of Netmarble’s A3 Still Alive: Is it relevant in 2020? - What's going with MMO names these days? First there was V4, and now we have A3. The full title is A3: Still Alive, which I think stands for "Ah, Ah,…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is seemingly cracking down on orgs and ‘politics’ in-game - Back in October, we reported on a move by Joe Biden's presidential campaign to create an island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which was subsequently used for cringe-y promotional show…

Final Fantasy XIV opens its special site for patch 5.4, Futures Rewritten - The next major Final Fantasy XIV patch arrives in early December, but you can start teasing out some information about it now via the newly launched special site for the patch.…

For Science: Gaming is good for you, actually, suggests new Oxford study - A new University of Oxford study published this week suggests that there's a "positive relation between game play and well-being." The paper itself hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, but it's been…

Epic is suing Apple in Australia over Fortnite as Apple halves its profit cut from indie devs - You might think Epic Games' primary business is video games or video game engines, but as it turns out, it's fast becoming "filing lawsuits." Yes, Epic has apparently now filed…

Dual Universe drops new voxel creation trailer, explains how it’ll protect individual creator blueprints - Let's outline a scenario. You make a blueprint for a great ship in Dual Universe. Your acquaintance Trab asks you for the blueprint, which he takes and then alters to be…

Elder Scrolls Online won’t directly support play on the new ARM-based Macs - Bleeding-edge, early-adopting Mac gamers who happen to play Elder Scrolls Online definitely need to point their eyeballs at Bethsoft's latest missive to players, as the studio has announced it won't…

Microsoft CFO says Bethsoft IPs can still go cross-platform but also wants new games ‘first, better, or best’ on Microsoft - As the news of Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media, Bethesda Softworks, and its various studios has settled in, there's been one niggling point that's sort of hung in the air:…

Choose My Adventure: Paradise planets, destroyed freighters, and hellbeasts in No Man’s Sky - It would be super easy for me to make this week's ride in No Man's Sky a picture book. Not just because the game has a photo mode, but because…

Atlas Rogues, Gamigo’s Atlas Reactor spinoff, begins $14.99 early access tomorrow - [AL:Atlas]Gamigo's deserving of some kudos this year, as after sunsetting Atlas Reactor in the wake of its Trion Worlds buyout, it's now bringing it back as a spinoff called Atlas…

Wisdom of Nym: My personal red lines for Final Fantasy XIV - What would get me to stop liking Final Fantasy XIV? It's not exactly new or surprising to say that I'm fond of this game; a good chunk of my career has…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 297: Beyond Light

Battle Bards Episode 181: Around the world

The Stream Team: A Conan Exiles calamity

The Stream Team: A MOP up of AQ3D events

The Stream Team: Planting the Icehammer flag in Neverwinter

The Stream Team: Cruising to complete EverQuest II’s Blood of Luclin

The Stream Team: Reviving the Ranger life 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.