This week in MMOs, Guild Wars 2 showed its true Power with… its Power episode. Chapter. Thing. Plus, KingsIsle got bought by Gamigo’s parent company, Star Trek Online is going all out for its anniversary, Pantheon scored some welcome investment, we got a tease for a new MMO on the way, and SSG went ahead with its broadly unpopular patch in LOTRO because of course it did.
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
Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga: Power - 2021 promises to be an exciting year for Guild Wars 2 fans, with an expansion looming on the horizon. Before we head to Cantha, though, we need to wrap up…
Into the Super-verse: Will we ever get a Marvel MMORPG? - While DC Universe Online is coasting high on its success in Year Ten, it feels a shame that there's no Marvel MMORPG to match it. Marvel is still a blazing…
Chronicles of Elyria says it’s focusing on settlement development in the short term - Back in December, Chronicles of Elyria's Jeromy Walsh put out a new video for the game that left a lot of our readers puzzled. That's because earlier in the year, developer…
Vague Patch Notes: What makes MMO leveling feel good? - A shine of light, a sound effect, a screen graphic. Sometimes you get more fanfare than elsewhere. In Final Fantasy XIV, the game's victory fanfare plays. In WildStar, you even got a…
Lord of the Rings Online pushes ahead with broadly unpopular patch changes - While it looked for a minute there that SSG was reconsidering some absolutely awful changes to Lord of the Rings Online, the studio has decided to go ahead with putting…
WoW Factor: Does Blizzard have a messaging problem or a message problem? - A recent post over at Kaylriene's blog got me originally thinking about this one. The original posting here is actually about a different issue in the broadest strokes, pointing out…
Pantheon’s new ‘seven-figure’ investment is a ‘runway’ for development and launch - Pantheon's been a bit of a nail-biter the last year or so: Following the devastating death of its legendary founder Brad McQuaid, development appeared to slow down, and last fall…
RIFT’s Typhoon of Doom battle pass goes live - Since RIFT has long since traded in actual content updates for seasonal battle passes, the start of a new cycle is as much a call for celebration as anything this…
Following Gamigo buyout, Wizard101 keeps monetization and Pirate101 might resume development - Earlier this week, we covered the surprising news that Media and Games Invest, whose chief subsidiary is Gamigo and which is run by Gamigo's CEO, had bought out Wizard101 and…
Path of Exile broke its own player concurrency records with Echoes of the Atlas - So it looks as though Grinding Gear Games' decision to delay Path of Exile's Echoes of the Atlas from December to January was a pretty smart one after all, as…
Massively Overthinking: Retaking Quantic’s survey to determine our ‘gamer type’ - Five years ago - yes, it's been that long! - we did an Overthinking in which our staff all took Quantic's survey to see our results about what type of…
World of Warcraft gamers move 21B gold through the player economy every day - IT-centric Splunk's .conf is not generally an event we cover here on MOP, but the .conf20 edition held back in October had a presentation of note for us. Blizzard Senior Security…
DC Universe Online hints at a ‘big storyline climax’ for this year - With over 69 million player characters and 39 major content updates, DC Universe Online is a monster of a hit for Daybreak Games as it celebrates its 10th anniversary this…
EU fines Valve, ZeniMax, and other gaming companies almost $10M for antitrust geoblocking - The EU is cracking down on multiple games companies this week, finding them in violation of market regulations. The European Commission announced today that companies including Valve, ZeniMax and Bandai Namco…
Perfect Ten: The 10 types of MMO loot I’m always thrilled to get - Loot's not something that I see discussed much these days among MMO players. It's probably because loot's been around since the beginning of online time and is such a staple…
Star Trek Online grants Temer-class ship and Disco Klingons for anniversary celebration January 26 - It's time to celebrate more than a decade in Star Trek Online very soon, as the game is starting its anniversary event on January 26th. The prize for taking part?…
Players of Life is Feudal MMO share their thoughts and final moments before the game’s sunset - This past December, we reported on the news that the MMO version of Life is Feudal was closing up shop on January 18th. In honor of the game's final moments,…
New World’s latest alpha update touches on rapiers, food, and crafting - New World alpha testers are in for some fun this month as Amazon Games Studio is rolling out its test patch for January, and this one's focused on the upcoming…
Road Not Taken developer Spry Fox is hiring for a new ‘non-violent’ MMO - A while back on Twitter I mentioned that my family is big into Alphabear, which is not an MMO, of course, but instead is one of SpryFox's many multi-platform puzzlers.…
Choose My Adventure: My ArcheAge mage is an absolute monster - This was a close poll, but I am pretty happy with the choice to bring Witchcraft into my Auramancy and Malediction mage in ArcheAge unchained because boy howdy is this…
CD Projekt Red faces a second class-action lawsuit from investors over Cyberpunk 2077 - It feels like there's not much bottom for things going wrong over at CD Projekt Red in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077. Sure, it was bad enough when the studio was…
Hi-Rez’s Paladins ends its esports program: ‘It’s time to close this chapter’ - This can't be a good sign for competitive shooter Paladins: Hi-Rez announced this week that it has decided not to go forward with a new season of esports for the…
Not So Massively: Haven is a noble but failed experiment in couples’ gaming - This is purely anecdotal, but it has been my experience that most people who play games with other people tend to spend most of their time in groups of just…
Wisdom of Nym: Ishgard restoration round three in Final Fantasy XIV - Before anyone feels the need to point it out, yes, I am aware that this is technically round four of restoration in Final Fantasy XIV. I have been aware of…
World of Warcraft hints at delving deeper into Shadowlands in 2021 - I can't be the only person wondering about what World of Warcraft has up its sleeve for 2021. Now that Shadowlands is going on two months of live operation, all…
The company that owns Gamigo bought out Wizard101 studio KingsIsle too - Tis the season for selling and buying MMO companies, apparently. Adding to the Daybreak and Albion Online pile is KingsIsle Entertainment, which has apparently just been sold - to the…
Cyberpunk 2077 developers share insight into issues that led to the RPG’s stumbling launch - While we'd heard a supposed account of a developer of Cyberpunk 2077 that was weakly denied by CD Projekt Red before, there's a new piece from Bloomberg that will be…
Cyberpunk 2077’s latest patch ‘lays the groundwork’ for a better game - With massive player dissent, mismanagement, horrible console performance, and filed lawsuits against it, Cyberpunk 2077 has seen one of the rougher high-profile launches in video game history. But CD Projekt…
Blizzard absorbs 200 Activision employees following merge of rumored Diablo II remaster team - The Blizzard family got a whole lot bigger this past week. Games Industry reported that the World of Warcraft developer absorbed 200 employees from the Activision side, thanks to a…
Microsoft walks back its previously announced price hike for Xbox Live Gold subscription - Much of the online multiplayer gaming world was lit on fire by Microsoft earlier this week when the company attempted to raise the cost for Xbox Live Gold subs, ramping…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 305: Restoring faith
Battle Bards Episode 185: Taking Flight
The Stream Team: Wrapping up the Blood Tide Pirate adventures in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Cleansing a Jedi Master’s mind in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Don’t let loose the Beast of War in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Happy 5th birthday Blade & Soul
The Stream Team: Meeting up in Elder Scrolls Online’s Midnight Barrow
The Stream Team: Horse racing in Black Desert Online
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.
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