Demonstrating once again why we can’t have nice things, World of Warcraft dangled valor in front of players only to yank its original meaning and import away from us like Lucy with a football, while Elite Dangerous’ most awful humans admitted to engaging in a form of abusive “slavery” in-game.
But hey, MOP turned six years old, which collectively with Old Massively’s eight makes us something like 14 years old. Not too shabby. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be over here playing Valheim.
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
WoW Factor: The return of Valor is far from valorous - This week's announcement that World of Warcraft will be bringing Valor back as a currency piqued my immediate interest, especially when we're not that far out from talking about the…
Stick and Rudder: Leader of Elite Dangerous ‘slavery’ racket espouses a ‘cult-like’ guild full of ‘chaos and evil’ - Last week we reported on an effort by several players of Elite: Dangerous to dupe new players into a sort of indentured servitude by offering them mining ships, training, and…
Shadowbanning of Elite Dangerous ‘slavers’ is reportedly corroborated by email screenshots - The actions of the 7th Labor Division (7LD) group in Elite: Dangerous, who readers will recall were ensnaring brand-new players into mining servitude while actively keeping them misinformed about ways…
Vague Patch Notes: Emergent gameplay in MMOs isn’t a defense of awful behavior - To the surprise (or at least disappointment) of many, it turns out that some players in Elite: Dangerous found an exciting and fresh way to do something beyond the pale. These…
LOTRO Legendarium: How can LOTRO become more alt-friendly? - Lord of the Rings Online has so much to offer players, from an expansive world to thousands of quests to, um, chicken soccer. But the problem with this mountain of…
Jukebox Heroes: The best of Genshin Impact’s soundtrack - Genshin Impact isn't just a game that's easy on the eyes -- it's marvelous to the ears as well. Massively OP's Chris has taken to wandering our halls humming its…
ZeniMax Online Studios goes on a hiring spree for ESO and ‘multiple unannounced projects’ - Readers are surely familiar with ZeniMax Online Studios' work on The Elder Scrolls Online, but you're also probably curious about what the studio's up to in the future, particularly with…
Hackers have successfully sold stolen CDPR source code and internal documents in a dark web auction - Earlier this week we reported on a breach of CD Projekt Red's systems that resulted in a number of stolen pieces of data, including source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The…
Massively Overthinking: Do you need to be the hero in MMOs? - MMORPG developer Raph Koster recently tweeted that he'd had a "debate with some devs who asserted that videogames require the player to be the hero." You know we just have…
ArcheAge Unchained just launched two new ArchePasses, including one with no end date - Gonna be honest, ArcheAge Unchained's business model has flipped and scooched so many times now that I can't even keep track of it - but let's try anyway. [AL:Arche]The Oskmir…
Here’s the big BlizzConline 2021 schedule, from World of Warcraft to Overwatch 2 - Blizzard's just released its schedule for BlizzConline, and... well it's not going to absolutely shock you, since we had a pretty good idea of what the con was going to…
Perfect Ten: The types of MMO guilds - Guilds! They're remarkably consistent features of MMOs because developers have long realized that they are an unparalleled engine for creating drama, arguments, and recriminations. Occasionally guilds actually band together and…
Valheim is a co-op PvE-minded survival title of conquering a Viking purgatory – and it’s already sold 1M copies - Oh look, another survival sandbox! Before you close the browser tab, though, it would appear that this one has some genuinely unique hooks that have seen it leave some overall…
Former Riot Games staffer accuses CEO Nicolo Laurent of sexual harassment in new lawsuit - Another day, another round of bro culture at Riot Games. The latest episode has gone even further up the chain of command, as former executive assistant Sharon O'Donnell says she…
World of Warcraft spills details about its March patch, including the return of Valor points (kinda) - You won't have to wait until BlizzConline to find out what's next in store for World of Warcraft. While Patch 9.1 is still hiding under the veil of secrecy, Blizzard…
Lord of the Rings Online starts testing its mid-level Wildwood update - As Lord of the Rings Online players wait in breathless anticipation of this year's producer's letter (soon! soon!), the game's first major update of the year has just started its…
Blizzard announces a Hearthstone ‘Classic’ mode - The biggest consumer drawback for collectable card games is that it's a neverending chase of getting all of the latest usable cards before newer ones are added and older ones…
E3 is currently in planning to be a digital-only event this year - If you were hoping that 2021 would return to hordes of people crammed into convention halls for this year's E3 after last year's version was cancelled due to the pandemic...…
Terraria cancels its Stadia release after Google openly mishandles the developer’s YouTube account issues - There's burning bridges and then there's firing a massive orbital strike laser at them. Google has effectively chosen the latter with its handling of an issue reported by Terraria developer…
Choose My Adventure: Battleground PvP in Warhammer Return of Reckoning is unexpectedly fun - I was not anticipating this. I came to this week’s assignment with not an inconsiderable level of dread. My previous experiences in PvPing were coloring every expectation and causing my…
Rumor: EA is debating the future of the beleaguered Anthem Next - If you thought Anthem Next was in the clear following EA's Andrew Wilson telling investors that he was confident in BioWare in spite of the fact that multiple key devs…
Neverwinter’s Sharandar: The Iron Tooth has been delayed a week over the combat rework - Sharandar is not launching in Neverwinter today, I'm afraid. Last night, PWE announced that it's postponing the first leg of the PC version of the multi-part expansion one week, to…
Wisdom of Nym: Everything we now know about Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker - So, hey, the moon! That's a place we haven't been yet, isn't it? We've blown up a moon in Final Fantasy XIV (or had one blown up on us, same…
NCsoft Q4 2020: Aion Classic was a huge success, Guild Wars 2 improves on 2019 - NCsoft's Q4 2020 financials are up, and while it was a solid year for the company on the whole, some of its games have me a smidge nervous. The Korean games…
A new version of the long-sunsetted MMORPG Shadowbane has landed on Steam - Shadowbane has had one of the strangest journeys of an MMORPG over the past two decades. Originally launched in the early 2000s, the PvP-centric title spun down in 2009 as…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 308: FFXIV’s endings and beginnings
The Stream Team: A first look at Valheim’s vikings
The Stream Team: Will werewolves and vampires find peace in AQ3D’s Darkovia Chapter V?
The Stream Team: Drow, Driders, and other creepy crawlies in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Mini Mo Mania MOP birthday bash
The Stream Team: A Leap of Faith in Star Trek Online’s House Reborn
The Stream Team: The path to the dark side (of EverQuest II’s moon)
The Stream Team: The Tide Turns is the real finale of DDO’s pirate saga
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.
