BlizzConline wasn’t packed full of major surprises, thanks to educated guesswork and a devastating leak of all the WoW news the day before. But it was still a welcome February diversion, as we got confirmation of WoW Burning Crusade Classic and the Chains of Domination patch, plus details for Diablo Immortal, Diablo IV, and Diablo 2 Resurrected.
Meanwhile, the world went on in spite of Blizzard, as it always does: LOTRO gave a bold preview, we fell in love with Valheim, No Man’s Sky busted out with a huge pet update, Gamigo announced ArcheAge merges, we got the scoop on Crowfall’s Transformation, and Amazon delayed New World to August.
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
BlizzConline 2021: Opening ceremonies – WoW Chains of Domination, Burning Crusade Classic confirmed - Just because the world is shrouded in death doesn't mean that we have to give up our beloved conventions. I mean, it does mean that, but we can always adapt with…
BlizzConline 2021: WoW Classic and Chains of Domination panel recaps - Ain't no rest for the Blizzard fans today, as BlizzConline 2021 rolls on with relentless intensity. World of Warcraft has more to share beyond the opening keynote, and now we're getting…
BlizzConline 2021: Everything we learned at the World of Warcraft Q&A - Well, there's one way today's World of Warcraft's Q&A session is going to be different at BlizzConline 2021: There is absolutely zero chance that an audience member will be able…
BlizzConline 2021: Everything you need to know about Diablo II Resurrected, Diablo Immortal, and Diablo IV - This year at BlizzConline, Blizzard is looking to win disillusioned or bored Diablo players back through a multi-pronged approach. The studio isn't just putting all of its hell-eggs in one…
BlizzConline 2021: Overwatch 2 shows off New York City, visceral combat, and PvE content - "Patience" was the word of the day for the BlizzConline Overwatch 2 behind-the-scenes panel tonight at Blizzard's show, but that's to be expected for a game that is so unfinished…
LOTRO producer Q&A: Legendary item revamp, closed world transfers, difficulty sliders, and more - [AL:LOTRO]Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini joined the Friday Lord of the Rings Online livestream this week to do a seat-of-his-pants Q&A with fans who showed up to ask him everything that…
BlizzConline 2021: Hearthstone’s Forged in the Barrens and Mercenaries - Surprisingly, the single game with the most individual announcements at tonight's BlizzConline was Hearthstone. It's all bundled under what Blizzard is calling the Year of the Gryphon - here's what…
Bungie swells its studio size and seeks to expand the Destiny IP with ‘new stories and experiences’ - It would appear that things are going just swimmingly for Destiny 2 studio Bungie. In a recent press release, the company announced that it would be expanding its home office…
Amazon has delayed New World for at least the third time, now to August 2021 - Amazon has delayed New World yet again, clearing your spring and summer calendars for other MMOs. "We’ve been hard at work on compelling end-game features we believe are important to include…
Interview: Crowfall is ‘very close’ to launch, plus more details on 6.400 Transformation - This week has brought another massive update to Kickstarted MMORPG Crowfall: ArtCraft describes Update 6.400 aka Transformation as a "major balance pass of combat, attributes and loot across every world…
Massively Overthinking: Which MMORPG offers the best tutorial? - MMORPG developer Raph Koster recently put this neat article by experimental game developer Nicky Case on my radar. Case notes that common wisdom is that players learn by "doing," but…
Inside Star Citizen showcases the Orison landing zone and dirty ships - It's Friday, which means it's time for another episode of Star Citizen's weekly video series. In the first half of this week's episode, we get a closer look at the…
Gamigo is merging down ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained’s servers, and yes there will be new land rushes - ArcheAge's misery just compounds lately: Gamigo has announced that it's merging many of the gamers servers servers under the "server evolution" catchphrase. Across both the free-to-play ArcheAge and buy-to-play ArcheAge…
Chronicles of Elyria is releasing Kingdoms of Elyria as a standalone product for backers - In early 2020, Chronicles of Elyria stunned MMO gamers by announcing it was out of money, had laid off the devs, had closed Soulbound Studio, and had ended development on…
TitanReach addresses early access funding – and how it pays its staff - We have updated this piece with additional comments from the developer at the end. The original piece follows. If you are working on an MMO, you should be getting paid…
Vague Patch Notes: The challenge of the average MMO player - Pick an MMO, any MMO you know pretty well. Pick an MMO where you have a good sense of how much content there is in the game. Now, ask yourself…
World of Warcraft’s BlizzConline press kit leaks confirm patch 9.1 and Burning Crusade Classic - Well, that'd be a whoops from Blizzard: It turns out that World of Warcraft's press kits for the reveals at BlizzConline 2021 have been released now, and Wowhead is reporting…
Naoki Yoshida sees at least another five years of vitality in Final Fantasy XIV - The fourth major expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, Endwalker, is just around the corner (to the extent you can consider "planned for fall" to be just around the corner). Anyone who thinks…
Recapping Nintendo Direct’s Splatoon 3, Animal Crossing x Mario, Monster Hunter Rise, and more - Last night's Nintendo Direct was about much more than new Xenoblade characters! While I'm sure the single-player stuff has some people interested or curious (for you Mana fans), and the Animal Crossing: New Horizon…
The Daily Grind: What’s the most egregious grifting you’ve seen in the MMO sphere? - There was a time when World of Warcraft charging $25 for a sparkly pony was considered absurd fleecing of its playerbase. Times have certainly changed since then, and not just…
Black Desert is deleting accounts not transferred to Pearl Abyss by May 31 - [AL:BDO]If you haven't transferred your Black Desert account from Kakao to Pearl Abyss - perhaps because of the chaos last week - then you should definitely pencil it in. That's…
Why I Play: Final Fantasy XIV’s memorable Shadowbringer relic weapon grind - I have a love-hate relationship with Final Fantasy XIV. I actively fought against giving the game MMO of the year for 2020, and I hold the unpopular opinion that the best way…
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs to get you out of your gaming rut - We have all been there. You've been gaming in your standard comfort MMOs when one day you hit that wall of burnout. You feel like you've done all of this…
No Man’s Sky adds an in-depth pet system with the Companions update - Space can be a lonely place in No Man's Sky, but it doesn't need to be if you have a little pet friend helping you out on your journey. That's…
Neverwinter’s Sharandar: The Iron Tooth is live on PC today - [AL:NW]After a week's delay and a combat overhaul that set the playerbase ablaze, Perfect World has finally unleashed Neverwinter's next big thing: Sharandar. As we've previously noted, today's launch is…
Gamestonk’s gamified guerilla trading made losers of both the good and bad guys - It seems like a long time ago, but just a few weeks back, the mainstream news cycle was absolutely obsessed with Gamestop thanks to celebrity investors and retail stock-buyers on…
First impressions: Valheim early access is already one of the best co-op sandboxes in recent memory - Straight away, I'm going to admit that my favorable impressions of Valheim are wholly informed by the fact that I have the good fortune of playing on a server with…
Wisdom of Nym: What Final Fantasy XIV has lined up for patch 5.5 - Amidst all the news last week, the live letter for Final Fantasy XIV kind of got shoved off into the corner, didn't it? Partly because... well, there's not a whole…
Not So Massively: Torchlight III is less than the sum of its parts - Last summer in this very column, I argued that ARPGs are the pizza of gaming: Even when they're bad, they're still pretty good. The Torchlight games feel like the best…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 309: You can take my loot over my dead body
Battle Bards Episode 187: Sewers and swamps
The Stream Team: Facing Valheim’s first prey
The Stream Team: Facing Warframe’s Mastery Rank test
The Stream Team: AdventureQuest 3D’s Wolfwing Challenge
The Stream Team: Jungle traps in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: A Heckbug of a holiday in Trove
The Stream Team: Zeroing in on The Shroud in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Mounting a mount expedition in Guild Wars 2
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review, which has now been running over a decade! 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.
