In this week’s show, Bree and Justin talk about the crushing news of Gamigo and BioWare’s cancelations, Dungeons and Dragons Online’s huge anniversary, Riot’s MMO hiring spree, Blizzard’s mobile Warcraft game, and how we can make MMOs “like they used to be.”
It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your question to the show, use this link or call in to our voicemail at (734) 221-3973.
Listen to the show right now:
Show notes:
- Intro
- Adventures in MMOs: LOTRO, WoW Classic, Elder Scrolls Online, City of Heroes
- News: BioWare halts development on Anthem
- News: Gamigo cancels Twin Saga, Eden Eternal, Defiance, and Defiance 2050
- News: Dungeons and Dragons Online’s 15th anniversary, mini-expansion, and mysterious teaser
- News: Black Desert is under Pearl Abyss’ control and is free for a time
- News: Riot Games puts out a weird hiring call for its MMORPG
- News: Is Blizzard making a mobile Warcraft game?
- Mailbag: Week in Review subscription
- Mailbag: Valheim and limited-size servers
- Mailbag: Making MMOs like they used to be
- Outro
Other info:
- Download Episode 311
- Podcast theme: “Ninety-Niners” from Defiance
- Your show hosts: Justin and Bree
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As a fairly laissez-faire reader of the show (that has never once even considered dropping their patreon to the site) I would probably pop by a little more with one of those “hey come read some stuff” emails Bree… Just saying
I know I’m comparable to one of those players so rarely online you hover over the “remove from guild” button but still it might help if engagement with posts is something you want to see more of
“That’s every sci-fi show for the past ten years”
After hearing about gamigo’s sunsets here, as well as LazyPeon’s recent video on the game, I decided to log into Rift again just because I could. One thing that stuck out was that the last expansion appears to be four years ago, Crucia’s Claw. That’s a helluva long time without a new expac. Also, there’s a Battle Pass as well as a patron pass now. The rogue soul Tactician was really interesting and unique class – half support, half aoe dps….and half healer.
Didn’t see any news about updates or future of Rift, unlike ArcheAge’s fresh start (but not sure that counts). Their news feed is a long slew of holiday events, offers, and shop announcements. On their forums, five days ago a CM responded to a thread asking for news after Defiance’s shutdown and said they’re passing on customer concerns to the team. What the heck’s going on with Rift? Truly a strange game in 2021.
Think the innovation for the MMORPG will be non instanced persistent virtual worlds its the non instanced part that I thunk is missing now a days.
I look to litrpg and one of the reasons I love them is its the virtual world and then also its not here queue up do something for 20 minutes with 4 to 8 people and repeat when it gets to point where you have more open world dungeons thst are not in their own box ala old UO in a modern game is when infeel you will start to get back on the true feel.pf an mmo again.
The big hurdle for this I feel is tech.
Totally agree, I think the MMO genre will kick-off again once tech can enable virtual worlds without a monumental development effort. Think of the millions of labor hours that goes into software development these days across the globe. Or the crazy expensive effort it takes to create a full-scale MMO. If tech can make this process quicker or more efficient, that would create tons of savings across the industry. That ambitious virtual world would no longer be too costly to develop. The Crowfalls and Camelot Unchaineds would have already been released (probably), iterated on, and coming back for a sequel.
Haven’t finish the episode, but I did want to let Bree know she got me to play Farm Together and I’ve been playing it a loooooot. Very addicted to it. Haha.
Really love building in it. Making a whole little village. Haha.
Baha, one of us! One of us! Yeah, I was genuinely surprised at how cute it is – stuff like FarmVille had put me off to even looking at stuff like this for so long. It should’ve gotten more attention than it did. I have a feeling the devs are planning a sequel – I guess they’ve said they aren’t doing more DLC, and they are working on a different game entirely right now, but they keep teasing that they’ll be back to this franchise eventually.
Edit: I LOVE your village by the way. I wish I had not gotten obsessed with using all my gems to expand my farm and just focused on building instead. Maybe I should because I definitely felt burnout on Monday when I realized I had been planting chard and barley for like an hour and was not loving that part. :D
If you build a castle, you’ll need another golden yacht just to sail around the mote.
But it’s a shame that both versions of Defiance had to die, I would have thought it was worth at least shutting down the original and seeing if any consolidation even slight onto the one game would cover maintenance mode costs.
GRRM was not allowed to build his castle either – shot down by the area’s review board. -they prob do not want him do get distracted too…. like many of us.
I thought they let him build it except for the really high tower with the elevator? It did not surprise us one bit (we lived in NM a long time, and Santa Fe is… A Whole Thing.) :D
Really threw me with “mote”. I was trying to visualize sailing a yacht around a tiny piece of substance. Lol Then realized you probably meant a moat.
On Valheim: Not only is it not MMO, I doubt MMO’s could take much from the game. It’s not open-ended. Five biomes, five bosses, and you ascend to Valhalla. You could have patches and expansions, but the basic game has an end goal, unlike an MMO.
I can’t imagine a terraormable world scaling well at all beyond a small, cooperative group. It makes for a great frontier, but once you get hundreds or more people leaving their dig marks all over you’d either wind up with a barren hellscape or some sort of HOA with attendant rules and restrictions.
Valheim serves a niche for those of us who don’t need the massive market or feeling of being lost in a crowd, and I’m pretty happy about that. Us virtual-worlders have always been an annoying minority in a niche we probably didn’t belong in.
I want dresses for males in CoH :C
Also, i think that fits with GW2: You log for an hour, you do stuff, and you logout. I really wish the game would hook me more.