I can count on one hand the number of prominent MMORPG studios that aren’t forthcoming with customers about who is actually in charge, and I’m afraid that’s a bad list to be on, as Dual Universe seems poised to find out: This past week, the game’s backers discovered that its founder had been relieved of his role as president of Novaquark, and unfortunately the belated studio announcement raised more questions than it answered.
Meanwhile, we discussed WoW Classic’s character boost, scoped out Path of Exile’s Ultimatum and POE2, journeyed to Eco, wished for Global Agenda 2, gaped at Dreamworld funding, and kept an eye on what business moves Daybreak and EG7 are up to.
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
Dual Universe has finally admitted JC Baillie is no longer running Novaquark, but it’s mum about who is - This piece has been updated at the end; the original is as follows. The Dual Universe community has been churning over the last couple of days following the news that…
WoW Factor: Why WoW Classic players are mad about the Burning Crusade character boost - I'm not going to lie to anyone here: When the World of Warcraft: Classic team first announced the idea that you could boost a character up to be ready to…
Casually Classic: Three things I’m anticipating (and three I’m dreading) for WoW’s Burning Crusade Classic - With the Burning Crusade Classic beta underway, it's hard not to be dwelling on the near future of WoW Classic. Everyone's maneuvering their accounts, leveling up characters, and mentally preparing…
Everything we know about Path of Exile’s Ultimatum league launching next week - [AL:POE]Now you've done it: Path of Exile in giving you an Ultimatum... and you'll probably like it! It's time again for the big reveal of POE's next big league, with…
Why I Play: Multiplayer sandbox Eco is so much more than just an ecology simulator - I’ve been struggling to come up with a succinct way to describe Eco. The game was recently the subject of a Whatever Happened To entry on this very site, an…
Wandering Wraeclast: Grinding Gear has finally taken the wraps off Path of Exile 2 - "Like clockwork": I wouldn't be surprised to see an icon of Grinding Gear Games and Path of Exile in the dictionary when you look up that idiom. You can count…
Hi-Rez’s trademark snafus suggest a Global Agenda sequel (again) (finally) - Oh, Global Agenda. This multiplayer MMO-lite seems destined to be one of those ghost games that not enough people remember - but those who do loved it. The last time…
Crowfall unveils a 10 event Hunger Dome PvP tournament, talks up new features in April ACE Q&A - We're still not quite sure when Crowfall will be making its official launch, but the fact that the game feels fit enough to showcase itself in a PvP tournament seems…
Rumor: EG7 and Daybreak might be prepping PlanetSide 2’s Rogue Planet for its own company - Daybreak corporate sleuth and TheoryForge crewmate @MSandersonD has uncovered another Daybreak gem: new corporate registrations for Daybreak-related companies. California and Delaware filings show that owners have been busy over the…
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster shares the secret of good social design in MMOs - Raph Koster, the game designer behind Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Playable Worlds' upcoming project, has posted yet another essay about MMORPG design, all meant as preamble for the…
The Game Archaeologist: Lifestorm, Japan’s first MMORPG - In comparison to how widely that China and Korea's game development studios embraced MMORPGs right from the beginning, Japan's been curiously low-key in creating for this genre. Oh, don't get…
Chronicles of Elyria, now back up to five devs, examines its development achievements and shortcomings - As work on Kingdoms of Elyria (and by extension Chronicles of Elyria, according to claims made by Soulbound Studio CEO Jeromy Walsh) continues to press forward, the latest dev blog…
Corepunk Q&A discusses the launch window, guilds, mounts, and more - If you're the type of person who respects short, direct, and to-the-point answers to specific questions, then you're going to like the first part of Corepunk's community Q&A session. Artificial…
Outriders offers players a care package to compensate for server outages and bugs - The launch for Outriders was messy because at this point it's just apparently de rigeur that every online launch is filled with connectivity issues and players angry about same. The developers…
World of Warships announces still more reworks to its controversial captain skills - Naval warfare arcade World of Warships has certainly been busy lately, but not all of the recent changes nor announcements have been well-received. The naval MMO is in an interesting…
Gamigo’s next big thing is a 4v4 MOBA hybrid called Skydome - Gamigo's parent company's last investor report promised "an increased number of game launches [...] on the roadmap for 2021," and now we know what at least one of them is:…
Massively Overthinking: Self-imposed ‘rules’ for MMOs - I have a couple of rules of thumb when it comes to MMOs. When I start thinking about watching a video while playing an MMO, it's boring enough to be…
Working As Intended: There is no good reason for MMO gamers to fund Dreamworld - Not quite a month ago, we covered the Kickstarter for a wildly ambitious MMORPG, Dreamworld. We were, uh, pretty skeptical about the game's chances. As we noted, the game's 2.5…
Vague Patch Notes: The myth of the days before MMO datamining - For those of you who don't know, this column was named after Final Fantasy XI. Specifically, it was named after the practice that particular game had for many years of making…
Cliff Bleszinski drops another new hint that he’s headed back into game dev (maybe) - Cliff Bleszinski, aka CliffyB, aka Dude Huge, has often made headlines for his shimmying in and out of game dev. Readers will recall back in 2018 that he claimed to…
No, Twitch’s move to investigate off-platform toxicity is not ‘novel’ for the industry - Twitch is changing its hateful conduct and harassment policy once again, this time to allow moderators to take into account problematic activity that occurs beyond the platform's hallowed halls. "We…
Desert Oasis: Black Desert’s Sage release demonstrates Pearl Abyss’ focus on the west - I'm not really a comics guy, but I still have my favorite superheroes. For me, it's Dr. Strange. Marvel's artifact wielding, spell-slinging, multiverse traversing sorcerer supreme checks all the marks…
Swords of Legends Online is a Chinese action MMORPG heading to the west this summer - Out of all of the MMORPGs we're waiting to come to our neck of the woods from Asian territories, this one is certainly a surprise. Say hello to Swords of…
Star Citizen promises that some ‘highly requested new features’ will be added to its roadmap this week - Are you ready to watch some new goalposts move around? Or are you ready for some new features to be iterated upon? There really are two ways one can look…
Diablo II Resurrected is beginning its technical alpha this week - Arguably the most interesting news to come outta BlizzConline earlier this year was confirmation that Diablo II is getting a fully remastered version dubbed Diablo II Resurrected. And soon, we'll…
MMO players are working on a Tabula Rasa rogue server, but it’s ‘a ways off’ from being fully playable - This past Saturday we asked our readers what MMOs they felt should have a rogue server of their own. A great number of people in both the comments and the…
Guild Wars 2’s Super Adventure Box, Doritos promo (?), and latest round of PvP tweaks are live - [AL:GW2]The best thing ever added to Guild Wars 2, the Super Adventure Box, has returned to the game with the Super Adventure Festival. Furbish up your jumping skills and get…
Choose My Adventure: Getting invested in RIFT’s Instant Adventures - So, before we begin, this is what happened with one of the polls: a dead-even split between doing Instant Adventures and following the breadcrumb trail. Thanos is pleased. But more…
Shadow’s Kiss plans a Steam early access launch this summer, ends test builds due to lack of patcher support - Talk about rising from the dead: Shadow's Kiss, the vampire-filled horror MMO that we last looked towards in a Whatever Happened To post in June 2020, has suddenly announced that…
New UK research finds opening lootboxes is ‘structurally and psychologically akin’ to gambling - The mountain of research-based evidence against lootboxes has had another leaflet added to the pile. A recent report from researchers at the universities of Plymouth and Wolverhampton in the UK…
Fight or Kite: For Honor is still the only viking vs. samurai vs. knight game for me - Many moons ago, in the simpler times of 2017, Ubisoft delivered a fantastical game that sought to bring a close to the question all historians have argued for centuries: Who…
Wisdom of Nym: Reacting to the latest Final Fantasy XIV live letter - The one down side to Square's most recent live letter was the simple reality that it didn't get to deliver on the tradition of revealing a date. Normally part of…
Daybreak’s owner Enad Global 7 acquires MMORPG publisher Innova for $109M - Enad Global 7 is once again in the news for us here at MOP with yet another buyout, this time regarding its February 25th acquisition of Russian publisher Innova to…
Massively Uplifting: Gamestonk, gorillas, and giving in MMOs - When it comes to feel-good stories in the general media, coming across a positive one about gaming seems harder than finding a four-leaf clover. Thankfully, you don't need the luck…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 316: Talkin’ trash with MMO Fallout
The Stream Team: Bring on a Valheim Bonemass boss beatdown
The Stream Team: Stepping into AQ3D’s Sandsea desert
The Stream Team: A clucking fabulous April Fowls day in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Bouncing around Trove’s Bunfest
The Stream Team: Returning to EverQuest II’s Reign of Shadows
The Stream Team: Fun for First Contact Day in Star Trek Online
The Stream Team: Birthday bashing and Blackwood prologue with Elder Scrolls 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.
