It’s been a positively massive week for the MMO genre, with launches and betas left and right: WoW Classic rolled out the Burning Crusade pre-patch, Elite Dangerous launched Odyssey, Swords of Legends Online began its first beta, and we offered impressions of both Bless Unleashed PC and PSO2 New Genesis. Plus, we recapped Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga and Black Desert’s new foray into esports, then we capped off the week side-eyesing Blizzard once again.
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
New Blizzard analysis chronicles the studio’s five-year decline and developer exodus - The slow decline of Blizzard has been exhaustively covered over the last couple of years, but sometimes, it's more jolting to see it all in print in one place, which…
WoW Factor: Are Heroic dungeons the original sin of World of Warcraft’s current issues? - The launch of The Burning Crusade's pre-patch in WoW Classic has me thinking about the features that expansion brought to World of Warcraft. I know, really it ought to wait until the expansion…
First impressions: Even in beta, New Genesis is the quantum leap forward the aging Phantasy Star Online 2 needed - Now this… this is more like it. When I was last spending time with Phantasy Star Online 2, I found it to be a fun game that was mired in…
First impressions: Bless Unleashed’s PC beta is just enough of an improvement over the original Bless - I'm not going to say I've had a great deal of time with the recent PC beta test of Bless Unleashed -- that's why this is called "first impressions" and…
Desert Oasis: So Black Desert wants to be an esport now - Even though the San Francisco Giants threw away a 6-2 lead against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Saturday, the real highlight of my weekend was watching Black Desert's Arena of Arsha Best-in-Class…
Fleet Carriers can once again jump in Elite Dangerous Odyssey as Frontier boss David Braben apologizes for launch issues - David Braben, CEO and founder of Frontier Developments, would like to offer his apologies to the wider Elite: Dangerous playerbase for the ongoing rocky launch of the Odyssey expansion, which…
LOTRO gets a new producer, finally allows Anor transfers - Hey, you know what kind of slipped under the radar Lord of the Rings Online this week -- at least unless you were reading the forums? The MMO just got…
Here’s how Blizzard is changing Overwatch 2’s tanks, group size, and meta - So, did we learn anything useful from yesterday's Overwatch 2 stream from the newly minted team leads at Blizzard? We did indeed, though whether it makes you happy or not…
Star Citizen outlines the free flyable ship schedule for Invictus Launch Week, debuts the RSI Scorpius - It's Invictus Launch Week in Star Citizen, and since the event is ostensibly about the UEE Navy flexing its military might, it's also more directly about ships: ships to ogle…
No Man’s Sky’s most recent Expedition includes a claimable Normandy SR1 from Mass Effect - In the middle of May, No Man's Sky launched the Beachhead Expedition, which players will recall is part of the new multiplayer-focused Expeditions mode that was added to the survival…
Elite Dangerous Odyssey’s launch sees new player number highs, Fleet Carriers forced to park, and hotfix attempts - It's been a bumpy ride out in the world of Elite: Dangerous. Wednesday's launch of the Odyssey expansion on PC has seen a wide swath of events for the internet…
Massively Overthinking: How much should MMO subs be in 2021? - MMORPG blogger Wilhelm at The Ancient Gaming Noob has a fantastic piece up this month on the traditional $15 MMO subscription. He dips back into ancient history when the common…
Hands-on with Dauntless’ creative and punishing Behemoth and Hunting Grounds location - It's been a very long time since Dauntless has had a new radiant-aspected monster to slay. For the longest time, the element was tied to the Rezakiri, and then the…
Bethesda is shuttering its official forums and moving to Discord, Elder Scrolls Online’s forums will remain - Whether you like them for communication, commiseration, and news, or despise them because they almost never seem like happy places, the point stands that official game forums are something of…
Magic Legends’ May patch is live with the Pyromancer, and you can get it for free - Following the reveal of the Pyromancer class yesterday, Magic Legends is popping off with its big May patch today - just as this post goes live, in fact, so if…
Vague Patch Notes: The self-made shadowboxing of MMO feuds - There's no actual feud between the development teams behind World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. The two teams have congratulated one another on successful expansion launches. They've exchanged good-natured jokes on…
Final Fantasy XIV previews patch 5.55’s additions, players hold a vigil for Kentaro Miura - The upcoming patch 5.55 for Final Fantasy XIV is a smaller patch, but it does wrap up the main scenario quests ahead of Endwalker and gives players a new region to explore…
So Mythic Quest is a TV show about a fictional MMO studio – how well does it represent actual MMO issues? - As an avid MMO gamer and big fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I was extremely excited to watch Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet when it released last year. The…
Perfect Ten: Everything in MMOs that is pay-to-win - I have stated before that I have a complex relationship with the term "pay-to-win." On the one hand, it tends to refer to something that isn't actually winning but is…
Preloading for Swords of Legends Online’s first western beta has begun - If for some reason you're not all tuckered out from the absolute deluge of beta tests and launches we're having this May, then Swords of Legends Online would like to…
Elite Dangerous: Odyssey launches today on PC after an 11 hour-long maintenance - Today is the day that Commanders in Elite: Dangerous can climb out of their spaceships, stretch their space legs, and gain feeling in their space butts again. The Odyssey expansion…
WoW Classic’s Burning Crusade pre-patch was held hostage by player mail - If you were one of the many hoping to jump into the first minutes of the Burning Crusade Classic era of WoW Classic last night, undoubtedly you experienced a whole…
Which Star Wars Galaxies rogue server is for you? Here’s the best list we’ve seen - The MMORPG rogue server industry is booming lately, you might have noticed, particularly for much-loved MMOs that were sunset for dumb reasons in the first place - and that includes…
NCsoft Q1 2021: Overall revenues are down 30%, but Guild Wars 2 is perking up - NCsoft is not having the best couple of quarters. According to the company's first quarter 2021 report, its revenue has fallen 30% compared to this quarter last year, which was…
Casually Classic: Fondly looking back at World of Warcraft’s Burning Crusade beginner zones - Whenever discussion about Burning Crusade turns to which zones players like the best, it's almost always focused solely on the seven additional Outland regions (for the record, I'm a big…
World of Warcraft: Classic launches The Burning Crusade pre-patch today - Today's the day for WoW Classic players to start leveling their Blood Elves and Draenei because the game's pre-patch ahead of The Burning Crusade is going live today. That means the…
Flameseeker Chronicles: The disappointing second half of Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga - Welcome to part two of this overview of Guild Wars 2's The Icebrood Saga. Last time, I talked about how the first half of this Saga was largely about readjusting…
ZOS director says The Elder Scrolls Online will keep releasing content for as long as players stick around - [AL:ESO]What's the life expectancy of any MMORPG? Certainly there are games that have been around for decades, but those are edge cases at best. ZeniMax Online Studios director Matt Firor…
Ashes of Creation drops verbal NDA, triggering deluge of public tester feedback - Ashes of Creation may have delayed its Alpha One test until later this summer, but the upcoming MMO isn't surrendering its voice until then. In fact, Intrepid Studios lifted the…
Wisdom of Nym: Recapping the Endwalker reveals from Final Fantasy XIV’s Fan Festival - I ended the first night watching the Fan Festival a bit sad about how long it would be before Final Fantasy XIV's next expansion. I ended the second night a…
Working As Intended: Touring my new SWG Legends houses (and looking at Bespin deco!) - If you're a fan of MMORPG housing, Star Wars, Star Wars Galaxies specifically, or just chatter about MMOs, then this very self-indulgent Working As Intended video is for you. By…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 322: New World, old problems
Battle Bards Episode 193: Tribal jams
The Stream Team: Pushing deeper into the Underdark in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Hatching Guild Wars 2 griffon eggs
The Stream Team: Taking care of Star Trek Online’s Tholian Trouble
The Stream Team: Another Path of Exile Atlas run
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.
