Any other week, the news that Magic Legends is closing down and laying off the team before it launches, SWTOR is getting a Christmas expansion, and LOTRO has launched two new progression servers would’ve dominated the MMO new cycle, but this week, Guild Wars 2 delayed End of Dragons into next year, which rather took the spotlight. Better yet, the studio finally admitted who’s running the game after something like 600 days of bizarrely hiding it: a game director known to the public just as JT. And JT is bringing back some big names, including Josh Davis and Colin Johanson, the latter fresh off his gig with the now-defunct Crucible. So… that just got a lot more interesting!
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Magic Legends taps out: PWE and Cryptic are shutting it down before it even fully launched - Bad news for fans of Magic Legends: PWE and Cryptic announced this afternoon that they're sunsetting the game in October. Steve Ricossa broke the news to players on the official…
Guild Wars 2 delays End of Dragons to 2022, brings Colin Johanson and Josh Davis back - Huge news out of ArenaNet this Friday in both the good and bad variety. And because we know you want to get the bad out of the way, here's the…
SWTOR announces Legacy of the Sith expansion with new planet, PvE content, and combat styles - [AL:TOR]Star Wars The Old Republic fans, it's time to get excited, at least if you missed the leaks from early today, as during its preview stream today BioWare formally announced…
WoW Factor: Why Blizzard’s line about story beats is so frustrating - So the most recent roundup of interviews with World of Warcraft's staff deeply hurt me on a fundamental level. Like, this was the sort of hurting that doesn't go away;…
Casually Classic: Why WoW Classic progression should end after Wrath of the Lich King - Considering that we are just in the early months of Burning Crusade Classic, I think it might be both premature and presumptuous to be looking forward to a Wrath of…
The Magic Legends layoffs at Cryptic hit a lot more people than we thought - Following yesterday's awful news that PWE and Cryptic were canceling and sunsetting Magic Legends even before it had ever left beta or landed on console, we learned that at least…
Desert Oasis: The key takeaways from Black Desert’s Heidel Ball 2021 - It's been a busy two weeks for Black Desert Online. The past week saw another Arena of Arsha event, this time with trial characters. And while that was a blast to…
Saga of Lucimia rebrands as Embers Adrift, abandons Lucimia IP - Just a week ago, we checked in on Saga of Lucimia, the group-centric MMORPG that’s been in development since 2015; its most recent launch window was set for this year.…
LOTRO Legendarium: A tale of two progression servers - Truly, this is a momentous week in the history of Lord of the Rings Online, if for nothing else than the addition of two brand-new permanent servers for the game.…
Here’s what to expect from LOTRO’s new progression servers launching today at noon - Play LOTRO Now As promised, Standing Stone Games is launching two new progression servers for Lord of the Rings Online subscribers (yes, you have to sub VIP or have a…
Swords of Legends Online’s name reservation dissolves into chaos - On Friday, Swords of Legends Online opened the doors to its name reservations. And just like Jurassic Park's initial tour, this event dissolved into frustration, chaos, and a T. Rex…
LOTRO producer talks Gundabad, Brawler, and LI revamp in new stream - Lord of the Rings Online's new producer, Oleg "Raninia" Brodskiy, is helping SSG make big strides toward becoming more communicative and transparent ever since his hire. As part of that…
Camelot Unchained crafts bandits, the Hamadryad race, cliffs, and inclement weather - We're starting off July, meaning it's time for Camelot Unchained to share updates for work done this past June. In the game's latest dev report, we have details about bandits…
Blizzard announces next Hearthstone expansion, sells a WoW 6-month sub bundle in its summer sale - There's quite the little bundle of news updates coming out of Blizzard's games, so we've elected to tie them all together into a nice little package for you. Do you…
Surprise: WoW Classic is testing same-faction battlegrounds - Hearing the frustration of World of Warcraft Classic players unable to find timely battleground matches, Blizzard is doing the previously unthinkable: It's allowing the game to make same-faction PvP matches.…
Massively Overthinking: What’s your favorite MMO house of all time? - You folks know I love MMO housing systems, and in fact, we've been crowning the MMOs with the best housing systems for years. But what we don't talk about much…
PlanetSide 2 revamps NSO faction in what Daybreak calls its biggest update ever - Today is the day that the NSO faction of PlanetSide 2 gets its long-awaited revamping. PC players can now check out the _Integration update, which makes a whole slew of…
Vague Patch Notes: MMO players are a bad substitute for professional testers - Test servers are, let's face it, kind of a terrible idea that just keeps getting trotted out there in the MMO space. And the older I get and the more…
Palia’s latest investment round nets $30M as pre-alpha invites – all 200 of them – begin - Palia's reveal last month had the MMO and MMO-adjacent communities abuzz with delight over the cutesy simulation MMO, including ours. In our article on the upcoming game, we noted that…
New World unveils player housing system in goofy HGTV-esque video - Someone somewhere in Amazon Games greenlit the pitch of making a video series set in New World that follows an in-game couple going house hunting in a very HGTV-style way.…
The Daily Grind: What’s your most nitpicky criticism of an MMO you otherwise like? - As much as I do generally like Star Trek Online, there are problems with the game. Some of these are substantive problems, like how bad ground combat still feels. Others…
Ultima Online is streaming more New Legacy reveals this afternoon [Updated with summary] - Broadsword has been talking up Ultima Online's incoming New Legacy server since the game's 23rd birthday stream last fall. So far, we know that the server isn't just a fresh-start…
Perfect Ten: The types of players in every MMO - We have some fun here in Perfect Ten land dealing with lists. That's kind of the whole point. We've done columns about the races of every MMO, the classes, even…
Choose My Adventure: The long road to starting a Star Wars Galaxies crafting empire - Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will Wolfy Starflight Concern. The time I spent this week on the Legends rogue server of Star Wars Galaxies pretty much reaffirmed…
Co-op shooter Aliens Fireteam Elite announces an August 24 launch date, confirms lack of cross-platform play - Back in March, we finally got word that Cold Iron Studios' long promised Alien franchise MMOFPS is actually happening (after going through all the buyouts from the likes of Daybreak…
Black Desert’s Corsair is finally here to take all your booty - Avast ye landlubbers! Break out your sea legs and practice your best swashbucklin', because Black Desert's Corsair isn't going to go on a date with you until you can prove…
A new slew of World of Warcraft interviews touches on the future of Sylvanas and lack of story planning - Good news, World of Warcraft fans! If you thought you were going to be done with Sylvanas after the next patch arriving tomorrow, well... you won't be. Actually, you probably…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV settles in for the long summer progression nap - [AL:FFXIV]So, Final Fantasy XIV patch 5.57. Here's the nice thing about it: It convinced me to finish up with one of my more neglected relics because I realized I'd only…
VR MMO Zenith has delayed its alpha yet again, now to July 24 - It's another delay for the indie Zenith, the virtual reality MMO being developed by indie studio Ranmen VR. Zenith was scheduled to run its summer alpha starting July 10th but…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 328: SOLO? YOLO!
Battle Bards Episode 196: Project Gorgon
The Stream Team: Continually crashing into the Chronovore in Dauntless
The Stream Team: A licensed movie tie-in pirate’s life in Sea of Thieves
The Stream Team: On the hunt for Cocoons in Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis
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.
