I always joke that we’re not an uptime monitor, but it sure seemed as if we had to be in October as we chronicled New World’s first month online – and its long queues, its issues getting server transfers online, and its many, many, many complaints, bugs, drama, and exploits.
Meanwhile, Blizzard continued its parade of self-owns and terrible news as additional lawsuits mounted and were derailed; the studio continued cleaning up problematic content in its games, absorbed Vicarious Visions, canceled BlizzCon, and saw Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick give up his exorbitant paycheck ahead of the Q3 investor report.
In far happier news, October saw the launch of Elyon and early access launch of Book of Travels, neither of which lit the world on fire, though our writers had nice things to say about both. We also covered Star Citizen’s big annual event, Fallen Earth was officially revived in Classic format, and we got a smorgasbord of Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker news.
Read on for the whole recap from October of this past year.
TOP NEWS STORIES OF OCTOBER 2021
New World, Day 4: New servers, long queues, transfers next week, and Jeff Bezos weighs in
Raph Koster says nobody wants a metaverse with ‘Fairyland butting up against World War II’
Interview: Cryptic untangles Neverwinter’s new battle pass experiment
Here’s Blizzard’s rationale for changing some of World of Warcraft’s emotes, art, and names
Elder Scrolls Online’s Deadlands DLC launches November 1 on PC, hits 19M players
New World stops people from rolling on full servers, posts capacity list, and hits 800K concurrent
MMO Week in Review: New World reaches 913K concurrent players and queuers
New World is finally implementing detection for ‘bad-faith AFK players’
China adds new rules against games with ‘effeminate males’ and ‘blurred moral boundaries’
MechWarrior Online restores trans-focused team names after uproar over name changes and suspensions
Twitch suffers massive data breach as a hacker gets away with source code and streamer payout details
Guild Wars 2 teases End of Dragons’ lush Shing Jea zone in new trailer
WoW Classic begins testing fresh start servers as Blizzard yanks iffy joke and flirt soundbites
Guild Wars 2’s PvP community is aflame over win-trading [Update: ANet banned 83 perps]
New World Day 11: EAC errors, burnout, mass-reporting, and PvP imbalance
California’s DFEH files an objection to the settlement between Activision-Blizzard and the EEOC
Another War Thunder player leaked classified military documents to win a forum argument
New World delays server transfers to fix ‘edge case’ problems – here’s how they’ll work
Elder Scrolls Online’s creative director says New World’s success will ‘shake things up’ and ‘get the creative juices flowing’
Diablo II Resurrected is still suffering from major outages several weeks after launch
Kickstarted tiny MMO Book of Travels has officially launched into early access
Two government agencies are now squabbling over ethics allegations in Activision-Blizzard cases
EverQuest’s 28th expansion, Terror of Luclin, is open for preorders, and it looks epic
World of Warcraft tweaks another NPC name and more dialogue to reduce transphobia, racism, and sexism
Former UK Star Citizen player outlines the steps he took to get a refund from CIG
Embers Adrift just opened $50 preorders with access to this weekend’s alpha and beyond
Valve appears to be banning titles with NFT and crypto trading from Steam
Lord of the Rings Online’s revamped legendary item system is a hot mess
New World delays server transfers again to avoid disrupting weekend play
Paladins art director responds to anti-anthro character skin petition by making another anthro skin called Salt
Star Citizen financial report outlines over £1M in paid dividends to investors as of last year
World of Warcraft continues to clean up its act with surgical replacements to characters and quests
As Steam heads off blockchain games, the Epic Games Store welcomes them
World of Warcraft players grumble over Blizzard leader’s participation in boosting culture
New World’s server transfers finally begin tomorrow if initial tests go well
Activision-Blizzard requests venue change and pause in DFEH lawsuit, says it’s fired 20 people for misconduct
Krafton’s Elyon officially launches in the west today, F2P under Kakao’s banners
New World’s faction PvP is rife with guild drama over ‘throwing’
New World halts transfers, warns gold dupe exploiters as players call for a rollback
Path of Exile’s Scourge expansion is officially launching this afternoon
Overwatch’s McCree becomes Cole Cassidy on October 26
Legends of Aria announces ‘Aria 2.0’ successor with a new game engine
LOTRO Legendarium: Maximizing your character’s first 20 levels in Lord of the Rings Online
Epic Games retracts a policy that granted extra days off to employees
What we learned from Guild Wars 2’s Specter, Untamed, and Mechanist elite specs stream
Path of Exile’s Scourge launch sees concurrency numbers near its all-time highest point
Fallen Earth Classic is definitely happening, soon, and it’ll be free-to-play to boot
Ubisoft devs continue to report harassment and mismanagement in spite of corporate claims
Blizzard has now fully canceled BlizzConline, originally slated for early 2022
Everything people are grumpy about in New World, one month in
The Division 2 pushes back its next content update to February 2022 for quality control purposes
World of Warcraft quietly removed all of its Torghast 9.0 questline with patch 9.1.0
Activision-Blizzard partly meets some worker demands, dramatically cuts Bobby Kotick’s compensation
Blizzard fully assimilates Diablo II: Resurrected’s Vicarious Visions
Fallen Earth’s servers are finally back online after two years – Fallen Earth Classic is live
Diablo Immortal launches closed beta today as Blizzard’s pre-investor call infodump continues
Halloween fun across the MMORPG genre, 2021 edition
World of Warcraft, lacking any sense of shame, releases a new cash shop mount
New World is suffering from yet another exploit, this one revolving around malicious chat code
FAVORITE EDITORIALS OF OCTOBER 2021
Working As Intended: Brute-forcing the MMO industry
WoW Factor: The disjointed state of World of Warcraft
LOTRO Legendarium: Fate of Gundabad is shaping up to be the full expansion that LOTRO needs
Fight or Kite: Guild Wars 2’s Bladesworn, Catalyst, and Vindicator walk into an arena…
Wisdom of Nym: Bespoke rotations in Final Fantasy XIV as both a positive and a negative
Choose My Adventure: It’s bear time in Lord of the Rings Online
Perfect Ten: A sampler of crowdfunded MMOs and how they’re doing
Vague Patch Notes: Anonymity is not why people are awful online
Massively Overthinking: How long are you willing to wait in an MMO queue?
WoW Factor: What the Season of Mastery says about WoW Classic
The Game Archaeologist: Kingdom of Loathing
Stick and Rudder: Recapping everything Star Citizen showed at the latest CitizenCon
Vitae Aeternum: New World lacks customization, but that can be fixed
Wisdom of Nym: More speculation about future Final Fantasy XIV jobs
Vitae Aeternum: New World excels and entertains despite uninspired gameplay design
Complete coverage of the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the melee DPS jobs
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the healing jobs
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the magical DPS jobs
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the tank jobs
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the ranged physical DPS jobs
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing the Tower of Zot
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: Previewing three of the new zones
Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker media tour: An interview with Naoki Yoshida
Vitae Aeternum: New World through the eyes of an Elder Scrolls Online and EVE Online player
Vague Patch Notes: All MMO play and no work makes Jack a dull boy
Tamriel Infinium: Looking back at Elder Scrolls Online’s Morrowind
Massively on the Go: Dealing with virtual harassment and stalking in MMOARGs
Massively Overthinking: What’s the most painful or memorable bug you ever experienced in an MMO?
The Daily Grind: Are MMOs suffering from shrinkflation?
WoW Factor: So when will we get the next World of Warcraft expansion announcement?
Perfect Ten: Strategies for juggling multiple MMOs
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s latest interview is light on answers and heavy on spin
LOTRO Legendarium: Embracing the journey that is Lord of the Rings Online
Vitae Aeternum: Did New World’s morph to full MMORPG hamstring its PvP?
Wisdom of Nym: Final thoughts in the wake of the Final Fantasy XIV media tour
Choose My Adventure: Lord of the Rings Online might have been a bad choice for this column
First Impressions: Book of Travels offers a beautiful yet baffling stroll
Perfect Ten: A completely accurate 10-point summary of MMO history
The Daily Grind: Is New World’s economy already in trouble?
Into the Super-Verse: Has Homecoming torched the plans of City of Heroes successors?
Massively Overthinking: Should MMOs have endings – or at least end points?
WoW Factor: Why World of Warcraft’s Torghast didn’t work
Lawful Neutral: Managing toxicity in the MMO industry
LOTRO Legendarium: Maximizing your character’s first 20 levels in Lord of the Rings Online
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers (not) in review
Choose My Adventure: LOTRO’s fall festival rekindled my love for all things Tolkien
The Game Archaeologist: SEGA’s Dragon’s Dream, the first console and cross-platform MMO
Perfect Ten: Ten MMORPGs you’ve already forgotten about
Flameseeker Chronicles: Hands-on with Guild Wars 2’s Specter, Untamed, and Mechanist
WoW Factor: BlizzCon is BlizzGone, so what’s next for WoW?
Massively on the Go: Initial impressions of Pikmin Bloom, now live in the US
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMORPGs of all time, 2021 edition
Vague Patch Notes: The fuzzy reality of MMO expansions
First Impressions: Elyon continues to blend in with the MMORPG gaming furniture
LOTRO Legendarium: Six ways to renew your love of Lord of the Rings Online
Massively on the Go: A guide to staying safe in MMOARG Pikmin Bloom
ALL 2021 YEAR-IN-REVIEW POSTS SO FAR
MMO Year in Review: At least it wasn’t 2020? (January 2021)
MMO Year in Review: The first and only BlizzConline (February 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Magic Legends begins (March 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO is over (April 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Odyssey and a billion betas (May 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Blackwood, New Genesis, and Burning Crusade (June 2021)
MMO Year in Review: The Blizzard lawsuit (July 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Bless redux (August 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Old genre, New World (September 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Elyon, Book of Travels, and Queue World (October 2021)
MMO Year in Review: The Marvel MMO, $400M, and Blizzard’s decline (November 2021)
MMO Year in Review: Endwalker, Cryptic, and Crowfall (December 2021)
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