MMO Week in Review: Cantha now

You can put aside your “Cantha when” memes as End of Dragons launched for Guild Wars 2 players this very week, sending gamers back into a region that’s familiar but very much a new destination.

Meanwhile, Activision-Blizzard is still awful, SOLO went free-to-play, and multiple MMO companies voiced support for Ukraine in the form of cold hard cash.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Flameseeker Chronicles: Spoiler-free first impressions of Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons - Remember when "Cantha confirmed" was a Guild Wars 2 meme? I, along with many other players, never thought we'd actually see Cantha in the sequel. And yet, End of Dragons…

Flameseeker Chronicles: What to do first in Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons - Happy launch day! Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons is finally here! A big, meaty chunk of content the likes of which we haven't seen since 2017. Guild Wars 2…

Guild Wars 2’s End of Dragons is officially live today – check out the new trailer! - [AL:GW2]It's official: As of noon EST, Guild Wars 2's End of Dragons expansion is finally live, sending players back into Cantha 16 years after the region was first introduced in…

Activision-Blizzard cuts sales to Russia, pledges support for Ukraine - Activision-Blizzard is the latest gaming company to cut ties with Russia in the wake of the country's recent invasion into Ukraine. "Today, we are announcing that Activision-Blizzard will be suspending…

Not So Massively: Lost Ark is junk food gaming (in a good way) - Having originally played the alpha and the beta, I thought my plan for Lost Ark would be to play other things for the first few weeks and return once the…

Family of Activision-Blizzard employee allegedly harassed into suicide filed a wrongful death suit - If Activision-Blizzard was hoping that recent world events would be taking all of the pressure of the company's ongoing scandal and fallout, then such a notion was disabused this past…

SWTOR admits that Legacy of the Sith ‘was not a smooth transition’ - For the first time since Legacy of the Sith's release, BioWare is speaking out about some -- but not all -- of the problems caused by SWTOR's controversial expansion release…

Square Enix’s looter shooter Babylon’s Fall launched, but nobody showed up to play - Usually, a new Square Enix game launch is a hefty event -- usually, but not always. In the case of Babylon's Fall, this release is proving that just because you…

Swords of Legends Online’s Firestone Legacy and F2P switchover are live as SOLO launches in Russia - After only a slight delay, Swords of Legends Online has finally pushed out its 2.0 patch, The Firestone Legacy, along with the free-to-play conversion of the game. If it seems…

MMO Cartographer: Exploring ‘tiny MMO’ Book of Travels - On its website, Might and Delight describes Book of Travels as a "Tiny Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game," but that is an inadequate description of this quirky little early access title. I…

Lost Ark bans over a million bot accounts, reaffirms there’s ‘more work to be done’ on the matter - After a certain figure, a banwave turns into a ban tsunami: Amazon Games has put out a missive to players regarding bot accounts operating in Lost Ark, where it shared…

World of Warcraft reveals Anduin’s ultimate fate in a new raid cinematic - All right. If you need to be told this from the header, this post and this cinematic is into El Spoilero territory. These are spoilers right here. The ultimate fate…

Mortal Online removed two alternate continents in favor of increasing server capacity - You might have noticed that the angry chanting surrounding Mortal Online 2's long queues and server woes has died down since launch, though we're not entirely sure studio StarVault is…

WoW Factor: Beyond the Spires, a speculative WoW expansion exercise - Let's get something weird going here for the last of these speculative exercises. I could keep doing this for a while now, if we're being honest, but I'm going to stop…

Lost Ark’s T1 and T2 content nerf is now live as Amazon sees T3 as the real endgame - If you were still unsettled by the mild controversy over Lost Ark's planned dungeon difficulty balancing update, well, continue being unsettled, as those changes are live as of last night…

Massively Overthinking: Initial thoughts on Guild Wars 2’s End of Dragons - We're just a few days into the launch of Guild Wars 2's End of Dragons, one of the highlights of the year and sandwiched between expansions and updates from several…

Breaking down Tencent’s extensive holdings across the video game industry - Riot Games, Epic Games, Netmarble, and Kakao. What do these companies have in common? If you said that they're all companies we talk about here on Massively Overpowered, you'd be…

Lord of the Rings Online’s Shadowfax server moves into Rohan - Lord of the Rings Online's super-speedy server is now riding, not walking, toward Mordor. That's because Shadowfax has now unlocked the horse-crazy expanse of Rohan, allowing progression-boosted players a speedy…

Vague Patch Notes: So why do MMO developers gender lock? - Last week's Vague Patch Notes on MMO lore and its impact on design decisions produced a lot of good comments along with a smattering of bad comments, as is usually…

Ukraine implores game companies to block Russian esports participation - "Who had 'writing games industry roundups at the barest edge of a third world war' on their bingo card?" MOP's Chris marveled this morning, but here we are doing just…

Star Trek: Picard uses four Star Trek Online ships in its second season premiere - The second season of Star Trek: Picard kicked off this week, and astute MMORPG players might notice one welcome addition to the 25th century -- a few ships ripped straight…

Embers Adrift drops its NDA as it heads to backer beta today - As promised, Embers Adrift's beta is live as of today for preorder players, concurrent with the removal of the NDA. "Stormhaven Studios is excited to announce that Embers Adrift will…

Final Fantasy XIV previews its next patch on March 4 - Can you believe it's been about three months since Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker arrived? Because it has been. That means it's time to start talking about what's coming with patch 6.1…

Black Desert marks two years of console cross-play as players are married in-game and real life - We've got yet another giant pile of news coming out of every version of Black Desert, so whether you hit WASD, a thumbstick, or buttons on a mobile device to…

Elyon updates its battle pass and balances classes, announces end of Spanish localization support April 6 - Elyon is still online and operating, and is still getting some updates of note. Last week saw new rewards to the 1v1 arena and an update to the battle pass…

Albion Online’s controller beta is live today along with Steam Deck functionality - Happy Albion Online patch day to everyone hungry to play with a controller! In conjunction with the launch of Season 15 today, controller support has arrived in the isometric sandbox…

Choose My Adventure: Experiencing Zenith’s Blademaster and the overall sensation of VR MMO gaming - So, the Blademaster's way more fun. Rolling a new character in Zenith ended up being a great decision all in all because the Blademaster class is far more engaging to…

MGI Q4 2021: Gamigo’s parent company guns for mobile, takes over Wizard101 EU publishing, ignores RIFT - Gamigo's parent company, Media and Games Invest SE aka MGI, released its Q4 2021 financials to investors this week, reporting a 65% revenue bump for the quarter compared to Q4…

Aliens, events, and The Pitt: MassivelyOP interview with Fallout 76’s Mark Tucker - Four years into the wasteland, and Fallout 76 isn't slowing down one bit. With Bethesda committing to several updates over the course of 2022, there is certainly a lot to…

Neverwinter parent company donates $2M in aid to Ukraine, IGDA calls on industry to condemn invasion - Since last week, we've been covering the game industry's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as game studios and esports teams divert launches, raise funding for humanitarian aid, and even…

Wargaming pledges aid to Ukrainian Red Cross, sacks pro-invasion developer - Politics can be a touchy subject, especially for a global company whose customers represent many diverse viewpoints. However, neutrality on the current state of world affairs can be even more…

Massively on the Go: The 2022 Johto Tour shows Pokemon Go progress, even if Niantic struggles learning from mistakes - As with last year's Kanto tour, early reports of Pokemon Go’s recent Johto Tour talk a lot about low shiny rates, players feeling overwhelmed, the event feeling too packed for…

Shroud of the Avatar boss claims confusion over SeedInvest: ‘I’ve done the part that I’m contractually obligated to do’ - The waters surrounding Shroud of the Avatar continue to get muddier after a letter to investors of the game from equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest was vaguely discussed by Catnip Games'…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 362: Eternal Winter, Eternity’s End, End of Dragons

Battle Bards Episode 210: Warframe

The Stream Team: Taking on the dazzling new monster fight in Dauntless

The Stream Team: A Rend revival

The Stream Team: Explosive Friday night fun in AdventureQuest 3D

The Stream Team: Black Desert Online is still beautiful as it ages

The Stream Team: Celebrating Dungeons & Dragons Online’s sweet sixteenth

The Stream Team: Exorcising SWTOR’s The Spirit of Vengeance

The Stream Team: The beginning of Guild Wars 2’s End of Dragons

The Stream Team: Facing Warframe’s Jackal

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.