Finally: The World of Warcraft expansion we expected announced last fall will now be announced in April, Blizzard confirmed this week, setting the speculation mill grinding.
Meanwhile, Elite Dangerous ended console development, Lost Ark’s latest patch saw grumbling and concurrency dips, Babylon’s Fall fell flat, Guild Wars 2 backed down on the Jade Sea meta, EVE Online’s monetization ticked off its playerbase, and we took a look back into Classic The Secret World.
And of course, game studios continued backing out of Russia and lending aid to Ukraine following Russian’s invasion.
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
World of Warcraft promises to reveal its next expansion on April 19 - Fans of World of Warcraft have likely been more than a little anxious for news about what the game's next expansion will be, as well as reasons to hope that it's…
Elite Dangerous has fully canceled console development to prioritize PC - We're sorry to report this morning that Frontier has just announced that it will be canceling console development of Elite Dangerous, essentially sending the console version of the game into…
Guild Wars 2 addresses Jade Sea meta mechanics and siege turtle acquisition - If you caught our piece about problematic expansion choices or listened to our End of Dragons-centric podcast this week, you already know about the controversy that had engulfed the Guild…
WoW Factor: World of Warcraft’s next expansion needs to restore faith in the game - It's the next World of Warcraft expansion! Except it isn't. But it's the announcement of the date on which that will be announced! In a month. I've seen a lot of…
Choose My Adventure: The Secret World proves to be a familiar yet lonesome place - It has been a very long time, old friend. Yet still, here you are, simply existing. Nesting in silence. Disassociated, forgotten, but still just like you were left and just…
EVE Online player reps to CCP on the mining barge fiasco: ‘Please stop this sale and don’t do it again’ - Yesterday, we covered CCP Games' controversial implementation of a pay-to-win Prospector Pack in EVE Online. The $24.99 bundle includes a "ready-to-fly" mining barge that players pointed out is a monetization…
Fight or Kite: Lost Ark’s PvP is a well-designed experience for Lost Ark players - Lost Ark was a game that may as well have been vaporware for so many years. It plays basically like a Diablo game, although as someone who didn’t play a…
EVE Online players are fuming over the new pay-to-win mining barge - Pearl Abyss-owned CCP Games has once again dropped a hive of live bees into the lap of the already-irritated EVE Online community, this time with the release of the $24.99…
Lost Ark’s Hunt for the Guardian Slayer patch is live as Amazon addresses genderlocking and armor - It's a stag party over in Lost Ark today, and by that we mean the Argos abyss raid has officially launched with the rest of the Hunt for the Guardian…
Vague Patch Notes: Bro, do you even play your MMO? - So Guild Wars 2 had some problems with the process to unlock its siege turtle mount. As launched, it required players to take part in a supremely challenging large-scale event that…
Lost Ark addresses gold sellers, matchmaking problems, and Central Europe queues - While Lost Ark is still a rip-roaring success for Amazon in terms of player numbers (especially when compared to its other game), there are still some ongoing issues that the…
Star Wars: The Old Republic promises flashpoint and weekly mission improvements in the near future - Star Wars: The Old Republic caused a great amount of design upheaval with last month's launch of Legacy of the Sith -- and BioWare isn't close to being finished with…
The Game Archaeologist: Dark Zion, the brainchild of Tad Williams and Ultima Online devs - It has almost become a running joke in MMO circles that pretty much every new studio and new title these days was founded by "ex-Blizzard employees." Certainly, the class of…
Webzen’s SUN Classic is live, and it’s already a hot mess - Would you like to play a classic MMORPG but can't be fussed to experience things like chat, using AoE skills, or even being able to log in to the game…
Jukebox Heroes: Six great remastered EverQuest tunes - Apropos of nothing, today I wanted to dive into my extensive backlog of unlistened MMORPG music and make a bit of a dent. One of my biggest folders of undiscovered…
Victorian survivalbox Nightingale tantalizes with nightmarish concept art - The upcoming Victorian survival sandbox Nightingale has been on a concept art posting spree as of late -- and if these images are any indication, then the realms that players…
The Daily Grind: Is Lost Ark an MMO, MMORPG, or neither? - Longtime MMO and MMORPG players have probably noticed that we do our best to flag games as MMORPG or as merely multiplayer - "not so massively" - and have been…
Massively Overthinking: How do alts fit into MMORPGs in 2022? - Last weekend, my play group took a second batch of Guild Wars 2 alts to Cantha, and we found ourselves a bit grumbly about having to repeat some of the…
Sea of Thieves Season Six goes live with claimable sea forts, gameplay tweaks, and the end of the Arena - Yesterday saw Sea of Thieves preview the coming attractions for the multiplayer sandbox's Season Six update, and today marks its full release along with the complete release notes. Of particular…
Overwatch 2 opens signups for its spring beta round - Multiple company scandals, falling player counts, and the loss of several team leads won't be stopping Overwatch 2: Blizzard announced today that it's beginning closed alpha for the expanshasequel. "Closed…
Dutch court says EA lockboxes didn’t violate region’s gambling law, reels back €10M fine from 2019 - It's been some time since the furor over lockboxes and international gambling laws came to light, so let's review: Gambling authorities from the Netherlands and Belgium were doggedly pursuing lockbox…
Destiny 2’s Bungie halts sales to Russia, Gamigo begins Ukraine charity initiative in multiple MMOs - As Russia's devastating invasion of Ukraine continues, the gaming industry is continuing to make its voice heard as it opposes the harm inflicted on the Ukrainian people. Destiny 2 studio…
Black Desert’s Eternal Winter expansion launches April 6 with pre-orders live today - A frigid new zone in Black Desert has been awaiting the arrival of PC players since it was revealed earlier this year, and now entry into the Mountain of Eternal…
Three Activision-Blizzard shareholders are under investigation for possible insider trading - Gosh, amidst all of the other scandals rocking Activision-Blizzard, you know what we haven't gotten? A good old insider trading scandal! Maybe in all of the horrid behavior around this…
Perfect Ten: Favorite NPCs from my favorite MMOs - In a recent episode of the Massively OP Podcast, we had a terrific question winged our way asking about our personal favorite NPCs from MMOs. It's the kind of topic…
Interview: Talking Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons’ soundtrack with lead composer Maclaine Diemer - Maclaine Diemer is the long-time lead composer for Guild Wars 2, with soundtrack credits going as far back as the very first Living World season, and most recently for the…
LOTRO opens Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra T3 this week, plus check out this amazing player-made map - [AL:LOTRO]Lord of the Rings Online is unleashing its 32.0.3 patch today, and while that's perhaps not the most exciting name, there's still some good stuff in it - namely, the…
Warhammer Online rogue server Return of Reckoning unleashes Land of the Dead remake and Twitch drops tomorrow - Warhammer Online fans, your home of the last few years has some a big March in store for you! Rogue server Return of Reckoning is launching a massive update tomorrowday…
Lightforge Games raises $15 million in funding for development of a social RPG project - So what is Lightforge Games actually building right now? The answer is that we don't actually know, but we do know that the company has raised another $15 million to do…
First Impressions: Babylon’s Fall is an unpolished and underwhelming collection of almost good ideas - I'll be perfectly honest: Babylon's Fall was almost never on my radar. A packed few weeks of MMO and multiplayer releases pretty much saw the game get shoved away in…
Blizzard’s new diversity lead assures fans of progress on inclusion, worker safety, and accountability - With today being International Women's Day, Blizzard saw fit to grant a spotlight to one of its top women, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) and Development Lead Makaiya Brown, who…
Lost Ark celebrates 20M global players as concurrency dips and roadmap sees delay - You might be eyeing Lost Ark's Steam population with trepidation, but Amazon and Smilegate are looking at bigger numbers, quite literally: Last night, the companies announced that the game has…
Wisdom of Nym: Everything we know (so far) about Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 6.1 - Here we are with our first live letter for the start of a new patch cycle in the bag! Are you excited? I'm excited. Admittedly perhaps a bit less excited…
Guild Wars 2 dev confirms that End of Dragons does not mean the end of story content - It's perhaps a somewhat reasonable assumption that an expansion called End of Dragons would maybe mean that Guild Wars 2 is going to stop telling stories. Of course, the more…
EA and Microsoft announce end of sales to Russia, Hi-Rez reroutes Russian profits to Ukrainian aid - Three more major games publishers are joining the ever-growing list of names cutting off Russia from the world over its naked war against Ukraine. Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Hi-Rez Studios…
LOTRO Legendarium: Why people bounce off Lord of the Rings Online - Any time that you are deeply invested in an MMORPG, it's perhaps one of the most disheartening and frustrating experiences to watch your friends or loved ones give it a…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 363: Cruising through Cantha
The Stream Team: A foolish solo sojourn into Conan Chop Chop
The Stream Team: It’s shooter Saturday with Valorant
The Stream Team: Hiding in plain sight in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Touring Neverwinter’s Twisted Caverns
The Stream Team: Backseat streaming some Final Fantasy XIV roulettes
The Stream Team: Doing some duo things in City of Heroes Homecoming
The Stream Team: End of Dragons Outreach in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: All aboard Elder Scrolls Online’s Calamity!
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.
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