MMO Week in Review: RIP TERA

The western MMO fanbase said farewell to TERA this week as Bluehole forced Gameforge to shut it down for good, making it one of the larger MMOs to sunset in the last few years.

Meanwhile, Blizzard bought out Spellbreak studio Proletariat to buff up World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 waded into controversy with its balance patch, and Daybreak raised eyebrows by wiping its EverQuest II “prison server” without notice and banning everyone on it – even folks who’d never done anything wrong. So, you know. Daybreak.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Tamriel Infinium: Was Elder Scrolls Online’s One Tamriel actually a bad idea? - Before you come into this column with boxing gloves on looking for the daft writer who dared to pose the above question, please hear me out because this is not…

Say farewell to TERA – Gameforge and Bluehole sunset it tomorrow just before dawn - Well, the fact that you knew it was coming doesn't make it any less hard to hear, as this week as proven repeatedly. Here's one more: Bluehole and Gameforge are…

Blizzard bought out Spellbreak’s Proletariat to shore up the World of Warcraft team - Hey, remember Spellbreak? It was a 2020 battle royale that was actually pretty well-liked around here, though it's been quiet the last few months. And as of today, we've learned…

Guild Wars 2 team vows ‘better context’ for controversial class changes following death threats - Ideally, an MMO patch day should be filled with delight and exploration. Sometimes, however, there's a sense of dread, especially when the developers start making drastic changes to classes. Such…

EverQuest II unceremoniously wipes its ‘prison server’ and permabans every account - Hey, did you know that EverQuest II once had a prison server? It was called Drunder, and since 2015 it was the place that Daybreak sent every account was sent…

WoW Factor: Looking at Dragonflight’s release schedule with math - It's been a really long time since we've gotten to have some math up ins. You know by this point that I really like having math-centric columns when it comes…

LOTRO Legendarium: Evaluating Lord of the Rings Online’s legendary servers, four years later - When Lord of the Rings Online released its first -- and, quickly thereafter, its second -- legendary server back in 2018, it was one of the most exciting developments to…

Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis sets its sights on the PlayStation 4 - Not to be left out, the PlayStation 4 is about to join the roster of platforms supported by SEGA's Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis. Last night, the company announced…

EVE Valkyrie gets an August 5 sunset date, begins the process of removing itself from digital store shelves - CCP Games has, at long last, confirmed what fans had already known: EVE Valkyrie, the first-person sci-fi dogfighting flight game, has gotten its final shutdown date, with the game's servers…

Swords of Legends Online adds new hard-mode dungeons and starts a new PvP season with its latest patch - Why dungeons gotta be all difficult and [FECAL MATTER]? Why you gonna make me go through new hard modes of dungeons, Swords of Legends Online? Why you gotta make me…

Ship of Heroes will have another player housing test on July 22 with ‘radically improved’ feature updates - Ship of Heroes continues to be all-in on its player housing. Ahead of the game's next player housing beta test, which is planned for Friday, July 22nd, the team at…

Vague Patch Notes: A love letter to the people going above and beyond in the MMO genre - Let's just lead off with a very simple statement. Hey there, teams out there working on MMOs and doing more than you need to? We see you, and you're awesome.…

Final Fantasy XIV previews patch 6.2, Buried Memory, in the newest live letter - (Buried) Memory, all alone in the (buried) moonlight! I can dream of the old (buried) days, (Buried) life was beautiful then... And so begin the cheeky nods to the title…

Guild Wars 2 tweaks its latest balance patch: ‘The team wants to make it right’ - Given all the fuss and fizzle over Guild Wars 2's balance patch this week, you might be surprised to see that ArenaNet has actually already put out a second one.…

Massively Overthinking: Is MMO class balance achievable – or even desirable? - This past week, a chunk of the endgame-focused Guild Wars 2 community was up in arms over the profession balance update and the perception that the devs working on class…

ArcheAge adjusts hero missions and conflict times as XLGames secures a trademark for ArcheWar - There's a little something for the present and future prospects of ArcheAge in this news post. We'll start with the present state of affairs, specifically a recent patch that has…

Pokemon Go’s Niantic scuttles four more gaming projects and lays off 85+ people - Niantic, the company that named itself after a whaling vessel abandoned for the goldrush, admitted yesterday that it is shuttering four more gaming projects, leading to 85-90 people being laid…

Rumor: Xbox Store listing suggests Skull and Bones is releasing November 2022 - The rumors around the impending release for multiplayer pirating title Skull and Bones continue to mount. A supposed new leak found by dataminer Aggiornamenti Lumia on the Xbox Store confirms…

LOTRO starts testing the Elladan and Elrohir patch, now with free monster play - Elrond babies, they'll make their dreams come true! Elrond babies, they'll do the same for you... now in Lord of the Rings Online's Update 33.1, which can be found on…

Gaijin opens summer closed beta signups for ‘aquatic adventure MMO’ Age of Water - Remember way back in 2020 - I know, I'm sorry to make you do this - when Gaijin took the wraps off a new PC MMO called Age of Water?…

Lost Ark’s Wrath of the Covetous Legion is set to launch this morning - Happy patch day to everyone but the remaining Lost Ark bots! Yep, Amazon is pushing out Wrath of the Covetous Legion, Lost Ark's June update, today after a brief delay;…

EverQuest II officially launches its 64-bit servers and client - The slow, inexorable march of technological advancement has once again forced an old game to adapt to more current requirements. Yesterday saw EverQuest II make the 64-bit switch for both…

Blizzard reassures players that Wrath of the Lich King Classic will in fact have quest helper features in it - So let's recap. Recently, an interview with lead software engineer Brian Birmingham and principal systems designer Kris Zierhut on the WoW Classic team had been making its way around the…

Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s Community Day is still more about catching than community - Pokemon GO finally gave us a good pokemon to catch for Community Day, and I'm happy about that. Really. Had this been 2019, it could have been one of the best…

Perfect Ten: Abrupt MMO sunsets that shocked us - Not all MMO sunsets are equal, when you look at them. Sure, all impact players who made those games a home, but some titles went down fairly quickly after launch…

Xbox head says reports of crunch at Fallout 76 studio are from a time when crunch ‘was just part of the industry’ - "Times were different back then" can either be an explanation or a blanket excuse. Whatever side you fall on, that's effectively what was said by Xbox Games Studios head Matt…

New World’s latest patch boosts PvP arena rewards for the fourth time this month - It's becoming a familiar refrain this summer: Amazon's New World has yet another weekly patch out with more bonuses for PvP modes, specifically the beleaguered PvP arenas, in an obvious…

The Daily Grind: Does it ever make sense for an MMO to restrict certain classes to specific races? - With the recent news that Lord of the Rings Online is loosening up some restrictions regarding class and race combinations, it seems to have re-sparked that old conversation about such…

Trove’s Sunrise update is live today with the new Solarion class and Sundered Uplands biome - [AL:Trove]Gamigo announced a big update for its flagship MMORPG Trove last week, and as of today, it's already here. Lead time is overrated! Sunrise is focused on the new Sundered Uplands…

Choose My Adventure: Forewarned is forearmed in my return foray to V Rising - There's something extremely valuable in hitting a reset button when you're able to. Failure is always an option in MMOs and multiplayer titles, to be sure, but sometimes you have…

Guild Wars 2 adds emboldened raids, more rewarding strikes, and contentious balance changes in today’s update - The latest update for Guild Wars 2 has been rumbling forth with all of the noise of a herd of buffalo on the strength of some hotly contested balance tweaks…

LOTRO pushes Shadowfax and Treebeard forward, defends expanding class and race combos - With Anor closing in August, Ithil already closed, and no new legendary worlds planned for the near future, the options for a progression server experience in Lord of the Rings…

Fight or Kite: King of Crabs is just what you need to start your summer right - It’s summertime, and being the king ain’t easy… the king of crabs, that is! King of Crabs is an easy-breezy PvP MMO that apparently hit early access back in 2020…

BitCraft affirms it will not integrate cryptocurrencies, calling the scheme a FOMO ‘black hole’ - With a name like BitCraft, it was probably easy for NFT and crypto speculators to believe the game would be angling to their side and integrate cryptocurrencies into the MMO.…

Tencent’s teased UE5 MMORPG is codenamed To Jin Yong, a Wuxia open world headed for global release - Last week, Tencent was gearing up to unveil a new MMORPG, teasing that it would simply be an open-world title and built on Unreal Engine 5, and that more would…

Players offer new estimate for the price of capping out a Diablo Immortal character - It is quite telling and a bit sad, my fellow dungeon divers, that since Diablo Immortal's launch, nobody's been discussing the actual gameplay -- but rather the egregious and aggressive…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 379: Dinosaurs and Dragonflight

Battle Bards Episode 214: Thieves and rogues

The Stream Team: Starting the long journey towards Elementalist mastery in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: AdventureQuest 3D’s Nulgath Saga begins!

The Stream Team: Star Trek Online’s Stormfall with devs (plus giveaway!)

The Stream Team: Constructs of captured souls in Neverwinter

The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming the roller derby roughhousing of Roller Champions

The Stream Team: One last hunt in Monster Hunter Rise before Sunbreak

The Stream Team: Looking Back in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Doing Warframe Dog Days style

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.