Guild Wars 2’s Clockwork Chaos episode released this week, reintroducing the polarizing villain Scarlet Briar to a whole new generation of living world players.
Meanwhile, SWTOR lost its creative director, New World is merging down to a handful of servers, Blizzard accidentallied Wrath Classic’s launch day, Minecraft banned NFTs, LOTRO made us babysit Elrond’s kids, and ABK workers walked out on the one-year anniversary of the company’s scandal and lawsuit.
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
Star Wars The Old Republic plans next update for August 2, bids farewell to Creative Director Charles Boyd - It's a bit of good news and bad news for Star Wars: The Old Republic fans. We'll start with the good news: Update 7.1 has a release date of Tuesday,…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Hands-on with Guild Wars 2’s S1E3 Clockwork Chaos - Ask veteran MMO gamers who the star of Guild Wars 2's first living world season was, and you're not likely to hear names like Braham, Marjory, or Mai Trin. The…
The Soapbox: WoW’s talent trees don’t deserve your nostalgia - As World of Warcraft's Dragonflight expansion marches into alpha testing, we're getting more glimpses at its new/old talent system, which harkens back to the talent trees of yore. Some have…
WoW Classic’s Wrath of the Lich King launches September 26 according to yet another Blizzard leak - Sooooo either Blizzard's web team had another oopsie or somebody really wanted to distract everyone from the fact that Activision-Blizzard workers staged a walkout today, the one-year anniversary of the…
Gearbox shuts down game forums in favor of Discord, but Cryptic’s MMOs are not affected - Back in December 2021, Gearbox's Embracer Group bought up Perfect World Entertainment and Cryptic, meaning whatever Gearbox decided to do could possibly affect the various MMOs under both studio's banners.…
Working As Intended: MMOs that wish they were Star Wars Galaxies - "My friends and I would skin someone alive for an SWG 2," an old Star Wars Galaxies player recently wrote on Reddit, and that sentiment is... gruesome, yes, but also…
WoW Factor: So what’s the actual prediction on Dragonflight’s quality? - I was briefly considering doing another math column now that we actually have a date when World of Warcraft: Dragonflight started alpha testing, but... well, let's be real, that would…
LOTRO Legendarium: Update 33.1’s further adventures are more like a light snack - Seeing as how I was somewhat underwhelmed with Lord of the Rings Online's Further Adventures with Bilbo Baggins, I approached this week's new mission set with a sense of apprehension.…
Mortal Online 2 deploys its massive Necromancy patch complete with a new world boss - You know what they call people who see something die and then just leave its corpse there, possibly as a warning to others? Quitters. And Mortal Online 2 isn't for…
Square-Enix finally makes good on its threat of selling NFTs with NFT-linked action figures - You may have thought that after seeing NFT prices crash along with cryptocurrency prices crashing, Square-Enix would have backed down from its inane blather about NFTs being the future of…
Diablo Immortal set to launch July 25 in China after bizarre delay - Back in June when Diablo Immortal launched here in the west, Chinese publisher NetEase surprised everyone by delaying the game's release in China itself, claiming that the studio "needed additional…
Massively Overthinking: Are MMO gamers just frogs in a boiling cookpot? - Longtime MOP reader Miol recently wrote us a long email inspired by a non-MMO stream he'd been watching during which the streamer went off over one viewer's genuine excitement at…
EVE Online addresses community safety and promises more action to police community behavior - There's been some drama unfolding in EVE Online recently, the kind of drama that is at once not surprising when you see the cast of characters and also deeply unpleasant.…
It’s been exactly one year since Activision-Blizzard’s sexual discrimination and harassment scandal broke out - One year ago today, I was puttering around in the evening, probably playing video games, when our tipbox exploded with the news that a state agency in California had just…
Vague Patch Notes: Themepark MMOs need open spaces, too - Let me start off this particular column with a story about Star Wars: The Old Republic. I've mentioned before how this was a game I deeply wanted to love and…
Raph Koster talks about the ‘mission’ of Playable Worlds, his vision of the metaverse, and player ownership - Raph Koster is no stranger to talking about the concept of the metaverse - he's done it a couple of times already, trying to tie the term into the creation…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen lands $2.4M in funding and elaborates on its death mechanics - The latest newsletter out of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen has some pretty important news to share with its fans on both a game mechanical side and a financial side.…
Microsoft-owned Minecraft bans NFT and blockchain implementations over exclusivity, unreliability, and fraud - If you can't see the writing on the wall when it comes to blockchain shenanigans, you should probably get your eyesight checked out because yet another major gaming company has…
No Man’s Sky overhauls freighters and adds new multiplayer content in the Endurance update - For the most part, the utility of having a freighter in No Man's Sky was useful but arguably pretty hum-drum. That perception could change for players of the sci-fi survivalbox…
Perfect Ten: The subtle differences between World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV combat - It's the little things that get you when you weren't paying attention, according to Jim Infantino (and Jim's big ego), and this is true a lot with MMOs that seem…
New World’s July 22 server merging will see some regions collapse into a single server - The New World is beginning to shrink once again, at least as far as its regional servers are concerned. Amazon Games put out a notice this week, alerting players that…
Lost Ark’s Spells in Spades update opens a water park, releases a card-slinging mage, and adds more endgame - Whether you're looking to fling magical cards around, splash others in a poolside arena, or test your mettle (item level permitting) in some new endgame content, today's patch for Lost…
World of Warcraft brings Dragonflight forward into its second alpha phase - With a pressure to both produce and perform well this year, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight is being watched closely as it pushes through the testing process. Blizzard announced this week…
Lord of the Rings Online releases Update 33.1 with the Further Adventures of Elladan and Elrohir - Wake up, you sleepy Hobbits, because it's patch day for Lord of the Rings Online! Update 33.1 arrives today with a new Further Adventures series, this one following Elrond's sons…
Entropia Universe is laying NFT eggs that promise ‘rewards-earning opportunities’ for holders - It's been a hot minute since the real-world currency sci-fi MMO Entropia Universe made headlines here, and when it did, it was due to its absurd currency-related shenanigans: There was…
Choose My Adventure: Customizing my V Rising experience (because my other server was closed) - As that title would suggest, the V Rising server that I was originally playing on just decided to go kaput. The people who were running it clearly were not into…
Untamed Isles is an open world creature catching MMORPG promising 1.5M different varieties of critters - Pokemon has 898 creatures. Temtem has 164 Tems as of right now. Untamed Isles, an upcoming open world creature catching MMORPG from publisher/developer Phat Loot Studios, is planning on having…
Wisdom of Nym: Optional and mandatory content in Final Fantasy XIV - One of the things that I've long held up as a strength of Final Fantasy XIV is that it is designed to allow you to build your own endgame with…
Unity’s John Riccitiello apologizes for sentence he wishes he ‘never said’ - A harsh judgment from Unity's CEO last week experienced a fair bit of pushback and criticism from gamers and other studios alike. John Riccitiello publicly lambasted devs who didn't incorporate…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 381: The Soulframe of the game
The Stream Team: Taking another look at the Ship of Heroes housing beta
The Stream Team: An island spa resort in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Time for more Republic TOR-ture
The Stream Team: Killing and dethroning gods in Final Fantasy XIV
The Stream Team: Grinding for Arborstone masteries and a turtle egg in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Of Knives and Longshadows in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Let’s talk TennoCon and Warframe
The Stream Team: Soaking in the pool of Lost Ark’s summertime Maharaka Festival
The Stream Team: Snails on rails in Astroneer
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.
