So Lord of the Rings Online had a surprisingly big week, and we don’t just mean the impending Hobbit Lore-masters and C&D against the private server: On Friday, SSG answered calls for more communication by announcing a “remastered” version of the game, gobs of new content including endgame content, 64-bit servers, and a plan for new hires.
Activision-Blizzard made headlines too, for canceling the Warcraft mobile MMO over a financing dispute with NetEase as well as engaging in more unionbusting, plus Diablo Immortal helped it lift its MAUs (though not its QoQ revenues).
Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 released its latest festival, Legends of Aria beclowned itself over a $70 crypto pay-to-win lockbox, these folks are why we can’t have nice things, and we talked to video game cats.
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
Activision-Blizzard Q2 2022: More revenue dips for WoW, ABK, and Blizzard in spite of Diablo Immortal - Welcome back to our regular coverage of Activision-Blizzard's quarterly financials. As of this afternoon, we have Q2's results, comprising April, May, and June 2022; let's break it down, first with ABK…
Lord of the Rings Online is working on ‘remastered’ graphics, delving, and alt leveling path - While Lord of the Rings Online is down a producer, it still has an executive producer overseeing the vision of the long-running MMO. Yesterday, Rob "Severlin" Ciccolini took an hour…
Blizzard-NetEase financing dispute leads to canceled Warcraft mobile MMO ‘Neptune’ - Blizzard has apparently canceled an in-development MMORPG. Bloomberg, which first broke the news, says the game was code-named Neptune and was a "massively multiplayer online role-playing game set in the…
Middle-earth Enterprises sends cease-and-desist letter to LOTRO rogue server project - Some Lord of the Rings Online players may have been aware of an unofficial rogue server project that was set to release this month called Echoes of Angmar. Aiming to…
Blue Protocol’s release slips to sometime past 2022 as a result of Bandai Namco online games restructuring - There has been a long and worrying silence out of Blue Protocol, the anime MMORPG being developed by Bandai Namco; it's been so long, in fact, that we have been…
WoW Factor: Dragonflight, Wrath Classic, and trying to stop the bleeding - So if you somehow missed it, Activision-Blizzard posted its most recent earnings report this week. It was not good for the company as a whole, and it was definitely not…
Legends of Aria’s new blockchain owners are trying to sell $70 random P2W characters - The hits keep coming for Legends of Aria, and we don't mean the greatest hits compilation kind. We regret to remind you that Aria, which was originally Kickstarted as Shards…
Blizzard is union-busting again, this time targeting the Diablo IV team - It would appear that Blizzard just can't stop trying to fight those pesky workers. QA devs at Blizzard Albany, formerly known as Vicarious Visions before Blizzard subsumed the studio and…
Guild Wars 2 launches the Festival of the Four Winds, gives raptors to lowbies, and makes more class tweaks - There's a new update out today for Guild Wars 2 players, and it's got a little something for nearly everybody, whether you're a lowly lowbie, a higher-level character, or someone…
Perfect Ten: 10 MMORPGs that let you talk to cats - Let's not mince words here: I am a cat person. I absolutely love cats. They are small furry idiots who make stupid yelling noises, destroy things for no reason, have…
Stalkers harassed Destiny 2 devs with racist voice mails and doxxing, new court filings show - Earlier this week, we wrote about Destiny 2 studio Bungie's plan to reduce comms between developers and players temporarily over some extreme harassment and threats. We didn't even have to…
Stick and Rudder: Giving EVE Online another shot - I’m not really sure how to break this to you, dear reader, so I’ll just come out and say it. Oh rats, you already read the title of the post,…
LOTRO Legendarium: Ranking the new class/race combos by excitement factor - As we trek through the dog days of summer, the most exciting thing on the horizon for Lord of the Rings Online has to be September's new class/race combos. While…
Monsters & Memories works hard to get Ogre armpits just right - Indie MMO project Monsters & Memories is powering through the hot summer months to build up some of the essential backbone of this fantasy experience. While the team doesn't have…
Mortal Online 2 offers a new trailer extolling the virtues of the game’s systems - Did you know that Mortal Online 2 is a first-person sandbox MMORPG with open PvP wherein everything important is made by players? Probably. If you know the game at all,…
Tencent seeks larger stake in Ubisoft, Unity considers Chinese spinoff - China continues its wrangling of the western gaming industry with moves on both Ubisoft and Unity. Reuters reported yesterday that Tencent is attempting to increase its 5% stake in Ubisoft to…
Final Fantasy XIV shares a few more details about the upcoming Moonfire Faire - It's almost time for the next go-around of the Moonfire Faire in Final Fantasy XIV, which means that a new posting from the community team detailing the rewards and a…
Star Citizen talks up 3.17.2’s Snake Pit race track and plans for an indoor kart race course - It's a race weekend in Star Citizen's regular video series this week as the latest episode provides a closer look at the Snake Pit race course that was enhanced by…
AdventureQuest 3D, of all games, tweaks Blizzard’s nose over mobile MMO cancelation - If you're sad about the cancelation of Blizzard's mobile Warcraft MMO Neptune, maybe some self-promotional cheek from the crossplatform indie MMO AdventureQuest 3D to Blizzard will cheer you up. "When…
Massively Overthinking: What endgame content keeps you in an MMORPG long-term? - A while back on the MassivelyOP Podcast, Justin and I were trying to sort through why New World's endgame hasn't had staying power with the broader MMORPG playerbase that has…
Lost Ark’s powerpass is still inexplicably disabled after 10 days offline - If you're a fan of paid boosts in MMOs, then you'll be disappointed to know that the system is currently disabled in Lost Ark with no ETA for its return.…
MultiVersus postpones Season 1 launch to a later date along with the release of Morty - If you've been enjoying MultiVersus of late, you probably were excited for the kickoff of Season 1 complete with a full battle pass and the addition of Morty (from Rick…
Amazon has delayed New World’s Barnacles and Black Powder expedition - If you were hoping that the Barnacles and Black Powder expedition would make it into this week's New World update, well, it may still happen this week - but it…
Vague Patch Notes: Why sticking to one MMO is the smart thing to do - I have never been much of a roamer. Some people are, and that's fine; the world needs different sorts of people, and for some people the lure of going to…
Diablo Immortal vows two-week release cadence starting with Battle Pass Season 3 - Blizzard's controversial cross-platform MMO is set to deliver more content on a regular basis to its playerbase: Diablo Immortal's team announced that it will be pumping out content on a…
Choose My Adventure: The monster-eating adventures of McFishy the Squid Man in Chimeraland - I've not had a great deal of time in Chimeraland, but one thing is being made pretty immediately apparent to me: This game really is at its best when you…
Microsoft argues Acti-Blizz buyout won’t stifle competition because its games are ‘nothing unique’ - Microsoft is on some weird flex stuff right now, swinging a mighty purse stuffed with $68.7B right at Activision-Blizzard's face while also saying the studio doesn't make anything unique. That's…
Somebody paid-to-win so hard in Diablo Immortal that it wrapped around to pay-to-lose - The industry was generating so many "internet guy spends a fortune on Diablo Immortal" stories there for a while that we stopped even covering them. But here's a new twist:…
Riot’s Greg Street explains the Riot MMO’s purported ‘low-key’ reveal - Can we pause for a second to contemplate how blissful it will be when we actually get a real title for Riot Games' MMORPG? No longer will we have to…
TwitchCon will have no mask or vaccination requirements despite the ongoing pandemic - So let's just do a quick recap, shall we? This year's PAX East had vaccination and masking, and people still reported cases of COVID-19 in the wake of the event,…
SWTOR releases Update 7.1 Digging Deeper today with more story and a new raid - After a long wait, Star Wars: The Old Republic fans have their first content drop following the release of Legacy of the Sith this past February. Update 7.1: Digging Deeper…
Wisdom of Nym: Did Final Fantasy XIV’s relic farming zones work? - One of the things that I am always going to admire about the Final Fantasy XIV team is the fact that it followed up Eureka not just with more Eureka…
Vitae Aeternum: The hits and misses of New World’s summer update - Last week saw the release of New World's big summer update, including an extensive music system, the Medleyfaire event, and various endgame tweaks. This update is a mixture of solid…
Former CD Projekt Red devs announce a multiplayer co-op and PvP title full of ninja parkour in feudal Japan - Would you like to play a PvP and PvE co-op multiplayer title created by former CD Projekt Red devs that lets you be a highly mobile fighter in feudal Japan?…
Would you buy a mythic skin in Overwatch 2 for $45? Asking for a Blizzard - Players of Overwatch 2 are reportedly being asked some very worrying questions by Blizzard: Fans of the shooter have shared images from a survey on both Twitter and Reddit that…
Star Trek Online fans hold vigil for the late, magnificent Nichelle Nichols - The Star Trek fandom is mourning this week at the news that Nichelle Nichols passed away from natural causes at the age of 89. Nichols played Lt. Uhura on the…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 383: New World strikes up the band
The Stream Team: The quest to strengthen a very round bird in Chimeraland
The Stream Team: The freighter life in No Man’s Sky
The Stream Team: The continuing quest to bash monster face in Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak
The Stream Team: Taking a scenic tour of the dungeons of Final Fantasy XIV
The Stream Team: Peeking in on the early access of retro-style survival RPG Tinkertown
The Stream Team: Chasing killer shadows in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Taking another voyage in the current playtest of Arcane Waters
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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