This week in MMOs, Lord of the Rings Online opened preorders for its fall mini-expansion, Before the Shadow, which offers a new leveling experience for newbies and new content for highbies.
Meanwhile, Ultima Online turned 25 years old, Star Citizen hit $500M crowdfunds, Black Desert hosted another Heidel Ball, and we geared up for Dual Universe’s launch next week.
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
WoW Factor: Just be honest about what WoW Classic is now - So here's something funny to consider: No matter what happens, Blizzard has collectively backed itself into a corner with World of Warcraft expansions over on WoW Classic. Not in the…
Vague Patch Notes: The perpetual MMO crowdfunding engine - Do me a favor right now and navigate over to the Star Citizen webpage. It's possible that this has wildly changed in the time between writing this and when you…
Lord of the Rings Online opens preorders for the Before the Shadow mini-expansion - If you're not still grumpy about the whole "mini-expansion" thing, then heads-up because Standing Stone Games has just opened up preorders for Lord of the Rings Online's Before the Shadow.…
Lord of the Rings Online patch adds nine new class/race combos and sings a new Minstrel tune - While it's not the big Before the Shadow mini-expansion that Lord of the Rings Online players are anticipating for later this year, today's Update 33.2 is fairly noteworthy for its…
Wisdom of Nym: Where Final Fantasy XIV’s tutorials really fall down - I don't think there's really a question to be asked about whether or not Final Fantasy XIV wants new players to join the game. The game is pretty transparent about…
Black Desert’s Heidel Ball unveils gameplay adjustments, new Atoraxxian dungeon, and the mysterious Magnus - This past weekend saw Black Desert showcase what's coming to the MMORPG in its Heidel Ball presentation, and fans got a whole lot to look forward to, including some new…
Some Assembly Required: What to expect from Dual Universe’s September 27 wipe and launch - Having trouble logging into Dual Universe? That's because Novaquark shut down its servers on the 22nd. But don't worry, the space sandbox did not sunset: It's just preparing for the…
Star Citizen’s total crowdfunding just hit over half a billion dollars - What can $500M get you? In the case of Star Citizen, more development coals shoveled into the fires of Chris Roberts' vision: The game's total funding has just crested half…
Perfect Ten: 10 strategies to avoid getting fleeced in F2P MMOs - "Nothing is ever truly free," my grizzled Uncle Trigger once told me. "So you got to pay for that there air! Pony up, boy!" While Uncle Trigger was overlooking a…
LOTRO Legendarium: 23 LOTRO facts I learned from Scenario’s Casual Stroll video series - Your mileage may vary, but as both a journalist and a gamer, I absolutely love hearing about how my favorite titles were made. It makes me appreciate them more, especially…
World of Warcraft is adding Heroic Plus dungeons to Wrath of the Lich King Classic when Ulduar arrives - If part of what you like about WoW Classic instead of World of Warcraft's retail side is that the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King Classic isn't going to feature…
SSG yanks Dungeons and Dragons Online offline overnight to address a serious bug - Someone over at Standing Stone Games must have rolled a one this past week because it's been a headache-inducing 24 hours for both Dungeons and Dragons Online players and engineers.…
US Department of Homeland Security issues a nearly $700K grant to research extremism in gaming - There are toxic people in games chat, and then there are people who use video gaming platforms as a ways to encourage extremism and domestic terrorism. That latter problem is…
Massively Overthinking: The MMO Kickstarters that let us down - MOP's Chris penned a solid piece earlier this week about the fate that has apparently befallen Destiny's Sword, and as I was editing it, I got madder and madder. This…
Classic Tibia is getting sound for the first time in 25 years - One of the oldest MMORPGs around is finally getting a voice - in the form of sound, that is. The devs behind Classic MMO Tibia have announced that next week,…
Diablo II creator David Brevik hops on board the Torchlight: Infinite team - With a month to go until Torchlight: Infinite's multi-platform launch, studio XD is looking for every avenue possible to promote the action RPG. So why not snag the famous game…
Twitch averts streamer strike with proposed ban on some gambling content - Following major drama this week over gambling streams and scamming that resulted in popular streamers threatening a Twitch boycott and strike, Twitch has issued new policies that will effectively outlaw…
Wizard101 admits the in-game alert system hijacking last weekend was an external hack - Over the weekend, we covered the bizarre news that someone was filling up Wizard101's in-game alert system with malicious text and vulgar messages attacking developer KingsIsle, prompting the company to…
Drakensang Online celebrates 11 years, plans a Steam release November 16 - Anyone remember Drakensang Online? While its last reported major update landed in December 2020, this free-to-play isometric MMO has continued to move along with updates and in fact has been…
Roblox announces plans for ‘immersive ads’ and a marketplace with ‘scarcity’ - The beginning of September saw Roblox hold its own developers conference, which outlined several planned features and updates to the way players can play "experiences" in the game and how…
Lost Ark previews the Machinist advanced class dropping next week - Die-hard Lost Ark fans already knew that the Machinist is launching in just over a week, and as of today, Amazon and Smilegate are deep-diving what players can expect from…
Here’s how World of Warcraft’s PvP is changing in Wrath of the Lich King Classic - It's easy to miss a thing or two about the various changes to Wrath of the Lich King Classic if you haven't been following it super-closely. You probably don't need…
Ultima Online delays New Legacy into 2023, hosts in-game faire to celebrate 25th anniversary - At the top of 2022, MMO studio Broadsword was still on track to launch Ultima Online's New Legacy by the end of the year. Unfortunately, that release window has now…
Choose My Adventure: The joy of hunting for new critters to add to the Temtem collection - I'm going to be honest, the initial worry when I saw what won last week's Choose My Adventure poll was that I had already found most of what I could…
Ubisoft CEO suggests harassment claims come from a generational divide as employees call out ‘superficial’ reforms - Last year a culture of mismanagement, sexual harassment, and racism across Ubisoft and its many studios was exposed, leading to multiple executives leaving the company, multiple promises of reform, and…
Diablo IV springs another leak as someone shares nearly an hour of friends and family test footage - Yes, it happened again: Diablo IV's friends and family testing has once again found its way to the internet - the second such time a leaker has offered gameplay footage…
Fight or Kite: Warspear Online is a retro MMO that left me asking questions – mainly, ‘why?’ - I absolutely love and adore retro and retro-inspired games - games from the 8-bit era are my bread and butter. The NES was my childhood growing up, as it was…
Whatever happened to Kickstarted MMO Destiny’s Sword? Well, for starters, it’s not an MMO anymore - Sometimes when we circle back around to a game we haven't covered in a while, we're met with a big surprise. That's absolutely the case for 2Dogs Games' in-development title…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Firesong DLC and Update 36 arrive on PC November 1 - We all know that Elder Scrolls Online is getting a new DLC release and new update by now, and most regular fans of the MMORPG also likely know that it's…
Undead Labs partners with The Coalition to make State of Decay 3 - After a long run with State of Decay 2, Undead Labs is moving forward with the next game in its zombie survival franchise. First announced two years ago with a…
Stick and Rudder: ‘Robin Hood’ scammer claims he robbed rich EVE Online corp of $100 billion ISK - EVE Online is a game that will certainly go down in MMO history as one of the most fascinating studies on human behavior to be conducted outside of a formal…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 389: Grinding out them dailies
The Stream Team: The ongoing leveling adventures of a Guild Wars 2 Elementalist
The Stream Team: Breaking wind threats in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Aion’s lucky 13th birthday
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming from the Star Wars Battlefront II
The Stream Team: Tracking the Thargoid incursion in Elite Dangerous
The Stream Team: Clearing squatters from a Guild Wars 2 guild hall
The Stream Team: Mining and wisp hunting in Warframe
The Stream Team: Celebrating 7 years of World of Warships with a blast
The Stream Team: Another Astroneer EXO F.A.R.M. event
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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