It’s Halloween here in MMO land, which means it’s damn near impossible to avoid candy corn, pumpkins, and spoopy jokes. But if you try hard, you can: This week we checked out New World’s Brimstone Sands and steeled ourselves for the incoming fresh start, poked our noses into Crowfall, got retweeted by Elvira thanks to AQ3D, examined extremism in gaming, and felt let down once again by The Secret World. And of course, World of Warcraft’s Dragonflight prepatch rolled out, and while it was a bit delayed and pretty buggy, we’ve liked the talent trees so far.
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
Halloween fun across the MMORPG genre, 2022 edition - Halloween officially began October 1st (or September 1st, by some calendars), and we've been collecting all the spoopy events in MMORPGs and MMO-adjacent titles ever since. Today, we're organizing them…
The Game Archaeologist: The radically different design of early EverQuest II - Sometimes it's all about timing -- both good and bad -- when it comes to MMORPG releases. EverQuest II may go down as the winner of the "worst timing ever"…
WoW Factor: The Dragonflight pre-patch talent trees fix a lot of problems in WoW - If you don't want to read an entire column in which I talk about the new talent trees in World of Warcraft... good gosh, why are you here? Why do…
AdventureQuest 3D was temporarily de-listed from app stores because of… Elvira’s breasts, apparently - No, that headline isn't sensationalist; it's the honest to goodness truth. Fans of AdventureQuest 3D on mobile might have been surprised at the MMORPG's de-listing from app stores, but developer…
Lawful Neutral: How extremism and terrorism slither into online gaming - Back in 2014, something happened in the gaming space, something whose impact was so damaging that even almost 10 years later, I realize that I still hesitate to use its…
Ashes of Creation allows players to harvest any tree, rock, or bush in the world - After testing through Ashes of Creation's first alpha and scouting out what other MMOs are up to, Intrepid Studios is making a few significant adjustments to its resource gathering system.…
Perfect Ten: 10 things to understand about MMO Bards - In the past four installments of this pseudo-series, I have done columns on archetypes that exist in every single game. Every game has a Warrior, every game has Rogues, every…
New World recaps recent game development, releases Nightveil event creation blog - You've probably heard a lot about how New World has changed (or maybe you've even read about it here), but if you're still not sure just what has changed recently,…
Guild Wars 2 makes public the principles guiding its current balance philosophy - Whether fans of Guild Wars 2 are curious about what ArenaNet is thinking when it makes balance changes or are looking for a cherry-picked quote to swing like a weapon…
Loric Games commits Mythic and BioWare vets to building a survival game rich in story - What happens when you combine the experience of former BioWare and Mythic Entertainment devs with the survival sandbox sub-genre? We're all projected to find out sometime in 2023 when the…
Path of Exile delays next expansion, confirms Lake of Kalandra will not be a permanent fixture for now - As the next expansion for Path of Exile looms, the thoughts of both players and developer Grinding Gear Games now turn to what's next, which has been the subject of…
The Secret World Classic won’t have a Halloween event this year thanks to… player feedback? - Over summer, fans of the original version of The Secret World were delighted to see the game's anniversary event activated for the first time in years, as part of a…
New World releases fresh start world rollout plan as players prepare for queues and chaos - Amazon dumped a ton of New World info last night, so let's dig in. First, the studio released its "rollout plan" and FAQ for the fresh start world launches next…
Embers Adrift gets into the Halloween spirit while improving its Meadowlands zone - Who needs pumpkins when you've got scary carved turnip faces? That's the kind of bold approach that Embers "We have night now" Adrift is taking for this spooky season. The…
Massively Overthinking: Do you have a love/hate relationship with specific MMO content? - This week's Massively Overthinking is inspired by one of Justin's Daily Grinds, ironically. It was the one about the best online card game you've ever played, and when I saw…
Myth of Empires devs copied ‘substantial portions’ of ARK’s game code according to expert testimony - It's been some time since the legal drama spawned from multiplayer strategy survival sandbox Myth of Empires has been in our headlines, so let's recap: The entire matter started last…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen is confident enough to host more frequent ‘ad-hoc’ testing in November - Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen continues to beam with confidence after its reportedly highly successful October pre-alpha, so much so that the producer at Visionary Realms is looking forward to…
Vague Patch Notes: Defining classic servers and progression servers for MMOs - Something that I've been thinking about a lot over the past few days - for no particular reason - is the idea of classic servers for Final Fantasy XIV's launch…
Funcom’s Dune Awakening teases landscapes and concept art - Are you curious about how Funcom's latest survivalbox Dune: Awakening will play? Too bad, you will continue to get pictures and you will like it. We've previously reported on the…
Former ArenaNet co-founder Jeff Strain opens second game studio called Crop Circle Games - At this point it seems like Jeff Strain, one of the former co-founders of Guild Wars ArenaNet, is really eager to launch all of the new game studios. Readers might…
Star Citizen reiterates anti-bigotry policy in response to toxic fan feedback on rainbow ship paint - Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium is once again having to tap the sign at its more unruly members of the community. A forum thread started by one of the game's…
Lost Ark’s Mystics and Mayhem is live with the Aldebaran Harvest Festival limited-time event - Happy patch day to Lost Ark fans, whose Mystics and Mayhem rollout began early this morning and is on the live servers as you're waking up today. The patch is…
World of Warcraft’s Dragonflight era gets off to a shaky start with buggy pre-patch - It was the end of the Shadowlands era for World of Warcraft -- and the beginning of Dragonflight... sort of. Last night's delayed rollout of Update 10.0 perhaps needed even…
World of Warcraft launches the first chapter of the Legacies animated shorts - If you don't like dragons, hoo boy, you are not going to be super psyched about World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. But you are also not going to be super psyched…
Galahad 3093 goes free-to-play in early access on Steam - Mech-based team hero shooter Galahad 3093 officially kicked off its early access period back at the start of September, but it doesn't appear to have made much of a splash.…
Choose My Adventure: Alone in the crowd of Lost Ark’s endgame - Even at the max level in Lost Ark, I find that I'm still kind of playing alone. A little bit. Though I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. Still, it's…
Vitae Aeternum: First impressions of New World’s greatsword and world revamp - We come now to part two of my early impressions of New World's sprawling Brimstone Sands update. Previously in our Vitae Aeternum column, I covered the Halloween event and Brimstone…
Activision-Blizzard’s petition to dismiss discrimination suit was thrown out, company faces fresh unfair labor practice charges - The legal woes for Blizzard continue to stack up today as the company has both lost an attempt to dismiss the California gender discrimination suit and faces new charges of…
Whatever happened to throne war MMO Crowfall? - It's been some time since we peered in on the news coming out of Crowfall, the Kickstarted PvP "throne war" MMO originally from developer ArtCraft. Readers will remember that one…
Wisdom of Nym: Taking stock of the additions with Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.25 - Interquel patches in Final Fantasy XIV are always an odd cocktail. On the one hand, they consist of content that was intentionally held back from the original patch date, either…
Vitae Aeternum: First impressions of New World’s Brimstone Sands and Nightveil Hallow - It's finally here: New World has launched its fall update, and the Soulwardens of Aeternum now venture into the wastes of Brimstone Sands. This is a massive update, featuring not…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 394: To pre-patch or not to pre-patch
The Stream Team: Savoring the spooky season in City of Heroes Homecoming
The Stream Team: Wandering Wistmead and other Halloween fun in Lord of the Rings Online
The Stream Team: Another evening with Elvira in AQ3D
The Stream Team: New World, new weapon, and a new character
The Stream Team: The Snitch and the Lich in Dungeons & Dragons Online’s Night Revels
The Stream Team: Planet hopping for SWTOR achievements
The Stream Team: Taking some more delves into Final Fantasy XIV’s Variant dungeon
The Stream Team: Going to the Grove in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Need more Nights of the Dead in EverQuest II
The Stream Team: A seventh year of Elder Scrolls Online’s Witches Festival
The Stream Team: Ddemon Llamas in Trove’s Shadow’s Eve
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.
