MMO Week in Review: A fresh start for New World

New World took off again this week with the launch of its fresh start servers, pushing Amazon Games to open dozens of new servers for players returning – or taking advantage of the half-off sale to join in for the first time.

Meanwhile, Blue Protocol awoke from its slumber, LOTRO delayed its Beyond the Shadow expansion, World of Warcraft tried framing its “third era,” and the FFXIV community debated Yoshi-P’s commentary on diversity.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

New World’s fresh start concurrency soars to 119K as Amazon adds 33 new servers - Well, if you were wondering whether fresh start would boost New World even more than Brimstone Sands, wonder no more: It definitely did. Yesterday afternoon's staggered release of the fresh…

Blue Protocol is alive: Bandai Namco finally acknowledges continuing development - I've been spending a lot of time the last few weeks preparing some of our end-of-the-year coverage, and among all that is a big list of MMOs in development that…

SSG has delayed Lord of the Rings Online’s Before the Shadow to November 15 - Well, it's not exactly an impossible-to-fathom move given that it's baked into preorder verbiage, but it's going to be irritating nonetheless: Standing Stone Games announced this afternoon that it's pushing…

WoW Factor: Breaking down the ‘third era’ of World of Warcraft development - We are, at the time of this writing, less than a week out from the second part of the Dragonflight pre-patch for World of Warcraft. And if you were considering…

Final Fantasy XIV’s Naoki Yoshida sparks backlash over a bad answer to questions on diversity in Final Fantasy XVI - Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida has long been held up as a shining example of what can be expected of someone in those roles, but he's having…

PlanetSide 2 breaks its own world record two times over and begins public testing its next update - Yesterday, players of PlanetSide 2 were asked to be a part of the game's history as Daybreak rallied fans to try to break its existing Guinness World Record for most…

Overwatch 2’s newest tank character Ramattra arrives along with season two on December 6 - During the grand finals event of the Overwatch League, the shooter unveiled the next character that's coming to Overwatch 2: The omnic Ramattra, who will be landing when season two…

LOTRO Legendarium: What class should you pick in LOTRO? - Hunter. Thanks for coming to the column! See you in the next one! [AL:LOTRO]What, you want a bit more than that? Sheesh, fine. I'll stop amusing myself here and actually…

Guild Wars 2 players raise over $100K for Extra Life and unlock all collection hints in the process - Yesterday saw ArenaNet kick off its 24-hour Guild Wars 2 charity stream and it has already been quite a success. At the time of this writing, players have raised just…

Dune Awakening shares a sizzle reel about its cinematic trailer and another picture of lasguns - Are you ready for some hot and spicy multimedia out of Dune: Awakening? Then feast your eyes on lasguns and a Twitter video, friends. This is what this game's PR…

Gamigo is apparently opening new official forums for Trove and Fiesta Online after eight months of downtime - Back in February we were all pretty surprised by a sudden shutdown of the official forums for Gamigo's suite of MMORPGs, effectively turning off official communications outside of social media…

Nightingale discusses its first closed alpha, character progression, and building system in new video - If seeing Nightingale reference its realm card mechanic for the umpteenth time has gotten to you, then you'll be happy to note that the devs have some new things to…

World of Warcraft’s freebie Feldrake mount causes fan outrage as Dragonflight’s dungeons are previewed - Normally a Twitch drop item isn't something we'd call headline news, even if that drop comes from the 500-pound gorilla that is World of Warcraft, but fan reaction to the…

Raven workers accuse Activision-Blizzard of ‘continued intransigence’ during union negotiations - Yesterday, we went in-depth on some of the ways Activision-Blizzard is attempting to obstruct the union forming within Diablo IV substudio Blizzard Albany, but today we turn our eyeballs back…

Massively Overthinking: Would you do hard MMO content without rewards? - Are you here for the challenge or here for the shinies? That's the core question the MOP team and audience is tackling this week in Massively Overthinking. I've been overthinking…

Funcom’s cartoony multiplayer roguelike Conan Chop Chop hasn’t seen an update since April - The goofy yet punishing roguelike Conan Chop Chop has had an equally goofy and punishing development trajectory. For those who don't recall, this game started out as an April Fools'…

Star Anvil’s Secret World TTRPG Kickstarter successfully funds with $150K raised - Secret World fans, prepare yourself for the only Secret World content you're going to get in the foreseeable future: Star Anvil Studios' The Secret World tabletop roleplaying project successfully funded…

Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go is just not keeping its community promises - For those who haven't been keeping score, I have. Niantic has now missed two Pokemon Go dev diary months: one in August, which was the first year anniversary of the #HearUsNiantic/#PokemonNO…

Vague Patch Notes: The art of picking winners and losers in MMO design - There's a meme that's gone around the Final Fantasy XIV community sphere for a while, and I'm going to try my best to explain it to you without requiring you…

Activision-Blizzard continues obstructing QA worker unionization with latest appeal - A few weeks ago, the QA division of Blizzard Albany - that is, the studio formerly known as Vicarious Visions that is working on Diablo IV - was pronounced eligible…

A huge star just ruptured in EVE Online in the lead-up to the Uprising expansion - EVE Online is bringing in the forthcoming Uprising expansion with a bang, quite literally.[AL:EVE] According to CCP's event lore, the Amarr empire placed experimental transmuter technology in the New Eden…

Albion Online’s Beyond the Veil update gets a launch date: November 21 - Albion Online's Beyond the Veil isn't waiting for Christmas or even Thanksgiving: It's rolling out on November 21st, Sandbox Interactive announced today. It's the update the studio has been previewing…

Diablo IV devs talk up the ARPG’s ‘return to darkness’ in the tonal and literal sense - Dark. Darkity dark dark. Darkness. It's what the devs of Diablo IV have crowed about before, and it's the subject of discussion once again in a quick video piece from…

Zenith will be a PS VR2 launch title and will be a free upgrade for original PS VR owners - The VR MMO Zenith is already on a bunch of VR platforms, from the Rift to PS VR to Steam early access, but soon it will land on an additional…

Perfect Ten: 10 great reasons to revisit older MMORPGs - When one MMO dies, it forces us to look at the rest of the bunch through the sunglasses of mortality. The finite nature of MMO lifespans shouldn't deter us from…

New World’s fresh start servers are about to officially begin their launch rollout - If you've been holding out to return to New World for a fresh start, then today is your day, as (some of the) fresh start servers have officially begun arriving,…

Elder Scrolls Online’s Firesong DLC and Update 36 are live for PC players - It's DLC week in The Elder Scrolls Online world as Firesong officially launched for PC last night, bringing the 2022 Legacy of the Bretons plotline to a close. Firesong sends…

Astellia Online is back again as a crummy blockchain MMO called Astel of Atra - I'm sure you folks all remember Astellia Online: It was a South Korean import that launched here in 2019; we called it a "solidly average MMO," but of course, that's…

EVE Online ties down a November 8 launch date for Uprising and shows off 16 new spaceships - There have been two big news updates for EVE Online, both of which are tied to the game's upcoming Uprising expansion. CCP Games has officially confirmed the update will go…

Kakao Q3 2022: Revenue down, pipeline packed with ArcheAge War, Ares, Odin Valhalla Rising, Dysterra - Kakao Games released Q3 financials this morning, and it's packed with good and bad news. Let's do the bad first: Revenue is down by a full third year over year,…

Wild Terra 2 summarizes its gameplay in a new trailer ahead of its upcoming November 10 launch - The sandbox MMORPG Wild Terra 2 already announced that it's moving from early access to full release on November 10th, but now it also has a new trailer to hype…

Almost 2M PlayStation Plus subbers quit this summer following pricing revamp - This past March, Sony thought it would be a keen and swell idea to mess with its PlayStation Plus subscription plan, announcing plans to break it up into three different…

Hearthstone announces March of the Lich King expansion for December 6 - Hearthstone is basically built on top of Warcraft universe lore, so Blizzard's announcement today - that the game's net expansion is called March of the Lich King - isn't going…

Massively on the Go: The Pokemon Go outlook for November 2022 - After several several, constant event failures, Niantic still hasn't offered up a November blog for Pokemon GO. But it did release another homemade infographic and sent press the details after…

Monsters & Memories recaps two months’ worth of work on locations, gameplay, artwork, and sparkly VFX - If you've been closely following the progress of indie MMORPG Monsters & Memories, you might have noticed that the devs at Niche Worlds Cult skipped their customary monthly development update…

Choose My Adventure: Running face-first into the brick wall that is Neocron - It's not often an MMO makes me ragequit, but hoo baby did I ever do that with Neocron. I'll digest on why I think I noped myself into space over…

Netflix acquires cozy game dev studio Spry Fox, which promises work on non-violent MMO will continue - Last January we had gotten word that developer Spry Fox, the studio behind cozy games like Road Not Taken and Cozy Grove, was working on a non-violent MMO project promising…

Fight or Kite: Galahad 3093 turns the knights of the round into mech fighters in a cyberpunk future - What’s that sound I hear? Or is it just a feeling? It might not be a super power, but something in the back of my mind is calling for my…

Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.28 arrives with an assortment of damage buffs for various jobs - It's a nice day today to be a Black Mage, or a Machinist, or a Warrior in Final Fantasy XIV. The game's latest patch adds significant damage boosts to all…

World of Warcraft class nerfs and buffs arrive, with Windwalker Monks taking the worst of it - Don't get too comfortable with those shiny new talent builds, World of Warcraft players. In the weeks leading up to Dragonflight's official launch, Blizzard appears to be feverishly making last-minute…

Guild Wars 2 players re-live the Battle for Lion’s Arch next week as S1E5 returns - Since End of Dragons' big rollout, Guild Wars 2 has been rereleasing remastered and reimagined versions of every episode of its original living world season, which had theretofore been inaccessible…

Kakao Games’ sci-fi MMO Ares Rise of Guardians releases flashy class and gameplay preview trailers - Does anyone remember Ares: Rise of Guardians? This sci-fi MMO from publisher Kakao Games and developer SecondDive was first mentioned in investor reports from last year, when it was called…

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s potential future destinations and expansions for Variant Dungeons - As I discussed when the actual patch came out, I was somewhat less than enamored with Final Fantasy XIV's first Variant Dungeon. It's not bad, but it suffers from two…

Video montage reminds fans that Star Citizen has been promising ship subsystem features for eight years - The Power Play presentation from Star Citizen's CitizenCon 2022 offered a demonstration of capital ship subsystems like power, gravity, and life support being futzed with by players. However, as one…

Warframe launches Echoes of Veilbreaker November 2, delays Duviri Paradox to 2023 - Warframe fans have gotten a clearer idea of what awaits for their favorite game in the immediate and semi-distant future. The game's recent dev livestream and subsequent website posts have…

Black Desert is canceling its Halloween events and sales following Itaewon tragedy - Unless you skip international news on the weekends, you likely read about the devastating tragedy in the Itaewon neighborhood in Seoul, South Korea, as a crowd crush in a packed…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 395: The grandma who stole Halloween

The Stream Team: A new max level Elementalist moves through Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns

The Stream Team: Rocking the Space Dwarves in Deep Rock Galactic

The Stream Team: A very merry Mogloween in AQ3D

The Stream Team: A quick hop into PlanetSide 2 before its world record attempt

The Stream Team: Neverwinter’s Halloween festival of falsehoods is Masquerade of Liars

The Stream Team: Hitting the reset button and starting fresh in PSO2 New Genesis

The Stream Team: Vampires and V Rising for Halloween

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.