Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards played host to a number of big announcements for MMO fans this week, including the news that Amazon is launching Blue Protocol in the west next year and Diablo IV is on track to launch in June, plus we’ve got our eye on Nightingale, Wayfinder, and Dune Awakening.
Meanwhile, the FTC is moving to block the Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard as over at Microsoft workers under the ZeniMax banner prepare to form a union. And MOP’s own Carlo Lacsina has been reporting back from Black Desert’s Calpheon Ball this weekend with a first look at the game’s new characters and map.
And of course, we’ve begun rolling out our own 2022 awards. So much for things settling down in December, eh? 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
The Game Awards 2022: Blue Protocol, Diablo IV, Wayfinder, Nightingale, Dune Awakening - We've updated with all the big news and trailers now - scroll down to the end for the announcements! Original post follows. Gamers who aren't particularly interested in an Oscars-esque…
Amazon Games will launch Blue Protocol in the west by the end of 2023 - Those who have been patiently waiting for any news about Bandai-Namco's Blue Protocol coming to western shores can finally rest easily: Tonight at The Game Awards, Amazon Games and Bandai-Namco…
Airship Syndicate reveals Wayfinder, a gorgeous multiplayer RPG inspired by MMOs - It almost went unnoticed at this year's TennoCon thanks to the big reveal of Soulframe and Warframe's latest content round, but Digital Extremes actually has yet another multiplayer game on…
Victorian gaslamp multiplayer PvE sandbox Nightingale teases travel in new Game Awards trailer - We've had an eye on Inflexion Games' multiplayer survival sandbox Nightingale since its debut last year - in fact, it was meant to hit early access this fall but delayed…
The FTC is moving to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard - Some things are just not surprising, and the FTC deciding that it wants to block the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft is one such action. This is not surprising even…
WoW Factor: The curious treatment of alts in World of Warcraft Dragonflight - So now that first impressions are out of the way and I can focus on other things like making sure that my alts get up to Dragonflight in World of…
Desert Oasis: The Woosa, the Maegu, and new lands – the highlights from Black Desert’s 2022 Calpheon Ball - Black Desert had a pretty quiet 2022. It might be a good thing considering how much bad press some of its peers have been getting lately. But even though things…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Most Improved MMO - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Most Improved MMO, which was awarded to The Elder Scrolls Online last year. All live MMOs, regardless…
Another exploit in New World led to temporary trading outage as Amazon blasts ‘rumormongering’ - New World players got understandably nervous when Amazon Games announced that it had to wrestle with yet another trading exploit, which prompted a temporary shutdown of trading across the entire…
RuneScape and OSRS suffer server rollback after another bout of login problems - It's unfortunately happening again: Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape are having problems with login servers, only this time around it's forcing both MMORPGs to go into a rollback. The…
World of Warcraft increases its quest log to 35 slots - One of World of Warcraft's most stable features got a major improvement this week. Blizzard announced that it increased the size of the quest log, taking it from the long-running…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Best MMO Rogue Server - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Best MMO Rogue Server, which was awarded to City of Heroes' Homecoming servers last year. Readers will…
Unionizing ZeniMax QA workers claim ‘death from a thousand cuts’ thanks to crunch and low pay - Earlier this week, over 300 QA workers employed by ZeniMax, including those who work at Elder Scrolls Online's ZeniMax Online Studios and Fallout 76's Bethsoft, announced their intent to form…
Star Wars: The Old Republic previews its 7.2 PvP changes with season objectives, reward tracks, and no more ranked queue - The nature of PvP in Star Wars: The Old Republic is changing when patch 7.2 arrives. No, not the part where you fight people with lightsabers; that part is staying…
Path of Exile’s Forbidden Sanctum expansion launches today – PC downloading has begun - It's go-time for Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum launches on PC today at 2 p.m. EST, which means servers went down just a few minutes ago for patch downloading.…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Most Underrated MMO - Welcome once again to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards. Every year, we poll our writers on the best and worst MMOs, stories, studios, and trends and assign awards to the…
Activision-Blizzard’s new lawsuit is another attack on the state agency pursuing it for discrimination and harassment - Activision-Blizzard has filed a lawsuit against California's Civil Rights Department (fka the DFEH) alleging that the agency "slow-walked" and "unlawfully redacted" documents the company sought access to in regard to…
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen pledges monthly pre-alpha tests in 2023 - The testing cadence for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is about to pick up pace, as the studio announced that it's going to be running monthly pre-alpha tests starting in…
New report on crunch at Diablo IV’s Blizzard Albany casts doubt on June 6, 2023, early access date - The Washington Post released a new expose of Diablo IV's Blizzard Albany yesterday afternoon, in which workers are skeptical about the June 6th early access launch date that was then…
Massively Overthinking: The best and worst MMO developer quotes of 2022 - You might not know this about me, but I literally spend all year jotting down in my little notepad file all the quirky stuff MMO devs say specifically for this…
PSO2 New Genesis launches the first portion of December’s Hellfire Vanguard update - Want to explore a volcanic region? No? Sounds dangerous? Well then you're going to miss out on Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis' latest content update, The Hellfire Vanguard, the…
Vague Patch Notes: MMO design is not value-neutral - It's rare for me to find myself actively yelling at my computer screen while watching something, but it does happen every so often. The recent Folding Ideas video about World…
V Rising teases the markets, castle expansion, biome, and jewels of its first 2023 update - Vampire sandbox V Rising helped carry the year for survival fans, but it won't be resting on its laurels over the holiday season: This morning, Stunlock Studio took the wraps…
Lost Ark deep-dives the Summoner advanced class ahead of December 14 update - Next week, Amazon is planning to release Lost Ark's December update, and there's more to it than a new legion raid: The Summoner will also launch for gamers on December…
Activision-Blizzard releases its year-to-date diversity statistics showing an increase in underrepresented groups - Activision-Blizzard's general issues with diversity and representation have prompted a number of changes within its corporate structure, and one of those is the company's ongoing reports and dispatches about corporate…
Blade & Soul releases the Dark Awakening update – here are the patch notes - The past several days have been spent by Blade & Soul talking up its Dark Awakening update, but now the talk is over and the update has gone live today,…
Massively on the Go: Tips on beating Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s 5-star+ raids - Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is quite playable as a solo experience aside from some visual bugs. However, online play is buggy, to the point that even Nintendo apologized (take note, Niantic). It's…
End-of-year Eleven: The healthiest live MMOs at the end of 2022 - When you're investing a whole lot of time and (potentially) money into MMORPGs, you want to make sure that your game isn't going belly-up tomorrow or already sliding into obscurity.…
New World addresses the prominent missing pieces of its 2023 roadmap - While New World's 2023 roadmap outlined plenty of interest coming to the game next year, the majority of fans zeroed in on what was missing. Even our own columnist Tyler…
EverQuest’s 29th expansion, Night of Shadows, is officially live for players - Twenty-nine: That's the total number of expansions that Classic EverQuest has delivered to date, capped off by the newest entry, Night of Shadows, which went live for veteran players and…
Did anyone still think Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer was happening? Because it’s really not - Stop me if you've heard this one: CD Projekt Red is very sorry but it's not going to bother with multiplayer for Cyberpunk 2077 after all. Yeah, it's a story…
A year after major layoffs, Book of Travels is ‘back to full capacity’ ahead of price hike - Remember a year ago when Book of Travels studio Might and Delight let go almost a third of its dev team following the tepid early access launch of the Kickstarted…
Choose My Adventure: Going back to Guild Wars 2 basics through Tyria mapping - One of the surefire ways I know that I'm loving a game is when I swing my wallet like a shillelagh at it - hence the plush round bird friend…
Conan Exiles’ Age of Sorcery chapter two update is live today - It's easy for one to assume that the narrative in Conan Exiles goes no further than "I built a square shack but some a-hole tornado destroyed it and then a…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s narrative misfires - Everyone either accepts at this point that Final Fantasy XIV has an excellent story or has decided to die on the hill of insisting that good things are Actually Bad,…
Interview: Warhaven’s game director on combat, inspiration, and the future of the game - Warhaven caught my attention with its epic medieval battles featuring hand-to-hand combat and fantastic graphics. It's an upcoming game that recently had an open beta for players to get their…
Valheim’s Mistlands update is live with new magic, weapons, allies, and enemies - Valheim was one of the bright stars of 2021, and though it's still deep in early access even in 2022, Coffee Stain and Iron Gate are busily developing new content,…
Hundreds of QA workers at ZeniMax – including Elder Scrolls Online’s ZOS – are preparing to unionize - File this one under reasons we can have nice things: QA workers at ZeniMax have announced they aim to unionize under the Communication Workers of America banner. They would represent…
Five things that excite me playing World of Warcraft: Dragonflight - For most of 2022, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was so far down my list of "most anticipated releases" as to be falling off the page entirely. I figured there'd be…
Vitae Aeternum: A measured response to New World’s 2023 roadmap - When New World released its roadmap for the first half of 2023 a few days back, the initial reaction from fans was... not great. I can sympathize; my own reaction…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 399: Dragonflight takes to the skies
The Stream Team: Slogging through Labor Valley in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Tick tallies in a new world for Valheim’s Mistlands launch
The Stream Team: AdventureQuest 3D takes us away to Atlantis
The Stream Team: Joining in the Winter Convergence celebration in New World
The Stream Team: Live reactions to The Game Awards reveals and announcements
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming climbs into Tower of Fantasy
The Stream Team: Seeking Wyress Sorcha in Elder Scrolls Online
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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