MMO Week in Review: FFXIV’s cheaters, NCsoft’s layoffs

Cheaters did their best to spoil this week in MMOs as Final Fantasy XIV was ensnared by a scandal over players using forbidden plugins to claim a world first title. The quarrel spilled over into the broader MMO community and prompted frustration from Yoshi-P – and punishment for the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, we checked in on the state of Dragonflight, toured FFXIV’s housing system, and lamented NCsoft’s layoffs. And in meta news, we’re now on Mastodon!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Final Fantasy XIV director expresses frustration and confusion as another world first clear is won via addon use - It would appear that Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida has McFreaking had it with addons being used in order for raid teams to clear Ultimate difficulty content…

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV addon cheaters undermine the game – and themselves - It is baffling to me - utterly baffling - that I have to write this column at all. But let's start by taking a step back and examining the history.…

NCsoft West loses CEO, lays off 20% of staff, says Throne & Liberty is not impacted - [Updated at the end of this article with confirmation of the 20% figure and news about the CEO, as well as NCsoft's statement to us. The original article follows.] With…

World of Warcraft checks in with trading post issue updates, opens a cross-realm raid February 14 - The rough week for World of Warcraft's ramshackle trading post is continuing on, as the devs have checked in to note a couple of known issues and updates with the…

Some Assembly Required: My journey through the housing system of Final Fantasy XIV - It took me years - literal years - but I landed a personal house in Final Fantasy XIV. Not an apartment, not a room in my guild's hall; an honest-to-goodness…

Perfect Ten: 10 dead MMOs that should be revived for a second chance - I have always felt that it's such an enormous waste of everything when a live MMORPG is sunsetted and access to it is gone for good. Not only do players…

Massively Overthinking: What MMORPG content requires the most skill – and why? - Back in January, there was an inflammatory thread on the MMORPG subreddit that argued that anyone using rotation mods in endgame MMO content was nullifying skill and competition from the…

WoW Factor: The state of World of Warcraft’s Dragonflight, two months in - On Monday, I talked with MOP's Bree about the idea of doing a piece this week about how World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was doing after two months of release. It's…

PSA: World Eternal Online is actually just the blockchain MMO Core Loop announced last year - Do you remember last year when developer Core Loop raised $12 million in order to develop a blockchain-integrated MMO? Probably not, there has been a lot going on since then.…

Workers call out Activision-Blizzard management as it reaches $35M settlement with SEC - A Better ABK, the proto-union workers group that supports the developers at Activision-Blizzard, has once more thrown a spotlight on management malfeasance, sharing its attempts to adjust performance review processes…

Square-Enix says net sales are down across the board because of ‘weak’ catalog titles and no MMORPG expansion - The latest financial report out of Square-Enix doesn't appear to be a particularly rosy one as net sales of games across the company's three related sub-segments were all down, resulting…

Rumbleverse and Knockout City announce sunsets, Back 4 Blood announces maintenance mode - We have an unfortunate trifecta of bad multiplayer gaming news, especially for fans of the battle royale title Rumbleverse, the team-based dodgeball battler Knockout City, and the co-op zombie shoot-em-up…

Path of Exile ties down dates for its next two expansion reveals and the ExileCon event - Whip out your favorite calendar (or your favorite calendar app because paper calendars are dead now I guess) because Path of Exile has some important dates to share. Specifically, the…

Dauntless and Fae Farm studio Phoenix Labs just bought itself out - Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs is making another huge move this week, as it's apparently secured investment that will allow its management to buy it out from from its holders at…

APB Reloaded flips the ignition switch for its 64-bit client upgrade with a beta test - Third time is hopefully the charm with APB Reloaded's attempt to improve its client. Little Orbit announced that the beta for the game's 64-bit upgrade's begun -- and anyone can…

Zenith tees up player housing test, picks up former New World creative director and WoW designer - Ramen VR CEO Andy Tsen dropped a letter to the Zenith community late last night with both industry and game news. For starters, the indie studio has apparently picked up…

Elder Scrolls Online will finally allow you to hide shoulder armor in the March game update - There's some great news this week for MMO sufferers of Giant Shoulders Syndrome (GSS): Elder Scrolls Online finally is going to let you hide your unsightly shoulder gear in Update…

Fractured is on track for a March return after hasty backtrack from early access and Gamigo mess - At the tail end of 2022, following Gamigo's layoff-and-game-yeeting round, Kickstarted Fractured was counted among the victims. Fractured is the Kickstarted sandbox MMO from Dynamight Studios that Gamigo had published…

Star Citizen’s January dev report details new vehicle work, player skills, and NPCs learning how grenades work - "When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend," goes the classic bit of military humor, but it apparently took the enemy NPCs of Star Citizen quite some…

The Sims 5 will be multiplayer – but not an MMO - To those holding a torch of hope that The Sims 5 might be The Sims Online incarnate, Maxis has some bad news for you today. In the studio's first "Behind…

World of Warcraft is offline as Blizzard pulls the trading post over bugs - "Hey mister, get out of the way! I have to get home and play World of Warcraft!" Why, slow down there, Timmy! What's got you so excited to get back…

Orna developers are working on Hero of Aethric, a pixel-art open-world mobile MMO - Have you ever enjoyed the lore and systems of a game but thought it might be even better if it were a different genre? Well, Northern Forge Studios, the studio…

New Turkish MMO Quinfall says it won’t seek player money before launch - On Monday, we inadvertently set off a bit of a firestorm by reporting on new Turkish MMORPG The Quinfall, which studio Vawraek Technology said would be "the biggest MMORPG universe…

The Crew 3 aka The Crew Motorfest launches player testing today - The rumors and teases were true: The Crew franchise is getting another sequel in the form of The Crew Motorfest - essentially The Crew 3. As Ubisoft formally announced yesterday,…

EA is sunsetting Apex Legends Mobile, canceling Battlefield mobile game - Electronic Arts delivered its Q3FY23 investor report this afternoon, and it wasn't a bad one; the company saw net revenues up for the quarter and essentially flat for the year. So…

Microsoft wonders if y’all are done playing Halo Infinite just yet - Things aren't looking too hot for the online entry of Microsoft's flagship FPS franchise. A new survey sent out to gamers from the tech giant asked recipients if they were…

Guild Wars 2 latest update buffs WvW PvP, adds jade bot terminals to Central Tyria - As promised, ArenaNet has pushed live Guild Wars 2's WvW update as of this afternoon. PvE players with End of Dragons masteries will want to go check out the new…

Lost Ark previews February 8 update, bumps the Artist up to March (instead of April) - Amazon has just updated Lost Ark's roadmap, and it leads off with some extremely good news: The Artist class, which wasn't expected to launch in the west until April, is…

E3 2023: Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony will all apparently skip the first in-person E3 since 2019 - As first reported last night by IGN, E3 will apparently be a low-key affair, thanks to the absence of Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox. The news comes from unnamed insider sources…

Choose My Adventure: Classic Guild Wars just makes me want to play Guild Wars 2 - Well I suppose this was a foregone conclusion if people had been following along with this month's series of Choose My Adventure articles, but I think I can pretty confidently…

The Elder Scrolls Online sends Scribes of Fate to the PTS, sets EU datacenter upgrades for April - While Elder Scrolls Online fans are understandably buzzing about the launch of Necrom late this spring, the game's first big arrival of the year is actually almost here. As of…

Whatever happened to Swords of Legends Online? - A funny thing happened as we were moving through our news room today. Bree noted out of the blue that we hadn't seen any sort of big noise out of…

The Adventurer’s Domain Online makes a ‘rough around the edges’ early access debut - The Adventurer's Domain Online, a developing MMORPG that aspires to meld old-school vibes with modern action combat, officially arrived into Steam early access last week and has made no bones…

The Soapbox: Subscriptions might actually be the next big innovation in digital card games - What started earlier this week as a rant on how bad an idea a subscription model in Hearthstone would be evolved into something more: a Soapbox comparing the economies of…

Wisdom of Nym: In praise of Final Fantasy XIV’s Ultimate content - As basically everyone who has read this column for a long period of time knows, I have not done the latest bit of Ultimate content in Final Fantasy XIV. Nor…

Siege-centered PvP MMO Warlander makes its free-to-play launch, is immediately flooded with cheaters - A few weeks ago we caught wind of Warlander, a self-described MMO focused on online castle siege warfare with up to 100 players that stirs MOBAs, hack-and-slash games, battle royale-style…

Vitae Aeternum: Obsessing over New World’s population numbers is a waste of time - New World is a bit unique in that it is the only major Western MMORPG that is playable only through Steam. The others are also available through other platforms, such…

Quinfall claims it’ll be ‘the biggest MMORPG universe in the world’ - Don't look now, but there's a brand-new player on the MMORPG board. Welcome Turkey-based Vawraek Technology, which was founded in 2021 and is apparently hard at work on a new…

Meta: MassivelyOP is now on Mastodon - Hallo, MOP readers! By popular request, we've been working on our Mastodon implementation as an alternative to existing social media networks, and thanks to several stars aligning with our plugins…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 407: Roadmaps, roadmaps, roadmaps

Battle Bards Episode 221: LOTRO Before the Shadow

The Stream Team: Further adventures of the Anklemuncher and friends in City of Heroes Homecoming

The Stream Team: Hidden quests and AQ3D’s Lunar New Year

The Stream Team: Celebrating another Valentione’s Day in Final Fantasy XIV

The Stream Team: Dungeons & Dragons Online’s Snowpeaks Festival

The Stream Team: Running Star Trek Online’s Refractions for its 13th anniversary

The Stream Team: Completing SWTOR’s Republic Corellia story before becoming Imperial

The Stream Team: Feeding the altoholic need in City of Heroes Homecoming

The Stream Team: A Quiet Celebration in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Taking advantage of Elder Scrolls Online’s free ESO+ weekend

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.