MMO Week in Review: Super Adventure Box Season

April Fools’ Day is more like April Fools’ Week in MMOs, and nowhere is it more elaborate than in Guild Wars 2, which reopened Super Adventure Box this week – with a tease for a new map after years of waiting.

Meanwhile, E3 skidded to a hard cancel, we peeked in on Diablo IV’s second beta, Final Fantasy XIV announced 6.4 The Dark Throne, and Mad World finally picked a date for launch: April 27th.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Not So Massively: Second impressions of Diablo IV - My initial impression of the Diablo IV open beta was lukewarm at best, but I did hold some hope that the second beta weekend might change things. This second beta…

Guild Wars 2’s Super Adventure Box – and part of an unfinished World 3 – is live ahead of April Fools’ Day 2023 - Guild Wars 2's Super Adventure Festival is live for the April Fools' season as of today with all the usual features and tweaks. Players should take a peek at the…

E3 2023 has officially been cancelled - This probably isn't going to come as a surprise to anyone, but it's still a significant announcement. E3 2023 has been cancelled outright according to emails sent out by the…

Grimdark MMOARPG Mad World is finally launching April 27 - Jandisoft's tease of an announcement for the announcement has finally come to fruition as this morning the studio revealed an April 27th launch date for MMOARPG Mad World - a…

Final Fantasy XIV is delivering patch 6.4, The Dark Throne, in late May - There's no ambiguity about the next trial for Final Fantasy XIV - in patch 6.4, The Dark Throne, players will be kicking the heck out of Golbez. It makes sense,…

Ashes of Creation shows off story arc systems and a spooky tower, claims Alpha 2 is ‘not years away’ - We're just entering the month of April, which means that Ashes of Creation has put forth yet another monthly development livestream for March to keep followers abreast of where the…

NetEase’s Harry Potter: Magic Awakened conjures a soft launch in select countries - While wizards may need a wand with a gummy juice core to do magic, all players need is a good deck of cards. It's time to whip those cards out…

New World’s first season is now tentatively set for April 4 - Following a delay of the previously planned release of Season 1, New World may be activating the event in the first week of April. Amazon said that it's going to…

LOTRO Legendarium: Eight features I’d love to see added to LOTRO - Opinions, as they say, are like social media accounts: Everyone's got at least one and probably a dozen ready to ruin your life. This is especially true when applied to…

April Fools’ Day events in the MMO world, 2023 edition - April Fools' Day has a weird feel this year, being on a weekend, but it's here all the same. It's tradition for MMO devs to prank their players and worlds,…

Eden Eternal starts pre-registration… and offers players NFTs for participation - If you were looking forward to the relaunch of Eden Eternal under X-LEGEND, we have some bad news for you. It's not exactly the bad news you might normally expect.…

Why I Play: Diablo III – From pre-release to Reaper of Souls - It's hard for me to believe that Diablo III's May 15th, 2012, release was over a decade ago. And despite its reputation of being the black sheep soulstone of the…

Destiny 2 slightly reduces PvE content difficulty and greatly lowers commendation requirements - Back in February, Destiny 2 director Joe Blackburn pointed out how life in the shooter was going to get harder thanks to some difficulty tweaks. As it turns out, most…

Storyboard: Pros and cons for purely player-driven story experiences in MMOs - What is the right way to tell a story in an MMO? That is a silly question, like asking what the right way is to tell a story in a…

EverQuest II pulls a crate containing controversial treasure-boosting keys from its cash shop - The playerbase of EverQuest II was in an uproar a couple of weeks ago over keys that players could purchase that "increase the number of treasure rolls you obtained, or…

Elite Dangerous’ console players can finally transfer to PC (again) starting next week - Almost exactly a year ago, Elite Dangerous fans were stunned at the news that not only was Odyssey's console launch delays going to continue but that it'd be indefinite as…

Diablo IV notes 29B monsters slain and 61M hours played during the open beta test - This past weekend was a very obviously busy one for Diablo IV considering it was running an open beta test. That said, those who like a little bit of extra…

The Daily Grind: Would you play a My Little Pony MMO? - A few weeks back, MOP's Carlo related the tale of how his friends were debating whether they'd rather have a My Little Pony or a Carebears MMORPG. For me, the…

Massively Overthinking: The dumbest conversations in your main MMO’s general chat - Last week, in a thread about one of Diablo IV's many rivals, MOP commenter Greaterdivinity noted that chat in the game was exhausting because all anyone wants to talk about…

Guild Wars 2 finally embraces the need for style in the first part of its April Fools’ Day joke - All right, so Guild Wars 2 is done with dragons. That's the whole point of the last expansion. What about other problems that are not dragons? Turns out those problems…

Path of Exile’s April 7th update Crucible gives weapons their own skill trees - Spring has sprung, and a new Path of Exile league is about to bloom. Next week -- April 7th for PC and April 12th for consoles -- Crucible will launch.…

Star Wars: The Old Republic plans to move its servers over to Amazon Web Services - Hot on the heels of the move to a 64-bit client, Star Wars: The Old Republic is preparing another big jump in its backend: BioWare announced that plans are in…

Wizard101 players are already ruining the fun of its recent Rate My Stitch feature - Sharing glamorous looks is arguably a large part of the fun in MMOs, so when KingsIsle decided to encourage that in Wizard101 with the in-game Rate My Stitch feature, we…

Vague Patch Notes: Can anyone really cover games objectively when there’s suffering built-in to them? - In July of 2021, we started a roundup tag in our tag cloud that most of us probably didn't expect to still be using nearly two years later. It's just…

Mortal Online 2 offers its first sneak peek of the sandbox’s Unreal Engine 5 upgrade - Who wouldn't appreciate some better visuals in their FFA PvP sandbox? That's just what players of Mortal Online 2 are getting in the near future, as the game's most recent…

Star Citizen ramps up its timetable to release 3.18 patches in order to deliver alpha 3.19 on schedule - Even though alpha 3.18 has been a slow burning disaster for Star Citizen between its initial deployment and now, CIG is still looking to deliver its alpha 3.19 build on…

Electronic Arts lays off hundreds of employees as part of a ‘restructuring’ plan - Pink Easter eggs may be in season, but over at Electronic Arts, employees are filling up their baskets with pink slips instead. The video game giant announced that it's laying…

Disney axes its fledgling metaverse division as part of a 7,000 employee layoff round - How long does it take for the House of Mouse to decide the metaverse isn't worth it? Roughly a year, apparently, as Disney has handed 7,000 employees a pink slip,…

Donkey Crew announces new survival game Bellwright as Last Oasis begins fourth year of early access - You know how it goes. You're enjoying a normal one, just chilling and vibing, and then suddenly the constabulary shows up all, "uh, so we think you murdered the Prince,…

Activision-Blizzard and NetEase’s breakup was caused by long-brewing disputes and alleged threats - One of the biggest MMO and gaming stories capping off the end of 2022 and spilling over into the start of 2023 was the dissolution of the Activision-Blizzard-NetEase partnership that…

Foxhole studio announces Anvil Empires, a persistent war sandbox MMO with thousand-person battles - If you thought Foxhole is a great MMO - as we sure do - and were wishing its devs would expand their skills to fresh settings, then feast your eyeballs…

Perfect Ten: 10 features that take Star Trek Online out of this world - In returning to Star Trek Online after a couple of years away, I did something brand-new this time around: I brought my Star Trek-obsessed teenage daughter with me to experience…

Japan drops Microsoft/Activision-Blizzard antitrust probe as lawmakers scrutinize Japanese gaming market - Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick released a memo to his staff (and everyone else in the entire world) on the ABK Substack (which exists) last night, and while most of it…

Dungeons and Dragons Online shuffles 2023 roadmap, pushes mini-expansion to next quarter - We hope you haven't grown too attached to Dungeons and Dragons Online's 2023 roadmap, as the phrase "subject to change" has never seemed so real and possible as it does…

Neverwinter’s Salvatore-penned Menzoberranzan module is live on PC and console today - Happy Menzoberranzan day! Neverwinter fans better have the spelling of that word down pat because the full release rolls out to the live PC and console servers as of today.…

Global Chat: Diablo IV is an MMO, change my mind - Besides melting GPUs, ejecting colors into the sun, and being more grim than your unapproving Aunt Kelka, Diablo IV's becoming known for actually being more of an MMORPG than first…

XLGames’ NFT MMO ArcheWorld arrives in the Americas April 20 in spite of (or because of) weak start in Asia - XLGames continues to march forward with the global release of ArcheWorld, the NFT and blockchain-linked version of ArcheAge that technically launched for some Asian regions last year. Readers will recall that…

Choose My Adventure: Neverwinter’s Bard rocks - Neverwinter is another one of those MMORPGs that I just put on the shelf and walked away from after being generally bored by it. I don't remember the combat being…

Albion Online teases legendary weapons, new weapon line, and ‘proper castle and siege fights’ - The launch of Albion Online's Albion East server last week has seen multiple ups and downs for both realms over that period of time, but Sandbox Interactive is calling it…

EverQuest II begins testing its next update, dubbed Empire of Antiquity - The next big update for EverQuest II is less than a month away, but if you lack the patience to wait until then, you can check it out on the…

Embers Adrift’s Forgotten Depths adds a new dungeon and mentoring system - Embers Adrift is slated to roll out its March patch today for fans of the indie MMO experience. It's called the Forgotten Depths patch, the core of which is the…

Star Wars: The Old Republic kicks off Galactic Season 4, PvP Season 2, and 64-bit client - An urgent communique has gone out over the galactic holonet, informing the denizens of a galaxy far, far away that Star Wars: The Old Republic has a new update for…

Warner Bros. pulls MultiVersus’ beta offline in June, plans full launch next year - When Player First Games launched MultiVersus into open beta last summer, it was an instant hit with our writers and readers and everyone else too. But then the game began…

World of Warcraft will let you make blind characters in Update 10.1 - MMORPGs are all about letting you make and roleplay the kind of character you envision, which means the more creation choices, the better. And while World of Warcraft was never…

Wisdom of Nym: Recurring Final Fantasy XIV systems we could probably get rid of - At this point, Final Fantasy XIV has had a long time to get into a pretty reliable cadence that has not changed substantially beyond the fringes. If you do not…

Not So Massively: Wolcen’s Endgame is one of online gaming’s all-time worst blunders - Speaking as a long-time fan of the game, I think the post-launch management of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem has been an absolute mess. There have been long content draughts. The…

Aion Classic officially launches in Europe on April 12 – here’s Gameforge’s new trailer - After a brief delay, Gameforge has officially announced today that Aion Classic will launch for the European playerbase on April 12th, following its 2021 launch in North America and 2020…

Final Fantasy XIV brings back its free login campaign and hands out the Stormblood expansion for a limited time - Are you a lapsed Final Fantasy XIV player who is looking for some free login time? Or perhaps you're looking to buy the game's starter edition and you want to…

PAX East 2023: Wayfinder unveils new character, battle pass plans, and April closed beta testing - As we reported before, the co-op rogue-lite title Wayfinder was headed to this year's PAX East for demoing and a panel. That panel has since happened and it brought with…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 415: Don’t go into the Lightfall

Battle Bards Episode 223: Dragonica (aka Dragon Saga)

The Stream Team: AQ3D’s Burger Hero opens for business

The Stream Team: Trying to take on the doom chickens in Neverwinter

The Stream Team: Dreams of Insanity in Dungeons & Dragons Online

The Stream Team: Finally completing Corellia in SWTOR

The Stream Team: Some casual and chilled out exploration in No Man’s Sky

The Stream Team: Connecting the Pieces in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Deposing elemental monarchs in Elder Scrolls Online

The Stream Team: Multiplayer racing and golfing in Turbo Golf Racing

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.