MMO Week in Review: Ye Olde Classic WoW Token, Blue Protocol delayed

This week, Blizzard moved on from disappointing Overwatch 2 fans and switched over to disappointing both WoW Classic and WoW Retail fans, the former with the decision to add WoW Token to what was supposed to be a classic experience and the latter with the decision to gatekeep story content.

Meanwhile, NCsoft restructured its western division, Guild Wars 2 launched What Lies Within, New World announced its second season, Cube World is back, and Blue Protocol delayed its global launch to 2024.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Blizzard introduces the WoW Token to Wrath of the Lich King Classic - Hello there, fan of WoW Classic who dislikes retail World of Warcraft! Are you still having a fun time watching Blizzard contort itself into gymnastic pretzels explaining how the two…

NCsoft West restructures as NC America, with shared CM for Lineage II, Aion, and Blade & Soul - Back in February, we reported on a wave of layoffs that struck NCsoft West, which saw 20% of its workforce handed their walking papers and the company's CEO depart his…

Flameseeker Chronicles: Wrapping up the End of Dragons era with What Lies Within - It's the end of an era: Guild Wars 2's End of Dragons era of content comes to a close with today's episode, titled What Lies Within. Last time, the Jade…

Blizzard suggests WoW Token RMT in WoW Classic is ‘for the good of the community’ because of RMT bots - World of Warcraft's WoW Classic community has been on fire for the last few days following Blizzard's announcement that it will port the WoW Token to Wrath Classic. WoW Classic,…

An investor group is trying to mangle Daybreak’s EG7 for shareholder payouts - Just a week ago, we covered EG7's first quarter financial report, and you know what, it was good. Like real good. Like record-setting for the company good, with Daybreak pulling…

New World announces second season, Blood of the Sands, launching July 6 - Amazon just announced New World's second season, dubbed Blood of the Sands and due out on July 6 with a rather DUNE-like theme, right down to the giant sand wurm…

Blue Protocol’s global release is delayed to 2024, Japanese version launches June 14 - So we've got good news and bad news for Blue Protocol fans. The good news is that the Japanese version is coming extremely soon: June 14th, according to Bandai Namco's…

WoW Factor: Blizzard’s week of bad decisions - First of all, before you clever clogs start in down in the comments, yes, I realize that almost any given week in World of Warcraft could use that title for…

Richard Garriott’s NFT-based MMO, Iron & Magic, appears to have vanished already - About a year ago, we first covered a new MMO, Iron & Magic, which was pitched as an NFT-based game with Richard Garriott at the helm - or at least attached…

Vague Patch Notes: Why do people remember an MMO past that didn’t exist? - Let's just start with the premise out of the gate. World of Warcraft launched to sales of 240,000 units on its first day. The best sources I can find gave…

Perfect Ten: 10 old MMO promises that never happened - Developers like to talk a big game. It's expected, it's encouraged by all parties, and it's part of the fun. When a game or big expansion is coming up, the…

Embracer Group (Gearbox/Cryptic) stock nose-dives after implosion of $2B business deal - Swedish corporation Embracer Group became a big name in the MMO industry a few years ago when it bought out Perfect World Entertainment's western branch, which included Cryptic and therefore…

Cube World creator emerges from hibernation to announce Cube World Omega - I admit I did a double-take last night when Wolfram von Funck aka Wollay's Twitter account whirred to life after nearly four years of silence with a new Cube World…

Blue Protocol shows off combat trailer ahead of next month’s Japanese launch - While we may be a bit down in the dumps at the news that Blue Protocol's release was delayed to 2024 for those of us in the west, we can…

Diablo IV posts early access and launch schedule along with new live action trailer - With just a little over a week to go before the forces of hell are overrun by the forces of nerds in Diablo IV, it's time to get off the…

Black Desert’s Land of the Morning Light expansion launches in the west on June 14 - [AL:BDO]Finally, we've got a hard date for Black Desert's Land of the Morning Light expansion: It's rolling out to the west on June 14th. As we've been covering since the…

The Game Archaeologist: Coca-Cola’s crazy virtual hangout - Part of the sheer joy and fun of the early online world of the late '90s and early 2000s was the experimentation that took place. Even as MMORPGs were taking…

Massively on the Go: Five features location-based MMOs keep using – but shouldn’t - I was hoping to cover a couple of other location-based games besides Jurassic World Alive this month, but as I played them, there were a few issues that kept popping up,…

New World shares PTR patch notes for its second season but is forced to delay public testing - Were you looking forward to the upcoming new season in New World? Then you were maybe champing at the bit to get in to the public test realm that was…

Massively Overthinking: Are we in an ‘MMO hype vacuum’? - James "MMO Folklorist" Crosby recently penned a piece using a term that seems so apt I feel we should all adopt it: the MMO hype vacuum. Essentially, he is grappling…

Lord of the Rings Online raises legendary item level cap, says three more updates are on the way for 2023 - That shiny, glowy super-weapon that you've been lugging all over Middle-earth is about to get even more powerful than before. Lord of the Rings Online announced that it's raised the…

Bungie makes the case for Marathon, its brand-new extraction shooter - Yesterday we reported that Bungie was resurrecting a long-dormant shooter franchise with the announcement of its upcoming sci-fi PvP game, Marathon. While the original title appeared on Mac back in…

Elder Scrolls Online previews Necrom’s new Arcanist class in its latest trailer - Necrom is almost here: It's launching June 5th on PC and June 20th on console. Elder Scrolls Online fans hungry for the Telvanni-centric expanshapaign have been treated to a series…

Throne & Liberty kicks off Korean closed beta as we wait for the fall launch - In a year when we've seen some pretty extreme delays already for anticipated titles, it falls to the least-delayed MMOs to offer the most comfort. Thus, there's a lot of…

Bungie announces extraction shooter Marathon, brings back Nathan Fillion for Destiny 2’s The Final Shape - Well well lookit Bungie, all grown up and taking its "next step in its evolution into a multi-game studio"! Yes, at the PlayStation showcase this afternoon, the company announced a…

The Elder Scrolls Online introduces players to another one of Necrom’s new companions - I would like to think that if I ever became a significant scholar of mystical arts, I would remain a generally humble person. That is most certainly not the case…

Funcom belatedly remembers Age of Conan’s 15th birthday with dev blog and event - Yesterday, we cheekily pointed out that Funcom appeared to have forgotten Age of Conan's 15th birthday back on the 20th of May, in spite of players begging on the forums…

Tree of Savior is getting a brand-new global version under Papaya next week - In a fascinating stroke of counter-programming, Papaya Play is planning to re-launch online ARPG Tree of Savior next week, just days before a little game called Diablo IV is set…

Guild Wars 2’s presumptive summer expansion teaser raises more questions than answers - Following the launch of Guild Wars 2's What Lies Within episode yesterday - and you can read all about that in our hands-on in Flameseeker Chronicles - ArenaNet popped on…

Will Smith headlines Tencent’s mobile survival MMO Undawn, launching June 15 - Tencent's Level Infinite and LightSpeed Studios have announced today that Undawn is coming in June - June 15th, to be exact. The post-apoc open-world survival RPG - which is basically…

Wayfinder’s largest global beta test to date kicks off today and runs all weekend under NDA - Wayfinder's multiple-times-delayed global beta is finally underway today, inviting back all past participants as well as some additional testers. Apparently, the latter type of invites will be sent in batches…

World of Warcraft’s wrapup quest for patch 10.1 requires killing the last boss of the raid to advance - The final story campaign quest for World of Warcraft's patch 10.1 requires killing the final boss of Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible. This is not entirely surprising. The story resolution has…

Choose My Adventure: DDO’s Catacombs offer a classic taste of the MMOs storytelling - Let me start this week's Choose My Adventure on something of a tangent - a parallel one, but a tangent nonetheless. If it wasn't already clear before, I love the…

Destiny 2 brings underwater locations, new gear, and a fishing activity in Season of the Deep today - Now that the Season of Defiance has wrapped up, it's time for the Guardians of Destiny 2 to take the next logical step: dive into the methane seas of Titan…

Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.4, The Dark Throne, is live today – check out the launch trailer - It's time to face off against Golbez in Final Fantasy XIV. Not necessarily right this second, though; you'll need to figure out how to face him holed up on the…

World of Warcraft’s next update for Wrath of the Lich King Classic will arrive on June 20 - Do you miss how retail World of Warcraft has Mythic+ dungeons when you play WoW Classic? Is that what you really wanted to bring into your experience with the game?…

Multiplayer game Sky Children of the Light unveils plans for MMO-sized social hub - While Sky: Children of the Light looks like a wonderfully bright and emotion-filled piece of gaming, it also falls solely into the category of multiplayer in terms of its scope,…

Co-op survivalbox Coreborn Nations of the Ultracore launches in early access July 18 - This past February, we first reported on Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore, a developing multiplayer survival sandbox that leaned heavily on players working together to farm resources, establish outposts for…

Wisdom of Nym: Top takeaways from Final Fantasy XIV’s The Dark Throne patch notes - I have to say that whole "preliminary" patch notes thing that Final Fantasy XIV has been pulling for years now has begun to wear a little bit. This isn't to…

Ashfall delays release to summer 2024, promises multiple beta tests beforehand - As the self-described "adventure shooter MMORPG" Ashfall moves closer to its first closed beta test in July, developer Legendary Studios has had to follow up that good news with some…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 423: The Overwatch MMO we’ll never get

The Stream Team: A round in the medieval arena of Chivalry II

The Stream Team: Playing actual Dungeons & Dragons

The Stream Team: Liberating Makeb for SWTOR lore

The Stream Team: Diving in to the Season of the Deep in Destiny 2

The Stream Team: The rampaging flower wolf of Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Creating solutions to Craglorn problems in Elder Scrolls Online

The Stream Team: Star Trek Online comes Unraveled

The Stream Team: No plans in No Man’s Sky

The Stream Team: Battling back the bug menace in Starship Troopers Extermination

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.