The MMO genre was dealt a nasty blow this week as Gameforge and Wangyuan Shengtang announced the impending western sunset of Swords of Legends Online after just under two years, adding one more Asian MMO to the pile of “temports” sent to the west to make a little launch money and then be left to die.
Meanwhile, Embers Adrift announced a F2P/B2P/sub hybrid model switch, we got a deep look into PSO2’s new player housing system, Activision-Blizzard’s CEO claimed all the misconduct accusations against the company are a big labor and media conspiracy, and we caught a Kickstarter MMO fabricating fake reviews – including one using our logo. And of course, much of the gaming world was caught up in the Diablo IV early access haze.
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
Embers Adrift pivots to a buy-to-play business model with optional sub - For a hardcore niche PvE game, Embers Adrift probably hobbled its chances at launch by demanding both a box price and an ongoing subscription fee to access. After several months…
Four Winds: Swords of Legends Online was a wasted opportunity - MMOs are hard to make. But despite the difficulties, we've seen some real gems over the years. They're also difficult to run. But the exemplars of the genre prove that…
No, we didn’t write a ‘testimonial review’ supporting Kickstarter MMO Magic to Master - A couple of years back, we reported on the resurrection of Magic to Master, aka M2M, which along with Laniatus had apparently changed hands to a Turkish Hungarian gaming outfit…
Bobby Kotick decries ‘aggressive labor movement’ trying to ‘destabilize’ Activision-Blizzard - We're just a few days from the launch of Diablo IV, so naturally Variety has offered up a mushy interview with... Activision-Blizzard's Bobby Kotick, topped by a 'shopped photo of…
First Impressions: Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis’ player housing aka ‘creative spaces’ has huge potential – and a huge learning curve - One of the best methods for MMORPG players to feel connected to their game's world is through the avenue of player housing. It's an experience that I've shared here before…
Diablo IV’s early access launch has been relatively smooth, but license issues are blockading some players - While the official launch day is still a few spins of the Earth away, last night's Diablo IV's early access is being treated like the start of the game anyway.…
CIG raises prices on Star Citizen ships, confirms Squadron 42’s removal from sale for an ‘expected price change’ - Backers and followers of Squadron 42 noticed something a bit worrying in the middle of May: The purchase page was returning a 404 error with no explanation from CIG. This…
Perfect Ten: Get out of my dreams and get into my (MMO) car - Cars. They go vroom-vroom, and then they go really fast, and how do we live in a country where you basically need a car to make your life make any…
Vague Patch Notes: Why we should evaluate MMO systems based on how they break - Back before Final Fantasy XIV's reboot launched, Naoki Yoshida talked about how the developers had plans to make certain primals be world bosses. Players would team up to take them…
Amazon confirms Blue Protocol’s western delay and closed beta test on the way - Blue Protocol has been delayed! Oh, you knew that? Because Bandai Namco announced it 11 days ago? Yeah. Fair. Well, Amazon has finally roused itself as the game's western publisher…
Tarisland’s newest video shares the origin story of the High Elves - Elves. Love 'em, hate 'em, reference their butts as an ongoing joke; they're a fantasy trope that will never die. Tarisland will have elves - High Elves to be exact…
Storyboard: Managing the escalating stakes in MMO storytelling - Everyone who has at least passing familiarity with stories, whether they be in MMOs or elsewhere, roleplayed or canonical, realizes that stories need stakes. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't…
Guild Wars 2 is giving everyone free rainbow wings to celebrate Pride Month - It's the start of June, and that means Pride Month is here once again for everyone who celebrates. And what better way to celebrate than with some new wings in…
Activision-Blizzard offers (some) hard numbers on its harassment and discrimination problem - Within the Variety puff piece on Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick earlier this week, Kotick insisted that the volumes of harassment accusations against the company were fake and blamed everyone from…
No Man’s Sky announces a native Mac edition for Apple fans with cross-save and cross-play - Hello Games has been teasing red and green apple emoji all week, and if you're a PC person, you might have been wondering whether No Man's Sky was about to…
Star Citizen maps out Arena Commander updates for alpha 3.20, leading to mixed reaction from players - Yesterday saw Star Citizen release its roadmap and related roundup post for the game, offering backers a nebulous view of what alpha 3.20 is planning to bring to the table,…
Lord of the Rings Online says hello to King’s Gondor, farewell to Shadowfax - It's been a week of transitions for Lord of the Rings Online. The fantasy MMO said farewell to the speedy Shadowfax server following its two-year run, with its (small) population…
Tarisland sets its scene in new video with new animated art and more questionable narration - "Most in your progression these millions of years, still low in rank, no wiser than a fool." "Plague, hatred, war, and death; come as I now decree!" "The doom looms…
Diablo IV’s head start launches this evening – Blizz warns it might be ‘a little bumpy’ - A little over 11 years after the release of Diablo III, this is the day that Diablo IV hath wrought... for pricey edition pre-orders, that is. The global head start…
Former World of Warcraft dev claims he was fired over greedy goblin text lines - So good old Bobby Kotick's interview yesterday made him look really great, if we're using very inaccurate definitions of the words "great" and also "good." You know the only thing…
Gameforge is sunsetting Swords of Legends Online not quite two years after launch - I wish I could say nobody saw this coming, but unfortunately, the writing has been on the wall for a while: Gameforge announced this morning that it's sunsetting the western…
Final Fantasy XIV restarts house demolitions on Chaos and Light following suspensions - If you play on Final Fantasy XIV's Chaos or Light data centers and have been enjoying your house, good news: You don't need to do anything new. But if you've…
‘Knowledge, runes, tentacles’: Elder Scrolls Online previews Necrom’s Arcanist - This morning, MOP's Justin penned a Tamriel Infinium column outlining the key moments of hype in Elder Scrolls Online's Necrom expansion, and the most compelling bullet point is the new…
Black Desert PC releases the Awakened Woosa today, plans Awakened Maegu for June - The awakening has come for another one of Black Desert's classes, as today's new update for the PC version sees the Awakened Woosa class as the headlining feature. This new…
Massively on the Go: Top 5 features location-based games need use more - In our last Massively on the Go, we talked about the top five features location-based games keep using but shouldn't. The genre is relatively young and largely poorly imitated even…
Pirate101 launches on Steam today with the Sinbad Chapter 2 update - It's launch day for Pirate101! OK, not exactly. Pirate101 launched in 2012. But it's launching on Steam today, as KingsIsle brings the family-friendly pirate MMORPG to Valve's platform in search…
Riot Games and League of Legends esports pros lock horns over fate of North American league - Following Riot Games' announcement of its plan to reduce the North American Challenger's League for League of Legends esports down to only seven teams from last year's 16, LoL pro…
Tamriel Infinium: Six reasons to be excited about Elder Scrolls Online’s Necrom chapter - I feel genuinely bad for Elder Scrolls Online right now. At a time where all other games are scurrying out of the way of the 800-pound gorilla of Diablo IV,…
Life is Feudal MMO returns under new management – and a testing subscription fee - For those who don't remember Life is Feudal, it was a medieval-style simulator that was most notable for spawning multiple versions: an MMO, a small-scale multiplayer game, a town builder,…
Choose My Adventure: Plumbing the challenging Delera’s Tomb in Dungeons and Dragons Online - This week's Choose My Adventure ended up being a bit more challenging than I had expected it to be. Primarily because my level five character in Dungeons and Dragons Online…
Wisdom of Nym: Spoiler-free thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.4’s content - Here we are with another Final Fantasy XIV patch to experience, and as is tradition, we're going to spend this week talking about the content alone while giving people a…
Blizzard confirms that it’s working on World of Warcraft dragonriding outside of Dragon Isles - You know what's just plain fun? World of Warcraft's dragonriding. It may well be the most well-received expansion feature since Legion's artifact weapons, and ever since players got their hands…
PlanetSide 2’s Michael ‘Wrel’ Henderson has left Daybreak and the game - There's been a changing of the guard at Daybreak's Rogue Planet: Michael "Wrel" Henderson is leaving his post at the top of PlanetSide 2. Wrel, the lead designer who took…
World of Warcraft Classic pulled Black Temple down temporarily, presumably over gold farming - So let's take a look at something that seems pretty innocent on the surface. Blizzard announced on the official World of Warcraft forums that the Black Temple raid would be…
Jack Emmert confirms that NetEase’s Warhammer 40,000 MMO is being built in Unreal Engine 5 - Hopefully you didn't miss the fascinating announcement last month that Jack Emmert's new Austin-based, NetEase-owned game studio is working on a Warhammer 40,000 MMO of some sort. And while Emmert…
Survival sim Nightingale teases new character outfits and points of interest - Are we still smarting a bit that Victorian survival RPG Nightingale was bumped to this fall? A bit, if we're honest, but that extra time allows us to whet our…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
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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