This edition of the MMO Week in Review is dedicated to that guy who got really mad at us a coupla years back when we didn’t give our annual Most Anticipated MMORPG award to Starfield. I hope he’s having himself a real good time right now!
Anyway, some actual MMO things happened this week: New World put a name and a date on its tentpole fall expansion (Rise of the Angry Earth, October 3rd), Lord of the Rings Online pushed out Update 37 and its adorable River Hobbits, and we got the gloomy news that Gloria Victis is sunsetting on Halloween.
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
New World’s first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, launches October 3 with mounts, flails, new housing, and more - New World's 2023 roadmap promised its first expansion, but until now, we had few details on what that meant. Recently the folks at Amazon Games invited members of the press…
Previewing New World’s Rise of the Angry Earth expansion: Artifact gear, endgame, crafting, and onward - In my previous Vitae Aeternum column, I covered the big tentpole features of New World's first paid expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, including the updated zone, new weapon, new…
Lord of the Rings Online releases Update 37 with River Hobbits and the stat crunch - Following a week delay, Update 37 arrived for Lord of the Rings Online yesterday. Titled "The Humble Homes of the Holbytlan," this patch revolves around the new River Hobbit racial…
Casually Classic: Hardcore realms are merely a Band-Aid for WoW Classic - Let's pause for a hot minute to absorb the fact that WoW Classic just hit its fourth anniversary. For the reheated leftovers of an MMORPG from 2004, it's actually been…
Indie MMO Gloria Victis and its studio are shutting down on Halloween after a decade online - I'm sorry to report this afternoon that the long-running siege PvP MMORPG Gloria Victis is sunsetting. Polish indie studio Black Eye Games made the announcement on Steam, telling players that…
Vague Patch Notes: What you leave behind in MMOs - You meant a lot to me when we knew one another. I wonder if you ever really understood that, or if I even communicated it right. I have been playing…
WoW Factor: What would World of Warcraft ‘Classic Plus’ even look like? - So before I start this column, I want to make something very clear: I do not for one moment, in my heart of hearts, believe that Blizzard is ever going…
LOTRO Legendarium: Of River Hobbits and river homes in Lord of the Rings Online - After a short delay, Update 37: The Humble Homes of the Holbytlan is here for us to unwrap and enjoy. Rather than being a patch full of quests and updates,…
Why I Play: Palia is cozy and fun, but why is it multiplayer – and where is it going? - On paper, Palia seems like it wouldn’t interest me. It is a lighthearted jaunt through a bright, cartoonish environment that involves building relationships with villagers and progressing through many tiers…
Star Wars: The Old Republic releases patch 7.3.1 on September 6 - If you absolutely cannot wait for the next patch for Star Wars: The Old Republic... well, we don't know what to tell you. There's going to be a little more…
Wayfinder compensates players for launch, plans new weapon and quests for first big patch - Wayfinder has come a long way in its quest to shore up its paid early access: Airship Syndicate dropped an avalanche of info and compensation on players last night in…
Cozy solarpunk survivalbox Loftia funded on Kickstarter with over $1.2M US - Loftia closed out its Kickstarter last night with a whopping $1.27M US pledged from over 16,000 backers. In its thank-you letter to supporters, studio Qloud said that it's hard at…
Ashes of Creation’s latest video walks players through building up a node in Alpha Two - Nodes. They're an important piece of the gameplay loop in Ashes of Creation, letting players establish towns, become citizens, and ostensibly giving players reasons to fight one another in the…
Massively Overthinking: Does reused content in MMOs bother you? - One of the big complaints I saw on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit right before Secrets of the Obscure launched was the grump that ArenaNet was somehow scraping the bottom…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen promises a focus on updating its ‘old’ and ‘unappealing’ art style - The mechanical things that Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is reportedly doing well aren't going to matter if the game is hard to look at, which is a pain point…
Lost Ark interview: Amazon talks jump-start servers, battle royale, dodging power creep, and more - Lost Ark has had a whirlwind August, first with the release of a major roadmap for the game, then with the launch of the Aeromancer in the Wield the Storm…
Dauntless outlines plans for weapon overhauls and a weapon swapping feature coming next summer - If you've been following along with the news out of the multiplayer critter hunting RPG Dauntless, you'll know that things haven't been particularly happy as developer Phoenix Labs seems to…
Over 3,000 EVE Online players assembled for an impromptu battle at 4-ABS8 - This week brought some fresh fun for people who enjoy hearing about EVE Online scrums from the sidelines (and ideally for those players participating in said scrums): Several alliances locked…
TennoCon 2023: The soul of Soulframe is healing, redemption, and cute critters - Last year's TennoCon introduced us to a tease of Digital Extreme's new upcoming game, Soulframe. Since then, MMO gamers - including me - have been eagerly awaiting more information. And…
Lost Ark’s big European region merge is underway – and taking even longer than expected - As promised, Lost Ark has begun a major round of region merging as of this morning. While the North American servers are back up already, the European servers are still…
Palia opens the Maji Market, adds sitting mechanic, and holds a Reddit AMA - It was a bit delayed last night, but Palia's first proper content update in open beta has now officially arrived with the release of the Maji Market patch. As originally…
Perfect Ten: Times when MMOs brought about world-shattering cataclysms - The notion of an in-game cataclysm is hardly the sole domain of Activision-Blizzard; on the contrary, large-scale apocalypses pop up all the time in MMOs. After all, nothing grabs the…
Embers Adrift’s August patch improves ‘combat feels’ and adds the hunting log - Power of the Ember Veins: That's the name of this month's patch offering from Embers Adrift. Yesterday's update to the indie MMO may not have added any new zones, but…
Guild Wars 2 finally removed Valdhertz Crypts from Wizard’s Vault objectives after SOTO’s first week - Those darn Valdhertz Crypts! No one in Guild Wars 2 likes them! That's why people were kinda miffed about having Valdhertz Crypts (and other mini-dungeons) show up as an objective…
World of Warcraft drops a launch cinematic video for next week’s Fury Incarnate patch - Have you gotten enough of cinematics in which Bad Guy does Mean Thing before Bad But More Reasonable Woman stops him, and then has a stare at Victim Guy before…
Star Trek Online Incursion launches for PC on September 12, starring Garrett Wang, Kipleigh Brown, and Erin Macdonald - Star Trek Online players will soon be boldly going back into the Multiverse plotline with the release of Incursion, coming to PC on September 12th. The PS4 and Xbox X|S…
NCsoft and Amazon are planning a big western Throne & Liberty technical test in September - NCsoft's Throne & Liberty may be a tangle of delays, but some lucky testers are going to get a sneak peek, as Amazon and NCsoft have announced this afternoon that…
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go delivered a merely average Go Fest, bugs and all - This year's Pokemon Go Global Go Fest 2023 has officially ended, and it was... OK. It could've been a lot worse. Last year's Go Fest proper was one of the…
Abyss is a new PvP sandbox MMORPG coming in 2024, and it’s already selling currency - We've updated the end of this post with new info that's come to light regarding the game's origins. MMORPG fans eager for new frontiers can cast their gaze at Abyss,…
Albion Online is killing off its Crystal League Championship PvP tournaments in spite of 300K daily players - So Albion Online has some bad news this week: Sandbox Interactive is bringing its long-running Crystal League Championship PvP tournaments to an end, with the final event slated for mid-September,…
Former CIG employee speaks out about Star Citizen’s design trajectory and money burn - The headlines around Star Citizen and money continue to swirl. Hot off of the heels of yesterday's report about the game's new crowdfunding total and layoffs within the company, a…
Palia game director: ‘We know we’re not there yet on the MMO side for a lot of players’ - A "rocky" launch indicates both highs and lows for a fledgling title, and that's exactly the sort of journey that Palia has experienced over the last few weeks. Following the…
Blue Protocol interview addresses the western version’s combat, story, and content cadence - Blue Protocol is one of the many MMOPRGs that are represented at Gamescom 2023, particularly the Amazon Games-published western edition of the title. That has naturally drawn forth some media…
Wisdom of Nym: Looking back at a decade of Final Fantasy XIV - When Final Fantasy XIV was first announced, I was still fairly new in my tenure at Massively, but our editor-in-chief at the time was on a big push to match…
Warframe’s Whispers in the Walls adds new narrative, hub, and Tenno ‘skin’ - What is TennoCon but the opportunity to debut something big for Warframe? Every year Digital Extremes introduces players to new and exciting content that's quickly -- and not so quickly…
TennoCon 2023: Warframe 1999’s trailer goes back to the future - As with every TennoCon, Digital Extremes likes to tease players with a little blast of what will be featured at the next con. Of course, TennoCon 2023 ended with said…
Star Citizen crowdfunding hits $600M under the specter of reported layoffs at CIG - It was only a few weeks ago when we reported on Star Citizen raking in $550M to date this year in crowdfunding, which was putting it on track to hit…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 435: Guild Wars 2’s secrets revealed
The Stream Team: Diving in to the early access dungeon delves of Wayfinder
The Stream Team: Relaxing with Plastic Placid Duck Simulator
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming shares some multiplayer SWAT action from Ready or Not
The Stream Team: Guild Wars 2’s Mother of Stars
The Stream Team: Escape from Alcatraz – er, Amenos – in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Talking Warframe and TennoCon 2023
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.
