It’s been a big week for gaming thanks to Unity’s self-owns and the UK’s preliminary approval of the Activision-Blizzard buyout – and a big week for MMORPGs too. We saw Daybreak pitch EverQuest 3, Blizzard bizarrely announce the dungeon finder for WoW Classic after more than a year of swearing it wouldn’t, EG7 cancel LOTRO’s remaster, and CCP reveal a brand-new EVE Online FPS spinoff dubbed EVE Vanguard.
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
EG7 hopes to develop a new EverQuest MMORPG (EverQuest 3?) for 2028 after years of rumors - So, who had EverQuest 3 announcement on the 2023 predictions list? We award you half points for your prescience tonight. Admittedly, a new installment in the long-running MMORPG franchise has…
WoW Factor: So Blizzard backtracked on WoW Classic’s dungeon finder - So in April last year, I wrote a whole article about how World of Warcraft's development team was taking a gigantic misstep when it came to its plan to completely…
EG7 and Daybreak: DCUO’s volatility, EverQuest’s stability, Cold Iron’s new game, LOTRO’s canceled remaster - Last night, we covered EG7's video pitch to investors, which among other things included a segment during which EG7 and Daybreak boss Ji Ham proposed movement on the long-rumored EverQuest…
EVE Fanfest 2023: The EVE Online FPS is back as EVE Vanguard this December - It's safe to say that EVE Online has a complicated history with first person shooters. The idea of stepping foot on the planets of New Eden has been part of…
Vague Patch Notes: So what actually kills MMO communities? - Since we're busy getting a front-row seat to World of Warcraft adding the dungeon finder again, only this time it's WoW Classic, we are also getting a front-row seat to…
UK government body ‘opens the door’ for Microsoft’s buyout of Activision-Blizzard in preliminary approval - The long shoving match between Microsoft and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) looks to be nearing its final stretch. The CMA has given a preliminary approval for Microsoft's…
Unity finally apologizes to game devs with latest round of fee concessions - Unity has delivered what is essentially its latest round of concessions to the gaming industry after nearly two weeks of uproar over its originally proposed retroactive per-install fees. Unity's Marc…
LOTRO Legendarium: Nine LOTRO secrets worth discovering - It's such a special blessing to discover that the MMORPG you've been playing for years -- if not decades -- can still surprise you. These are massive games, after all,…
Ultima Online is turning 26 years old today as New Legacy testing pushes onward - So, who wants to feel old this fine Sunday afternoon? Ultima Online has officially turned 26 years old as of today, and if you remember it, then congrats, you've lived…
RuneScape outlines initial plans to address its deeply unpopular Hero Pass monetization - The end of August saw Jagex elect to burn up some of the goodwill between itself and RuneScape players with the reveal of a Hero Pass, a battle pass-style form…
The Division 3 is happening, but it’s going to be a while before we see it - It's official: Ubisoft is moving ahead on making The Division 3. This seems like a no-brainer, really, when you consider how popular its apocalyptic shooter series has been, but it's…
Massively Overthinking: Massively Overwhelming content in MMORPGs - This past weekend, I picked up my first premium house in Lord of the Rings Online after much hemming and hawing. I didn't expect much out of it; surely it'd…
Sea of Thieves is adding a super limited private instanced version called Safer Seas - When Sea of Thieves long-delayed Season 10 launches October 19th, it's bringing several new features that will hopefully justify the wait. First, it's adding a pretty basic MMO concept in…
Conan Exiles marches onward to a purge-filled chapter two of the Age of War today - Funcom has made good on its promise to expand Conan Exiles with the launch of the second chapter of the Age of War, the chief content hook for which is…
Lord of the Rings Online gives a sneak peak of Corsairs of Umbar’s landscape - Lord of the Rings Online's fall expansion finally has an official name (and logo): Corsairs of Umbar. Standing Stone Games revealed this in a few places across its social media,…
Albion Online details Wild Blood’s new player island biomes – and multiple farms per toon - Of all the content going into Albion Online's Wild Blood patch next month, the islands and farming rework has been the bit that caught my attention hardest. In fact, I…
Interview: How Dauntless’ weapon revamp will affect development and gameplay - Last month, Dauntless announced a far-reaching change to weapons, with individual weapons becoming more distinct, a new swapping mechanic that lets players switch between two equipped weapons mid-fight, and several…
Perfect Ten: 10 MMO things you can just stop waiting for - Sooner or later we all have to face facts and accept that something we wanted at one point is never actually going to happen. Dad is never coming back from…
Terraria dev commits $200,000 plus monthly donations to open-source engine Unity rivals - It would be really great if the Unity situation would stop being a big ol' industry-wide garbage fire, but alas, it is not this day, as Unity still hasn't officially…
Absurdly cute co-op brawler Party Animals officially launches on PC and Xbox today - MOP's MJ and Chris have been excited for this bizarre game since we first caught a glimpse of the trailer: It's Party Animals, and it's finally launching today. Party Animals…
A multiplayer Bluey videogame is coming to PC and console in November, and your kids want it - A few weeks back, I mentioned in MOP's work chat that my kids have been obsessed with some random Aussie kids cartoon about dogs. "Oh, you mean Bluey," Justin said.…
New World rebuts ‘pay-to-win’ accusations from PvPers eyeing Rise of the Angry Earth’s item level bumps - Amazon's Scot Lane, David Verfaillie, and Katy Kaszynski are back with a new video for New World, its 50th Forged in Aeternum, and because it's a Q&A video, there's plenty…
Choose My Adventure: Exploring Lost Ark’s jump start server and a regular XP-boosted character - Last week was a close vote here in Choose My Adventure World Land slash Waffle House. The vote came down to one person casting a suggestion that I focus on…
Last Oasis breaks its silence with confirmation of mod support and Season 6 development - Do you remember Last Oasis? It's all right if you don't - the game has been radio silent for almost a year, with the last peeps from developer Donkey Crew…
Unity’s leaked install fee concessions include a fee cap, self-reporting, and end to retroactivity - As we've been reporting, Unity upended the entire gaming industry last week by announcing crushing new per-game-install fees for developers, a decision that not only threatened to incapacitate small-to-midsize dev…
WoW Classic pits players against the Lich King – with the dungeon finder – on October 10 - Finally, at long last, players will get a chance to kill the Lich King in World of Warcraft! That is, if you somehow missed the point when it was first…
Fight or Kite: Harry Potter Magic Awakened’s housing might impress even die-hard housing fans - For the last several weeks, I’ve taken you through so many different activities available in the recently released Harry Potter: Magic Awakened mobile MMO that you might think I’ve covered…
Wisdom of Nym: Examining the Mamool Ja of Final Fantasy XIV - The Mamool Ja have been a feature of Final Fantasy XIV since the game's relaunch in 2013, so in a way it's kind of fitting that Dawntrail is bringing us…
Rumor: EA will stop supporting Wild Hearts just half a year after release - This past February saw Wild Hearts, a cross-platform multiplayer monster hunting game from developer Koei Tecmo and publisher Electronic Arts, make its debut to the big critter-slapping sub-genre. The primary…
Marvel Heroes rogue servers are finally possible thanks to newly released emulator files - Many of our readers and writers deeply miss Marvel Heroes, the MMOARPG that managed to capture something special - and was unceremoniously closed thanks to an absolute snowball effect of…
Unity promises ‘changes’ to its deeply unpopular install fee policy after a week of backlash - The intense backlash over Unity's decision to assign staggering new per-install fees to game studios last week probably made last night's admission inevitable: At 7:13 p.m. EDT on Sunday evening,…
Final Fantasy XIV’s Growing Light update launches on October 3 with a new dungeon and more - The most recent Letter from the Producer LIVE announced the date: Final Fantasy XIV's patch 6.5, Growing Light, will release on October 3rd. Of course it will not include everything…
EVE Fanfest 2023: EVE players will help cure cancer with new Project Discovery minigame - Back in 2016, EVE Online developer CCP Games announced an unusual partnership with scientific research organisation MMOs and the Human Protein Atlas. They created a new minigame inside EVE named…
Wayfinder releases inventory patch and teases its next playable character, Grendel - Even though it's still in early access, Wayfinder looks to be establishing a growth pattern that it wants to take into launch and beyond. The online RPG announced that the…
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen shows off its new ‘hand-painted’ art style - Remember how just a few weeks ago, Visionary Realms said that it was overhauling Pantheon's boring old art in favor of making it both "gritty" and "painterly?" If a picture…
EVE Fanfest 2023: EVE Online’s Havoc expansion will finally let you side with the pirates - Details of EVE Online's latest expansion have been revealed at EVE Fanfest 2023, and the word of the weekend is "chaos." The aptly named Havoc expansion will be allowing players…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 437: The MMO moving-in blues
The Stream Team: Fiend hunter field day in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Finding the way through Wayfinder
The Stream Team: Neverwinter’s Slade the Thricedrowned
The Stream Team: Brawling it out with cute floppy critters in Party Animals
The Stream Team: Searching for Skritt in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Enjoying LOTRO’s The Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariners event
The Stream Team: A little bit of leveling up Final Fantasy XIV’s Machinist class
The Stream Team: Aion’s 14th anniversary
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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