MMO Week in Review: Tripping into Tarisland

The week before the week before Thanksgiving is prime time for pushing out major MMO patches and news, and this week delivered: Pantheon axed its 247 plans, Wayfinder halted its season plans while looking for a new publisher, and we took a look at Perfect New World, Warcraft Rumble, and Tarisland – the latter of which has already been embroiled in monetization woes even in beta. Plus, Old School RuneScape made a strong case for why it belongs in the top 10 big MMOs, Guild Wars 2 dropped videos for its upcoming weapon proliferation, and Fractured Online was hacked, leading to a big mess for players. Never a dull moment, my friends!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Kickstarted MMORPG Pantheon cancels 247 extraction mode: ‘We have damaged your trust’ - Pantheon Rise of the Fallen's brief community nightmare is over: Visionary Realms announced this morning that it's putting the brakes on development of the game's 247 extraction mode - permanent…

Interview: Wayfinder pauses seasons as it hunts for a publisher and rebuilds roadmap - Last week, Wayfinder fans were shaken by the news that another round of layoffs at Digital Extremes was accompanied by the dissolution of the studio's publishing outfit - and the…

Funcom is plotting a Dune Awakening early closed beta test – here’s how to sign up - With Funcom dropping more dev blogs about its Dune Awakening MMO, you had to figure that it was building to something, and in fact, that something is the long (long)…

WoW Factor: Just by existing, the Worldsoul Saga delivers something World of Warcraft desperately needed - Last week, I argued that a lot of the elements of World of Warcraft: The War Within that at least sound good on paper. Apparently I missed the fact that…

Project Gorgon, buffered by player donations, has been spared from maintenance mode – for now - The fate of quirky indie MMORPG Project Gorgon has hung in the balance over the last few days following the news that the soft-launched beta game was teetering on the…

Vague Patch Notes: How does an MMORPG studio rebuild trust it shattered? - Earlier this week, Pantheon cancelled its intensely stupid extraction shooter mode. Now, I don't say that it's intensely stupid because I dislike this sort of gameplay. I do dislike this…

Perfect Ten: Classic video games that would make terrible MMORPGs - There was a time when MMORPGs were all based on existing storied single-player RPG franchises, and that time was when Ultima Online launched and coined the term MMORPG and few…

First Impressions: Perfect New World is an unbalanced mess right now with its ‘equilibrious’ test - This past week has been a mighty full one for our genre in terms of the number of beta tests that landed on our collective lap, but one of the…

Battle of the betas: Tarisland enters second closed beta as Pax Dei kicks off Home Valley test - What are the chances that two big MMORPGs start key testing on exactly the same 24-hour period? Well, I don't know, but it's definitely happened, as both Tarisland and Pax…

Star Wars The Old Republic is finally launching an Australia-based server – tomorrow - Broadsword has big plans for Star Wars The Old Republic, having picked up both the game and the bulk of the team earlier this year, and now it's expanding into…

EG7 Q3 2023: Daybreak’s MMO revenues dip ahead of Q4 expansion deluge - Daybreak parent company Enad Global 7 has released its Q3 2023 financial report this week, and it's good for the company, if weaker for some of the MMORPGs we watch…

First Impressions: Warcraft Rumble is a slick but shambolic multiplayer romp - I won't say that Warcraft Rumble was at the top of my most-anticipated games of 2024, but I've been low-key excited about this title ever since it was first announced.…

Tarisland devs address the decision to avoid P2W cash shop kit – but not Vigor energy gating - Tencent is apparently continuing to tweak its monetization for Tarisland in response to player angst as it continues charging through its second closed beta test here in the west. The…

Pirate 101 has a surprise mobile spinoff called Pirate101 Plunder Hunt - Every so often, something comes across our desks at Massively OP that makes us go, "Huh," and then say louder across the office, "Did any of you know that this…

Global Chat: Reactions to BlizzCon’s World of Warcraft announcements - Even as BlizzCon 2023 recedes into the distance, the reverberations of its announcements for World of Warcraft and WoW Classic continue to be felt. We took a pulse of the…

DC Universe Online adds new difficulties, a new tutorial, and new character creation in GU 139 - Despite what other MMOs may have led you to believe, the Gentleman Ghost in DC Universe Online is not at all averse to violence and will not pose while giving…

Lord of the Rings Online vows to beef up Corsairs of Umbar’s endgame - One of the criticisms that arrived in the wake of the latest Lord of the Rings Online expansion is that it has very little to offer once players exhaust the…

Path of Exile announces Affliction expansion arriving December 8, promises more details November 30 - Yes, Path of Exile is doing the "announcement of an announcement" thing, but at least this announcement has a bit more information to it beyond a small video: The OARPG…

Star Citizen introduces the Gatac Syulen, Crusader Spirit C1, and Tumbril Storm as IAE free-fly event begins - Today is a big day for fans of Star Citizen's internet spaceships as the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (IAE) is kicking off today, November 17th, which makes the alpha sandbox fully…

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen talks about the return of 24-hour MMO testing and a shift of dev mindset - Now that Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is moving away from its proposed standalone 247 extraction mode in favor of testing the MMORPG that fans actually put Kickstarter funds in…

Don’t look now but Blizzard has been quietly patching up Heroes of the Storm - When it comes to Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard is putting the "maintenance" back in "maintenance mode" as November 16th saw a new patch for the MOBA, close on the…

Massively Overthinking: Pervasive old MMO ideas that aren’t really true - A while back, Eliot and I were discussing one of his columns, in which he noted that in the eldest of the elder MMOs, the main draw was that it…

World of Warcraft previews its next patch update, Seeds of Renewal - It's been like half an hour since the last World of Warcraft update and we still haven't heard about the plans for the next patch, what's up with that? For…

G-STAR 2023: NCsoft previews not just Throne & Liberty but Battle Crush, LLL, Project BSS, Project G, and Project M - Throne and Liberty may be the most interesting MMO in NCsoft's pipeline for MMORPG players, but it's far from the only multiplayer title the Korean gaming giant is working on,…

Fight or Kite: Netmarble’s Paragon The Overprime resurrects Epic’s lost MOBA Paragon (again) - Some things never change. The sky is blue – except at night. The grass is green – except in winter. And Paragon is dead – except when another studio is…

MapleStory addresses uproar over Sol Erda energy caps in New Age - Nexon's MapleStory isn't often the subject of a big messy drama, but Nexon has gone and stepped in it with its big New Age patch this week. The main complaint…

Guild Wars 2 introduces the pistol-totin’ Elementalist for testing November 28 - Elementalists, your time to pew pew in Guild Wars 2 is finally here, or will be when the weapon proliferation beta goes live on November 28th and you can try…

Throne and Liberty’s new trailer envisions an action-packed boss fight - You know what you need today? A nice injection of trailer hype, courtesy of NCsoft's upcoming Throne and Liberty. While it's not actual gameplay footage, the nearly three-minute CGI spot…

PlanetSide 2 celebrates 11 years as Daybreak teases conduit capture base changes - PlanetSide 2 is officially turning 11 years old next week, and naturally Daybreak is on full alert. "To celebrate, this year's anniversary update brings a change to bases in Oshur,…

Wizard’s Wrath is a developing cross-platform VR spellcasting MMORPG on Kickstarter now - No, it's not a wizard's dream, but it is Wizard's Wrath, which might not have Christopher Lee singing but does plan to bring some cross-platform spellcasting MMORPG gaming for console,…

Cinderstone Online has apparently sunsetted after just two months as devs plan F2P relaunch - Over the last couple of years, we've kept an eye on Cinderstone Online aka Fioresia Online, a cutesy indie MMO that actually made it to early access launch in September;…

Old School RuneScape releases Leagues IV Trailblazer, causing the servers to buckle under the strain - Today is both a big day and a sore day for fans of Old School RuneScape's temporary game modes, as Jagex officially opened the doors of its Leagues IV: Trailblazer…

Lost Ark launches the Souleater and jump-start server reconnections in today’s Soul Harvest update - This week has been a bit of bad news/good news for Lost Ark, as Amazon and Smilegate admitted earlier this week that the balance update for the Korean edition of…

Perfect World’s Perfect New World has launched its ‘equilibrious’ beta test today - In case you're not already overloaded with betas right about now, here comes one more in the form of Perfect New World. No, it's not New World, and it's not…

Jeffrey Butler’s metaverse MMO Avalon reveals trailer and AI-driven player content tools - This past March we reported on the existence of Avalon, a blockchain-linked metaverse MMO from Avalon Corp, a company that has former SOE and Sigil Games developer Jeffrey Butler (of…

Flameseeker Chronicles: Five Guild Wars 2 event farms to combat your labyrinth letdown - My favorite thing about Guild Wars 2's Shadow of the Mad King Halloween event is the Mad King's Labyrinth. There's nothing quite like it, even at the game's other festivals.…

Soulframe talks about animation and hints at a ‘very very closed’ pre-alpha in December - This year's TennoCon event offered a lot of insight into Digital Extremes' upcoming multiplayer title Soulframe, so now appears to be the right time for the studio to get more…

EVE Online’s Havoc expansion is live, making players’ space pirate dreams a reality - As promised, EVE Online players are coasting into the sandbox's Havoc expansion today, which offers the life of a pirate to fans of the long-running MMO. Here's the narrative pitch:…

ARPG Grim Dawn preps its ‘most comprehensive free update ever’ - Now that the new ARPG smell has faded from Diablo IV, it's entirely possible that fans of the genre are looking to branch out once again. To capitalize on any…

Wisdom of Nym: The best stuff from Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 that’s already in the game - Whatever we were getting back from Final Fantasy XIV version 1.0 is already in the game. Period end. And let's be honest, there was a lot that needed to go.…

Tarisland unveils Phantom Necromancer class, engages pre-downloads for November 15 beta - Remember when we supposed that the new class for Tarisland was a druid? Well, not exactly, unless of course you subscribe to the D&D Circle of Spores tabletop class build.…

NetEase secures new trademark for Sword of Justice, aka the wuxia MMORPG Justice Online - Perhaps there's some market in our corner of the globe that's hungry for a wuxia-styled MMORPG, or perhaps NetEase is hungry for that western market MMORPG money. Whatever the rationale…

Fractured Online’s return to early access sees bug fixing, a small server rollback, and mixed player reaction - It's time to once more take the temperature of an MMORPG's launch and today we're asking Fractured Online to open its mouth, say "ahh," and gauge how things are going…

Old School RuneScape nears 200K concurrent players thanks to Trailblazer Reloaded - Despite its age, it looks as if Old School RuneScape is still capable of breaking records. The recent arrival of Leagues IV: Trailblazer Reloaded has drawn in what Jagex is…

Fractured Online suffers a nasty admin hack that sees every player city in the game wiped out - The relaunched early access world of Fractured Online has suffered something of an apocalypse as Dynamight Studios CEO Jacopo Gallelli reported on Discord early this morning that his admin account…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 445: Rally for Project Gorgon

The Stream Team: Making a return visit to Project Gorgon

The Stream Team: Helping raise a rebellion in Neverwinter’s Menzoberranzan

The Stream Team: The New World flail enjoyer has arrived for Backseat Streaming

The Stream Team: Taking a tour through Tarisland’s closed beta test

The Stream Team: The search for Isgarren in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Pustule-popping Plague Star adventures in Warframe

The Stream Team: The blessing of better bags in AQ3D

The Stream Team: Leveling up the Summoner job in Final Fantasy XIV

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.