The last MMO Week in Review of the Year on the last day of the year… convenient, eh? Well, it is for me, anyway, since I’m the one putting these lists together. This week in the MMO world has been relatively quiet as most studios are on holiday, but we had a few big news drops – including the fact that Bobby Kotick is finally gone from Activision-Blizzard and Star Citizen is trying to charge $48,000 for a mega bundle.
Meanwhile, we finished out our annual awards, bestowing our banner for MMO of the year, most anticipated, best expansion, and lifetime achievement.
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
Rumor: With Kotick gone, Blizzard and NetEase might repair year-long rift over China publishing - Readers likely remember that 2023 started off with a tire fire as Blizzard and NetEase had a particularly nasty dissolution of a licensing deal - an event that was pockmarked…
Star Citizen releases a new Legatus backer bundle that costs $48,000 - Would you rather buy a reasonably reliable car or a whole bunch of internet spaceships? If for some reason you chose the latter, then Star Citizen has you covered thanks…
Casually Classic: Analyzing WoW Classic’s 2024 roadmap - With another year debuting this week, Blizzard was more on the ball than some MMO studios by already publishing its roadmap for 2024. Two roadmaps, in fact -- one for…
Tamriel Infinium: Rounding out Elder Scrolls Online’s ninth year of adventures - No matter what your predictions may be, how a year turns out often involves unforeseen twists and turns. Even the world of Tamriel was not immune to strange developments, experimental…
Make My MMO: The biggest MMO crowdfunding stories of 2023 - Welcome to a special end-of-the-year edition of Make My MMO, the MassivelyOP column where we - well, I - keep tabs on all of the crowdfunded MMOs in our genre,…
Goodbye to all the reasons we can’t have nice things in MMOs, 2023 edition - Become an MMO blogger, they said. It'll be fun, they said. What they forgot to mention is that covering this genre means as many ups as downs, especially where the…
Massively on the Go: A slow New Year start for Pokemon GO events - Pokemon Go is still not bringing its A-game. After a buggy end of the year complete with utterly breaking Beware and accidentally releasing-and-taking-back unreleased Kyurem forms (which don't seem to…
Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis confirms preset skill updates are arriving in late January - This bit of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis news is probably going to be aimed more towards the regular and deeply entrenched players, but it's still no less important…
The 2023 One Shots Awards: The best MMO screenshots of the year - It doesn't feel quite right to end the year without making sure that everything's in order -- and part of that definitely includes returning to our annual semi-official One Shots…
Player-vs-developer ‘medium fantasy’ MMO Astaria pops back up as Arvita - We would not blame you in the least if you had no recollection of Astaria. This was a suspicious project that was supposed to go into early access back in…
BioWare’s Anthem sold 5M lifetime copies, according to leaked stats - Here's a stat line that will make you probably feel slightly aged like a fine wine or a banana ripe for being made into bread: Anthem will be five years…
Massively Overthinking: Our MMO resolutions for 2024 - Stop right there. I know you're about to object and say that you don't do resolutions, let alone MMO resolutions. That's fine. A lot of us don't do resolutions either.…
Vague Patch Notes: The ever-changing costs of playing an MMORPG - It was a pretty big deal back when I had first started working at original Massively when the trend started, and I can still remember the main catalyst. Dungeons &…
MassivelyOP’s 2023 Awards: MMORPG of the Year - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the MMORPG of the Year, which was awarded to Lost Ark last year. Longtime readers will recall that way…
New World discusses balance plans for weapon types, artifacts, and equip loads in latest video - New World has put together yet another Forged in Aeternum video digest, and this time the topic is balance, with creative director David Verfaillie talking about where balance for PvP…
CCP Games maps out six months of EVE Vanguard patches, feature updates, and testing - Did you miss out on the Vanguard FPS testing that was held in EVE Online? Worry not because CCP Games has a whole lot more testing coming down the pike…
A look back at the MMO and gaming science topics of 2023 - This month marks MOP's ninth consecutive year covering science-related news specific to MMORPGs and MMOs, but like last year, there wasn't nearly as much as the flurry of papers and…
The Soapbox: The ‘problem’ with MMO hoarding - I remember a number of years ago, in an article for a game I can't recall, an MMO developer discussed how an early build of his crafting game allowed for…
End-of-year Eleven: The best value MMORPGs at the end of 2023 - I have been told that if I start another one of these columns musing on the abstract meaning of "value" as I have for the past several years, I will…
MassivelyOP’s 2023 Awards: Most Anticipated MMO - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Most Anticipated MMO, which was awarded to Soulframe last year. This award can be frustrating since many of…
Tencent’s Tarisland previews the pungent Merfolk Swamp dungeon - With 2024 right around the corner, it's almost like Tarisland knows that the pressure is rising to deliver an entertaining MMO experience and sell potential players on the game world…
Z1 Battle Royale, formerly H1Z1, kicks back to a semi-charmed kind of life - Some failed online games die virtually overnight, while others linger on as shuffling zombies that refuse to quit moving. H1Z1 certainly isn't the former, as variations of this battle royale…
Chinese regulators go into damage control mode after proposed gaming restrictions burn $80B in market value - Last week we reported on some newly drafted restrictions by Chinese regulators that were aimed at curbing game time, limiting rewards for spending and logging in, and applying a wide…
Choose My Adventure: All of the MMOs you made us play in 2023, from Guild Wars to Gorgon - Well here we are, my friends. It's always such a pleasure. Remember when your votes killed me twice? OK, maybe that's being overdramatic, but I will admit that the 2023…
Wisdom of Nym: My Viper wishlist for Final Fantasy XIV - One of the things I like about Viper in Final Fantasy XIV is that it fills a gap that the game has heretofore been kind of unable to manage. Dual-wielding…
MassivelyOP’s 2023 Awards: MMO Expansion of the Year - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the MMO Expansion of the Year, which was awarded to Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons last year. Every…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 451: MMO mailbag-o-rama!
The Stream Team: Listening to Warframe’s Whispers in the Walls
The best MassivelyOP live streams of 2023
The Stream Team: The beginning of a Villagers & Heroes journey
The Stream Team: Undermine-ing the Droaam in Dungeons and Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming decks the Palia halls
The Stream Team: Experiencing a new season of pigeon dance battling in Headbangers Rhythm Royale
The Stream Team: More mount raising in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: EverQuest II’s Scary Little Frostfell
The Stream Team: A very merry Christmas with AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Practicing Party Animals with a controller
The Stream Team: Astroneer’s Project C.H.E.E.R. to end the year
The Stream Team: Celebrating the new year with Final Fantasy XIV’s Heavensturn event
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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