MMO Week in Review: MMO peregrinations with Pictomancers, phasers, and PSO2

Bad news, everyone: Some dude on Reddit says there’s not enough MMORPG news, so you’re imagining Star Trek Online announcing its 31st season, Vindictus gutting its PvP, Phantasy Star Online 2 getting a relook, Wayfinder dropping a roadmap, and Dungeons & Dragons Online giving away a million bajillion freebies. Oh yeah, and the Final Fantasy XIV fanfest didn’t happen. Meanwhile, City of Heroes Homecoming didn’t bust past 4100 concurrent players this weekend as we’re all diving back in. Oh well!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Vague Patch Notes: The real question every MMO has to answer - Why am I here? A lot of times I will slow-roll my column and lead to something unexpected, something that I am sure you are all used to at this…

Dungeons & Dragons Online makes tons of content free or nearly free for the franchise’s 50th birthday - Freeeeeee stuff! Come getcha free stuff! Free stuff in Dungeons and Dragons Online, that is, because Standing Stone Games has brought back its bonkers giving-almost-everything-away code. Players who apply the…

Into the Super-Verse: Rediscoveries I made diving headlong into City of Heroes Homecoming - Last week, I wrote about how my game came back. It was a big deal to me to know that City of Heroes was really as back - legally -…

End-of-Year Eleven: The MMOs with the most uncertain futures in 2024 - As I say every single year and several people ignore every single year: This is not a column about the games that are most likely to shut down over the…

Casually Classic: 12 quality-of-life improvements coming with Cataclysm Classic - I'm in a very strange place in relation to the upcoming Cataclysm Classic. I kind of didn't want this expansion to happen at all for the Classic servers, and confirmation of…

LOTRO Legendarium: Brainstorming new hobby ideas for LOTRO - April 24th, 2008. That was both the first and last time that Lord of the Rings Online added a hobby to the game -- in this case, fishing. This serene…

MapleStory’s early 2024 roadmap includes server reorganization and a big change to the Beast Tamer - Joining all of the other MMO roadmaps appearing this month is Nexon's MapleStory, which delivered a preview of its first two updates for Q1 2024. The first patch should arrive…

Star Trek Online’s 31st season, Both Worlds, launches on PC January 23 - Star Trek Online fans, mark your calendars for January 23rd, as Cryptic is launching Both Worlds, its 31st season, on PC. The storyline cast includes Nicole de Boer (Ezri Dax),…

Fight or Kite: Harry Potter Magic Awakened’s winter seasonal event has its claws in me - Seasonal events and festivals are just about standard fare in MMOs these days. You’d probably be hard-pressed to find a game that didn’t include one for at least either the…

Eternal Tombs teases its magic systems with a new video - With a steely eye cast toward a 2025 launch for Eternal Tombs (fka War of Dragnorox), Triune Studios needs to make sure that every inch of 2024 is utilized to…

Hi-Rez just officially announced SMITE 2, soft-launching into beta this year – but SMITE will stay online - Have you ever wanted to play SMITE but with better graphics, improved matchmaking, and more modes and special events? Well, soon you can! Except it will not be an overhaul…

Temtem closes its competitive esports tournament and associated Showdown standalone PvP side game - Allow us a moment to recap events before diving in to the headline above because this one is going to need some context. Last June, the creature capturing MMO Temtem…

The Daily Grind: What MMOs are you no longer anticipating at the top of 2024? - I feel a bit bad about my picks for today's Daily Grind, as their inclusion here isn't so much that I don't want the games at all but rather that…

Massively Overthinking: The 2023 MMO trainwrecks (almost) nobody noticed - This might be one of the most important Massively Overthinkings we do all year, and it's a pretty salty one. We always come away from our awards season having picked…

Whatever happened to EverQuest Online Adventures’ rogue servers? - Rogue servers are on the brain right now, particularly since a certain superhero MMORPG got its rubber stamping, which brings us to look toward the rogue server projects that sprang…

Multiplayer critter capturing survivalbox Palworld enters early access January 19 - Over the past three years we've been covering the development of Palworld, a multiplayer survival sandbox from developer Pocketpair that was first announced in 2021. The game involves players finding…

Dune Awakening’s latest promo video shows Funcom’s lean toward transmedia synergy - If you spent all last year waiting for Dune Awakening news, well, you're probably pretty hungry, as we got only a few scraps of dev bloggery and a closed beta…

Leaderboard: What was the most overrated MMO of 2023? - It's no secret that whenever somebody declares a GOTY, somebody else is going to say that game is overrated. Heck, we cover some major MMORPGs that a lot of you…

Four Winds: Catching up with Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis - I believe it was Napoleon Bonaparte that once said "SEGA better release Phantasy Star Online 2 stateside or I'm going to conquer France." Unfortunately, Sega was a little slow on…

Strategy MMO Myth of Empires is (re)launching on February 21st - Not every MMO gets a second shot at life, especially after clawing itself out of a legal morass, but one title has seized that rare prize: Myth of Empires. After…

Wayfinder releases Q1 2024 roadmap and jobs board update for dailies and weeklies - We noted yesterday that a roadmap for Airship Syndicate's Wayfinder was imminent, and now it's here, covering everything players can expect from the Q1 rollout. The studio says it is…

Leaderboard: What was the best *new* MMO of 2023? - So I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we have a lot of MMORPGs coming in 2024! The bad news is that a…

New World’s Legacy of Crassus is live along with musket, bow, and camp buffs - As written and foretold - literally, in the announcement earlier this week - New World's Legacy of Crassus event, which pits players against the lord of cyclopes so they can…

Amazon’s Twitch lays off 500 workers over cost-cutting efforts and executive exits - Hot on the heels of yesterday's news of more layoffs at Unity comes the revelation that Amazon is the next to fire staff. As first leaked by Bloomberg, 500 employees…

Steam welcomes ‘legally murky’ AI games, voice actors guild forges controversial AI deal - Valve waited until end of business last night to post big news: It's going to allow AI-driven games on Steam, with just enough caveats to avoid too many legal entanglements…

Nexon Korea hosts ’emergency livestream’ over recent MapleStory cube manipulation fine - Last week we reported on a fine levied by Korea's FTC against Nexon Korea, which was found to be manipulating the probability of earning gear-improving cubes in MapleStory without notifying…

Elder Scrolls Online sets January 18 reveal date as rumors over the next chapter swirl - It's January aka MMO roadmap month, and Elder Scrolls Online is joining the call, as ZeniMax Online Studios has announced that its big global stream reveal for 2024 is happening…

Tarisland’s latest crafting overhaul proposal doubles down on prioritizing PvE drops over crafted gear - Tencent is back in Discord today with continuing updates on everything it's doing to make Tarisland more palatable for the western market, not that it's expressly phrasing it that way.…

Choose My Adventure: Villagers and Heroes starts to click and become routine at the same time - Now I should point out before we begin that a game becoming routine isn't really a bad thing - I'd argue that it's precisely the point when a game becomes…

Unity sheds another 1800 workers from all of its departments in latest layoff round - The contraction of Unity that occurred through last January, May, and November looks to be continuing into this year, as the game engine developer has handed 1,800 more workers their…

Nexon’s Vindictus is killing off all of its PvP systems in two weeks - Nexon action MMORPG Vindictus went through a period of relative quiet around 2020, but it's been putting out regular updates for the last couple of years, including new characters as…

Sandbox MMORPG Pax Dei aims for an early access launch this spring - This year is already shaping up to be thrilling for fans of MMORPGs as we look hopefully at many notable releases coming our way in 2024. The good news is…

Whatever happened to Allods Online? Let’s check in at the top of 2024 - Once a highly favorable free alternative to World of Warcraft, Allods Online isn't the kind of MMO that's mentioned too often these days, especially since its parent publisher My.Games was…

WildStar roleplayers open and develop a socially-minded rogue server called Genesis Prime - For the past few years we've been peeking in with hopeful looks at Nexus Forever, the rogue server project for WildStar that we first heard about in 2019. The emulation…

Albion Online brings the guild battle thunder with new GvG mechanics in today’s Crystal Raiders update - Raiding a crystal sounds like either a boring proposition or at the least the plot line of a JRPG, but in the case of Albion Online's titular new update out…

The Soapbox: Hearthstone is probably in for another boring year in 2024 - I recently got a survey in my email on Hearthstone and its future. The last time a Hearthstone survey got sent out, the idea of a subscription model for the…

Wisdom of Nym: The highs and lows of Final Fantasy XIV’s 2024 Tokyo fan festival - There's a certain dramatic irony in the idea that as the Tokyo fan festival started winding up the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail hype, the snow had just started falling in…

Unsurprisingly, City of Heroes Homecoming saw a massive playerbase spike this past weekend - On Friday, we asked our readers whether they planned to play City of Heroes Homecoming, newly crowned with a formal license by NCsoft. We probably needn't have bothered because of…

Former Activision-Blizzard exec files lawsuit that alleges the studio fired him for being old and white - Discrimination can certainly take a wide assortment of forms, but the culture that has been fostered within Activision-Blizzard has mostly been one that threatens women, minorities, and workers attempting to…

Guild Wars 2 shares patch notes for its next balance update, prepares the return of Living World Season 1 - It's both a look to the future and a blast from the past for Guild Wars 2 players, as ArenaNet has posted the initial patch notes for its next balance…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 452: A staff roundtable for a new year

The Stream Team: Exploring the latest creative mode options in Fall Guys

The Stream Team: Returning to Ravenloft in Dungeons & Dragons Online

The Stream Team: Ready or not, Backseat Streaming is watching Ready or Not

The Stream Team: Cats and dogs questing together in Cat Quest II

The Stream Team: Guild Wars 2 boss beat-down

The Stream Team: Listening to Warframe’s Whispers in the Walls

The Stream Team: A side of new Nulgath side quests in AQ3D

The Stream Team: Incredible survival skills in ICARUS

The Stream Team: Training a burgeoning Astrologian 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.