MMO Week in Review: Tarisland, Pax Dei, and Black Desert’s Heidel Ball

Tarisland officially launched this week, treating global players to Tencent’s WoW clone that looks… kinda less and less like a WoW clone as you play it. Whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you.

Meanwhile, we took a look at Throne & Liberty and Dune Awakening, Pax Dei headed into early access, Raph Koster began teasing his next sandbox MMORPG, and MOP’s MJ reported back from France on Black Desert’s next big thing. Pretty juicy week in MMORPGs, all told!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Heidel Ball 2024: Black Desert is adding Seoul and the Dosa class, then going to the past - Given that Black Desert Online is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an event in the very town that inspired the game's first city (Heidel), you'd expect things to be special…

Tencent’s MMORPG Tarisland is officially live in the west today with Season 0: Mystery of the Hollows - Don't get too excited: While Tencent announced in Discord this morning that its free-to-play not-a-WoW-clone MMORPG Tarisland is live "with servers opening across regions," it means only some regions, as…

LOTRO Legendarium: LOTRO announces its next legendary servers, Angmar and Mordor - Believe it or not, the last time that Lord of the Rings Online brought out fresh legendary servers, it was the pair of Treebeard and Shadowfax in June 2021. Before…

SGF 2024: Hands-on with NCsoft’s long-awaited Throne and Liberty, launching September 17 - Most of the games I played at Summer Game Fest were more enjoyable than I expected - including Throne and Liberty, which was probably the one I originally dreaded the…

Sandbox MMO Pax Dei has officially entered early access for at least the next year - If you're a Pax Dei founder pack owner, you're about to have a fun Tuesday, as Mainframe Industries has officially launched the survival-tinged sandbox MMORPG into early access as of…

Second Wind: Final thoughts on returning to World of Warcraft in 2024, from community to dragonriding - At long last, we've reached the fourth and final part of my series detailing my experiences returing to World of Warcraft after six years away. It's been a mixed bag…

SGF 2024: Previewing Funcom’s Dune Awakening, from PvP philosophy to the survival MMO label - I must admit I went into Summer Game Fest with pretty low expectations. I was MOP's "E3 guy" back when E3 was a concern, and while it was good for…

Raph Koster’s nine Playable Worlds teasers (so far) hint at the MMORPG sandbox you always wanted - As we covered earlier in the week, Raph Koster's studio Playable Worlds has been tweeting what appeared to be a countdown accompanied by a question. The team has continued that…

The Game Archaeologist: World of Warcraft in the 1990s - MMORPGs don't pop out of nowhere, ex nihilo, to suddenly be enjoyed by players across the globe. Good ones take several years, dozens of developers, and millions of dollars to…

Anime hero shooter Second Wave and its developer shut down after a disastrous dev cycle - Over the course of last year, we had been reporting on Second Wave, an anime-styled hero shooter MOBA from developer Challengers Games that looked to bring plenty of stylish action…

Embracer Group talks up aspirations for AI tool integration with a ‘human-centric approach’ - Embracer Group would like gamers to remember that it's still pretty villainous. The company's annual report for 2024 is out, and among its colorfully illustrated selection of reports, plans, and…

WoW Factor: Is The War Within going to be ready for its launch? - The surprise announcement of the date for World of Warcraft: The War Within prompted what I'm sure is a lovely reader with a large number of helpful opinions to email…

Multiplayer Viking-themed survival settlement manager ASKA begins its early access - Surviving in a wilderness is never best done alone if at all possible, but there's one survivalbox that has you managing not just your own character's well-being but that of…

Funcom’s Joel Bylos explains why Dune Awakening is an actual, factual MMO - In an era where game studios are either backpedaling on calling their MMOs "MMOs," it's refreshing to see one studio come outright and take ownership of the label. And if there's…

Massively Overthinking: Unfair stigmas that follow MMORPGs - A few weeks back, our team was discussing the intersection of survival sandboxes, MMORPG virtual worlds, and gankboxes - and how hard it is for some games to shed stigmas…

Jandisoft’s Mad World is sunsetting on July 4 after only 15 months online - I'm sorry to report this evening that buried under all the Summer Game Fest reveals was the quiet news that Jandisoft's unique MMOARPG Mad World is closing its doors. "Although…

MMO sandbox Fractured bumps launch to later in the summer than anticipated - Last night on Discord, Dynamight Studios' Jacopo Gallelli apologized to Fractured fans, telling them that among the eight-person staff, he was the person who was supposed to handle community relations…

Guild Wars 2 previews Janthir Wilds’ land spears for Elementalists, Mesmers, and Revenants - Here we go: ArenaNet has finally dropped a dev blog on the final third of Guild Wars 2's classes destined for spear usage come the launch of Janthir Wilds. It's…

Vague Patch Notes: Have a seat for your MMO - I could play Final Fantasy XIV on my PlayStation 5, but I don't want to. And as weird as it might sound, the reason mostly comes down to my seat.…

Blizzard promises a ‘robust footprint’ at Gamescom for WoW, Diablo, and Overwatch 2 celebrations - During not-E3's Xbox showcase, Blizzard hinted very strongly that it would have more reveals and festivities coming later in the summer, which made sense as the company canceled this year's…

The Classic Secret World community is hosting a 12th anniversary event for the game – not Funcom - Let's get this out of the way: No, Funcom has not had a massive change of heart and decided to start developing for either of its versions of The Secret…

Whatever happened to Phoenix Labs’ multiplayer creature hunting RPG Dauntless? - Most of the news that's come out of Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs has been pretty dire-sounding, particularly since the studio suffered two rounds of layoffs and saw its CEO and…

LOTRO Legendarium: Am I excited at all for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO? - With all of the recent hullabaloo around New World, I've noticed several mentions of what this may portend for Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO project. And I went, "Oh…

EverQuest II’s Anashti Sul progression server is live with its 2006 throwback vibes - As promised and foretold, EverQuest II has a new toy as of last night, as its new progression server - the Origins server dubbed Anashti Sul - officially went live.[AL:EQ2]…

Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds is counting down to… something - An aura of mystery and intrigue's been swirling around Raph Koster's studio Playable Worlds and the multiverse sandbox MMORPG that it's been working on behind closed doors. But could the…

Riders of Icarus is shutting down its Southeast Asian servers without any sort of character transfer - There was a time when Riders of Icarus was fine, but everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only replace "when the Fire Nation attacked" with "when the game switched…

Trove adds a new underwater biome in today’s Rising Tides PC update - Does a rising tide lift all boats? You'll have to log into voxelbox MMO Trove today to find out, as Gamigo has launched its promised Rising Tides update on PC…

Interview: Bohemia on multiplayer sandbox Ylands’ Switch release, Steam development, and games as a service - A few weeks back, we caught wind of a big change for Bohemia Interactive's cutesy multiplayer pirate sandbox Ylands: It's launching on Switch, but the Switch version will be a…

Warframe’s Jade Shadows update launches with new character, new mission type, and new clan operation - The Jade Shadows update has been the talk of Warframe for the past couple of months, but today is finally the day when fans on all platforms that the looter…

Choose My Adventure: Flying, dogfighting, and struggling with hardware in Star Citizen - Well, talk about a massive disappointment. After a bunch of attempts, tweaks, and some general stubbornness, I'm pretty much going to have to concede that Star Citizen just can't operate…

Conan Exiles slows down its update cadence for chapters and puts the kibosh on battle passes in its next Age - "Conan Exiles is always evolving, and so is the way our team develops it," opens Funcom's latest update post, and sure enough the cadence of content updates is changing with…

Wisdom of Nym: Musings on Final Fantasy XIV’s last live letter before Dawntrail - If you couldn't watch the live letter because you were too anxious, well, I don't know how you live your life, but also I can confirm right now that Final…

Blue Protocol celebrates its first Japanese anniversary, but no word yet on a western release - The hope that Blue Protocol will see a 2024 release is fading mightily, especially following an anniversary livestream in which Bandai Namco failed to give any hints about launching the…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 473: How do you define an MMO?

The Stream Team: Beginning the launch journey in Tarisland

Perfect Ten: Lessons I’ve learned doing the MOP Podcast

The Stream Team: The further adventures of a very big powerful lady in Wayfinder

The Stream Team: Peeking into Pax Dei and giving away two keys for the MMO

The Stream Team: The joys of bashing and smashing dragons in the snow of Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Elder Scrolls Online and the Conclave of Fate

The Stream Team: A fresh start in the survival sandbox of Palworld

The Stream Team: One last roulette run in Final Fantasy XIV before Dawntrail arrives

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.