World of Warcraft offered two pieces of huge news this week: Its developer team formed a wall-to-wall union, WoWGG, that includes members from multiple development divisions, and oh yeah, it launched the pre-patch for the upcoming War Within expansion (though it didn’t go exactly to plan).
Meanwhile, Ultima Online gave players their first proper look at New Legacy, Lord of the Rings Online announced its next expansion, Path of Exile launched Settlers of Kalguur, and games industry voice actors went on strike for AI protections.
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
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft team just formed a wall-to-wall multidisciplinary WoWGG union - Man, it's been a long, long time coming, but Blizzard Entertainment workers have finally formed a wall-to-wall union, specifically meaning that it includes everyone from game designers and engineers to…
SDCC 2024: Daybreak unveils LOTRO’s Legacy of Morgoth and DCUO’s Harley Quinn vs. Apokolips - This past Friday was a pretty big one for fans of Daybreak Games' staple of MMORPGs, as several members of the various sub-studios under the company's banner were on hand…
The pre-expansion patch for World of Warcraft: The War Within is live today - Today is the day to kick off the next portion of player adventures within Azeroth... or at least the preamble to the adventures that are really within Azeroth. World of…
SAG-AFTRA voice actors begin strike following failed games industry negotiations on AI protections - We are go for strike, people: SAG-AFTRA announced last night that its members are on strike starting today, meaning that all unionized voice actors in the guild are now withholding…
World of Warcraft’s pre-patch for The War Within disables both warbanks and cross-realm trading because of bugs - If you look at the pre-expansion patch World of Warcraft delivers ahead of expansions as a dry run of the expansion itself, The War Within's pre-patch is currently giving a…
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster: ‘We’re going into space, and it’s going to be awesome’ - Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is back with yet another batch of Stars Reach game pillars, the driving concepts behind the MMORPG sandbox's design. We've covered the first few sets of…
Game studio execs weigh in on reasons for the high costs of American game development - This year has been a bloodbath for game developers, with job cuts happening across companies big and small, so that naturally brings up questions - namely, why is game development…
Storyboard: The fine art of letting your character fail in MMORPG roleplaying - Do you know why tabletop roleplaying games use dice? Every game designer ever will lie about the reason. The reason cited is to create randomness or to create moments of…
The Game Archaeologist: A look back at proto-MMOs through the 1980s - Today I want to try something a little different as we look at MMORPG history. Rather than focus in on a single title or moment in time, I am pulling…
For Science: Research study identifies money laundering patterns in the Steam Marketplace - Gamers are probably not going to be surprised about some recent research findings that conclude secondary marketplaces in gaming can be used for money laundering. They may be even less…
Cozy MMO Palia teases nameplates, house tours, and a greenhouse in next week’s beta update - Fresh off its acquisition by no less than MMORPG company Daybreak, Singularity 6's still-in-beta cozy MMO Palia is teasing a bunch of new content coming next week. The Summer Serenade…
Pearl Abyss’ ‘open world action-adventure’ RPG Crimson Desert will be playable at Gamescom 2024 - Considering the long spans of silence that have earmarked the progress of Crimson Desert, we know it was easy to presume that Pearl Abyss had silently canned what it's now…
Overwatch 2 is pondering a potential return of the 6v6 format, but only after running some tests - When Overwatch 2 announced it would feature a change in team size from 6v6 to 5v5 in 2021, it was presented as a fundamental shift to gameplay, teamwork, and the…
Massively Overthinking: How much research do you do before playing a new MMORPG? - On this week's MOP Podcast, Justin and I discussed our experiences in No Man's Sky (again), and both of us came to the conclusion that while it's a gorgeous and…
Homestead Online is an indie MMO that embraces character persistence, permadeath, and base building - An indie MMORPG developer is asking for help to test out a brand-new title that's still in its early days. This would be Homestead Online, a sandbox title that's batting…
Activision-Blizzard artists express anxiety and disgust as the studio foists AI tools on existing workers - Like it or not, AI tools are proliferating throughout gamedev, and the human cost is already being showcased. According to reporting from Wired, which sources emails and employee interviews from…
Perfect Ten: 10 times MMOs appeared in TV and movies - It's always surreal when real MMOs cross the divide between niche and mainstream to be referenced in television and films. Depending on how you see it, this mainstream acceptance of…
Star Trek Online unveils the Heritage Starship Bundle after teasing it with cryptic hints - Look. You knew that when Star Trek Online started toying around with pseudo-ARG puzzles regarding its latest promotion that the end result would be telling you to drink your Ovaltine.…
Sea of Thieves Season 13 adds a world event-sized ship for players to capture and new gameplay elements - Today is the day when Sea of Thieves players can become the world event - and possibly have everyone's guns trained on them in the process. Season 13 is underway…
Global Chat: Looking back at 15 years of World of Warcraft blogging - Fifteen years is a huge chunk of time to devote to both a video game and an ongoing blog covering it, but that's exactly what Priest with a Cause has…
Working As Intended: The Fridge Poetry game is the latest distillation of MMORPG PvP - This morning, MOP's Sam busted into MOP's work chat with a link to the Fridge Poetry game. "It's more like an art project than a game, but an interesting multiplayer…
Vague Patch Notes: Everything in an MMORPG is time-limited - Today, I want to talk to you about an event that you can no longer participate in within Final Fantasy XIV. It's an event that ran for more than 25…
Fortnite has added the Cybertruck to the game, and players are marshaling to kill it on sight - If you're among those players in Fortnite who, for whatever reason, are eager to get behind the wheel of the in-game version of Tesla's hideous, slipshod, and actively unsafe EV,…
Apex Legends slightly reels back battle pass changes after players revolt on Steam - Respawn Entertainment can now add its name to the dubious list of companies that screwed around and found out in very short order. At the beginning of the month, the…
Guild Wars 2 is using Janthir Wilds’ raid and convergence to assess future raid content - With less than a month before Janthir Wilds opens up new zones and housing content, Guild Wars 2's devs are now turning their promotional attention to the expansion's new raid…
Here’s what to expect from New World’s two-phase Aeternum console beta tomorrow - All right finally here we go: Amazon has just pushed out a big post on what exactly gamers can expect from New World's first Aeternum beta on console, which is…
Kickstarted sandbox MMORPG Fractured Online is finally, officially out of early access - Fractured Online has been through a whole lot over the last few years, from its Kickstarter campaign to its Gamigo-backed early access, then to its escape from Gamigo and back…
NCsoft expands Throne & Liberty publishing to several additional regions in Asia and beyond - There's still a little time remaining before Throne & Liberty finally launches over here on September 17th as published by Amazon. But there are places in the world other than…
The Soapbox: Why MMOs are the ultimate creature comforts - As long as I can remember, I've been an avid fan of re-consuming my favorite forms of media. I used to read the same Star Trek novels over and over…
SWTOR’s 7.5.1. includes Greatest Bounty season, new Date Night missions, and improved gear progression - Broadsword released a teaser stream last night for Star Wars The Old Republic's 7.5.1 update, and while it's certainly welcome, it's... a 7.5.1 update. Some expectations-management is in order, as…
EverQuest II introduces the Norrathian Armory for sharing valuable items across your whole account - Is there anything worse than getting a really cool item on one character in your roster only to realize that you have to repeat the process from scratch on another?…
The Olympics now have an official esports event starting next year - Here's some encouraging news for almost all of our readers today: You too can become a genuine Olympic athlete if you're really good at clicking mouses and doing the WASDs…
City of Heroes Homecoming’s i28p1 is live with the Marine Affinity powerset and new raid - If you were keeping an eyeball on City of Heroes' Homecoming not-rogue servers over the last month, you already knew that the player-led volunteer team was working on a new…
Fight or Kite: Backpack Battles puts your bag sorting skills to the test - After the dungeon has been cleared, the boss has been felled, and the zerg has been wiped out, the very next thing we all eagerly anticipate is gathering that sweet,…
Choose My Adventure: Gleeful space truckin’ through Elite Dangerous - This is, for all intents and purposes, going to be a very simple, laid back, and perhaps obnoxiously serene edition of Choose My Adventure. That's because the polls actually said…
Skull and Bones announces its arrival to Steam on August 22 - Have you been eager to play Skull and Bones but you can't bring yourself to use any other digital games platform outside of Steam (even though Steam will often connect…
Ultima Online sets its first New Legacy open beta for this weekend - On the MassivelyOP podcast this week, Justin and I were speculating on when the Ultima Online New Legacy beta is happening - surely it had to be soon, right, if…
MMO studio Daybreak is named 2023 Extra Life Partner of the Year, posts 2024 fundraising plans - Daybreak's charity work has paid off: This week, Extra Life and Children's Miracle Network named Daybreak Games its Extra Life Partner of the Year for 2023, owing to the studio's…
MultiVersus developer Player First Games has been snapped up by Warner Bros. Games - If there was any doubt that MultiVersus is a hot property after its relaunch this past spring, the fact that its studio just was bought out by Warner Bros. Games…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s Arcadion brings the noise - There has been a question that has kind of been bubbling in the background of the entire premise behind Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, and that's about how far we really…
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster argues that a persistent virtual world is ‘too powerful an idea’ to dismiss - Those watching the online gaming genre with a growing sense of dismay at everything drifting away from large, persistent MMO worlds may find solace in the stance that Stars Reach's…
Albion Online’s Paths to Glory update goes live with a task journal, dynamic spawns, and quality-of-life - Usually people aren't happy to see a list of tasks arrive to them, but in the case of Albion Online, there are ideally lots of players who are happy to…
Microsoft calls FTC’s Game Pass filing ‘misleading’ owing to multiplayer functionality and Call of Duty availability - Over the weekend we reported on the FTC putting a fresh legal filing before the US Court of Appeals that argued Microsoft's price hike for Game Pass Ultimate, its new…
Path of Exile Settlers of Kalguur launch drove its Steam concurrency to an all-time peak - Last night, the Settlers of Kalguur update hit Path of Exile, which of course means it's time for the usual check-in on how the first day went. And the short…
World of Warcraft debuts the official cinematic trailer for The War Within - Are you ready to get hyped? Possibly confused? Perhaps you're going to wonder just who these people are? There's a little something for every World of Warcraft fan, which has…
Hearthstone apologizes for the past 18 months, shares ‘Fun, Focus, and Fearless’ vision - While Hearthstone's brand-new Perils in Paradise expansion should be the talk of the game these days, Blizzard is instead doing damage control over an increasingly dissatisfied and rebellious community that's…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 477: The lineage of Lineage
The Stream Team: Water wings and other AQ3D tidbits
The Stream Team: Securing servants in V Rising
The Stream Team: Fighting a colossus and obtaining Bunny in The First Descendant
The Stream Team: The prince of trades and Immortality Lessons in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming creeps into Once Human
The Stream Team: Checking out the kart racing map of Party Animals
The Stream Team: The return of Rata Novus in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Warframe’s Jade Shadows Stalker rescue plus TennoCon talk
The Stream Team: Closing out the final fight of Final Fantasy XIV’s Arcadion
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.
