If I had to sum up this week in MMOs, and I do because that’s what this column is all about, I’d say it’s about money. Multiple MMO companies released their quarterly and annual deets this week, including Blizzard (another record quarter) and Square-Enix (which claims an increase in Final Fantasy XIV subs. Trion rightly boasted of Trove’s 15M playerbase as well. But the most interesting bit was surely NCsoft’s report, which shows Guild Wars 2 getting a welcome bump from Path of Fire while Blade & Soul (which just released its Call of the Deep update) pulls in excellent numbers too.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Camelot Unchained will announce its beta starting date on Monday - Really, that headline is all you truly need to know. After years of development and several delays, City State Entertainment is finally ready to announce the long-awaited start date for…
WoW Factor: First impressions of allied race leveling in World of Warcraft - Last week, I wrote about the addition of allied races without having actually gotten to play around with them much. You have to understand that at some point in the…
Multiplayer sci-fi sandbox Pantropy has launched its $91K Kickstarter - Last September, we first heard about Pantropy, a "sci-fi faction multiplayer shooter with mechs and focus on building and crafting" and a really cool name - not quite an MMO,…
Sweden scrutinizes loot boxes under gambling laws - Loot boxes might not be as welcome in Sweden come next year. A Public Administration minister told a news station that in-game lockboxes could be classified as gambling by 2019…
Star Citizen is balancing the crap out of ship weapons as the Crytek lawsuit drags on - Chris Roberts is joined by CIG Leader Writer Dave Haddock for this week's episode of Star Citizen Around the Verse, during which they check in with multiple studio reps who…
Toxicity roundup: Overwatch troll, Fortnite pro fired, Division modder ban, HOTS’s voice chat, and Twitch’s new anti-hate rules - When the toxicity topics just keep piling up in the news room and nobody wants to cover them, you get the Toxicity Roundup, your weekly report on who's being a…
MMOs get incredibly excited about Tesla’s Spaceman - No, you didn't dream it up. Wednesday, the world was abuzz over Elon Musk's Tesla company sending a rocket into orbit that was toting a roadster with a space suited…
Activision-Blizzard Q4 2017: Activision Blizzard boasts ‘record quarter, record year’ - With revenues and net bookings up, Activision Blizzard is riding high going into 2018. CEO Bobby Kotick introduced the Q4 2017 report by saying that it was "a record quarter…
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth jacks up its system requirements from Legion - The old joke that World of Warcraft can run on just about anything including your toaster is no longer true. Let's just say that if your toaster is planning to install…
The Survivalist: ARK’s latest exploit highlights how cheaters ruin official servers - Let's talk exploits. And no, this is definitely not a how-to guide! For shame! If you are a person who exploits, a pox on you. No, we are going to…
Choose My Adventure: Grinding away in Project Gorgon - First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who offered me some good Project Gorgon advice in the last installment of this column. Advice helped me put together an idea…
Raph Koster calls potential manipulative MMO microtransaction AI ‘horrendous’ - Here is some nightmare fuel for gamers imagining the future of the industry. How about an artificial intelligence that deliberately manipulates and messes with players in games to drive revenue…
Blade & Soul heeds the Call of the Deep update today - Hope you don't have any fears about nasty things with sharp teeth swimming in the ocean under your feet because Blade & Soul's Call of the Deep update isn't going…
Perfect Ten: RIFT features that deserve praise - [AL:Rift]Maybe it will be short-lived, but it is exciting to see attention and excitement return to the sphere of RIFT following the announcement of the upcoming Prime server ruleset. I've…
German commission takes up lootbox issue as academics link whaling to gambling markets - Germany has added its voice to the anti-lockbox chorus in the US, UK, and Netherlands. According to an article on the German-language Welt (picked up by GIbiz), The German Youth…
NCsoft Q4 2017: Guild Wars resurges as Blade & Soul and Lineage M drive profits - NCsoft has money to cheer about this past financial quarter, as it posted another year of solid growth. Revenue and operating profit were up 87% and 86% respectively year-over-year, though…
Square Enix reports a growing population in Final Fantasy XIV - It's a mix of mild good and bad news for Square Enix's financials this quarter. The studio reported that profits were up in the last nine months of 2017, although…
Flameseeker Chronicles: My Guild Wars 2 goals for 2018 - [AL:GW2]It's the time of year for spring-cleaning and goal-setting, where we look ahead to a fresh start filled with plenty of days left for accomplishing all the things we didn't…
Trove has passed 15 million players… and lots of other milestones - [AL:Trove]Congratulations are in order for Trove, which has passed 15 million players over the course of its lifespan. That's a lot of people logging in and playing. And the developers…
Guild Wars 2’s lunar new year patch is here with some big class balance changes too - [AL:GW2]Happy Lunar New Year! Guild Wars 2 has trotted out the requisite new year's event in celebration of the year of the dog, though this year, ArenaNet has rejiggered achievement…
EVE Evolved: A matter of balance in EVE Online - [AL:EVE]Throughout its almost 15-year lifetime, EVE Online has walked a fine line between developing new features and iterating on existing gameplay. Development has to push forward on new features to…
Academics debate WHO ‘gaming disorder’ classification and global political implications - Remember how the World Health Organization is angling to classify gaming addiction as a "gaming disorder"? Researchers and self-regulatory bodies have been pushing back against the move in the US…
Celebrate City of Heroes’ 14th anniversary in Paragon Chat this April - City of Heroes fans, heads-up: The Paragon Chat folks and the people behind HERC are already carving out time in April to celebrate what would've been the game's 14th anniversary.…
Black Desert’s costume contest has begun with a $10000 grand prize - [AL:BDO]Last week, Black Desert teased its upcoming costume contest, and now we've got the full details. The big prize, of course, is the chance to have your art piece actually…
Warframe is working on a massive overhaul to ‘frames – and not everyone is happy - [AL:WarF]Warframe is making big moves to change up its meta, and they're not necessarily all welcome. On Friday, Digital Extremes announced that it's plotting an overhaul of warframes themselves. "With…
Leaderboard: Did you preorder WoW’s Battle for Azeroth expansion? - Last week was a flurry of excitement over World of Warcraft's Battle for Azeroth's preorders - and the news that the game will probably launch that expansion in September. In…
332,000 pirates board Sea of Thieves’ closed beta - It turns out that not only were players excited to jump into the role of pirates-to-be for Sea of Thieves' closed beta last month, but even more people were eager…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 156: Downfalls and uprisings
The Stream Team: To the blue biome in ARK: Aberration
The Stream Team: Elder Scrolls Online Dragon Bones dungeon run with devs
The Stream Team: Enjoying more Egypt in Secret World Legends
The Stream team: Closers is now open!
The Stream Team: Living it up in Guild Wars 2’s Lunar New Year
The Stream Team: Dipping into Dead Maze
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Battle for Azeroth system requirements get another bump
Datamined Zandalari and Dark Iron classes may hint at potential future races
WoW Archivist: Four classic ideas Battle for Azeroth should bring back
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 little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
