July has been a huge month for new launches as well as updates to existing MMOs. Surmounting technical issues, Skyforge soft-launched this week for all players complete with new collector editions after an early access period for founders. (Just don’t forget to turn off the bandwith leeching, eh?) And Trion’s Trove, which launched just 10 days ago, has apparently become so popular that the studio has pretty much done nothing but add a steady stream of servers and try to compensate players when the existing ones go boom. Really, there are worse problems to have.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
STAR CITIZEN DRAMA
Star Citizen’s FPS elements to feature ‘slow-paced tactical gameplay’ and consequences for death
Star Citizen’s Lesnick promises ‘incredible progress’ and addresses concerns
Derek Smart demands Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts resign, fronts $1M for audit
The war of words between Derek Smart and Star Citizen continues
Derek Smart calls for FTC investigation of Star Citizen’s finances, presents Chris Roberts with list of demands
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Mark Jacobs explains Camelot Unchained’s beta delay, confirms game title [Updated] - Camelot Unchained's Mark Jacobs has admitted to backers today that the first round of CU's beta, originally planned for August, will be delayed. Jacobs has explained that the senior programmer hired in June was essentially poached…
EverQuesting: Holly Longdale was right about casuals and raiding - How's the weather over in EverQuest? Well there was a doozy of a storm that rolled through recently! I am going to admit that I was actually shocked at the response that Producer Holly Longdale's comment…
Guild Wars 2 confirms the last Revenant legend is Shiro Tagachi - Revenants have proven very capable of inflicting conditions with demonic legends, being defensive with dwarven legends, and healing their allies with centaur legends. It's certainly a flexible profession even by the standards of Guild Wars 2. But…
Guild Wars 2 combat working as intended, will work even more as intended in the future - Don't expect Guild Wars 2 to change its combat to mimic the traditional holy trinity setup that most MMOs have, but do expect that Heart of Thorns will be utilizing GW2's combat system to greater potential.…
Nexus Telegraph: Rethinking WildStar’s challenges - Back when WildStar first launched, there was a rapid evolution of the general community opinion over challenges. Initially there was excitement over these on-the-spot timed quests, as players added them into the list of all of…
World of Warcraft raiding guild wipes 472 times before beating mythic Hellfire raid - How many times do you usually tolerate a full group wipe before calling it a night? Three? Four? Now imagine if your guild has endured a whopping 472 wipes -- probably not on the same night,…
Smed nukes his own Twitter account - The Smed Twitter spigot is no longer dispensing tweets. Daybreak President John Smedley is famous for his stready stream of Twitter dialogue with MMO gamers, particularly H1Z1 players, who may have been the last recipients of…
Elder Scrolls Online sold 138,000 digital editions in June - A new Superdata report covering June is surprisingly glowing about the MMO industry. MMOs, combined with social and mobile titles, accounted for $660 million in revenue and increased 13.5% from the month previous. The report praises…
Guild Wars 2 provides an overview of Adventures - Let's be real here, everything you do in Guild Wars 2 is some sort of adventure. That's part of the basic premise of the game; you're going out and having adventures. But there's a difference between…
World of Warcraft’s patch 6.2.1 will let you betray your faction for queue times - The factional split between the Horde and the Alliance in World of Warcraft has taken a drubbing for a while, simply because the two factions wind up working together to beat one enormous threat or another…
Want to win at Crowfall? Become a mind-reader. - Hey, you know what would make you an incredible MMO PvP gamer? If you would just start reading the mind of your opponent already! This is, incredibly enough, the subject of today's befuddling Crowfall developer diary.…
Playable Togrutas confirmed for SWTOR Update 3.3 - [AL:TOR]Togrutas, the colorful Star Wars race that boasts both head tails and hollow horns, will become available to play when Star Wars: The Old Republic opens the doors to Update 3.3 next week. BioWare confirmed the…
RIFT patch 3.3 is live with extra nightmares - You don't have to wait until Halloween for RIFT to break out the heebie-jeebies, as its Waking Nightmares update went live yesterday, though it was not without its problems. A number of issues caused multiple outages yesterday, including…
Elder Scrolls Online gives you a first look at Imperial City DLC pack - Elder Scrolls Online has been cruising along in buy-to-play mode for a few months now (and reportedly doing quite well for itself), but its next true test of the new business model will come later this…
Pro e-sports player admits using performance-enhancing drugs, says doping is widespread - Remember when it became clear that major league baseball was awash in drugs? That drugs weren't just a problem that some players had but an accepted way of life for the game's players, that steroids and…
Face of Mankind is shutting down in August - Sci-fi sandbox MMO Face of Mankind is calling it a career. A Nexeon spokesperson confirmed the news on the game's official forum, saying that the title is "too old to create new, meaningful content, and the…
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR’s group content overhaul - [AL:TOR]I am a raider. I'm not one of those raiders who spends every waking moment learning how to optimize gear and spending four to six hours a day figuring out the best and latest strats, but…
Revival’s Gonzalez: ‘This is a passion project and not a money grab’ - Gothic horror sandbox Revival cuts a bit of a polarizing figure, at least early on in its development process and at least here in the MassivelyOP comments section. While some fans seem genuinely interested in the…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s expansion endgame, three weeks in - [AL:FFXIV]As of this writing, I haven't yet cleared Alexander. I've had other things to do, and while it might mean I'm ultimately one week behind the progress for its weekly resets, I'm not stressed about that.…
TERA’s next class is available in Korea - [AL:TERA]If you've been gazing with longing eyes at the trailer for TERA's next class... well, it's not here yet, so you're going to have to gaze longingly for a little while longer. But it's getting closer,…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast: Episode 22
The Stream Team: Bringing on the Brood Mother in Ark: Survival Evolved
The Stream Team: Surviving the H1Z1 times
The Stream Team: Win Skyforge collector’s packs during our launch week stream
The Stream Team: Sinking battleships in World of Warships
The Stream Team: High-speed Heritage Questing in EverQuest II
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Get started with Timewalking in WoW
Timewalking dungeons of Wrath of the Lich King
Does the Warcraft movie have a problem with women?
Finally, this week we brought back former Massively writer Matt Daniel to pen the refreshed Choose My Adventure series. Welcome back, Matt!
