Not at all for the first time, Guild Wars 2 and World of Warcraft announcements clashed rather hard this week, as ArenaNet released the final episode of its current living story season to great acclaim and Blizzard began the beta for WoW Classic, now due out in August.
The good news is that based on our experiences, we can say they’re both great. And if superheroes are more your thing? Well, we’re loving the return to City of Heroes too. Bon appétit, MMO players!
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
First impressions: World of Warcraft Classic is exactly what it says on the tin - The simplest analogy I can think of for World of Warcraft: Classic is being served a breakfast of toasted plain white bread with a generous dollop of butter. It's not…
Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s War Eternal - After playing through Guild Wars 2's new Living World episode, War Eternal, which is live today, I am still speechless. This is, in my opinion, quite possibly the most epic…
World of Warcraft Classic launches August 26, with CBT tomorrow and stress tests beginning next week - Here we go, folks: World of Warcraft Classic is now set to launch on August 27th - actually, in the US, it's the evening of August 26th "to align with…
WoW Factor: Thoughts on the impending arrival of WoW Classic - So now we have a date at the end of August for World of Warcraft: Classic. That's actually a lot later than I had expected, but I think it makes a certain…
Into the Super-verse: Getting to know City of Heroes all over again - It has been well over a decade since I played City of Heroes with any regularity, and yet when I saw that familiar loading screen come up this past weekend,…
Shroud of the Avatar addresses CEO confusion, playerbase ‘re-engagement campaign’ - Remember back in the fall of 2018, when there was a flurry of speculation over Shroud of the Avatar as Portalarium's Richard Garriott shed his CEO title? "As we have…
Tamriel Infinium: Ranking the Elder Scrolls Online’s expansions and DLC to date - On the cusp of the release of Elder Scrolls Online's latest chapter expansion, Elsweyr, I thought it might be fun to go back and rank the previous expansions for this…
City of Heroes: Homecoming’s new home, EU players, multiboxing, SEGS, and… piglets - Good news for players of City of Heroes' Homecoming rogue servers: The planned server moves - from The Netherlands to new destinations in Canada and Germany - appear to have…
Massively Overthinking: Unpopular MMORPG opinions - Unpopular opinions: We all have them. In fact we have so many that it's a straight up meme. This week's Massively Overthinking is one I've wanted to do for a…
Lawful Neutral: What DMCA exemption victories really mean for MMO preservation - You might remember back in October, we covered how the US Library of Congress granted expanded DMCA exceptions for preserving online games. The Library of Congress' decision was lauded as…
Riot Games isn’t budging on labor dispute even after employee walkout - As we've previously covered, employees of the League of Legends studio Riot Games walked out last week in protest over the company's labor and harassment policies. The company had attempted…
World of Warcraft Classic provides players with an updated rundown of known bugs - The World of Warcraft: Classic beta is now in the hands of players, and that means that players are taking part in the oldest of traditions surrounding Blizzard titles: locating bugs.…
Hyperspace Beacon: Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes satisfies that Star Wars fix, but there’s a catch - For the last few weeks, my other job has either taken away my game time or just sucked the energy out of me so that didn't feel like playing anything…
Exclusive dev diary: Destiny’s Sword explores mental health as MMO gameplay - Back at PAX East this year, our own Eliot Lefebvre checked out a weird and wonderful new MMORPG called Destiny's Sword. It's a tactical MMO, with a focus on "community-first"…
Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones shoves off its launch to next year – or beyond - Sea of Thieves can breathe a sigh of relief that it won't have to see serious competition this year. The other pirate simulator in the works, Skull and Bones, announced…
Blade & Soul’s Scarlet Tears update is now live - The latest update to NCSoft's free-to-play martial-arts MMORPG Blade & Soul has just gone live, bringing with it a fistful of new content for players to punch and kick their…
City of Heroes rogue server teams activate i24 PTS, prep for tomorrow’s Homecoming server moves - Earlier this week, we covered one of the true-neutral City of Heroes rogue server groups, Ouroboros, and its efforts in restoring the game to its original state. MMO players will…
Perfect Ten: The 10 most adorable MMORPGs ever - We all like to think of ourselves as cultured and deep individuals who routinely calculate square roots and recite Gilbert and Sullivan at dinner parties, but the truth is that…
Blizzard releases Safe Haven cinematic, addresses World of Warcraft’s potential beyond WoW Classic - Blizzard's keeping the pressure up this week with another new World of Warcraft release, though this one's about the live game, not WoW Classic: It's a brand-new cinematic called Safe…
Tree of Life heads into maintenance mode today as studio Oddone moves to new projects - Tree of Life players, there's bad news and news for you today. Let's get the bad news out of the way first: It sounds like the current version of the…
The Daily Grind: Do you think WoW Classic is destined for greatness or utterly doomed? - Since the formal announcement this week that WoW Classic is launching in August, I've seen multiple mainstream games journos opine that, well, you think you want it, but you don't.…
Square-Enix posts annual revenues up, MMO revenues down with ‘brisk’ subs ahead of FFXIV expansion - More companies with MMOs and MMO-adjacent games dropped financials this week. At Square-Enix, net sales for the the year were up 8%, though for MMOs specifically - including Final Fantasy…
Torchlight Frontiers’ alpha plans major skill and leveling overhaul for May 21 - Perfect World and Echtra Games are continuing efforts on Torchlight Frontiers' alpha, announcing this week that the next big patch is coming to testers a week from today on May…
City of Heroes community forms Round Table as Homecoming rogue servers count over 56,000 players - Multiple City of Heroes groups now say they're working under yet another initiative to bring the rogue server community together. "The Round Table has been formed by a neutral 3rd…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood in review – expert dungeons - For all that dungeons are a core part of the Final Fantasy XIV experience, this expansion was the lightest on top-end dungeons. Where Heavensward wound up with 13 over the course of…
Choose My Adventure: The thrilling escapades of a Star Wars: The Old Republic sniper - I have to say, I've made a really good choice this month. Yes, I used the word "good" to describe something Star Wars: The Old Republic-related, but I really am…
Star Trek Online’s Rise of Discovery boldly goes onto PC today, consoles June 25 - The latest installment in Star Trek Online's ongoing Star Trek: Discovery tie-in story arc, Rise of Discovery, is live on PC today, and what's more, Perfect World Entertainment has announced…
Red Dead Online reworks anti-griefing systems today, preps for full launch this summer - Red Dead Online's beta is getting a big patch today - and even more this summer. First, the update rolling out today adds new co-op missions for honorable and dishonorable…
Dungeons and Dragons Online: Masterminds of Sharn launches today - After a short delay, Dungeons and Dragons' latest expansion released to digital munchkins today. Masterminds of Sharn marks only the fourth time that this long-running MMORPG has pushed out an…
The Daily Grind: Do you still want a Game of Thrones MMORPG? - I'm sure that at some point in the last 4200 or so Daily Grinds we've done on Massively OP and Massively-that-was over these many long years, we asked you about…
EVE Evolved: What really sets Russian EVE players apart? - One of the most interesting things about EVE Online is the fact that its single shard server forces players from different countries and cultures to co-exist in the same space.…
Anime MMO Caravan Stories announces July 16 beta, July 23 launch on PlayStation 4 - When Caravan Stories was announced for the west just a few weeks ago, several of our writers went nuts for it. So we're stoked to relay today that the game's…
Not So Massively: Mourning the wasted potential of Trion’s Defiance - One of my biggest gaming pet peeves is people declaring games "dead" before their time. If you can play it, it's not dead. This obsession with MMO mortality mostly serves…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 220: Everybody gets a dragon!
Battle Bards Episode 144: Colors of the rainbow
The Stream Team: Starting a new necromancer in Elder Scrolls Online’s Elsweyr
The Stream Team: Imperial and Republic Balmorra datacron hunting in SWTOR
The Stream Team: Behold, a rebuilt Battleon in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Getting Gigas galore or lost in a maze in ARK
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.
