Astellia Online launched this weekend after a week in head-start, marking what might be the biggest new MMO to hit western shores all year. If you’re still on the fence about whether you should buy it, know that so are we: Our updated impressions of the title found it to be pleasantly average and competent – not a temport, but probably not a replacement for your favorite MMO either.
Meanwhile, ArcheAge gave us the scoop on Unchained, we dropped our impressions of Caravan Stories and WoW’s latest plotline, Ashes of Creation’s battle royale mode hit early access, Fallout 76 ran into another collectibles snafu, LOTRO teased Minas Morgul, and Ultima Online turned 22 years old.
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
Interview: ArcheAge Unchained’s Merv Lee Kwai on housing, RMT, and the future of the game - The announcement of ArcheAge Unchained and its buy-to-play, no-pay-to-win ruleset has been one of the big surprises of the season for the five-year-old MMORPG - but a welcome one. As…
Second impressions: Astellia Online’s launch version is a solidly average MMO - So... here's the thing about Astellia Online. You remember my first impressions piece? I freely acknowledged that the game was fundamentally a fine title that wasn't going to change anyone's…
Astellia Online formally launches tomorrow night – here’s what to expect - Astellia Online's big day is almost here: After a week of staggered headstart access for pre-order players, Barunson's MMORPG will officially launch Saturday the 28th - tomorrow night - at…
First impressions of Caravan Stories: More a gacha game than an MMORPG - When I was in college, my algebra professor once told me to curb my enthusiasm because inevitably, some thing or other will disappoint me. For the most part, that rule…
WoW Factor: No, Battle for Azeroth’s story hasn’t paid off by the end of the war campaign - You know, I honestly had expected to do something else for WoW Factor this week, and then I was reminded that the war campaign was ending this week and my mind…
Fallen Earth begins its Last Stand - After a slight delay due to patcher issues, Fallen Earth's 10th anniversary -- and its final hurrah in its current incarnation -- has begun. Little Orbit announced that the post-apocalyptic…
LOTRO Legendarium: Minas Morgul is off to a better start than Mordor - While we have known for a long while that this was coming, the official announcement of Lord of the Rings Online's 2019 expansion was exciting nevertheless. Standing Stone Games formally…
Eternal Magic has been accused of ripping off Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, and SMITE - It's no secret that Eternal Magic, the now-in-beta PvP MMO from Chinese developer Duoyi, got off to a bad start with the community earlier this year by hosting an actual…
Elder Scrolls Online on the ‘class identity’ that informs its upcoming combat and balance changes - If you're looking at the headline here and thinking oh no not class fantasy, then be aware: ZeniMax knows it's a loaded term and is trying to disambiguate it in…
Guild Wars 2’s next major class balance patch is dropping October 1 - Forget your pumpkin spice lattes, Tyrians, because you will soon be drinking deep from the cup of a balance patch that is due to arrive in Guild Wars 2 on…
LOTRO: Minas Morgul will take you back in time to the Second Age - With the undead and possibly soulless cat out of the bag with Minas Morgul, Standing Stone Games is fielding a whole bunch of questions about Lord of the Rings Online's…
City of Heroes’ Homecoming announces Issue 26 Page 3, Halloween content, and collab with other rogue servers - City of Heroes' Homecoming servers, rogue or not, are pushing forward into legitimacy. As we've been covering, the servers, which have been publicly outed as part of the NCsoft negotiations,…
Rockstar is apparently ‘100% focused’ on Red Dead Online rather than single-player DLC - As players who prefer PC games wait patiently for Red Dead Redemption 2 to arrive on their preferred platform, the players who already got through the single-player game on consoles…
Vague Patch Notes: Crime and punishment and intent in MMOs - Last week, we saw Blizzard explain its philosophy behind why some World of Warcraft bugs in which players got to get more stuff than intended resulted in bans or rollbacks,…
Free battle-ready mounts charge into Conan Exiles in December - Conan Exiles is looking forward to a big December patch with battle mounts just in time for Christmas. "Ever since launch of Conan Exiles, players have craved for mounts to…
Massively Overthinking: MMOs, challenge, and flow - A couple of weeks ago, MMO developer Mark Kern tweeted a controversial claim about how challenge and interactivity is the point of games (and therefore that removing challenge from a…
Dauntless 1.0 has officially launched with today’s Aether Unbound update - It's a new dawn for Dauntless and its over 15 million players. Today marks the official launch of the multiplayer action RPG, bringing a wrap to five years of open…
Last Oasis delays early access again, this time to next year - There's something of a surfeit of survival sandbox MMOs out there, so making sure a game stands out certainly feels more important than ever. That's part of the reason why…
Cyberpunk MMO Zenith just raised more than a quarter of a million dollars on Kickstarter - For the last many weeks, we've been covering the Kickstarter drive of Zenith, a cyberpunk MMO courting both PC and VR players. As of today, that drive is over, and…
Desert Oasis: A guide to the best Mediah grindspots in Black Desert - Of all the Desert Oasis articles I've written so far, by far the most fun I had was doing a guide for two of Black Desert's best grindspots - maybe…
Eternal Magic moves into open beta today – here’s the new trailer - Good news, fans of optimization: Eternal Magic is moving into open beta today, and one of the elements that it's boasting is that it provides beautiful graphics available to players…
World of Warcraft players take to the streets of Orgrimmar over Sylvanas - It's been a bit of a weird month as the two big factions of World of Warcraft - no, not the Horde and Alliance but Classic and Retail - vie…
Amazon says it’s still ‘working hard’ on its MMORPG New World - Back in May, Amazon Game Studios raised eyebrows when it announced it was taking in-development MMORPG New World’s always-on alpha offline. According to the studio, the game would go offline…
Ultima Online turns 22 years old today, teases upcoming Jolly Roger update - It's a big day for the seminal game of our genre: Ultima Online is officially 22 years old. "On this day in 1997 thousands of people from around the world…
City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue servers are now blocking copyright-infringing characters - Players on the City of Heroes Homecoming servers enjoyed a privilege they were never afforded during the game's pre-shutdown run time: While NCsoft was draconian about cracking down on any characters…
Early access pirate MMO Atlas is launching on Xbox One next week – with PC crossplay - Atlas has been one of the odder MMOs we've covered this last year. In spite of a bungled launch, it managed to avoid the widespread anger generated by the foibles…
Sandbox MMO Project C launches $149.99 founder packs, plans October closed alpha - Remember Project C? It's the SpatialOS-based open-world persistent sandbox MMO by Darewise, the same company that along with studio Nvizzio struggled to make the gorgeous space survival title ROKH a hit, suspending development on it…
Perfect Ten: The biggest moments in Final Fantasy XIV’s storytelling - As has been noted before, Natusko Ishikawa is a treasure. Reading an interview with her about her work on Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion reminded me of just how good the…
World of Warcraft concludes war campaign with Reckoning cinematic, Aron Eisenberg memorial event is planned - It was pretty clear that all of the threads in World of Warcraft's war campaign for Battle for Azeroth would come together in a face-off against Sylvanas. You can't spend this much…
Lord of the Rings Online starts Minas Morgul pre-orders, rolls out Stout-Axe Dwarves - What we know for certain: Lord of the Rings Online is pushing out Update 24.3 today, and that single decimal point usually indicates some measure of new content. According to…
Ashes of Creation’s Apocalypse hits early access today – are you trying it out? - Ashes of Creation’s Apocalypse battle royale title is officially launching into persistent early access today as planned. As it announced last week, Intrepid Studios is calling Apocalypse a "standalone prequel"…
Physical power armor helmet from Fallout 76 is being recalled due to mold - Remember when the worst thing about Fallout 76 merch was a crappy canvas bag? Get ready to feel the bottom dropping out as it's just been discovered that the collectible…
Choose My Adventure: Diary of a Legends of Aria desert wildman - The desert sun rakes its fingers over my bronzed skin like I am the coals of a forge. Indeed, I am the forge: the thing that produces strong weapons, not…
Check out Cube World’s launch trailer as it officially hits closed beta on Steam - It's here, it's here - Cube World has officially hit closed beta on Steam! As we noted last week, the game's original developer resurfaced in September to say he was really…
Wisdom of Nym: The Final Fantasy XIV philosophy and why it matters - It's been a couple weeks since this one happened, and for that I somewhat apologize because there were more pressing issues to cover in the world of Final Fantasy XIV.…
EVE Evolved: Is the EVE Online community a force for good in the world? - When we write or talk about MMO communities, we often focus on the practicalities of guilds or in-game events, the drama of forums, and community backlash following controversial developer decisions.…
Fight or Kite: Guild Wars 2 PvP – where good intentions and stubbornness meet - Earlier this month, Guild Wars 2 Game Director Mike Zadorojny had an interview with PCGamesN in which he discussed a number of items - most importantly PvP. I haven’t written much…
Actor Aron Eisenberg gets a torchlight vigil in Star Trek Online - The Star Trek fandom was shocked to learn that Aron Eisenberg passed away on Sunday, September 22nd. Eisenberg was best known among fans for portraying Nog on Deep Space Nine,…
SuperData August 2019: WoW Classic drives a massive subscription surge - Alright, all you armchair business analysts, it's time to look over SuperData's sales research report for August 2019. Get your best arguments ready and try not to make Bree groan…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 239: Astellia ascending
The Stream Team: A walk through Astroneer’s Wanderer update
The Stream Team: Concluding Warframe’s Nightwave Season 2
The Stream Team: Taking on Neverwinter’s Tower District
The Stream Team: MOP experiences Guild Wars 2’s new prologue, Bound by Blood
The Stream Team: Battle of the Blight in Path of Exile
The Stream Team: Crashing Aion’s 10th anniversary party flea market
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.
