This week – along with the rest of 2020 – is not being kind to the world, but for MMOs, it’s not been wholly shabby. This week, Elder Scrolls Online sent us back to Skyrim with the Greymoor launch, Guild Wars 2 impressed players with No Quarter, Lord of the Rings Online made lifelong stans of quarantine players with its new monetization plan, and Phantasy Star Online 2 was… OK, that one was a mess. And Blizzard canceled BlizzCon, but we kinda think it’s for the best.
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: Phantasy Star Online 2’s technical clownshow mangled its PC launch - Phantasy Star Online 2 is, bar none, the absolute worst experience I have ever had with trying to get a game working on my computer. Understand that as a confluence…
Blizzard has canceled BlizzCon 2020, aims for online replacement early next year - Remember back in April, when Blizzard said it was still working on BlizzCon even under the threat of the pandemic and hadn't fully canceled it yet? It's made the call…
Phantasy Star Online 2 has finally launched on PC in the west after eight years - As promised - and after so many years of waiting that many folks had long since given up on it - Phantasy Star Online 2 has officially launched on the…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor chapter sends players back to Skyrim today - The Dark Heart of Skyrim is reaching is zenith today with the launch of Greymoor in Elder Scrolls Online. Originally announced in January, the chapter suffered a brief pandemic delay,…
SEGA apologizes for botched Phantasy Star Online 2 launch - Two days in to the disastrous launch of Phantasy Star Online 2, SEGA finally released a statement and apology - as far as we can see, the one sent to…
Flameseeker Chronicles: First impressions of Guild Wars 2’s No Quarter - After March’s relatively lightweight release, Steel and Fire, a lot of Guild Wars 2 players were expecting something big from this month’s release, entitled No Quarter. The Charr civil war…
LOTRO and DDO extend promo, give away zones, discount expansions, and sweeten subs - OK, everybody who has had a beef with how expensive the cumulative content is for Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online is -- now you can't…
Phantasy Star Online 2 offers installation fix suggestions, promises a hitching patch on June 10 - Phantasy Star Online 2 has made good on the promise for more communication it made in its apology for the MMO's botched launch posted on Friday, with a couple of…
Vague Patch Notes: BlizzCon’s cancellation might just be for the best - After a lot of time spent expecting this particular announcement, yesterday it was finally confirmed that there will be no BlizzCon 2020. This is a bummer to me, sort of.…
Ashes of Creation partially lifts its NDA, discusses open world housing and caravans in a livestream - Things appear to be going rather swimmingly for Ashes of Creation. During the game's most recent developer livestream, the team touted an eight hour-long playtest with its Phoenix Initiative testers,…
The Survivalist: Astroneer launches persistent multiplayer servers - Sometimes the gaming gods do listen! Sometimes you do get your wish. Sometimes your heart's desires are granted. And that sometime is now! From day one, I -- and many…
Star Citizen details electrical weapons and a player trading system coming to alpha 3.10 - Nothing says "future tech" quite like weaponizing lightning. Sure, Star Citizen already has lasers, but lasers just aren't quite as cool as lightning weapons, and in alpha 3.10 players will…
The Daily Grind: Should gamers be entitled to jump MMO queues if they sub? - The launch of Elder Scrolls Online's Greymoor this week was a bit of a bungle, though not one we've never seen before. Launching MMOs and major expansions is usually rough,…
Massively Overthinking: Are MMO developers stuck in the past? - Earlier this month - so what feels like at least a few years ago - the MMO community amused itself jousting over comments from former Blizzard developers that seemed out…
Desert Oasis: Rethinking the Black Desert grindspot debate - Almost a year ago, I penned a column on grindspot etiquette in MMORPGs. Specifically, I wrote about the commonly accepted etiquette when it comes to grinding in Black Desert. It…
Kickstarted MMORPG Crowfall moves from pre-alpha to alpha today - Goodbye pre-alpha, hello alpha: ArtCraft is officially pushing Crowfall into the next stage of testing. It hasn't been without its setbacks - MMO vets will remember that the game was…
Magic Legends boasts of ‘one of the most powerful, game-changing features’ Cryptic’s ever made - Need a refresher on Magic Legends or want a behind-the-scenes look at how the OARPG is being made? Executive Producer Steve Ricossa penned the upcoming game's first-ever State of Development…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor, Phantasy Star Online 2 PC struggle during launch week - If you thought Guild Wars 2's No Quarter was going to be the release champion of this big-launch MMO week, you deserve a whole pot of winnings because in this…
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will allow blue-eyed Blood Elves and Void Elves - Remember when people got very excited about finding blue eyes for elves in the customization options in World of Warcraft: Shadowlands? And remember when the official explanation was that those…
Wandering Wraeclast: Final impressions of Path of Exile’s Delirium - Let's talk Delirium! We're in the third month of Path of Exile's latest league, and with the next league expected in June, we're running out of time to do so. And…
Perfect Ten: Unconventional MMORPG magic classes - Earth. Fire. Air. Water. These elements are all well and good if you want to summon Captain Planet for some reason, but they make for very dull class design. So…
Aion’s Shadows Over Balaurea is live today in North America - It's shadow time for Aion players on the NA servers, because Shadows Over Balaurea is live in the game today. This means that Inggison and Gelkmaros are now the first…
Funcom is set to reveal an ‘unannounced game’ on June 5 - Does Funcom have another game up its sleeve? It appears so, as the Oslo-based developer broadly hinted that it is getting ready to make an announcement next Friday, June 5th,…
Co-op roguelike Minecraft Dungeons is live today on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and the Switch - Don't tell my kids, but I'm getting them Minecraft Dungeons this week. I mean, really I'm getting myself Minecraft Dungeons this week, but they're going to steal my Switch as…
Choose My Adventure: Taking the new Warbird for a spin in Star Trek Online - It was unanimous: We were meant to be Romulans and continue with the storyline that we were following in Star Trek Online. The voting results were no contest whatsoever. And,…
The third chapter for EVE Online’s Invasion is officially live - EVE Online has been teasing that its next update would have lasting effects on New Eden, and now players will finally begin the process of putting that to the proof.…
MMO Burnout: We Happy Few is a single-player virtual world - After having it on my radar for many years, I've finally gotten around to playing indie stealth/survival game We Happy Few. It's a good game, but one of the most…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers has mined out its own nostalgia - There are a lot of themes that are running hot through the entirety of Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers. Some of them are very obvious and central, like the concept of Light…
Gamigo confirms ArcheAge’s free-to-play version will receive Garden of the Gods for free - It's been a wild few days for Gamigo and ArcheAge, which at the tail end of last week admitted that it was planning to charge for ArcheAge Unchained's future content,…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 273: ArcheAge Unraveled
The Stream Team: Pouncing on PixARK’s free anniversary weekend
The Stream Team: An adventure on Astroneer’s new dedicated servers
The Stream Team: Finally flying in the Warframe Railjack revamp
The Stream Team: Dungeons and Dragons Online’s Memory Lapse
The Stream Team: Procuring droid parts in SWTOR
The Stream Team: So long MapleStory 2 and thanks for all the ducks
The Stream Team: Adventures in Skyrim with Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor
The Stream Team: Bashing bandits and bosses in Path of Exile’s Delirium
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.
