The MMO industry moves along at the speed of information, and sometimes we’re deluged with so much news here at Massively Overpowered that some of it gets backlogged. That’s why there’s The MOP Up: a weekly compilation of smaller MMO stories and videos that you won’t want to miss. See any good MMO news? Hit us up through our tips line!
This week we’ll gorge on free games from the entire Tribes library, find out what Oort Online’s new name is, get a first look at Lord of the Rings Online’s latest update, and more!
New games and testing
- Civilization Online: A Korean “pre-open beta” test is scheduled for November 12th. How’s the game looking? Check out the video below to see!
- RuneScape: Chronicle, RuneScape’s spin-off strategy card game, is preparing to go into closed beta on November 25th.
- Line of Defense: A new state of play dev blog announced that things are looking good for a launch in the first half of 2016. Also, new players are chastised for not RTFM: “So just figure it all, OK? It’s all there. All you have to do is, well, read the provided docs.”
Patches
- Gloria Victis: The latest pre-alpha patch contained the new town of Seaclaw and various gameplay improvements, as well as bug fixes.
- Ragnarok Online: This Korean MMO just got a new race (Doram) and class (Summoner). Can you believe it’s 14 years old?
- Wizard101: Polaris is finally on the test server, introducing a level 100+ frozen world for wizards and witches to explore.
Odds and ends
- Tribes: To celebrate the resurgence of Tribes: Ascend, Hi-Rez is making the entire Tribes library free to download! [via Rock Paper Shotgun]
- Elder Scrolls Online: More lore leading up to the Orsinium DLC pack, this one introducing Chief Bazrag. Sheesh. How much did his mother hate him to give him that name?
- Skyforge: Speaking of lore, Skyforge has a piece out about the beautiful city of Kyris and its storied history.
- Ingress: Google’s mobile ARG is preparing to roll out a microtransaction cash shop. How do you feel about that? (Thanks to Nordavind for the tip!)
- Devilian: The team has a new community manager, Sarah Walters. Walters has been with the company since 2013 in various roles.
Videos
The open world sandbox Oort Online has gotten a name change to Boundless. “It describes players’ boundless imaginations when creating, the boundless opportunities to visit new places and meet other players, the boundless ways you can exploit the in-game economy, and the boundless variety of creatures you’ll discover,” the devs explained. You can check out the… interesting name announcement video below. [Thanks to Jose for the tip!]
LOTRO Players has a first impressions video up looking at Lord of the Rings Online’s Minas Tirith.
Drakensang Online dug up its lead artist for a half-hour video interview to talk about creating the look of the game. Check it out:
Steparu provided this looking at Civilization Online’s system features:
Reader Vikingr pointed us at this interview of Star Citizen’s Marketing Coordinator Sandi Gardiner. If you’d rather listen/watch it, we have the whole thing below: