Magic Legends soft-launched on PC this week with an open beta that attracted a lot of attention and lot of grouching too, culminating in a weekend promise from Cryptic meant to pacify the grumbling.
Meanwhile, MMO players were enraptured by WoW Classic’s Burning Crusade beta, the stress test for Mortal Online 2, Raph Koster’s latest manifesto, Monster Hunter Rise’s release, and Elite Dangerous’ impending Odyssey alpha.
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
WoW Classic’s Burning Crusade beta has finally begun - After a false start yesterday, it's finally go time for World of Warcraft Classic's march to The Burning Crusade. Blizzard opened the doors for the beta today, meaning the first…
Magic Legends has soft launched into open beta, bringing Magic the Gathering to PC fans - PWE and Cryptic's Magic the Gathering game has been delayed and demoted from its original MMORPG status over the years, but now it's finally here, as the studios are officially…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Lessons Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons can learn from previous expansions - Any expansion announcement for any MMO is always a cause for excitement, but it's been four years since Guild Wars 2 shipped a new expansion, so the announcement of End…
WoW Factor: Why aren’t we getting more customization options in Shadowlands? - You might be surprised that I haven't written a piece in WoW Factor yet about the BlizzConline announcement that we would get no new customization options in World of Warcraft…
So, how did Magic Legends’ soft launch go? - PWE's Magic Legends has been out in the wilds of soft launch open beta for two days now, so it's time for a check-in. And you know the Community gif…
Elite Dangerous shares an on-foot tour of an Odyssey starport, planetary missions, and alpha test schedule - Last night was an absolute info dumping from Elite: Dangerous regarding its upcoming Odyssey expansion, with announcements, livestreams, and videos galore shared over a couple of hours. Heading off the…
Hands-on with Monster Hunter Rise: Well-worth the cost of admission - Well, as Monster Hunter Rise is finally out. We received a pair of review copies at the last minute, so with about 10 hours under my belt, I think it's…
Desert Oasis: The problem with Black Desert’s season servers – and how to fix it - Black Desert's had some exceptional growth over the past year. What I've always liked about this game is that it's never tried to be what it's not. It's always been…
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster posts a manifesto on the future of MMOs - Believe us, we here at Massively OP are dying to know all of the details about the online game project that Raph Koster and his team at Playable Worlds is…
World of Warcraft is altering the deal on game time purchases, settling on just 60-day increments - Players who obtain their World of Warcraft game time through Blizzard's shop have fewer options this week, as the studio announced that it has removed the 30- and 180-day pre-paid…
World of Warcraft increases Brazil and Russia sub prices, defends Classic drums changes - If you're a World of Warcraft player in Russia or Brazil, you have our sympathies when you look at your bill next month. Blizzard announced that it's had to roll…
LOTRO Legendarium: Finding purpose in Lord of the Rings Online’s Wildwood - In what promises to be quite the busy year for Lord of the Rings Online, the game's first content update -- Wildwood -- arrived earlier this month. New content is…
Magic Legends offers compensation for missing battle pass items, addresses performance and monetization issues - (This post has been updated at the end with the promised announcement about monetization and performance feedback.) Magic Legends might be calling its current version an open beta, but since…
Genshin Impact has made a billion dollars in its first six months of operation - For a while there it seemed like no one would stop with the Genshin Impact memes, huh? But six months out from launch, it seems that the game has genuinely made…
Tencent is launching multiplayer survival game Undawn on PC and mobile this year - Did the world need another multiplayer survival title? Maybe not, but nobody's gonna be sad to get a good one from a solid publisher sitting on a giant pile of…
Massively Overthinking: What are your MMO character customization dealbreakers? - Back in February, when BlizzConline was at its height, part of the World of Warcraft community lost its mind over the revelation that Blizzard won't be adding new customization options…
ArcheAge’s Akasch Invasion patch is live with the new Gunslinger skillset - [AL:Arche]As promised, ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained are getting a blast of new content today in the form of the Akasch Invasion. "With the new update Akasch Invasion, gamigo's online role-playing world…
Vague Patch Notes: The fine art of shutting yourself up (so you can enjoy MMOs again) - This week, an unusual thing happened to me: I didn't really want to write this column. This may not sound all that unusual to you, but I assure you it is…
Black Desert cancels spring season server, plans ‘growth server’ for newbies instead - There's a ton of Black Desert PC info rolling out this afternoon. First up: Seasons are about to go away for spring break, literally. With the conclusion of the winter…
Choose My Adventure: What Wizard101 taught me about ‘kiddie’ MMOs - My brief time in Wizard101 has pointed out to me a rather deep-seated assumption I had held about the game. Granted, I had said before that the game obviously was…
Former Daybreak and H1Z1 vets Anthony Castoro and Jace Hall raise $9M for a ‘genre-defining metaverse’ - The last time we heard the name Jace Hall, it was just about two years ago, when the version of H1Z1 esports he was heading up for Daybreak was on…
Perfect Ten: The wide umbrella of MMOs and online gaming subgenres - Let's be realistic here, "MMO" as a term covers a whole lot of different game styles. I know this is a particular topic that I've touched on before, but the…
SWTOR’s Dark Descent live on the PTS with its first galactic season – and it’s got a new companion - [AL:TOR]Last week, BioWare took the wraps off Star Wars The Old Republic's 6.3 update, The Dark Descent, which is slated for "spring 2021." And now, you can go muck around…
Ex-World of Warcraft dev Chris Metzen is making a new Dungeons & Dragons world - World of Warcraft fans who miss seeing the wild and fuzzy face of Chris Metzen are granted visiting privileges this week to check out what the former MMO lead is…
Elite Dangerous YouTuber is denied free access to Odyssey’s alpha due to ‘offensive’ content - There are a number of YouTube content creators that have hitched their wagons to Elite: Dangerous. One of them is a YouTuber by the name of Yamiks, whose videos about…
New World alpha teases its overhauled quest design as AGS expands to Canada - When New World shifted its design balance from being less about PvP to more about PvE last year, many MMO gamers worried about the content: Could Amazon Games pump in…
Ship of Heroes talks up new missions and locations, plans its next open beta event for April or May - The next couple of months could potentially be very interesting ones for followers of the in-development superheroic MMORPG Ship of Heroes. The devs at Heroic Games have put out an…
Discord is rumored to be in negotiations for a potential $10 billion sale to Microsoft - Remember when Discord servers weren't basically the foundation of every single video game community online? Those were good times. It also meant that people would be less worried about the…
Nexon and Square canceled the Final Fantasy XI R mobile MMO, citing an insufficient ‘level of creative differentiation’ - Last fall, we poked around trying to figure out what happened to the Final Fantasy XI Remake, the mobile game that was originally announced in 2015 as a Square and…
Fight or Kite: Project Winter plays like Among Us mixed with survival mechanics for a unique experience - What do you get if you take the Among Us crew and traitor system, MMO staples like gathering and crafting, survival games' hunger and warmth stats, and then get stuck…
Wisdom of Nym: The Final Fantasy XIV Ascians we know - Look, sometimes you just want to do some lore stuff for Final Fantasy XIV, and this is one of those times. Especially since... well, there's a paucity of stuff to…
Whatever happened to Mark Kern’s crowdfunded Firefall-successor Em-8er? - We're taking a trip back to the halcyon days of Firefall to set the stage for this piece, so hop aboard the esports bus and let's find out what happened…
Blizzard admits to more layoffs, starts up alumni network - Last week, Blizzard Entertainment began laying off 190 employees, 50 of whom reportedly came from esports and live events. Now we know which other departments might be affected, as over…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 314: Blizzard’s a hot mess
The Stream Team: Checking out Mortal Online 2’s beta stress test (plus some extra keys!)
The Stream Team: Starting up the new Sandsea story in AQ3D
The Stream Team: Warframe’s Space Ninjas turn eight
The Stream Team: Helping Historian Thrimbul fight fire lords in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Celebrating seven years of SMITE
The Stream Team: LOTRO puts a spring (festival) in your step
The Stream Team: Blasting to the past through EverQuest II’s Chronoportals
The Stream Team: Seeking side quests in Elder Scrolls Online
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.
