You know it’s a wild week when Elder Scrolls Online DLC gets pushed to the bottom: That’s because Final Fantasy XIV delayed Endwalker another two weeks, and Activision-Blizzard‘s bad-news quarterly financial report to provoke a major stock drop. With all that drama, you might never have even noticed that Gamigo is losing ArcheAge to Kakao while teasing a new MMO, WoW tried to convince everyone that this time will be different, CSE pushed Final Stand Ragnarok to Steam, and New World scrambled to repair its exploits and communication, plus we got our hands on Lost Ark, currently in closed beta.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Activision-Blizzard Q3 2021: Blizzard MAUs hold steady at 26M as Diablo II Resurrected drives revenues - Welcome back to our quarterly coverage of Activision-Blizzard's quarterly financials, the release day of which has become one of the schadenfreude highlights of each season in the last few years…
Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker has been delayed until December 7 - If you've been counting the days until Final Fantasy XIV's next expansion arrived, you're going to have to count a little bit longer. Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida announced tonight…
WoW Factor: The player council is not the solution to World of Warcraft’s ills - So World of Warcraft is going to establish a player council to offer feedback to the developers. What a terrible idea with already poor implementation and a generally negative vibe. That…
WoW Factor: Blizzard’s investment call was all bad news for World of Warcraft - Tuesday's investor call for Activision-Blizzard was not what I would generally call good news for the company across the board, but the reality is that we here are mostly concerned…
New World addresses economic deflation, trade post linking, cross-region transfers in 4400-word post - Late last night, Amazon published a dev blog addressing even more of the major topics facing the New World community - including promises about Amazon's own communication. "We have made…
First Impressions: Lost Ark’s beta version feels like the MMOARPG for folks who are bad at ARPGs - I’ve probably started and restarted this impressions piece about three different times now, primarily because I’m not entirely sure where to begin with Lost Ark. I had the opportunity to…
Final Fantasy XIV’s last pre-Endwalker live letter previews Crystal Conflict, new gathering mechanics, and role quests - The most immediate announcement from last night's live letter for Final Fantasy XIV was no doubt the surprise Endwalker delay, but there were other topics under discussion as well. For…
17-year-old World of Warcraft announces a ‘community council’ for diverse player feedback - Player councils in MMORPGs are a pretty old concept, prominent in games like EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Star Wars Galaxies. Add another game to the pile,…
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR’s Charles Boyd on BioWare, newbie acquisition, economy, and beyond - So it’s been two years since I wrote a piece on Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m sorry. You’ll have to tell me what I missed. I’m kidding, I will…
Square Enix earnings drop, FFXIV subs rise, and NFT is here to stay - All things considered, Square Enix is mopping its brow after its latest earning's call and thanking its lucky stars that it wasn't worse. The studio had to report to investors…
Raph Koster’s ‘modern sandbox MMO’ is teasing concept art for the first time - Back in 2019, veteran MMO developer Raph Koster announced he was finally making a new MMO. In the ensuing two years, he's raised millions of dollars from investors, promised to…
Tamriel Infinium: Should Elder Scrolls Online increase its landscape difficulty? - In so many ways, One Tamriel reinvented the Elder Scrolls Online experience by freeing players to pursue their own paths through the game. I myself enjoy hopping between zones and…
The Daily Grind: Should ArenaNet continue Guild Wars 2 expansions or make Guild Wars 3? - While I personally am not completely sold on Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons (I was never a Cantha Baby, if I can coin that term), I am wholeheartedly happy…
City of Heroes Homecoming’s Issue 27: Second Chances, Page 3 hits the test server - On Wednesday, we noted in our big roundup of MMORPG studios running Extra Life 2021 charity streams this weekend that City of Heroes rogue server Homecoming would be joining in…
Massively on the Go: First impressions of the multiplayer Mario Party Superstars - We've talked about Mario Party a few times on MassivelyOP, but only recently, as the Mario Kart series is both older and probably more familiar to readers when we need to discuss…
EVE Online’s latest newbie experience revamp is paying off as CCP Games dabbles in NFTs - EVE Online's latest dev blog has a few teases and backpats in store for denizens of the biggest sci-fi sandbox MMORPG in town. CCP Games is touting the success of…
Desert Oasis: Unearthing the origin story of Black Desert studio Pearl Abyss - On our side of the pond, the exploits of various popular video game companies and their founding are well documented. But when it comes to companies out of the USA,…
Book of Travels is turning off permadeath and reviving all your dead characters - Permadeath: If you're an MMORPG player, you probably hate it, but hey maybe you're one of those rare folks who don't. Either way, it's become an issue in the early…
LOTRO: Fate of Gundabad is still on track to launch next week — but several features are being delayed - Lord of the Rings Online's newest expansion, Fate of Gundabad, looks to be on track to launch next Wednesday, November 10th, bringing new adventures and a level cap increase to…
Massively Overthinking: What are your most on-brand MMORPG class archetypes? - A while back in MOP's work chat, we were chatting about Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons and how its elite specs line up with our personal preferences for MMOs…
Riot plops League of Legends, Runeterra, and Valorant on the Epic Games Store as LoL’s Jinx comes to Fortnite - With its closest rival staggered after a poor quarterly showing and a brutal stock drop, Riot Games is leaping into the vacuum with a ream of announcements. The big news…
Gamigo is teasing one of its promised pipeline games – and it’s an MMORPG - Earlier this year, when Gamigo laid off a large chunk of the RIFT developer team, the studio told us that it had "numerous new titles in [its] pipeline set to…
New World’s patch this week tackles gold spammers, exploits, and respec costs - New World's servers are going down this morning for what will hopefully be only a three-hour maintenance window and patch process. So let's kick off the patch with some fabulous…
Kakao is taking over publishing ArcheAge in the west from Gamigo - It's the end of an era: The Western version of ArcheAge is getting a new publisher. Come December, Kakao will be running the game in Europe, North America, and Oceania…
Perfect Ten: 10 enemies we need to fight more in MMORPGs - When I wrote up the contents of every MMORPG bestiary, I stuck mostly with concepts rather than specifics, aside from dragons and slimes. There are always dragons and slimes. I…
LOTRO Legendarium: Returning to LOTRO after seven years away - It’s a strange feeling, returning to a place that holds a special meaning to you after many years have passed. When my high school class celebrated our 20-year reunion, a…
Dungeons and Dragons Online’s Update 51 and its epic destinies revamp has officially gone live - Today is the day when players of Dungeons and Dragons Online can take hold of their destiny and not be confused by the whole thing. It's Update 51 launch day…
Camelot Unchained recaps alchemy, tundra as CSE likens Final Stand Ragnarok’s Steam early access to crowdfunding - City State Entertainment is swiveling the spotlight away from the early access launch of Final Stand: Ragnarok and back to MMORPG Camelot Unchained with the release of the game's official newsletter…
Albion Online’s Lands Awakened update launches November 24 - My fellow Albion Online fans, we have a date for the game's next big thing: The Lands Awakened update is coming on November 24th. Sandbox Interactive has been teasing the…
EverQuest looks at 64-bit client and possible server merges for 2022 - The EverQuest faithful are being treated to a big bump in morale this month thanks to a new producer's letter by Daybreak's Jenn Chan. Chan primarily talked up the MMO's…
New World addresses exploits, communication lapses, and goals for its PvP systems - New World has stolen headlines for weeks now thanks to its launch problems, which have been compounded by its parade of exploits and communication problems. Amazon seems aware of this,…
Niantic is shutting down Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, its second sunset announcement of the year - Remember how Niantic recently shut down Catan: World Explorers? Well, it's happening again, and this time to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, on January 31st, 2022. The news isn't entirely unexpected,…
Vitae Aeternum: The cold water splash of New World’s Amrine Excavation and early game dungeon mechanics - Could a single poorly designed dungeon encounter kill a whole-ass MMO for me? I didn't think it was possible, but then I entered the Amrine Excavation in New World and…
20 tips for getting a good start in Fallen Earth’s apocalypse - It's certainly not every day that one of your favorite MMOs of all time comes back from the dead. When that happens, friends, it's time to pop the champagne, crack…
Elder Scrolls Online wraps up its Oblivion adventures with today’s Deadlands DLC - Elder Scrolls Online's final content update of the year -- and the end of the Oblivion-themed Blackwood expansion cycle -- is finally here for computer players. Deadlands is, ironically, now…
New World’s gold dupe exploit stopgap fix revealed… another gold dupe - File this one under "this is why we can't have nice things": The situation in Amazon's New World went from bad to worse while you were sleeping. Last night, Amazon…
World of Warcraft patch 9.1.5 arrives today as Ion Hazzikostas finally pipes up - As Patch 9.1.5 pulls into World of Warcraft's port today, it encounters an MMO that is battered and a studio that is heavily bruised. The game itself has struggled through…
New World disables ‘all forms of wealth transfer’ in the wake of a new gold dupe exploit - Another day, another exploit in New World - the latest is apparently a gold duping exploit. "We are aware of a possible gold duplication exploit that has been circling and…
Wisdom of Nym: Leaking the Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker tooltips was a shitty thing to do - So let's go back to the lead-in to that big media tour information drop for Final Fantasy XIV, shall we? A whole lot of FFXIV content creators, including me, were sitting…
Fight or Kite: Guild Wars 2’s Untamed, Specter, and Mechanist in PvP - This edition of Fight or Kite is our third and likely final installment in the Guild Wars 2 elite specialization PvP beta series. This was ArenaNet’s last chance to wow…
Camelot Unchained’s CSE pushes Final Stand: Ragnarök to Steam early access - City State Entertainment's co-op battler Final Stand: Ragnarök apparently stomped its Viking boots onto Steam early access this past week. Players who plunk down $20 for this advance look can…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 345: The rise of Fallen Earth
The Stream Team: Taking a peek at the new Seismic Blast powerset in City of Heroes Homecoming’s beta
The Stream Team: More Mad King in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Mogloween and a masquerade ball in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Plucking the Crow in Elder Scrolls Online’s Witches Festival
The Stream Team: Mission running in Elite Dangerous Odyssey
The Stream Team: Haunted Halloween Hobbits in LOTRO
The Stream Team: Black cats and witches in Star Trek 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.
