Throne & Liberty set another new Steam PC record this weekend after zooming on from its paid headstart into its free-to-play launch: 336,300 people were playing concurrently on Steam earlier today. It’s managed to hold similar numbers the better part of the week. And before you ask, no, we have no console stats, so obviously the real concurrent count is higher than that.
Meanwhile, Microsoft laid off another 400 Activision-Blizzard workers, Amazon has been hyping up the impending New World Aeternum launch, and both EverQuest II and Lord of the Rings Online opened preorders for their fall expansions. Plus, we debated the fate of the label “MMORPG.”
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
NCsoft’s MMORPG Throne & Liberty has officially arrived at its global F2P launch - All right folks, if you've been waiting for Lineage 3 aka Lineage Eternal aka Project TL for the last decade, your moment is finally here as Throne and Liberty officially…
Microsoft’s latest game division layoffs affect nearly 400 Activision-Blizzard employees - The second week of September brought more bad news for game workers in Microsoft, as the company confirmed another 650 layoffs were coming that would "mostly" affect its gaming division…
Four Winds: Throne & Liberty’s opening hours were fun AF, but I’m still on my guard - After what feels like an absolute eternity, Throne and Liberty is finally here. In my younger, less jaded years, I'd feel excited and elated to have a new game from…
LOTRO: Legacy of Morgoth opens expansion pre-orders, aims for November 6 launch - Lord of the Rings Online's southward expansion aims to continue into the deserts of Harad next month when Legacy of Morgoth releases. Standing Stone Games posted the details and pre-order…
EverQuest II opens preorders for its November Scars of Destruction expansion - If there's one constant in the MMORPG genre, it's the comforting knowledge that the EverQuest franchise is going to pump out two expansions in time for Christmas, every single year.…
Throne & Liberty adds 41 new servers to handle global launch pops, peaking at 326K Steam players so far - Welp, we knew that Throne and Liberty was going to see a big blast of players when it switched from its paid headstart to its free-to-play global launch yesterday afternoon,…
Star Citizen devs are being forced into mandatory unpaid overtime in order to make CitizenCon happen - While Star Citizen is making sure it keeps excitement up for CitizenCon 2024, behind the scenes the devs at CIG are being crunched to make it happen. Internal memos shared…
Casually Classic: World of Warcraft’s delves have real evergreen potential - Ever since World of Warcraft released back in 2004, there's been an tension in this game between casual, solo play and hardcore group progression. It was a revelation at the time for…
Massively Overthinking: Has the term MMORPG become toxic? - Back in 2016, when the MMORPG genre had just suffered a brutal one-two punch of losing EverQuest Next and the gutting of WildStar's team, there was such a sense of…
LOTRO Legendarium: The 10 most metal titles in all of Lord of the Rings Online - You know, I'm simply not a guy who likes to slap titles onto my character's name in MMOs. Never have been, probably never will be. And yet my favorite game…
Ultima Online’s New Legacy will finally launch October 15 - If you noticed that Ultima Online's New Legacy stress test came to an end on Tuesday without, you know, an actual date for the launch, then you weren't alone. I…
Lord of the Rings Online’s next premium housing will most likely be Elf and Umbar-themed - Elvish fans rejoice: Lord of the Rings Online's team announced that it's been working on "Elf-themed premium housing" for the MMO's next neighborhood, although this is currently "on pause" as…
New World’s latest Aeternum trailer is a primer for the MMORPG’s gameplay arc - The avalanche of New World videos ahead of the launch of Aeternum later this month just keeps on rumbling down the hill, as this afternoon, Amazon has released yet another…
Storyboard: Yes, there really is actual roleplaying happening in MMORPGs - It started with my character saying one word. "No." Both men on the bridge were surprised to hear it, least of all from someone who at least had purported up…
Global Chat: What’s World of Warcraft Cataclysm’s best zone? - Wilhelm over at The Ancient Gaming Noob kicks off our tour of various MMO essays as he lists and ranks all of the zones that make up Cataclysm Classic. So…
Throne & Liberty addresses ongoing errors, disconnections, and invisible characters - As Throne and Liberty approaches its first full weekend as a free-to-play MMORPG, Amazon and NCsoft have issued a letter to the community, saying they're focused on "the biggest player-reported…
LOTRO sweetens Legacy of Morgoth pre-orders with level boosts, defends lack of ‘special system’ - Following both excitement and criticism over the announcement and pre-order packages this week for Lord of the Rings Online: Legacy of Morgoth, SSG Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini announced on the…
Final Fantasy XIV gets Moo Deng fever as prices for a hippo minion start to climb - The internet is full of flash-in-the-pan moments when a completely innocuous thing suddenly becomes a viral sensation. So it is with a baby pygmy hippo named Moo Deng, whose raucous…
Fight or Kite: Is Wild Card Football ready to be the new NFL Blitz for 2024? - Ah, the beauty and the wonder of a new season. School is back in session. New episodes are on TV – well, streaming TV. It’s fantastic really. Summer is gradually…
New World’s Aeternum launch trailer shows the MMORPG character journey – backward - We may be two weeks out from launch, but MMORPG New World has dropped its Aeternum launch trailer this afternoon anyhow. And the framing is actually pretty cool, as it…
Vague Patch Notes: The dark side of meaningful MMO leveling - We've been in Leveling Month over here in Vague Patch Notes, and I had intended for this particular column to close off that discussion by talking about when we get…
EverQuest’s 31st expansion, The Outer Brood, launches in December - With EverQuest II's end-of-the-year expansion already in testing and ready for preorders, you had to figure that Classic EverQuest wouldn't be far behind, and indeed, Daybreak has dropped a little…
Final Fantasy XIV suspends housing demolition on NA servers in response to Hurricane Helene - Hurricane Helene hit the United States pretty hard, if you've somehow missed hearing about it. The Final Fantasy XIV team wants to make sure that players affected by the hurricane's…
Blizzard begins the countdown for Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred - I sure hope you're ready for a huge influx of Diablo IV info because Blizzard absolutely dumped a ton of previews and details for Vessel of Hatred ahead of next…
Epic Games claims to be ‘financially sound’ with new concurrency records for Fortnite and EGS - If anyone was harboring a concern for the financial health of Epic Games, then let the soothing words of some of the company's execs put your worry-rattled mind at ease…
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs that let you bring a whole squad of pets and minions - Pet classes are not really my jam. I don't want my companion to be doing the tanking or damage or healing or whatever, and if I can't survive without my…
Vampire MMORPG Shadow’s Kiss sunsets, with a dire warning about the early access trap - It's been a long time since we checked in on the early access vampire MMO Shadow's Kiss - in fact, our last look was a "whatever happened to" piece last…
City of Heroes Homecoming is about to release 1.6M character names – here’s how to save yours - The legally licensed City of Heroes Homecoming team has released an update today, though it's not entirely the content kind. The most important part is that you'll need to take…
Puzzle MMO Islands of Insight will sunset at the end of October – here’s how to keep playing offline - Back in July, we learned the sad news that Behaviour Interactive's puzzle MMO Islands of Insight, which had only just fully launched in February, would be getting an offline single-player…
Indie MMORPG Project Gorgon adds horse breeding and instanced guild halls in latest update - Do you know how outlandish a feature has to be before the devs of Project Gorgon have to call it outlandish? It's outlandish indeed, my friends, and this week it…
Nexon America lays off an unspecified ‘small number’ of employees as part of a ‘hyperlocalization’ strategy - It's hard to know exactly how many a "small number of employees" is when layoffs are announced by a massive company, but in any case, Nexon America has confirmed that…
Choose My Adventure: The progression conflict in Once Human - I don't want to claim that I necessarily hit a wall with my time in Once Human during my playtime for Choose My Adventure last week. After all, I did…
Google’s Waze app adds World of Warcraft’s Thrall voice for road navigation - This news story really took me back to the first few years I had a smartphone: Before I even worked for OG Massively, I had an OG Droid, and on…
Hi-Rez hit with layoffs as it reduces teams on Paladins and Classic SMITE in favor of SMITE 2 - Hi-Rez Studios and its sub-studios are embarking on a wave of layoffs, CEO Stewart Chisam announced bright and early this morning. Chisam characterizes the downsizing as "difficult but necessary changes…
Prices and probabilities for Once Human’s latest lockbox ‘event’ prompt calls for a player boycott - Last week saw survival shooter Once Human put forth its latest update, which Starry Studio said was chiefly focused on the addition of a faction vs. facton PvP server. However,…
Wisdom of Nym: The key takeaways from Final Fantasy XIV’s Crossroads update live letter - I can't believe that after we've gone so many different places, at long last, Final Fantasy XIV is going to have Soken do a musical crossover with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Admit…
EVE Online’s mobile strategy spin-off, Galaxy Conquest, launches in late October - Sure, EVE Online's seen more spin-offs than you can shake a stick at, but that's the great thing about sticks -- there's always more shakin' in them! And thus a…
Ashes of Creation shares a primer of October 25’s Alpha Two and previews the starting city of Lionhold - Ashes of Creation is very clearly excited for the arrival of Alpha Two on Friday, October 25th, as Intrepid Studios began shoveling coal into the hype engine for the test…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 487: Give me Throne and Liberty
The Stream Team: A long overdue return to the galactic war of Helldivers 2 – with friends
The Stream Team: Feast or Famine with giants in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Let’s dive into the newly launched Throne and Liberty
The Stream Team: Pondering post-poo and politics plans in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Warframe 1999 excitement is calling
The Stream Team: AQ3D ninjas and pirates and levels, oh my!
The Stream Team: Humans and experiments in V Rising
The Stream Team: Sunday roulette running in Final Fantasy XIV with family
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.
