This week, proponents of classic World of Warcraft servers made headway as Blizzard addressed the community, suggested “pristine” servers, and agreed to meet with the former admins of the Nostalrius emulator. The Nostalrius team has said that it will be “changing its former strategy” as it negotiates with Blizzard: It will not release its source code or database, and it will take seriously its role as “ambassadors of a larger movement for the entire World of Warcraft community.”
“It is a major responsibility,” the team wrote in a forum piece this weekend. “Our top-priority and only focus now is to fulfill the needs of this community, by carrying your voice to Blizzard directly.”
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Blizzard responds to vanilla WoW server requests, considers ‘pristine realms’ - The shutdown of the Nostalrius private server happened some time ago, but the debate it started hasn't stopped, and today the World of Warcraft team has actually issued a statement…
Nostalrius admins to meet with WoW execs - Earlier this week, Blizzard responded to calls for a vanilla World of Warcraft server by suggesting it wouldn't do a vanilla server but would consider "pristine" servers. Buried in the…
Perfect Ten: Ten City of Heroes systems every MMO should have stolen by now - Today, City of Heroes turns 12Â years old. Except it doesn't; the game shut down three years ago, it never lived until it reached twelve, and any and all adventures in…
Massively OP’s guide to MMO business models - Not too long ago, there was all but one way that you would pay for an MMO, and that was as a monthly subscription. Oh, it used to be an…
Happy birthday, classic Guild Wars - Classic Guild Wars turned 11 years old this week, and I'm sorry to say that by the time you read this, the in-game party will already have ended. But! YouTuber…
Star Citizen’s Prospector is a covert miner - Those who assume that mining in Star Citizen will be drudgery and boredom personified could have that perspective challenged by piloting the Prospector. The Prospector is a small one-person ship…
The Secret World announces free trial, Issue #15 - If you've been waiting for a really good deal to check out The Secret World, it doesn't get much better than this! Now you can dip your feet into the…
Black Desert turns to its playerbase to hunt down cheaters for prizes - Daum EU is asking for help cracking down on cheating in Black Desert -- from you. "We invite each of you to join us in the Hacker Hunting Initiative as…
Chronicles of Elyria embraces ‘earn-to-play’ model - Chronicles of Elyria understands that not everyone can game around the clock, and through a couple of systems the team is striving to make sure "people with different amounts of…
Ubisoft says it’s heard Division players’ anger over cheating ‘loud and clear’ - Ubisoft has addressed the ongoing cheating concerns in The Division with a blog post to players today. "We have great plans for the future of The Division, and for these…
Final Fantasy XIV previews patch 3.3 via live producer’s letter - [AL:FFXIV]The next Final Fantasy XIV patch doesn't have a release date yet, but it does have a fair amount of its content already revealed via the most recent live letter…
Hearthstone announces 50 million registered players - [AL:Hearth]The latest Hearthstone expansion release coincides with another bombshell for the game, with an official announcement from Activision Blizzard boasting that the game has hit 50 million players. Granted, some…
Massively Overthinking: Trinities and quaternities in MMORPGs - This week's Massively Overthinking topic was inspired from Jake, who wrote in to us wondering about roles in MMORPG classes and group content: "What happened to roles? We used to have more…
Lord of the Rings Online devs prepare players for Mordor but won’t discuss license renewal - [AL:LOTRO]You might have heard that Lord of the Rings Online is celebrating its ninth birthday this week, especially if you were in attendance for yesterday's epic six-hour developer livestream. During…
TERA and Hello Kitty make a purrrfect couple - File this one under "what the heck": TERA is running a promotion for Hello Kitty items. In TERA. If you had any immersions left in your MMORPGs, consider them well…
The Division’s cheating plague may be a result of its bad network model, consultant argues - The Division just can't catch a break. Glenn Fiedler, a former lead network programmer for Sony and Respawn and current games tech consultant, says that videos of rampant client-side cheating…
Stormwind Park will (finally) be rebuilt in World of Warcraft: Legion - For the past six years, World of Warcraft's Stormwind Park has been a smoking crater in the otherwise beautiful city thanks to Deathwing. Players have wondered for a while now…
Cryptic Studios is hiring MMORPG producers - It's not uncommon to see calls for engineers, programmers, and even artists for MMORPGs, but it's producers that Cryptic Studios is seeking, according to a job posting yesterday on Gamasutra.…
Black Desert: Business model research, Daum addresses hacking complaints - Red Fox Insights analyst Jake Parmley has a piece on Gamasutra today about Black Desert's business model that confirms what you might already suspect: People invested enough in the game…
ArcheAge producer’s letter announces its next major patch and system changes - [AL:Arche]It may be hard to believe, but ArcheAge has just about reached global parity. The North American and European versions run by Trion Worlds are just one patch behind the…
Massively OP’s guide to understanding video game research - I noticed two strange things in the comments section of our lengthy Exploring the Video Game Debate series: People were angry at research that supported what they were trying to…
Funcom has another Secret World spin-off in the works, gives up on LEGO Minifigures Online - Funcom's annual report is out, and there's a whole lot to glean from the document about the company's state and its future plans. In summary, Funcom is about breaking even…
City of Heroes fans mark 12th anniversary in Paragon Chat and Champions Online - Twelve years ago, heroes answered the call to defend Paragon City against aliens, bandits, and nefarious sewer zombies. City of Heroes launched on April 27th, 2004, ushering in a new type…
An EVE Online television show is in the works - MMOs and television series might not seem like two tastes that go great together, but it makes more than a little sense for EVE Online. Considering the extant lore of…
Daybreak exec on early access, e-sports, VR, EverQuest Next, and the future of EverQuest - GamesIndustry.biz has published a lengthy interview with Daybreak chief publishing officer Laura Naviaux Sturr on the evolution of the MMORPG studio over the last year. The interview was conducted at GDC…
PAX East 2016: Richard Garriott discusses Shroud of the Avatar’s ‘launch’ and future - It might seem as if Shroud of the Avatar has been in early access for a very long time, probably because it has. Technically, it's still in an early access state.…
PAX East 2016: Brad McQuaid on Pantheon’s startup, development focus, and old-school nature - The development history of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen could be generously described as "checkered." The title went through several forms of failed crowdfunding and repeatedly seemed as if it…
Black Desert addresses pre-order horse controversy - For want of a tier 5 horse, a kingdom was lost -- or so the saying goes. Some Black Desert players are quite upset that Daum apparently pulled a bait-and-switch…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
The Stream Team: Making friends with ARK’s mantas
The Stream Team: Party hearty with Hobbits for Lord of the Rings Online’s anniversary
The Stream Team: The a-mazing conclusion of The Secret World’s Issue #14
The Stream Team: Path of Exile’s third act is a charm
The Stream Team: EverQuest II’s flight of the Fury
The Stream Team: A first look at Fragmented
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Broken Isles Pathfinder is the first step to flying in WoW: Legion
Prepare your WoW transmog collection for 7.0 with the Legion Wardrobe addon
WoW: Legion Gold cap raised to 9,999,999g
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 little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
