No Man’s Sky launched this week for PC and console, mystifying players with inconsistent statements about multiplayer and stonewalling the press.
Meanwhile, we scoped out World of Warcraft’s latest patch, weighed in on Guild Wars 2’s living story season start, and cheered at WildStar’s apparent comeback in NCsoft’s latest financial report.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
NO MAN’S SKY
MMO Mechanics: No Man’s Sky is mechanically genius (an ode to procedural generation)
No Man’s Sky launches today on console
No Man’s Sky, the non-multiplayer multiplayer game
No Man’s Sky original LE box touts ‘online play’
No Man’s Sky submits a sizable day one patch for your approval
No Man’s Sky addresses crashes and bugs ahead of today’s PC launch
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
NCsoft Q2 2016: WildStar up, Guild Wars 2 down - NCsoft's second quarter financials are in, and it's pretty good news for MMORPGs on the whole. Operating profit and net income are up quarter-over-quarter and year-over year, while sales were flat…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Unpacking Guild Wars 2’s Out of the Shadows - [AL:GW2]I figure that it's been long enough for the majority of you to have run through Guild War's 2's first instalment of the Living World Season 3 story, which is a…
Hyperspace Beacon: Why Star Wars The Old Republic’s KOTFE finale was satisfying and disappointing - The new era of Star Wars: The Old Republic passed a milestone late yesterday when it launched the final chapter in the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion. The fact that…
Path of Exile’s Atlas of Worlds expansion launches September 2 - [AL:POE]It's nearly that time again -- time for the next Path of Exile expansion! Few games can boast an expansion schedule that runs like clockwork, but PoE does so with…
The Game Archaeologist: Six videos from MMOs that never launched - Whenever I compile lists or run articles on MMOs that never made it out of the gate, it seems as though talking about it puts people in one of two…
Project Gorgon aims for Steam early access ‘soon’ - Starved for news concerning indie MMO Project Gorgon? Then prepare to gorge yourself silly on a new developer diary that stuffs so much info into your brain that you'll be…
WoW Factor: The storm upon the Broken Shore - I sometimes get asked why I don't do more stuff within betas when I have access to them. To answer that, all I can really do is point to the…
Trion is taking Trove to China, touts ‘millions’ of players every month - [AL:Trove]Trion Worlds has confirmed that it's bringing voxel sandbox Trove to China. It demoed the game last week at ChinaJoy through its local partner, 360 Games. "Trove, Trion Worlds’ free-to-play,…
No Man’s Sky addresses crashes and bugs ahead of today’s PC launch - Hello Games says it's "working quickly" on issues with No Man's Sky, including crash problems and pre-order bonus mishaps, like that that whole thing where using your pre-order bonus ship…
The other faction’s Broken Shore cinematic in World of Warcraft can offer some lore revelations - If you've only done the Broken Shore scenario on one faction in World of Warcraft, you're missing out. Sure, you know what's going on in your faction, but you might…
Star Citizen’s Sandi Gardiner vacates social media over harassment - Cloud Imperium VP of Marketing Sandi Gardiner, best known to gamers for her role as one of Star Citizen's most recognizable faces thanks to her stewardship of the long-running Around the…
Snail Games’ Dark and Light reboot is ‘technically classless’ - After hearing that Snail Games is resurrecting the long-dormant sandbox MMO Dark and Light, we are sure that you have many questions. Heck, we here are bubbling over with questions…
Chaos Theory: The 80s invade The Secret World - One of the best things about The Secret World is how it is set in the modern day. But that doesn't mean the game is totally restricted to the here…
Perfect Ten: Great tips for naming your next MMO character - Has this ever happened to you? You decide to roll (or reroll) a new character in an MMORPG, and after you get done choosing just the right hair coif and…
WildStar promises players more quality-of-life improvements - Say, whatever happened to the last time WildStar players talked with the developers about features they'd like to see in the game? Did anything happen there? Yes, it did; it's…
Jukebox Heroes: World of Warcraft’s main music themes - Inspired by a news post that a dashing Massively OP writer penned a few weeks back, I thought that it might be an interesting exercise in nostalgia to revisit all…
TERA welcomes single players into its Castle Aranea dungeon - [AL:TERA]Not every dungeon in TERA will give you the comfort of traversing it with your fellow meat shields friends. Some are solo dungeons, which means that you'll need to either rise…
Visionary Realms: Pantheon is a ‘brave new world,’ not a ‘wormhole back to simpler times’ - Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen says it's reorienting its newsletter to be more community focused and has put its money where its mouth is with a community-themed dev diary. Visionary…
Kakao to Black Desert players: Chargebacks have consequences - Kakao is putting its foot down when it comes to Black Desert players' chargebacks -- that is, attempting to reverse payment for a product using the credit card company as…
Black Desert’s controversial cash shop patch is live today - With Black Desert's patch this morning, cash-shop items are officially popping up on the auction house -- that includes pets, outfits, value packages, and horse gear, but not functional costumes.…
Superdata’s June report shows Overwatch, WoW still on top - Superdata's latest report on the worldwide digital games market is out, and Overwatch owned the month of June on PC, to no one's surprise, with GTA Online "dominating" (their word)…
You can play a Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft today - Demon Hunters go live in today's pre-Legion World of Warcraft patch, at least if you've already pre-ordered the expansion. The concomitant demon invasions begin today as well. Massively OP's Matt…
Kakao denies mass-banning on Black Desert forums - Black Desert players have been up in arms over several recently announced changes to the formerly buy-to-play game, including a de facto subscription and plan to allow players to purchase items from the…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 77: Improving your lockbox experience
The Stream Team: Stepping into Shroud of the Avatar
The Stream Team: Crawling through ARK caves
The Stream Team: Life after Warframe’s tutorial
The Stream Team: Transylvanian sabotage with The Secret World’s Dr. Varias
The Stream Team: Black Desert’s Bloody Monastery
The Stream Team: SWTOR Dark vs. Light vs. Knights of the Fallen Empire
The Stream Team: Vampiric adventures in Chronicle: RuneScape Legends
The Stream Team: Giving Marvel Heroes’ Green Goblin a go
The Stream Team: Seeing the city sights in Riders of Icarus
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
New level 100 boost experience introduced
How to get your own Pocket Fel Spreader in WoW
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.
