ArcheAge dominated the week again as it continued to struggle with server hiccups in the wake of the Revelation expansion and the addition of fresh start servers.
We’ve also been working through our annual awards, so far voting on the most underrated MMO, biggest MMO story, most improved MMO, best and worst business model, best pseudo-MMO, and most likely to flop. And don’t miss our guide to MMORPG winter holiday events, many of which are live right now!
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Massively OP’s guide to the 2016 MMORPG winter holidays - It's time to get all snuggly in front of a crackling fire, roast up some chestnuts, down a gallon of hot chocolate, and log into your favorite online RPGs for…
Perfect Ten: All the MMORPGs coming in 2017 - Right now we are in a strange place in MMORPG history. Following the backlash of WoW clones and several high-profile titles that underperformed, major studios are becoming extremely risk-averse to…
Hyperspace Beacon: Where can SWTOR go from here? - Have you ever watched a great movie and ever wished that the director would make a sequel but also not make a sequel, all at the same time? More often, we are…
Black Desert opens up seven-day free trials, halves sale price through holidays - The winter holidays are live in Black Desert as of yesterday, but what if you never actually bought the game and wish you could visit in person? Merry Christmas, says…
Ashes of Creation’s art will tell a story - To focus more on building a game and not wrestling with tools, the Ashes of Creation team has been working with the Unreal Engine 4 as it shaped the upcoming…
Final Fantasy XIV discusses leveling and scenario bypassing items - [AL:FFXIV]Currently, if you buy a new copy of Final Fantasy XIV, you're going to have to level up to level 50 and clear all of the subsequent storyline content that…
MapleStory 2 struggles in Korea - All might not be so dandy for MapleStory's sequel in Korea. MMO Culture is reporting that MapleStory 2 is struggling overseas even as it eyes a western release in the…
WoW Factor: 2016 in review for World of Warcraft - Talking about World of Warcraft in 2016 is really different because the game had two different years this year. And unfortunately for anyone trying to develop a comprehensive picture of…
Dolph Lundgren promotes World of Tanks’ Swedish lineup - [AL:WOT]Not content to let Steven Seagal hog all of the celebrity spotlight for Wargaming, former action star Dolph Lundgren has entered the scene to promote World of Tanks' new Swedish…
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMORPG stories of the year - Earlier this week, we posted our award for the biggest MMORPG story of the year -- the one we thought had the biggest impact on our genre. But in tonight's…
ARK Park dino VR experience to launch for Rift, PSVR and Vive in 2017 - Remember ARK Park, the ARK: Survival Evolved dinosaur "VR experience" that Snail Games and Studio Wildcard are working on? Snail announced today that it's launching on three platforms -- the Oculus…
Blade & Soul has gone free-to-play in Korea - Back during November's G-Star in Seoul, NCsoft announced that Blade & Soul's Korean version would be joining the Western and Taiwanese servers in their free-to-play business model, after four years as…
Datamining hints at new content coming to Star Trek Online - [AL:STO]So what's next for Star Trek Online? Intrepid dataminers have been poking around in the game's files since the last patch and found a couple of things that point in…
Trion Worlds responds to Reddit allegations over ArcheAge website security - Early this morning, a first-time Reddit poster alleged that he or she had run a "basic web security evaluation" on Trion World's game websites, including ArcheAge's, discovering "multiple security risks…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2 PvP league changes explained - Guild Wars 2 fans had a strong inkling that some significant, much-needed changes would be a large part of the PvP League's season 5 launch, and we certainly haven't been disappointed. ArenaNet…
China bans streaming games not approved by the Ministry of Culture - China's Ministry of Culture is the government agency that covers (among other things) what imagery can and cannot be shown in a video game. Official approval from the Ministry of…
Choose My Adventure: On the wrong side of the law in The Elder Scrolls Online - The Thieves' Guild might have a somewhat generic name for what it's doing, but I find it makes far more sense in any world than a guild of assassins. It's…
Trove soft-launches with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One console open betas today - [AL:Trove]The mass-movement of MMORPGs to console platforms that's pervaded 2016 continues today with the launch of Trove's PlayStation 4 and Xbox One open betas today. It's a bit of a…
A cautionary tale on video game addiction - No matter where we come from or our walk of life, all of us reading this site have one thing in common: We have a passion for playing video games.…
ArcheAge starts to stabilize fresh start servers - [AL:Arche]As we have been reporting on ArcheAge over the last few days, it has been a hot mess for North American servers ever since Revelation and the fresh start servers…
25000 people have signed up for the new Nostalrius server so far - According to a tweet by the original folks behind Nostalrius, the new version of the World of Warcraft classic emulator has already (or only, depending on your read) seen 25,000…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s 2016 in review - [AL:FFXIV]If you care about awards - and let's be real, we all do, even if they don't inform our emotional states - you'll notice that Final Fantasy XIV won this…
Elysium gears up for Nostalrius emu character transfers and relaunch - Back before BlizzCon, the admins of the sunsetted illegal World of Warcraft emulator Nostalrius issued a threat, demanding that the game studio create official vanilla or legacy servers. "If Blizzard doesn’t…
Player drops $1M of stolen money on a free-to-play game - If you could spend someone else's money on a free-to-play game without shame, how much would you blow on microtransactions and other in-game advantages? For one California man, the answer…
EVE Evolved: The Siege of M-0EE8, the new largest battle in gaming history - [AL:EVE]In the political sandbox of EVE Online, colossal player-run military coalitions frequently war over territorial conflicts, in revenge for past transgressions or just for fun. Circle of Two alliance recently…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 95: Rising from the ashes
The Stream Team: Trying to catch an ARK Kaprosuchus (before it catches you!)
The Stream Team: Wandering into Wild Terra for the first time
The Stream Team: The Secret World’s snowball fights
The Stream Team: Sneaking a peek at Riders of Icarus’ Ranger’s Fury
The Stream Team: Nab yourself a SMITE Nike Peregrine code
The Stream Team: A fresh start for ArcheAge?
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Do we need a new Warcraft RTS?
Know Your Lore: What we don’t know yet about Legion
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.
