Massively Overpowered

Every year, we lodge our predictions for the next. Funny, strange, and deadly serious, these predictions are a glance back on the naïvetés of 2014 and a chance to reflect on the last 365 days before launching into a new round of predictions and awards. In this week's Massively Overthinking, we'll be doing just that: Scoring last year's predictions for 2015,...

Back in November, Worlds Adrift ran its first alpha playtest with just 153 participants, and today's it's released a video-infographic summarizing the more interesting player stats during the event: 67 islands explored, 18,106 pieces of wood harvested, 7073 scraps of metal salvaged, 7917 eggs collected, 117 ships built, 607 flares fired, 1570 crossbow bolts fired, 1075 cannonballs unleashed, 84...

The other day I saw a blogger ask why MMOs don't often let you have more than one pet out at a time, combat or vanity. Well, Path of Exile's ears were apparently burning, as the action-RPG is getting ready to push out a patch that includes multipet deployment. The December 11th update will allow players to field two pets,...

Ho, ho, holy moly, it's Snowfest in Trove! The holiday season is already upon this voxelbox, with plenty of presents and rewards to be earned during the month. Players can loot Snowfest mystery boxes from foes, with the chance to earn a rare mount or mag rider from them. There are also Winter Piñatas to whack and a couple of seasonal...

Excitement over MapleStory's tougher Reboot world was marred by accusations of pay-to-win by the community. The chief complaint centered on the sale of meso sacks in the cash shop that allowed players to trade in money to get a surge ahead with "millions of mesos." As the Reboot world was designed to be completely free of any P2W elements,...

This may be a first for MMOs: A cash shop is selling infected bites. And the players aren't too happy about it, although it's not what you might first think. Elder Scrolls Online is now offering a cash fast pass in its crown store to gaining a werewolf or vampire transformation for players' characters. While the quests to gain these forms still...

If only school was as entertaining as MMOs, all students would come out as geniuses. Well, for those looking to expand their knowledge about completely fictional characters in a video game, Professor WildStar is in session. Two new WildStar loremageddon entries were posted today covering key leaders in the Exile and Dominion factions. If so inclined, you can learn plenty...

One of the major new features of next year's World of Warcraft: Legion is the class hall system. As the name suggests, class halls offer thematic spaces tailored to specific professions. Players of either faction (but of an identical class) can congregate in these halls to pick up special missions and recruit followers. But you know all of that already, right?...

Who says that you have to be graduated to be a force for gaming good? A team of college students at Rochester Institute of Technology formed Yes And Games with the initial goal of creating a free-to-play mobile MMO called Adventure Guild. In Adventure Guild, players will control two adventurers each and go on solo and coop missions, taking turns...

Veterans of Final Fantasy XIV know that the weaponsmith Gerolt is perhaps the most talented smith in Eorzea. That's a good thing, since there's no other reason in the world why anyone would deal with the cantankerous drunken jerk. He's going to be dealing with players again, however; the upcoming Anima weapon quests will center around working with Gerolt...