Massively Overpowered

This week saw the first concrete reveal of EVE Online's potentially revolutionary new Opportunities system, which promises to replace the current tutorial with a more sandbox-oriented alternative. Rather than leading players by the hand through a series of steps, the new system will give players looser goals to complete and let them explore the game at their own pace....

If you've been having a hard time finding companions to help you through your weekly heroic strikes in Destiny, then Bungie is sending patch 1.1.1 on a mission to rescue you (and others in your situation, of course). In this week's update post, the team said that a major addition with 1.1.1 will be a matchmaking service for weekly heroic...

SOE Daybreak has been all about "F2P your way" for a couple of years now, but comments by EverQuest Next senior producer Terry Michaels and lead designer Darrin McPherson in a recent dev team Q&A indicate that the business model for both EQN and Landmark is very much up for discussion. "Not every model for monetizing a game fits with every...

How big is 2015 shaping up to be for Star Citizen fans? Pretty freaking big, if Chris Roberts' latest Letter from the Chairman is any indication. "We are entering into the tightest schedule we've ever had for public releases," Roberts writes. "In short order, you will see Arena Commander 1.1 (now with REC!), the FPS module, and the so-called...

This weekend's Shroud of the Avatar post is a big one. Update of the Avatar #113 explains how the game's single-player offline mode will function as compared to the online world, with particular emphasis on save games, companions, and spawning rules. Portalarium also says that a few items available for purchase in offline mode (like the castle and keep-sized...

This will probably not come as a shock to you, but a lot of press was talking about World of Warcraft and Destiny last year. ICO Media tallied up all of the article mentions of video games in 2014 and sorted them out according to categories. Destiny was near the top of the overall heap at 36,915 mentions. In the...

I've given dragons a lot of flack over the years for being overused, underwhelming stock MMO bosses when bears deserve top billing. But what about player dragon heroes? Where do they stand in my estimation? I guess I'll give them the scaly benefit of the doubt that they can do actual good in the world and be self-sacrificing for those...

A player on Reddit recently asked one of the most pressing questions in the MMO genre today: "Where can I find a fun Bard-like class?" Though often posts on the MMORPG Reddit aren't heavily populated, this one elicited dozens of responses and ideas. I'm telling you: Bards are awesome, and everyone knows it. Naturally, the thread quickly devolved into bragging about just who...

Welcome back to Make My MMO, a recurring column from Massively-that-was which covers crowdsourced MMOs of both the fully funded and the not-so-much variety. Each week we'll round up the most relevant crowdfunding news stories in case you missed them, and we'll also keep a running tab on active funding drives. And speaking of that, for the next two weeks...

Here's a novel concept: pounding space rocks into space dust could actually be fun! At least it appears that way in reading the latest Star Citizen design doc, which is focused on mining. "Mining presents players with a variety of challenges requiring skill and intelligence, whereas mindless repetition of a task and idle drudgery are explicitly avoided," explains persistent...