moba

MOBA stands for “multiplayer online battle arena.”

Riot and Tencent appear to be on unpleasant terms with one another

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Some fans are still probably a bit miffed that Riot Games (maker of League of Legends and that’s all) teased them about the possibility of an MMO. But it seems like the studio’s parent company is pretty miffed at Riot in general. Gamasutra cites a report from several anonymous sources (which is unfortunately behind a paywall) that China’s Tencent (owner of Riot) and Riot are not on cordial terms due to differing opinions about mobile titles and the reported decline of LoL‘s playerbase.

The short version is that Tencent wants more mobile titles (which Riot does not wish to develop) and has shopped out something just short of a clone to other studios, while Riot is dealing with dropping numbers as other games move into the spotlight. An official statement from Riot disputes this report, stating that the company is happy with LoL at its current numbers and it remains a vibrant community, and relations with the studio’s parent company remain positive and supportive.

It’s also worth remembering that the studio does appear to be working on something new. Equally relevant are the issues surrounding any new games in China, with Monster Hunter World running into trouble and Korean developers unable to publish there.

Source: Gamasutra

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Hi-Rez reorganizes SMITE, Paladins, and Realm Royale teams as newly renamed substudios

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Hi-Rez Studios is making bold moves today: It’s just announced that it’s splitting up the band, unbundling its games teams into separate but joined substudios. Titan Forge Games will run SMITE, Evil Mojo Games will operate Paladins, and Heroic Leap Games will steer Realm Royale, all under the First Party Studios banner. And they’ll all run alongside Skillshot Media (focused on e-sports) and Alacrity Arthouse (technical art services) and presumably anything else Hi-Rez ultimately brings into the fold.

Confused yet? The good news is that the people actually working on all the games aren’t actually changing.

“Our new Hi-Rez Publishing Group is designed as a service organization, whose sole mission is to enable each of our partner studios to reach their full potential and best serve their respective gamer communities,” Hi-Rez President Stewart Chisam says in today’s press release. “By structuring ourselves in this manner, we allow the organization to scale to multiple games more easily, while ensuring our existing game communities receive a better, more focused service than ever before.”

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EverFeud’s Kickstarter has been canceled, but the devs say they’ll ‘pursue other options’

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At the tail end of July, we covered the Kickstarter of EverFeud, a PvP-focused MOBA/MMO hybrid that sought $105,000 to fund development. Unfortunately, the Kickstarter lasted only a week, as developers canceled the effort with just four backers and $81 pledged.

“We have decided to cancel the Kickstarter due to lack of interest,” the PSB Entertainment developers wrote on Twitter. “We are pursuing other option[s] including partnering with other developers.”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that development will continue, as the Kickstarter originally noted that the game’s founder had already invested $100,000 in the project and that he wouldn’t “stop until EverFeud is a reality.” PSB had described the sub-hopeful title as a hyper-competitive “arena and battleground-styled multiplayer PVP game set in a fantasy world where might and magic hold sway,” a game “built by PvPers for PvPers,” with no levels and no grinds; instead, it is set in an MMO-like world with battleground factions rather than FPS-style lobbies with gobs of customization, classes, and races.

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The MOP Up: Worlds Adrift makes room for PvE servers (August 12, 2018)

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The MMO industry moves along at the speed of information, and sometimes we’re deluged with so much news here at Massively Overpowered that some of it gets backlogged. That’s why there’s The MOP Up: a weekly compilation of smaller MMO stories and videos that you won’t want to miss. Seen any good MMO news? Hit us up through our tips line!

Maybe you’ll discover a new game in this space — or be reminded of an old favorite! This week we have stories and videos from Old School RuneScape, Worlds Adrift, Destiny 2, Starfall Online, Survived By, Hyper Universe, Elsword, Pirate101, War of Rights, Ragnarok Online, Perfect World Mobile, OrbusVR, SMITE, and Prosperous Universe, all waiting for you after the break!

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League of Legends Lead Designer Ghostcrawler moves to an unnamed project

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Let’s play connect-the-dots today and see if we can see a picture forming over at Riot Games, shall we? Back in July, its co-founder dropped a befuddling tease about the studio creating an MMO, which was then somewhat refuted a week later. Then the studio continued to talk way too much about MMOs to anyone who would listen.

Now there’s a new dot in the shape of Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, who announced that he’s leaving the League of Legends team to work on one or more projects in development. One of these couldn’t possibly be an MMO that need the help of a former World of Warcraft dev… could it?

“My new position at Riot is head of creative development,” Street said. “We’ve been up front that we want to put the ‘s’ in Riot Games, and I am helping with that effort. In addition, we have been taking Runeterra as a world more seriously, as you’ve probably realized with the release of the Ryze CG and the world map.”

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Path of Exile’s Delve launches August 31 with an infinite dungeon; here’s our chat with Grinding Gear’s Chris Wilson!

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Picture this: an underground dungeon that gets progressively more challenging — and rewarding — the deeper you go, and there is no end. Not no end in sight, but no end. An infinite dungeon. Does this sound like a dream come true to you? Well go ahead and smile because Path of Exile is delivering just that on August 31st (unless you play on Xbox One, then you have to wait until September 3rd). The next league is aptly called Delve, and its all about descending into a never-ending mine shaft, reaping rewards while staving off the dangers in the darkness — with the darkness itself being one of those dangers!

While that info alone might be enough to keep you entertained for a bit, we know you want more. So I had a little chat with Producer Chris Wilson to learn more about this intriguing idea with its new mechanics and features to pass it all on to you. And who knows? This might be just the beginning: Wilson called this “Path of Exile’s first infinite dungeon,” which would lend you to believe that more numbers could follow.

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Perfect Ten: 10 MMO features that deserve widespread adaptation

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You know what gets me excited about upcoming MMOs? It’s certainly not the list of expected systems and features that have since become standard for most games in this genre. Good-looking fantasy online RPG? Neato, that’s terrific, but what else are you selling?

No, what truly grabs my attention is when a dev team uses its imagination and comes up with a creative feature that makes me sit back and say, “Wow, I wish they all had this!”

It’s a shame that we have seen plenty of these systems over the years that were tried maybe once or twice but never adapted into the greater sphere. Today we’re going to come up with 10 examples of such features that truly did try something revolutionary (or at least pretty cool) but haven’t seen follow-ups in games since.

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Extensive Kotaku exposé uncovers a ‘culture of sexism’ at League of Legends developer Riot Games

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The internet is ablaze over an in-depth report at Kotaku that uncovers a “culture of sexism” that is allegedly running rampant through Riot Games. Over two dozen women, both formerly and currently employed by the League of Legends developer, opened up to share their stories of subtle and blatant gender discrimination that weaves its way through Riot’s “bro culture.”

While Riot released a statement for the story claiming that it upholds a “zero tolerance policy on discrimination,” the tales and quotes shared by these employees indicate that at the very least Riot has an unchecked problem going on that needs investigation. The studio is heavily male dominated with 80% of its employees being men and only two of the 23-person senior leadership consisting of women.

“The ‘bro culture’ there is so real,” said one former employee. “It’s agonizingly real. It’s like working at a giant fraternity.” Several women pointed out how they were unfairly passed over for promotions, considered “too emotional” to be taken seriously, and treated as sexual objects. Another issue is that Riot places a great premium on all employees being hardcore gamers, a label that some of these women struggled with convincing the leadership that they were.

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Vainglory brings its mobile MOBA fun to PC after becoming richer than kings

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With so many MOBA games out in the field, it’s pretty easy to overlook ones that happen to be on mobile. That would be a mistake in the case of Vainglory, because this game has kind of become the king of mobile MOBAs over the past couple of years. In fact, one industry analyst has estimated that the game has made over $50 million since its 2014 release.

That impressive sum is going to only get bigger in the future, especially now that Vainglory has announced that it will be porting the game to PC and Mac in the coming months. And before you ask, yes, it will feature cross-platform play.

The studio is inviting PC players to try the early alpha version right now as it prepares to expand the game’s reach: “Please note that we still have a lot of work to do–proper text input support, preference settings, UI improvements and custom key bindings, bug fixes, and control input tuning are all in progress. But we’re excited to get started. We want you to be part of this journey and would love your help in making Vainglory for Windows and Mac every bit as good as it is on mobile.”

Source: Gamasutra, Vainglory

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Riot Games continues to tease the possibility of an MMORPG

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What is Riot Games up to these days? The League of Legends studio is intentionally stirring up community interest over its future plans, first teasing the possibility of developing an MMO and then later laughing it off.

But here’s a thought: What if this is actually happening? Many people seem to think that Riot Games is hinting at secret projects in the works, and a new interview with Variety seems to indicate that an MMO might be one of these. At the very least, the studio confirmed that it is “exploring lots of different games” with its research and development department.

“The [MMO] tweet was a bit controversial internally,” Riot Co-Founder Marc Merrill said. “Absolutely there was some risk, we may never deliver on that question, on the other hand, it is so validating and exciting to have players’ minds focused on what could come.”

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Star Citizen fans raise pay-to-win objections over removal of in-game currency stockpiling cap

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Our inbox exploded last night with Star Citizen tips, and that can mean only one thing: money shenanigans. In-game money, that is, but this is Star Citizen we’re talking about, a game where out-of-game money very much buys you in-game stuff.

So here’s the deal. Up until now, backers were able to hoard some in-game credits (UEC) but not gigantic piles. That’s no longer the case, as the total cap on this currency has now been lifted, meaning that early backers can stockpile bajillions and bring it with them into the launched version of the game, which is probably still years away. That’s a lot of piles of cash.

Cloud Imperium has confirmed that the hard cap was removed intentionally; it wasn’t just a bug. “It seems the cap was removed when UEC melting was brought in,” CIG’s Kraiklyn told Spectrum-goers. “However, there is still a daily cap of 25k per 24 hours.”

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PvP-centric sub MMO/MOBA hybrid EverFeud has launched its $105K Kickstarter

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As we foretold yesterday, the PvP-focused MOBA/MMO hybrid EverFeud has officially launched its Kickstarter today. Developer PSB Entertainment has described the title as a hyper-competitive “arena and battleground-styled multiplayer PVP game set in a fantasy world where might and magic hold sway,” a game “built by PvPers for PvPers.” It eshews the levels and grinds of most MMOs, but it’s set in an MMO world with battleground factions rather than FPS-style lobbies with gobs of customization, classes, and races. It’s adamantly anti-pay-to-win and is expected to run a $5 monthly sub and $20 box fee, with no fees for future content.

“Are you looking for a pure PvP fantasy combat game without all the leveling and grinding? Think playing video games should be fun and not a chore? Maybe you do like questing and raiding but don’t want to spend time grinding your PvP character and just want to compete? Then this game is for you. […] EverFeud is a cross between an MMO and a MOBA. It’s pure PvP combat in a fantasy setting. […] All class weapons and gear types are available at the time of character creation. You then choose from an assortment of runes and imbuements to further specialize your weapons and gear. Character classes can be specialized by choosing from multiple ability trees.”

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The Stream Team: A Gigantic goodbye

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It’s always a sad day when you have to say goodbye, and today is a Gigantic goodbye. The colorful MOBA-meets-shooter is closing its doors forever. massively OP’s MJ is heading in for those final moments, to play a few matches and say farewell.  Join us live at 10:00 a.m. as OPTV‘s infamous Stream Team brings you the last hurrah for…

What: Gigantic
Who: MJ Guthrie
When: 10:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 31st, 2018

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