Global Chat: Everybody’s burning up about that Sylvanas thing

roundup

Global Chat: Everybody’s burning up about that Sylvanas thing

August 14, 2018 Justin Olivetti 24 comments

Yes, just about every MMO blogger was sharing heated opinions about last week’s World of WarCraft WarCrime. “It’s such a sad event and I’m particularly mad at Blizzard at the way they chose to write this,” wrote Aeternus.

Moonshine Manor was equally appalled, saying that she was “not sad at the story, but at having to mourn my fandom.”

“The storyline strips players of agency, it’s not a good feeling,” wrote Mmosey.

And Leo’s Life couldn’t make sense of it: “The lore nut in me sees no logic in this.”

In An Age sympathized with the outrage but noted, “This cinematic short is amazing in isolation.” And Atheren doesn’t want this to be the beginning of the end of Sylvanas: “I hope she gets a redemption arc.”

And Wolfy felt that the community reaction was too much for an outsider: “The level of the freak-out was above and beyond what I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing as someone barely remotely associated with the WoW playerbase.”

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

August 12, 2018 Justin Olivetti 2 comments

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!

Global Chat: Is it worth your time to alpha test MMOs?

August 11, 2018 Justin Olivetti 14 comments

Taugrim raises a very interesting question this week on his blog. Namely, is it really worth your time to alpha test MMOs these days? For him, at least, fickle players and unresponsive developers don’t make it a beneficial activity.

“A decade ago, I used to get super excited about upcoming MMORPGs,” he said. “And then I experienced those games losing their playerbase in droves while the developers/publishers failed to meaningfully address the concerns of the community.”

If you’ve been burned one too many times by alpha, beta, and early access testing, perhaps you can relate. Read on for more essays from the MMO blogosphere, and don’t forget to check out this month’s exciting Blaugust Reborn event that’s raging across blogs!

The MOP Up: PlanetSide 2 throws a summer rager (August 5, 2018)

August 5, 2018 Justin Olivetti One comment

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 Neverwinter, Sea of Thieves, Reign of Guilds, OrbusVR, PlanetSide 2, Final Fantasy XIV, Manyland, Lineage 2 Revolution, Guardians of Ember, War Thunder, The Cycle, DCUO, and Final Fantasy XI, all waiting for you after the break!

Betawatch: Camelot Unchained reaches the green fields of beta (August 3, 2018)

August 3, 2018 Eliot Lefebvre 3 comments

Someone break out the “It’s Happening” image, because Camelot Unchained has entered its beta testing at long last! Yes, ti may have been delayed several times, but it’s still made that all-important leap to beta. Good work, Camelot Unchained! We’re all super proud of you.

In other beta news, there’s a bullet list. It’s coming right for us!

You may not recall the existence of Conqueror’s Blade, but it remembers you, and it hopes you’re thirsty for tabletop strategy mixed with MMO elements. It’s in early access now and wants you to buy a founder’s pack, naturally.
We still don’t have test dates for Seed, but we do have a development update on the game for the first time since January. Good news: it’s all good news! We’re sure you were worried.
Tired of paying money for concept ships in Star Citizen? Now you can just pay money for in-game money endlessly. Hooray, this won’t be degenerate in any way!
Last but not least, a big revamp has hit Citadel: Forged With Fire, which is almost like an entirely new game according to the developers. Is it a game you’ll like more? You decide! (By trying it out.)

All of that sounds fun! This is fun. It’s a fun industry. Why not have some fun checking out our list down below, or letting us know if something is marked incorrectly down in the comments? That means we can fix that up, which is also fun.

MMO Community Roundup: Battle for Azeroth bookclub, Secret World fashion show, Ashes of Creation map investigation, and RuneScape Classic preservation

August 2, 2018 Justin Olivetti 2 comments

The communities for MMORPGs are what keep these games vibrant and awesome, and today we want to shine a spotlight on various projects and activities that players are running this week.

The MMO Bookclub has decided that it will be gathering its community together to play World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth during the month of August. Well, the second half of the month, at least.

Over at Secret World Legends, the community is putting on a benefit fashion show on August 4th to raise money for Lupus awareness. It’s a good excuse as any to spend hours pouring over cosmetic options! (Thanks, Hikari!)

MMO Business Roundup: Steam activity in decline, Sea of Thieves hits 5M players, MapleStory M downloaded 3M times

August 2, 2018 Justin Olivetti 20 comments

Time for a quick-and-dirty roundup of some industry news that appeals to the numerologists among our reading audience!

We’ll start with a look at Steam, which is seeing a rather unprecedented drop in active users this year. The count has gone down from an average daily high of 18.5 million players in January to just 15 million per day this past week. Suspects in this dastardly crime caper are the popular PUBG and Fortnite.

Perhaps some of those users are lost in Sea of Thieves? The pirate simulator is crowing over the fact that it just crossed five million players total since the game’s launch this past spring.

Another possibility is that the new MapleStory M has them in its clutches. The mobile version of the hit Asian MMO racked up an amazing three million players in its first week of operation.

Source: Games Industry, #2, Sea of Thieves

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Global Chat: The ‘We Don’t Play World of Warcraft’ Club

August 1, 2018 Justin Olivetti 28 comments

What do you do when you don’t play World of Warcraft but everyone else all around you does and won’t stop talking about it because there’s a new expansion coming out? You try to find like-minded souls and start up a club, that’s what!

“If you do not play WoW or at least have some sort of history with it, you can find yourself in some kind of quasi MMO community minority group. It’s an ‘odd’ phenomenon,” said Contains Moderate Peril.

“I really don’t even know what the story other than Alliance vs. Horde,” admitted I’m Not Squishy. “Sometimes it can feel like I’m there’s a big gap in my gaming vocabulary.”

Believe it or not, this whole column isn’t just about World of Warcraft today, so dive in to read some gamer essays on Wizard101, Dark Age of Camelot, Elder Scrolls Online, and more!

Massively OP Podcast Episode 180: Superstoked for heroic MMOs

July 31, 2018 Justin Olivetti 6 comments

On this week’s show, Bree and Justin do a belly flop right into a big pool of superhero MMOs, news, and fan projects. City of Heroes may be dead and gone many years now, but its legacy still lives on in surprising ways!

It’s the Massively OP Podcast, an action-packed hour of news, tales, opinions, and gamer emails! And remember, if you’d like to send in your own letter to the show, use the “Tips” button in the top-right corner of the site to do so.

Listen to the show right now:

The MOP Up: Citadel gets reignited (July 29, 2018)

July 29, 2018 Justin Olivetti Leave a comment

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 TERA, Vindictus, Realm Royale, Path of Exile, Elder Scrolls Online, League of Legends, My Dino, Citadel: Forged with Fire, PUBG, Armored Warfare, Paladins, Diablo III, EVE Online, and Star Trek Online, all waiting for you after the break!

Global Chat: Getting a handle on Legends of Aria

July 28, 2018 Justin Olivetti 4 comments

One of the great benefits of reading the wealth of MMO blogs out there is that you can touch base on a huge variety of games that you might not have time to play. Haven’t gotten around to checking in with the indie sandbox Legends of Aria? The blogosphere has you covered!

While Superior Realities thinks that there’s a “skeleton of a good game” in Aria, he wasn’t won over by the closed beta: “After about thirty minutes of dealing with bugs, spectacularly tedious and old school gameplay, and generally terrible design, I decided life was too short.”

Inventory Full felt that the game had featureless maps but probably deserved a longer look, and Levelcapped said that Aria is “so damn close to being an Ultima Online sequel that it’s both wonderful and blasphemous at the same time.”

Betawatch: Fallout 76 starts beta testing in October (July 27, 2018)

July 27, 2018 Eliot Lefebvre One comment

Good news for those of you patiently (or not-so-patiently) waiting for Fallout 76 to enter beta testing, you have a date! Slightly worse news, that’s not until October of this year, so you’ll still be waiting a while yet. So that will either encourage you to continue patiently waiting or become less patient, I guess.

On the subject of patient waiting, Camelot Unchained has its new beta date planned for July 31st, so mark that in your calendars.

You could channel that impatience into reading up on some other beta news, if you were so inclined. That would be pretty chill and would make up for the wait, right? Maybe?

There are launch plans for Boundless, which should come as something of a surprise for everyone. It’s supposedly reaching launch on September 11th, which isn’t even all that far away.
Speaking of strange MMOs moving toward wider access, Occupy White Walls is heading to Steam in the near future! That is also good news to, well, anyone who enjoys art curation or just some of the weirder MMO options in the wild.
It felt pretty down to the wire, but Fractured successfully funded over the past week, so that’s going to be moving forward. So we’ve got a little time to wait until testing arrives, but that’s fine.
And moving on from strange MMOs and on to strange MMO actions, MapleStory 2 sold out of its founder’s packs, which is odd as the packs in question were not physical objects to be sold. Life is hilarious!

Those of you who have more impatient energy may want to do one of two things at this point: accept that being impatient is unlikely to be dispersed by sitting and reading, or hop along down below to our list of MMOs in testing. You can also follow up that part by letting us know if something in this list is filed incorrectly, as that helps us out a lot and we appreciate it.