MMO Week in Review: Blizzard revenues are up, but morale is sunk
Activision-Blizzard (shareholders) had some good news this week, as its Q2 2020 revenues actually improved year-over-year for the first time in six quarters, owing largely to COVID, WoW, and COD. Not that they ever quite report it that way. Unfortunately for the corporation, that was all followed by the news that Blizzard employees specifically are […]
Mabinogi's P.E.T. Part 2 update lets players bring pets in to dungeons on August 13
Now that players of Mabinogi have helped their pets attain new levels of power, MMO logic dictates that power gets unleashed on some dungeon critters. That's just what the P.E.T. Part 2 update will let players do among other things. The update introduces the Forest of Four Seasons and Dynamic Lands dungeons that players and […]
The MOP Up: Sims Online's rogue server goes sunbathing
FreeSO, the rogue server for the late Sims Online, is getting into the spirit of the season with a whole bunch of beach- and pool-themed additions. ""Summer has finally arrived at Sunrise Crater," the team announced on August 2nd. "Your summer favourites are back and what's more, NEW OBJECTS have been added! Login today and […]
Nintendo's financials hail Animal Crossing's success while Nexon crushes it with MapleStory
More quarterly financial reports are rolling in, this time from Nintendo and Nexon, and both studios are crowing about exceptional runs. For the big N, it's all about the runaway success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. During the quarter, the cheery online title moved 10.6 million units. This greatly helped Nintendo achieve $3.4 billion in […]
Jukebox Heroes: It's time to turn your MMO's music back on
We're going to take a detour from our tour of various MMO soundtracks to talk about one of the most common statements I hear when the discussion of in-game music comes up. Here it is: "Oh, I turned the music off a long time ago." It's downright hard to get into any good discussion about […]
One Shots: Avoid these vacation destinations
When you're planning your summer MMO vacation, there will be a lot of places bidding for your time and gold. But not every resort is vengeful spirit-free, and not every tourist trap promises that you'll come back with all of your limbs. To help you avoid the worst places in games, our readers scouted out […]
The Daily Grind: Walking in MMOs – or running?
A few weeks back, when MOP's Justin did a Daily Grind about whether folks prefer helmets on or off in MMOs, one reader took a roleplay approach to the decision. "Off in conversations," Lord Nox said. This seems like a no-brainer – pun intended! – but really, unless you're a hardcore roleplayer, when was the last […]
MMOs you've never heard of: Helbreath, Luna M, Tower of Fantasy, and Sea of Dawn
Think you've played every MMO that's out there? There are more games, Horatio, than your mind could even conceive. And that's why we have this sporadic column to highlight news and videos from the lesser-known online games. We'll kick it off today with Helbreath Olympia, which bills itself as "an old-school medieval fantasy MMORPG with […]
Shadow Arena introduces a limited-time battle pass full of in-game rewards and contest entries
Ah, the battle pass. It sure does seem to be the new microtransaction hotness, doesn't it? And now this latest trend in multiplayer gaming has made its way to Shadow Arena with an update made this past Thursday. As one would expect, this battle pass offers up a number of rewards that can be purchased […]
TERA Battle Arena walks you through how this MOBA works
Yeah, so, we are still trying to wrap our heads around the weirdness that is TERA's surprising announcement last month that it is going to add a MOBA to the client in the next content update. But how will these games actually function? Fortunately, a new post from En Masse serves to illuminate the process […]
Unpredictable aliens are invading Ship of Heroes next weekend
City of Heroes veterans no doubt fondly (or not-so-fondly) recall the numerous Rikti invasions that happened in Paragon City over the years. Ship of Heroes' developers must hold the same fondness for antagonistic aliens because they are hosting their own invasion event next weekend on August 15th with a few dozen beta testers. Seeing as […]
GDC Summer 2020: Roblox, player-generated content, and the 'metaverse'
Roblox VP of Product Deepak Chandrasekaran held a skill-building talk at GDC Summer 2020 this week titled Building the Metaverse through User Generated Content and the Cloud, but in true, the panel primarily was about Roblox. However, Chandrasekaran did bring up some good points that we can discuss in the context of the Billion Person […]
Black Desert celebrates the 2020 Termian Water Park grand opening with an in-game event
Few things say "summertime" quite like a water park, and seeing as how the pandemic is kind of killing the joy a real-life water park's opening would bring this season, the GM's of Black Desert are doing the next best thing: hosting an in-game grand opening event for the Termian Water Park. The event will […]
WRUP: Eliot's power is still kaput, so behold, I am Eliot now
The part of Eliot in today's WRUP will be played by Bree. Unfortunately, Bree is not nearly as funny as Eliot and is very bad at writing bizarre and unexpected WRUP introductions, so you can go into the comments down below and leave Eliot a message about how much you hope his annoying city fixes […]
The Daily Grind: What older MMO feature deserves some dev love?
Lately I've been enjoying myself a big ol' dose of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I don't do boosts in that game, so I started over with a new Bounty Hunter to enjoy the class story all over again. And as I am going through this journey, I'm reminded of what a missed opportunity these […]
The Stream Team: The Shroud of SWTOR
Massively OP's Larry thinks MJ could do with some more chaos in her life, so he's introducing her to The Shroud in SWTOR (who just happens to be a technological agent of chaos!). Since the Empire cannot figure out what he wants, it's up to these two to solve his puzzles and discover where he's […]
Betawatch: Here comes Crowfall's beta
Five years since its Kickstarter, Crowfall is finally entering beta next week! That's good news for backers and even better for MMO PvP fans looking for something to keep them occupied for the rest of the summer. Elsewhere in beta-land… Star Citizen moved into alpha 3.10. EverQuest II launched its open beta for Reignite the Flames. […]
Destiny 2's Solstice of Heroes late summer event returns next week
If you're still sulking because Bungie delayed Destiny 2's Beyond Light expansion from September to November, well, there's a little something you can do in the meantime as Solstice of Heroes returns next week to cap off the summer. "With the Solstice of Heroes returns the European Aerial Zone (EAZ), where Guardians will take on […]
OrbusVR uncaps Explore the Realm event totals, is adding long-term missions and temporary bracers
Virtual reality MMO OrbusVR is introducing a couple of new things to the game world according to a rcent newsletter. Most recently, the Explore the Realm event will see the weekly resource and monster totals remove their caps, meaning players can harvest as many resources and slay as many critters as they want to facilitate […]
Guild Wars 2 is adding new underwater functionality for Skimmer mounts August 25
If you ever thought Guild Wars 2's graceful water-based mount, the Skimmer, looked more like something that should be flitting about under the ocean than hovering over it, you aren't alone. However, it appears that is set to change on August 25th, when ArenaNet will be adding a new mastery to the Skimmer that will […]
Co-op RPG Swords 'n Magic and Stuff arrives to Steam Early Access on September 8
Are you prepared for low-poly adorable adventure? You should be when Swords 'n Magic and Stuff makes its way to Steam Early Access about a month from now on Tuesday, September 8th, an announcement that was shared with a new trailer. The trailer provides a look at the whimsical fantasy world of the game, highlighting […]
Grand Theft Auto Online gets new missions, new vehicles, new racing events, and a racing event editor on August 11
Well, it looks like Rockstar Games has stopped being vague about what's next for Grand Theft Auto Online. Tuesday, August 11th, will see the Los Santos Summer Special arrive to the multiplayer open world, bringing along with it a whole bunch of activities for players to take part in. For those who own the Galaxy […]
GDC Summer 2020: Gachapon reward models in (mostly) free-to-play games
Let's be real: Some of the panel titles at GDC Summer 2020 are unintentionally misleading. For example, the "Evolution of Gacha Systems in Mobile Free to Play Games" panel by indie game designer and psychology-specced Dr. Jakub Remiar talked less about the history of gacha systems and more about the various models of gachapon rewards. […]
Star Trek Online gives out free Lower Decks duty officers, starts summer event
This week, Star Trek's newest TV series debuted. But instead of it being a serious, live-action show, Star Trek: Lower Decks is an animated comedy that looks at the antics of second-shift crew on a second-tier starship. It's also an opportunity for Star Trek Online, which has to be giddy with all the potential crossovers […]
GDC Summer 2020: Pokemon Go's Niantic offers augmented reality design advice
I was really looking forward to Niantic's AR Game Design 101 panel at GDC Summer 2020 this week because for all my criticisms of the company and its games, I really do respect the fact that there's at least one big company to point to in the augmented reality field. Especially with COVID keeping people […]
Star Citizen espouses the virtues of PTU testing, takes a look at cargo deck progress, new weapons, and fires
The weekly video from Star Citizen is online with another bundle of new details for fans to digest. At least, the second half of the video does; the first part is mostly talking about how PTU feedback helps development of the game overall and alpha 3.10 in specific. Which is nice to hear, but also […]
GDC Summer 2020: What online gaming can (and should) learn from social media's trainwrecks
The circle is now complete: Social media has mastered skills MMOs and online games haven't, not that social media was paying much attention to the fact many of its problems were problems from MMOs, MUDs, and other online games first. That doesn't mean it's too late for game devs, though. Daniel Kelley, the Associate Director […]
Final Fantasy XI's Voracious Resurgence arc is live as Square teases the Sunbreeze Festival
The devs of Final Fantasy XI don't seem to really appreciate what "maintenance mode" is understood to mean, judging by the new pieces of content arriving to the game. First off is some patch notes for the latest version update, which saw the opening step of The Voracious Resurgence story arc yesterday while the rest […]
Guild Wars 2 is planning some quality-of-life changes for Drizzlewood Coast next week
The Drizzlewood Coast map and its associated metas have been the subject of chatter in the Guild Wars 2 for months now, as players have stumbled trying to effectively complete the events crowning the pair of episodes that added them. Fortunately, ArenaNet has been listening and is taking action on one of the sticking points. […]
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen offers dates and details of a systems test ahead of pre-alpha
A pre-test "shakeout" before the next pre-alpha is happening in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, which seems redundant, but it's better than not having things ready to go before the full-scale pre-alpha. At least, that's the reasoning given by the devs, which explains that show stopper features of pre-alpha 5 need to be tested to […]
Kickstarted PvP MMORPG Crowfall just announced it's launching beta next week
Big news coming out of Crowfall this morning, as ArtCraft has just announced that it's marching right up to its next milestone, with a beta planned to open up on August 11th. The studio says that's when "the first invites will be sent to those in the early Beta groups," referring to backers. Yes, folks, […]
Temtem is headed to PS5, XBXS, and the Switch, not just PC, when it launches next year
Still got your eye on Temtem? The totally-not-Pokemon MMO hit early access earlier this year, with plans to formally launch next summer, and as of yesterday, Spanish studio Crema Games revealed that it's got plans even bigger than just a PC launch. "Today, at the Sony State of Play event, Humble Games and Crema announced […]
LOTRO and DDO re-enables character transfers, Wayfinder suffers three-week rollback [Updated]
We've got a bit of good news, bad news, and really bad news for those looking to hop servers in Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online. Yes, you can once again pay to move your character between active servers, but no, your characters on dead worlds are still in virtual limbo. […]
The Daily Grind: What MMO offered the best beta experience?
This week, MMO players have been talking about a game – and also not talking about a game. New World's beta weekend has been keeping us buzzing all week, but since this latest version is under NDA, most of the first-hand experiences being posted in public (even the good ones) are being made anonymously to […]
New executive order could ban US transactions with Tencent – potentially bad news for gaming [Updated]
File this one under "I was about to go to sleep when the internet erupted in an absolute panic over Tencent": Late this evening, the sitting US president issued an executive order that effectively bans WeChat and its parent company from transactions with people in the United States. WeChat's parent company, of course, is Tencent, […]
The Stream Team: Star-studded fun in Trove's Lunar Plunge
There's a new Lunar Plunge event in Trove, and there's no way Massively OP's MJ is going to miss the chance to catch some falling stars! On top of a Wishing Tree and starfalls, the quest line leads up to a Spectral Starlotyl mount. How could MJ possibly resist that? Join us live at 9:00 […]
Massively Overthinking: Changing the mindset of the MMO genre
I recently saw a journalism professor argue that generating a widespread thinking shift in an entire profession can take decades. "You have to keep making the case in different ways," Jay Rosen wrote. Granted, he was talking about the American press, but it struck me that it's also true of a whole lot of other […]
Old School RuneScape brings changes to Revenant Caves, Last Man Standing, and Bounty Hunter (again)
Back in July, Old School RuneScape discussed a number of tweaks that were planned for PvP'ing in the game. As of this week, a number of those changes are live, with yet another adjustment to the Bounty Hunter minigame and changes to Last Man Standing mode and the Revenant Caves. The headliner once again is […]
Tree of Savior is bringing back high-speed leveling Growth Servers on August 11
If you happened to have missed out on the last time high-speed leveling servers were added to Tree of Savior, then you're in luck: IMCGames is doing it again. Starting on August 11th, players will get to experience a 300% boost to XP and looting chances, a 20% bonus to Ichor Extraction, and reductions to […]
Hearthstone draws on WoW nostalgia for today's Scholomance Academy launch
Just the word "Scholomance" makes me cringe remembering the hundreds of times I trawled the iconic World of Warcraft dungeon, but for Hearthstone players today, it will be a breath of fresh air, as the expansion is finally live with its 135 new cards and "sorcerous hijinks." I love that word. "Hearthstone players can 'double […]
EverQuest II's GU 115: Reignite the Flames launches August 25
Blink and you'll miss it: Daybreak dropped a teaser for EverQuest II's GU 115: Reignite the Flames last night, and if this is the first you're hearing of it, you're not alone, as plenty of folks in the forums seemed surprised and you won't find anything on game's main website about it either. But in […]
Final Fantasy XIV launches new 5.3 microsite, hits 1.2M active players (with caveats)
Final Fantasy XIV has today launched a new microsite for the 5.3 patch, arriving August 11, 2020. The site confirms the new content coming with the patch – the Heroes' Gauntlet dungeon, Mystery Trial, The Puppets' Bunker alliance raid dungeon, Bozjan Southern Front battlefield, and more – with screenshots and the new Reflections in Crystal […]
GDC Summer 2020: Unionizing the video games industry
Just in time for Blizzard's latest labor crisis, Game Workers Unite UK treasurer Kevin Agwaze held an Ask Me Anything at GDC Summer 2020 earlier today. While obviously not all of our readers are developers, many of the sub-topics in the presentation will still be useful in terms of understanding the industry for outsiders and […]
Fallout 76 addresses the CAMP system uproar, says it's working on a solution
Yesterday, we covered the "colossal problem" patch in Fallout 76 that caused the entire subreddit to melt down in fury over changes and bugs that essentially made creative construction in the game impossible. The good news is that Bethsoft says it's heard the community's reaction and is working on a solution. "[T]hese fixes addressed issues […]
Elder Scrolls Online will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X – with backward compatibility
Here's some good news for fans of Elder Scrolls Online with their eyes on the next-gen of consoles: ESO is pushing into the future and will indeed set up shop on both Xbox Series X and the PS5. "We are thrilled to announce that if you currently own or plan to purchase an Xbox One […]
LOTRO Legendarium: The pros and cons of Rohan housing
To my knowledge, this past week's Update 27.2 for Lord of the Rings Online may well be the biggest housing patch that's hit the game since the system was first implemented. The sheer amount of additions and improvements that came with the Rohan neighborhoods far exceeded my expectations, and I've been in housing heaven since […]
GDC Summer 2020: Quantic's 400K-gamer motivation model
Quantic Foundry's Nick Yee gave a lecture at GDC Summer 2020 yesterday showing how the analytics firm's massive amount of data can be used in various ways to parse out players into different gamer categorizations. But in truth, it's not always that helpful. I don't say that to pass judgement but rather to repeat what […]
EVE Online will introduce abyssal energy hurricanes to nullsec space in a future update
You wouldn't routinely consider checking a weather report for flying in space, but EVE Online players should probably consider doing precisely that when Metaliminal Storms arrive to the space sandbox, which are described as "chaotic storms of abyssal energy" that will "move around nullsec space slowly like hurricanes." The eye of these storms will always […]
World of Warcraft wipes Shadowlands beta, adds a memorial to popular YouTuber
Even as you slumber, the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands beta continues to toil away in its preparation for the great day of reckoning that will soon come to all. All subscribers, that is. The beta was wiped yesterday to bring it up to the latest build, which seems to have broken a few things such […]
Fractured is handing out alpha keys via in-testing games distribution platform G.Round
I've learned something new when putting this story together: There's apparently a Steam for in-testing and in-development games with a focus on gathering player feedback to give to devs. This platform is where Fractured now finds itself as it seeks to fill up its current alpha build with more players. The platform in question is […]
