MMO Week in Review: A Heist, a security breach, and a whole New World
The week before Labor Day is always a weird one between conventions and bonus events, and this week was no different in spite of the circumstances. We mused on New World, pondered the Epic/Apple lawsuit, cheered for WoW Classic, welcomed Path of Exile's Heist reveal, puzzled over Camelot Unchained, raised eyebrows over Dual Universe's security […]
Hearthstone will have a three-week event all about Scholomance Academy's Hidden Library
As is always the case with places of magical learning, there's some sort of hidden repository of ancient knowledge that nobody wants students to find out. But, of course, students being students, they're going to go looking anyway. That old chestnut is the basic setup for Hearthstone's upcoming Forbidden Library event, a three week-long series […]
The MOP Up: Elder Scrolls Online's Stonethorn DLC arrives on consoles
Good news for the patient and long-suffering Elder Scrolls Online console players: The game's latest DLC and patch have finally arrived following the PC release last month. "The Stonethorn DLC game pack and Update 27 is now available on all platforms and brings a host of new stories, challenges, tools, and improvements to ESO, including two new […]
Star Citizen sheds some light on how it sheds some lights in-game
You can spend all the time in the world creating neat locations for your internet spaceship sandbox, but none of that work will matter if players can't see what you've done. Basically, lighting is important, and that importance was illustrated in this week's developer roundtable video from Star Citizen. Once more, this development video is […]
The Game Archaeologist: Mirrorworld
In this column, we have previously journeyed to lands where you saw not with your eyes, but with your imagination. I speak, of course, of text-based multi-user dungeons, or MUDs. These games took players to virtual worlds long before technology could handle sharing graphics, electing instead to use text as the medium in which these […]
Google seeks to dismiss Epic's lawsuit as Epic talks up the Fortnite 'Metaverse'
While much of the focus of the Epic lawsuit coverage has been on Apple, which was certainly helped along by that 1984 parody ad played on Fortnite, Epic Games is picking a fight on at least two fronts as the company is fighting Google too. So let's cast our eyes in that direction for a […]
One Shots: Bow before Zuul!
We've all certainly met plenty of kings, queens, and other rulers in MMOs, and as a greater community, we've come to one unified opinion — they're just as incompetent as politicians in the real world. So why not stage a coup and replace them with someone who is effective, vivacious, and smart? Someone like… you? […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMO is best for playing alone (not just solo)?
No, I didn't mean "solo." I meant alone. Because there's a difference. There are many games I play where I have friends, established groups of people, group activities I take part in on a regular basis, and so forth. Sure, I might be playing solo right now in World of Warcraft, but I'm still in contact […]
Battle Bards Episode 176: Orchestral RuneScape
In 2018, RuneScape put out an official orchestral album to highlight some of the best of its remastered and re-recorded soundtrack. From delicate tunes to epic themes, the album shows just how far the game has come since its early MIDI days. The Battle Bards dive into this triumphant score and pull out some vindication […]
Black Desert is adding a tier 10 pegasus mount, new Red Battlefield map, and new world boss
A post made to the Pearl Abyss' Black Desert Global Lab is offering up some enticing new pieces of content for Black Desert players, particularly if those players have ever wanted to travel on the back of a pegasus. And honestly, who wouldn't? People who are wrong, that's who. This new tier 10 mount is […]
Torchlight III's next early access patch reworks Dusk Mage, adds a training dummy
Get ready, get set, and go… wait a little while until Torchlight III's next patch arrives. You won't have to wait long, as the update for the early access title is coming on September 9th, carrying with it a raft of adjustments and a couple of new features. The big change here is a rework […]
Fallout 76's One Wasteland and second season arrive on September 15
Mark your calendars, because September 15th is going to be a significant date for Fallout 76. That's the day when Update 22 arrives, bringing with it the One Wasteland leveling revamp as well as the game's second season of play. Speaking of Season 2, this week's Inside the Vault dev blog gave a preview of […]
Massively on the Go: An open letter to Pokemon Go's Niantic and The Pokemon Company
Dear Niantic and The Pokemon Company, Thank you for Pokemon Go. Despite my criticism, this is probably the longest I've ever played a Pokemon game. Ever. I've also probably made more friends with it than any other game in the series as well. So please understand that my criticism comes from a wish to see the game […]
TERA's Undying update is coming next week, but no new word on game's future
While TERA's players continue to forge on in the wake of En Masse Entertainment's closure, at least everyone is going to have a good distraction come next week when the Undying update lands on September 8th. The patch is adding the Undying Warlord to the Forbidden Arena, bringing back a tougher version of Kezzel's Gorge […]
WRUP: Things you could do if you had twenty fingers on each hand edition
Thing the FIRST: Play the piano really well with way less hand movement. Thing the SECOND: Play a flute really well. Thing the THIRD: Play two flutes at the same time, but not as well. Thing the FOURTH: Play… wait, why would you be doing the fingering for two other people playing the flute at […]
The Daily Grind: What lessons hath WoW Classic taught us?
You might have missed it, but WoW Classic just celebrated its first anniversary this past week. It was a huge and slightly messy launch back in August 2019, and while the server populations have settled down somewhat, it's still a popular MMO with a bustling community that's finding its fun in this old school design. […]
The Stream Team: Meeting the family in Warframe's Heart of Deimos
While Massively OP's MJ had tried to plan on finishing the Deadlock Protocol tonight, she just can't pull herself away from Warframe's Heart of Deimos! Not only is there is so much story left to experience just in the main quest line (and that's not even counting all the extra lore you learn as your […]
Betawatch: New World promises lots of content in its November test
People seem to have generally been rather pleased with the New World preview event this month, huh? It's winding down today, but the promise made is that feedback is not just being heard but actively taken into account, and there should be a lot more content in the game for its next preview event in November. […]
Path of Exile answers a host of player questions regarding the Heist expansion
With the recent unveiling of the Heist expansion for Path of Exile and its various new mechanics, players of the ARPG understandably have questions. Luckily, Grinding Gear Games has answers. Lots and lots and lots of answers. So many answers, in fact, that they were broken up in to two posts and a 30-minute video […]
EverQuest and EverQuest II are ramping up XP earnings, drop rates, and more for Labor Day and autumn
How does one celebrate the Labor Day holiday or the autumn season? If you're EverQuest and EverQuest II, you do it by ramping up all sorts of earnings. Starting on Tuesday, September 8th and running until Monday, September 21st, EverQuest will be offering double rare spawns and double faction bonuses across all of Norrath to […]
Craftopia has entered early access on Steam
When is a launch not a launch? When it's early access, naturally. However, the idea of things being a bit rough around the edges but slowly getting refined until everything is in a useful state is basically the definition of on-brand for Craftopia, the new Japan-developed crafting sandbox under discussion. Make things! Build stuff! And do […]
Star Citizen debuts a grenade launcher coming to alpha 3.11
Why throw grenades like a simpleton when you can fire one from a specially designed firearm? That's just what Star Citizen players will get to do in alpha 3.11 when the Behring GP33 grenade launcher arrives, which was previewed in this week's episode of Inside Star Citizen. The first half of the video is dedicated […]
Legends of Aria opens up the Monolith for free for the weekend
Do you currently have the Dark Sorcery DLC in Legends of Aria? If not, you cannot enter the Monolith normally. But this weekend the developers are letting you have a little Monolith, as a treat; there's a free event running until September 7th to allow everyone into the dungeon, giving the barest taste of what the […]
The Stream Team: The second day of Shroud hunting in SWTOR
The Shroud of SWTOR has noticed the meddling of Massively OP's Larry and MJ, but that doesn't worry them. Or apparently the Shroud, for that matter. Will the duo be able to disrupt this megalomaniac's dastardly plots? Tune in live at 2:00 p.m.as Massively OP's Stream Team brings you day two, planet two of Shroud […]
CD Projekt Red's earnings video suggests that Cyberpunk 2077 will not face any more delays
It would appear that the upcoming single-player (and later, multiplayer) RPG Cyberpunk 2077 is on schedule if a recent video from CD Projekt Red CFO Piotr Nielubowicz is to be believed. The video recounts the company's financial progress in the first half of the year and touches on the twice delayed game's progress, noting that […]
Massively on the Go: Here's how Niantic is trying to fix Pokemon Go's Mega Evolutions
A bit before Niantic's wellness week kicks in for employees, Pokemon Go players got an update on the Mega Evolution problem/solution. We've previously covered the Mega Evolution, noting that the feature's release was less than well-received. However, Niantic's already made a few changes and proposed some interesting new ones. Right now, Mega Raids are awarding […]
World of Warcraft Classic's smaller servers are not getting the help they need for the Ahn'Qiraj War Effort
The next phase of World of Warcraft Classic content updates will bring in Naxxramas, which is something you would like to have following the opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. We already know about players on some Classic servers that made their way through that event with great alacrity. But some of the game's smaller servers are […]
Global Chat: New World might be worth the wait
One opinion I've seen echoed across many corners of our community is that New World is actually shaping up to be a pretty decent MMO. This is especially surprising considering the lengthy delay to 2021, but the recent preview event made several converts, including Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut. "New World was not a […]
Sea of Thieves' Vaults of the Ancients update brings a rich new voyage and quality-of-life on September 9
While Sea of Thieves is quite literally going to the dogs in September, the latest news bulletin from the devs has more fully outlined the update, which we now know is called Vaults of the Ancients and is due to arrive on Wednesday, September 9th. As announced at Gamescom, the update will bring a new […]
Vague Patch Notes: Apple vs. Epic is not good vs. evil
So Epic has really gone all-in on fighting against Apple here, huh? The company is using Fortnite as a wedge in hopes of bringing down some of Apple's tech monopoly when it comes to its app store. And… on this point, yes, Epic is probably right. Apple is definitely not a good company, and it has […]
New World promises gobs of new content ahead of its next test in November
As Amazon's New World winds down its late-summer preview event, the studio has a new dev blog up, admitting it's been "humbled" by the player response to the event and discussing the game's next steps – specifically, its next testing phase and what types of content it'll be adding. "We will continue development, now armed […]
Warhammer Online rogue server Return of Reckoning's second weekend of Twitch drops is about to begin
Funny ol' world we live in where an MMORPG rogue server is having another round of Twitch goodies dropping on its fans. Warhammer Online emulator Return of Reckoning is hosting a weekend of Twitch drops that will run between Friday, September 4th, at 12:00 p.m. EDT (that's today!) until Monday, September 7th, at 12:00 p.m. […]
Spellbreak trades battle royale's shooting for spellcasting as it officially launches
As we mentioned earlier this week, the battle royale sub-genre has a fresh arrival in the form of Spellbreak, a game where the shooting of guns is replaced with the slinging of spells. Players take up the mantle of a battle mage and can equip two different magical gauntlets, with each one combining to create […]
Casual space sandbox CSC aka Crypto Space Commander launches on Steam with a dash of Star Trek
If you yearn for the stars yet are put off by the complexity and coldness of games like Star Citizen and EVE Online, you may want to check out Lucid Sight's CSC. The space sandbox just launched on Steam as a free-to-play title this week, and it's bursting with personality and casual charm. "The unique […]
WildStar's composer creates a brand-new music track for terminally ill player
For those of you who traveled in WildStar's orbit back in the day, you may remember a guy named Avidguru. Avid hosted the WildCast podcast and was a great supporter of the game, even after WildStar's shutdown. Sadly, he contracted colon cancer several years back and is now coming to the end of his life. […]
The Daily Grind: Are you tempering your Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons expectations?
Back in March, when Guild Wars 2 first let slip that it was working on something Cantha-ish, we all wrote quite a bit about what we wanted to see. Me, I was off in dreamland, jabbering about Ritualists and bird dudes and mounts. But MOP's own Colin more wisely speculated about elite specs, new masteries, underwater […]
The Stream Team: Overcoming obstacle courses in Dungeons and Dragons Online
With her access to vampires not locked, Massively OP's MJ is returning to parlay with more pirates in DDO. This time around, she's going to be digging up information on Captain Rackam, the Orc. Is his crew really the strongest crew because they've passed the deadly Rackam's Trial? And can MJ and the group successfully […]
Massively Overthinking: How we deal with burning out of MMOs
Back in August, MOP's own Justin wrote a piece on his Bio Break blog about moderation in gaming that resonated with me. He described his initial crush on World of Warcraft in the first couple of years of the game, when he was playing WoW and only WoW, and lots of it – right up […]
Neverwinter answers Redeemed Citadel player questions, announces the campaign's console launch date
With the unique new Redeemed Citadel campaign firmly in the hands of Neverwinter PC players, the time was about right for one of the game's senior system designers to open up an AMA centered around the content. Some of the answers touched on things that will unlock at future milestones including new heroic encounters, new […]
Pokemon Go renews plan to discontinue support for a ton of Android and iOS devices
Back in June, Niantic announced that it was discontinuing support for 32-bit Android mobile devices, mostly devices released prior to 2015, to "streamline" its development. Fortunately, the uproar was such that the company was forced to put those plans on hold. Unfortunately, now that you've stopped paying attention, it's re-announced the support discontinuation plans and […]
Final Fantasy XI previews the story and battles getting added with its September update
It's just about time for the newest update to Final Fantasy XI, and that also means new story content with the next installment of the Voracious Resurgence. That means new reward items, cutscenes, and characters being introduced for players to enjoy. New story content in Vana'diel. That's still really neat and different, huh? Not swayed by that? […]
Funcom is teasing a big announcement for Conan Exiles next week
Funcom apparently got up this morning and said, you know what, let's tease a thing. There's a ticker counting down on Conan Exiles' official site right now with a promise of an "announcement" coming in six days along with "teaser images regarding the announcement [coming] daily" in the meantime. The tweet is ominous too: "Dark […]
Squadron 42 heads back to the mocap studio, fleshes out aliens, and fills out narrative lulls
August was busy not just for the devs of Star Citizen but also for the team working on the single-player Squadron 42, at least in a few areas. For one thing, members of the team were able to return to a mocap studio in Derby for a two day shoot, and while there were some […]
Star Citizen's August development report marks progress on ships, Pyro planets, and cargo hauling changes
With September just starting, it's about time for CIG to offer its usual monthly look back at development progress made for Star Citizen this past August, cobbling together the work done on the game up to this point. Highlights from the monthly report include environment artists using new planet creation tech to begin the "whitebox […]
The Stream Team: Playing with fire and factions in New World
Massively OP's MJ made it to the city in New World. Well, a settlement at least. And here she needs to make her choice as to which faction to join: Marauder, Covenant, or Syndicate. Once she selects, she'll either run missions for the settlement or just take off overland and explore. It doesn't matter which, […]
World of Warcraft drops another Afterlives video, this one on Draka and Maldraxxus
Last week, Blizzard posted the first of its Afterlives videos for its World of Warcraft Shadowlands hype ramp-up – that one covered Uther and the Bastion realm in the expansion. Today's focuses on the Frostwolf orc Draka and her life-after-life path through the Necrolord Covenant-governed Maldraxxus. "Draka, orc of the Frostwolf Clan, was not a […]
Crowfall is blowing up in the best way since hitting beta, with guild alliances and new zones on the horizon
Yesterday, Crowfall's J. Todd Coleman and Thomas Blair sat for their latest ACE Q&A, with happy news for fans of the crowdfunded game that just hit beta in August. "Last month was the single best month we have ever had for new registrations, new backers, total backer dollars, web views, players coming to the game, […]
Champions Online celebrates 11th birthday with costume gender-swapping
With multiple in-development superhero MMOs offering up their character and costume creation tools for players this summer, it's the perfect time for Champions Online to step up with something pretty big, and today, it has done just that: The Cryptic MMO has essentially made it possible for players to swap their costumes to use any […]
Hands-on with the four Vs of Nexon's mobile MMO V4
One of my friends once said to me, "Carlo, I always see you play those random 6 out of 10 MMOs, and I don't get why. You know the game's going to be trash." I didn't argue; he's right. Why do I play a game like Kritika Online when I could be taking a stand against […]
Classic Super Mario Bros. gameplay goes battle royale with Super Mario Bros. 35
Not even the venerable gaming classic Super Mario Bros. is safe from the battle royale sub-genre, it seems. It's time to say hello to Super Mario Bros. 35, a 35-player battle royale game based on the old 8-bit platformer. No, it's not April 1st, this is September 3rd. Revealed as part of the Mario series' […]
