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' […]
Hands-on with the brand-new Razer Naga Pro: As good as it's ever been
I have been an advocate for the Razer Naga basically ever since it was a product that you could purchase. Why? Because it turned out to work really well for me. I love having a whole bunch of ability buttons on one side of the mouse, it improves my ability to play notably, and that's really […]
Final Fantasy XIV serves up a new anniversary story along with more special site updates
Every year, Final Fantasy XIV provides players with a quartet of stories to commemorate its anniversary, and this year is no exception. Indeed, in the wake of wrapping up the Shadowbringers story, the game's tales are exploring some of the lore around the edges of Norvrandt, and this one covers everyone's favorite amaro as he looks back […]
Star Trek Online's newest promotional ship in a lockbox angers fans for breaking the developers' own rules
There's always been some consternation between players of Star Trek Online and the Perfect World Entertainment marketing philosophy of adding new ships via lockboxes. Generally, a certain amount of grudging acceptance has been maintained because the developers have kept to a strict set of rules about lockbox ships. All of them are some combination of ships […]
PSA: The Division is free for the next week
As the world continues to deal with the ongoing pandemic, there's nothing like jumping into a video game that… deals with a pandemic? OK, so The Division's setting may be uncomfortably close to reality these days, but it still was a really solid game and a fun multiplayer experience for those who wanted to crawl […]
Second Life bans all in-game advertisements that are 'political in nature'
Launching into political rants in global chat or hijacking the guild discussion to make everyone uncomfortable with views on election candidates is seen as a trolling tactic or a faux pas in most MMOs, but in Second Life, encountering politics is all but unavoidable. The game's landscape has traditionally been dappled with giant ads vouching […]
The Daily Grind: What would make you reconsider playing an MMO you had sworn off?
There are some games we just declare that we're done playing forever. There are usually good reasons for it, even; decisions are made with the design of the game, a new expansion is launched, you have a long-standing and established habit of proclaiming that you'll never play again before every expansion. But there's often a […]
Star Stable adds some new quests at the Starshine Ranch in the latest update
It looks like there are some new horse-centric adventures to be had in Star Stable, which is good news for anyone playing or anyone who has children playing the horsie-filled MMO. This latest update is all fixated on the Starshine Ranch, with new quests involving the ranch's owner and his daughter Lisa's homecoming. Both quests […]
Dauntless will make hunting with friends literally more rewarding with Slayer Links
It's entirely possible to play Dauntless solo, but the game is leagues better with friends around, and though most teams can be formed by simply hopping into a queue and waiting for matchmaking to do the work, September 3rd will introduce a new Slayer Links system that will make hunting with friends a rewarding experience […]
Old School RuneScape reworks the Costume Room in the latest update
Cosmetics are an important part of any MMORPG experience, and for players of Old School RuneScape, that experience is getting a bit more refined thanks to a newly released Costume Room rework. This update introduces quality of life features like the ability to see as many sets as possible in alphabetical order without splitting them […]
Wild Terra 2 adds in the joys of agriculture with its latest patch
They say that you reap what you sow, which feels unfair. After all, if you had expected to reap the consequences of your earlier actions, you probably wouldn't have sowed so many of them in this manner, right? But in Wild Terra 2 you can now literally reap what you sowed, as the game's latest update adds […]
'Circular economy' MMO Virtuverse schedules public early access test for this fall
Over the past two years, we've been lightly tracking the development of Virtuverse, an episodic online sci-fi RPG with a curious business model, and now it looks as though the wider public is going to get to see it first-hand come this fall. The game's Early Access 4 test is coming soon, with a backer […]
Kids MMO developer Age of Learning must pay the FTC $10M to settle 'dark patterns' complaint
The US Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on the purveyor of kids game ABCMouse this week, having alleged that the company "made misrepresentations about cancellations and failed to disclose important information to consumers" as well as "unfairly billed ABCmouse users without their authorization and made it difficult for consumers to cancel their memberships, preventing […]
Phantasy Star Online 2 introduces new items, new Episode 4 story content, and September's PSO2 Day
It's update time for Phantasy Star Online 2, and that means a whole bunch of new things, and since it's the beginning of the month, it also means PSO2 Day events on top of everything else. In this release, players can take on the eighth chapter of Episode 4's story content, which appears to be […]
The Stream Team: A magical 12th birthday for Wizard101, complete with gifts
Being 12 years old is magical, especially if you're Wizard101! This cheery game filled with fun pets and mounts is celebrating its 12th anniversary today, and Massively OP's MJ is returning for the party. And wouldn't you know, KingsIsle is supplying the gifts! Redeem the code 12TIMESTHEFUN before 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8th, to […]
War Thunder's Raining Fire update adds the Tuskegee Airmen's historical planes
The Tuskegee Airmen should need no introduction, especially to Americans: They were the first Black pilots to serve in what eventually became the US Air Force throughout World War II. The aviators have been feted in films, remembered in museums, and even honored with postage stamps. Now, they're getting their due in an MMO thanks […]
Ashes of Creation recaps August progress, promises more details about nodes soon
The month of August was certainly a busy one for Intrepid Studios and Ashes of Creation, so if you happened to have missed any of the developments that were made over the past month, then you've got the handy-dandy newsletter to keep you up to date. The biggest pieces from the roundup involve streamed details […]
World of Warships celebrates five years and details planned changes to commander skills
Happy birthday to World of Warships! It's been five years since the naval multiplayer battler kicked off, and the folks at Wargaming are marking the occasion with a new update full of things for fans to take on. There's a new permanent campaign of 50 tasks across five missions, a temporary asymmetrical battle mode where […]
The Soapbox: Feeling the loss of an MMO community
Back in 2012, I was almost a year deep into Lord of the Rings Online and enjoying my time both in the game and discovering the benefits of settling into an MMO community. Most of my time was not spent in the official forums, nor even blog posts, as I preferred to hunker down in […]
