MMO Week in Review: Crucible is canceled
Good news, junior high students everywhere: The Crucible is canceled! Nobody even likes that play. It's boring and sanctimonious and tedious – good riddance! Oh. Not that Crucible. The other Crucible. Amazon's Crucible. Yes, Amazon canceled its malingering flopped shooter Crucible and tried to bury the news on a Friday night. Boo hiss. But also, […]
V4 introduces a capture the flag-style PvP mode, merges three regions, and adds a new area
Nexon's PC and mobile MMORPG V4 has gotten some new things for players to do in a recent update, whether you're a PvP player or someone who likes to run around new areas. For the PvPers, there's the Halidom Rush mode, which reads way too close to Hamidon for my liking. This mode isn't about […]
The MOP Up: Wakfu's great server merge
Wakfu has finally set a date for its server merges. French servers are consolidating on October 14th, while international shards are coming together the day before that. "It is now technically possible to bring together characters from multiple servers," explained the team. "Our goal is to offer you a better in-game experience by improving Wakfu's […]
Trove and RIFT celebrate Gamigo's 20th anniversary, ArcheAge seeks community ambassador volunteers
The festivities to mark Gamigo's 20th anniversary are continuing to roll on in Trove and RIFT, with each game theming the next phase of its in-game celebrations after cleaning a celebration spot. Because nothing says "party" quite like cleaning! In specific, Trove players are tasked with clearing out the Thallasian dragon as often as possible, […]
Jukebox Heroes: Six great Runes of Magic tunes
Welcome back to Jukebox Heroes, the column that dares you to close your eyes and unplug your ears. Well, after you're done reading this opening, of course. So what's the greatest tragedy in modern musical history? Everyone has an answer to that, but mine will be, "How much Runes of Magic's score is overlooked because […]
Marvel's Avengers has more content incoming to satisfy players according to Crystal Dynamics' Scot Amos
It's only been out for a month, but Marvel's Avengers players are kind of on the bored side. This is probably not a huge surprise, as the game launched with somewhat threadbare content options for its persistent multiplayer options, helped not one whit by the fact that there are only six characters and you can't have […]
One Shots: Spit take
If my experience with that giant camel at Aladdin's Flying Carpets at Disney World is any indication, all dromedaries are jerks that want to spit on your head while you're already suffering from minor heat stroke in the warm Florida sun. So my advice for Hikari is to stand very, very still as this Conan […]
The Daily Grind: Has an MMO's story ever turned you off from playing the game?
It was a pretty bold move when Guild Wars 2 decided to indicate that one of the game's playable races had actually been a gigantic catspaw for one of the Big Bads. Like, that's got to alter your experience with the game if you find out that your Sylvari was actually a villain from conception, created to […]
Star Wars Squadrons shares an infographic of stats from the first week of online play
It would appear that the online multiplayer of Star Wars Squadrons has been pretty active overall, or at least the very first week of it. EA's Star Wars Twitter account offered up an infographic that collected data from the game's first week and provided several trivia bites for players to gnaw on. The game has […]
DCUO encounters ghoulies and makes reservations to travel to the 31st century
About every October, Batman is more gloomy than normal due to the fact that everyone is honing in on his motif with the Halloween season. So if you're heading over to DC Universe Online for this month's Witching Hour event, you might want to steer clear of the Caped Crusader. Trust us, you won't want […]
Dungeons and Dragons Online starts Fables of the Feywild pre-orders, gives a free dungeon to all
Monday will be a big day for Dungeons and Dragons Online, as a sizable patch is dropping for the game at the same time as Standing Stone Games will begin taking pre-orders for its Fables of the Feywild expansion. Update 47 includes a brand-new free dungeon (Promise of Flame) for all players and a makeover […]
The Stream Team: An Astroneer escape alleviates Earthly woes
It has been far too long since Massively OP's MJ enjoyed the atmosphere in Astroneer, a game that offers light-hearted frivolity and fun. Even gravity can't hold you down there! She's ready to throw off the shackles of Earth and immerse herself in the more whimsical worlds of this space sandbox for a time. She […]
The Game Archaeologist: Deadlands Legends, the western MMO that never saw the light of day
The saying goes that there is nothing new under the sun. So while you probably can't write an original setting that's never been seen before, the next best thing is to take two established settings and slam them together to create a tantalizing mash-up. This is what game developer Shane Hensley thought in 1996, when […]
Star Citizen's AMA confirms Squadron 42 has 'a ways to go' before beta, will be 'done when it is done'
The question that's been on the lips of the Star Citizen community for the past several months has been in relation to Squadron 42's development progress. So naturally, that would be one of the highlights of an AMA with several of CIG's devs, including Chris Roberts himself, who answered the burning question. The player question […]
WRUP: Some new wrestlers, some better wrestlers
John Cee-Clamp-A: He's exactly like John Cena, but he has lobster arms instead of people arms. Signature hold is the "Clamp You With The Claws, Bucky Boy." Signature drink is a Coke with a splash of hot sauce. Koshiko: She is a normal Japanese salarywoman carrying a handgun. Signature hold is the "Don't Move, I […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMO class makes you feel overpowered?
Obviously, we here at MOP love anything overpowered — including frappes, meme wars, and MMORPG classes. Sometimes it doesn't even take numerically superior stats to take a class from wimpy to whompy. Sometimes it's all about animations, sound effects, and cool abilities that can make you feel overpowered. Right now in World of Warcraft, I […]
Amazon just killed off another online game – this time it's Crucible
Like Breakaway before it, Amazon's Crucible is over before it began. Before it began again. It really depends where you start counting. Yes, Amazon announced tonight that it's "discontinuing development" on its beleaguered online shooter. The move may seem a bit sudden, as the game just got a patch four days ago, but fans will […]
Betawatch: Star Citizen pushes a patch public and promises progress on PSquadron 42
Did you know you can put the letter "P" in front of almost any word if you want to? It's clever. Modern spelling. Anyhow, PStar Citizen pushed out its PTU patch to public players (who have paid to participate) with a plethora of playtime polish, as well as outlining progress being made on Squadron 42. Perfect! Other […]
EVE Echoes provides an overview of how the in-game economy operates
Money makes the world go round, or at least in the case of EVE Echoes, it's ISK. The grinding gears of the ISK economy were the subject of a video from one of game's designers, who elaborated on the various ways players can earn that sweet digital dosh. The primary source for making and spending […]
SEED offers a brief peek at gameplay and discusses QA as it prepares for wider testing
The colonization sandbox MMO SEED is inching closer to inviting players to start testing the game out, and getting to that point takes some QA. That process was the subject of developer Klang Games' most recent dev blog video, which discussed some of the QA team's job as well as showed off a bit of […]
Dungeons and Dragons Online gets even spookier for Halloween
While Lord of the Rings Online players will be waiting until much later this month to partake of their Halloween offerings, its sibling Dungeons and Dragons Online is already deep into the Night Revels. The Halloween event starts in a special version of Delera's Graveyard, where players farm special keys. They then use these keys […]
Standing Stone, Daybreak, KingsIsle, and more MMO companies will fundraise for Extra Life 2020
The season of Extra Life is almost upon us, meaning all your favorite MMO studios are going to be dispatching their developers to play all the things for the long-running gaming charity. "Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised over $70 million USD for sick and injured kids. Right now, children's hospitals need […]
Yes, CCP London is still working on an unannounced new online title (or titles)
The HR department over at CCP London is looking pretty busy in recent days. The satellite branch of CCP Games has kicked out another two tweets in search of an audio engineer and a contracted balancing designer, the latter of which will be working on an "unannounced online shooter." The distinction of online shooter is […]
Bless Unleashed has begun head start access on PS4 ahead of its October 22 release
We already knew that Bless Unleashed was making its way to PS4 players on October 22nd, but those who bought in to the Ultimate Founder's Pack are getting a head start, allowing those players in as of yesterday a full two weeks ahead of everyone else, while those who purchased the Exalted pack get in […]
The Stream Team: A raveyard undead dance party for AdventureQuest 3D's Mogloween
What makes Massively OP's MJ happy? Mogloween! And the spooky holiday has begun in AQ3D. Along with previous year's festivities of mad scientists and haunted towns, there's a crazy undead dance party in Zorbak's Raveyard. Join us live at 2:00 p.m. as Massively OP's Stream Team kicks of this year's Halloween season in… What: AdventureQuest […]
Temtem introduces two new player-created monsters and their unique locations
Let's cast our minds back to June 2018, when Temtem was first entering the crowdfunding scene and was already lighting Kickstarter on fire. Among the tiers of pledges was the Breeder pledge, a $6K level limited to only four backers that let those backers create their own critters for the game. As of update 0.6.9, […]
Star Wars Galaxies Legends keeps teasing Bespin and we want it
Star Wars Galaxies Legends, the Star Wars Galaxies rogue server that's dominated the game's headlines for the last few years, has been teasing Bespin for a while now. It's one of multiple planets that the player team has been working on adding to its version of the classic MMORPG sandbox since at least last year. […]
Final Fantasy XIV has cancelled its European fan festival for February 2021
This is probably not a surprise given what happened before, but Final Fantasy XIV fans will not be gathering in Europe for a convention. The European fan festival has officially been cancelled as of today due to the global pandemic, which follows on the heels of both the North American and Japanese fan festivals being cancelled for […]
Star Citizen marks its eighth birthday with alpha 3.11's release, free goodies, and Halloween events
This coming Saturday, October 10th, will mark the eighth anniversary of Star Citizen's reveal to the public, which in CIG terms is the game's official birthday, and that means it's time to celebrate. One of the biggest party pieces of the celebration is the launch of alpha 3.11 after a brief stint in open PTU […]
World of Warcraft director Ion Hazzikostas promises to reverse the Shadowlands ability limitation
It was just yesterday that people found out World of Warcraft: Shadowlands had made a change to Covenant abilities by limiting them to the eponymous Shadowlands. This made a lot of people angry and was generally regarded as a bad news. So good news: A new post from director Ion Hazzikostas confirms that the change will […]
WoW Factor: The problem with World of Warcraft's storytelling
Back a long while ago, when I reviewed the prequel novel for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, I noted that my general policy has been to ignore the novels and supplementary storytelling around WoW's expansions. The policy I outlined in the introduction there was fairly simple and straightforward: If it didn't happen within the game, something had […]
Pathfinder Online is still alive, and the devs are embracing the cloud
Pathfinder Online is transitioning to the cloud, and no, that's not a euphemism for ascending to heaven because Pathfinder Online is still alive against all odds. Yesterday, the Paizo/Goblinworks team still attached to the game announced that it's taking its first steps into porting the game into cloud. "It's hard to predict what other complications […]
Final Fantasy XIV previews its next major patch, Futures Rewritten, in its newest live letter
The next patch for Final Fantasy XIV isn't coming out until December, but the latest live letter from producer and director Naoki Yoshida has already revealed some details for the upcoming patch 5.4. And there's plenty for players to dig into, including the new Explorer Mode for cleared dungeons allowing you to roam dungeon maps you've […]
Titan Reach offers a second patch for its demo version as its Kickstart enters the final week
The Titan Reach Kickstarter continues to move forward, with the game's team releasing the second major patch to its demo client. This new version adds everyone's two favorite forms of content, a jumping puzzle and arena PvP. It also adds new character customization, new configuration settings for the test client, and a new legendary sword for […]
World of Warcraft's free-to-level-20 edition is about to get a ton more content
With next week's World of Warcraft: Shadowlands pre-patch, the overall value of the game is about to take a jump up. As we noted yesterday, Blizzard running a sale on certain character services right now and rolling Battle for Azeroth into the base subscription (meaning that you don't have to buy it if you have […]
The Daily Grind: Is there a location you wish your fave MMO could explore – but never will?
I have two examples in mind for today's Daily Grind. The first, of course, is Cantha: I've been a broken record on wanting the Guild Wars franchise to go back to Cantha and its varied regions, for years and years, so I'm pretty thrilled that it's finally happening next year in Guild Wars 2. But […]
The Stream Team: Frozen fun in Neverwinter's Icespire Peaks
It's a good thing Massively OP's MJ loves fire, because she's going to need some! It's equally good that she loves the cold, because she's going to have plenty of it! The next Neverwinter adventures take her to Icespire Peak, a frozen land full of icy monsters to snuff out. Tune in live at 9:00 […]
Massively Overthinking: How do you know you've fallen hard for an MMO?
For this week's Massively Overthinking, I want to bounce off something MOP's Chris tweeted a few weeks back. "I can tell a game's hooks are sinking in when I start bookmarking resource guides and specific websites," he said. I feel so seen by this! This is absolutely one of the ways I know I'm falling […]
MMO Business Roundup: Steam Game Festival, My.Games, Taipei Gameshow, Niantic, and RazerCon
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and gaming industry news relevant to the MMO-playing audience. Steam Game Festival: Yes, another online event! The "autumn edition" of Steam's Game Festival kicked off this week, with streams and free games and sales. Most notably for MMO players, Wild Terra 2 is offering a free-play event ahead […]
Frostpunk's board game Kickstarter nears $1M with nearly three weeks left
One of the big PC gaming success stories from 2018 was the launch of Frostpunk, a city-builder with a post-apocalyptic survival theme. It's sold 1.4 million copies in its first year and churned out an expansion, but the snowplow isn't content to stop there. An official board game adaptation of the four-player co-op game is […]
Genshin Impact plans on more characters, more areas, and a PS5 release in the future
The popular single-player/multiplayer RPG Genshin Impact will be expanding outside of what's currently available according to a miHoYo spokesperson who talked with IGN Japan. The developers plan on adding more characters, character-specific missions, side quests, and a third city, all of which are currently in development. The mechanics of the game, however, don't appear due […]
Legends of Aria casts a spotlight on a player-run PvE server and its new Warlock class
I was today years-old when I learned that a Legends of Aria player has created a custom PvE server that has its own unique classes. Of course, the fact that this game has PvE servers is certainly nothing new, and the game has several PvE-minded shards. In any event, I suspect that this TIL moment […]
World of Warcraft drops Shadowlands pre-patch notes, merges Battle for Azeroth into sub
We've got a bundle of World of Warcraft news here to cap off your Thursday. First, if all the jeering for Battle for Azeroth kept you from buying the expansion, congrats: Now you're getting it for free, kinda, as Blizzard announced today that the expansion will be bundled into the base subscription fee when the […]
Valorant bumps Icebox map up to next week, delays and reveals new toon Skye
Riot Games' Valorant is smooshing around its fall lineup. The good news it's that it's pushed the new arctic wilderness map, Icebox, up in the schedule, meaning it'll launch on October 13th alongside the act III battlepass (27th for competitive mode). "An abandoned Kingdom research facility in the arctic wilderness is the next location to […]
Sea of Thieves posts a musical tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen
I realize the news cycle has been wild this week, so you may have missed the sad news that Van Halen co-founder Eddie Van Halen passed away after a battle with throat cancer. The death of a popular musician would normally not be something we cover on a gaming blog, but as it happens, Sea […]
Epic Games versus Apple case will go to judge-led bench trial in May 2021
A trial date has been confirmed by the northern California district court hearing the case between Epic Games and Apple. The litigation will move to a bench trial on Monday, May 3rd, 2021, officially confirming that both parties' desire for the case to be heard by a judge and not a jury has been granted. […]
Wurm Online's Steam success means a bigger team, tutorial improvements, and new content
With Wurm Online safely enshrined on Steam and pulling in "unprecedented" numbers of players thanks to the platform, Code Club is moving on to prepping its next move – and it involves more devs, more marketing, and more content. "The surge in popularity has definitely exceeded our expectations and it seems like it can give […]
'Boob streamers' and 'boys clubs': Twitch staffers blast sexist, racist corporate culture
GI.biz has a detailed expose of Twitch's corporate culture out today, painting a picture of ongoing and systemic racism, sexism, and abuse, both in the office and in the community. The article includes input and allegations from 16 employees, only a few of whom said they had never seen misconduct at the company. One of […]
Squadron 42 outlines continuing work on fleshing out the Vanduul in the latest update newsletter
The latest update newsletter from Squadron 42 is very much about its alien lifeforms. A number of team segments are working on the Vanduul, whether it's the AI team working out the race's melee and ranged combat tactics, the animation team working on melee attack animations and locomotion, or the art teams working on Vanduul's […]
Elder Scrolls Online teases the setting and atmosphere of its upcoming Markarth DLC
Elder Scrolls Online's Markarth DLC is less than a month away now for PC players, so you know what that means: time to crank up the ol' hype machine! Yes, ZeniMax has pushed out a fluffy preview of the DLC today, this one focusing on its setting and the zones it'll affect. The studio says […]
