Star Wars Squadrons promises further balance changes and cosmetics in 2021
What's on the horizon for the multiplayer dogfighter Star Wars Squadrons? A whole lot of balancing and shiny new cosmetics to collect according to a recent post on the game's website. The next few weeks will mostly be about balancing starfighters and components along with matchmaking tuning in order for players to have the best […]
Dauntless' simplified roadmap details new hunts, feature reworks, and Springtide
Were you a fan of the way Dauntless' old roadmap looked? If you answered "no," then the devs at Phoenix Labs basically agree with you, which is why they have put out a new roadmap that is less visually dynamic but far more informative and comprehensive. "We didn't find that our old roadmap was conveying […]
EVE Online spotlights Reign, the return of Guardian's Gala, and quality-of-life features
EVE Online has released the first episode of its video news digest series, The Pulse, of 2021, once again bundling together some of the most recent happenings in the space sandbox in one place. Naturally, the video kicked off by touting the the release of Reign, with particular spotlighting of the Fleet Discovery feature, as […]
ArcheAge Unchained's trial program stops circling the rug and finally lies down to stay
Don't worry, you're not experiencing deja vu at seeing us talk about ArcheAge Unchained's trial program. It's been rolled out several times in the past, only on a time-limited basis. Well, we guess that Gamigo is finally done being skittish about a trial for the buy-to-play version of the MMO and has made the promotion […]
Player-run Open Perpetuum builds its first 'truly customized island and PvE experience'
If we are learning anything from observing what's happened to Perpetuum after the devs handed off the project to the community, it's that sometimes players can do a better job of maintaining and updating an MMO that's been all but abandoned. The nearly three-year-old Open Perpetuum is still adding toys to its already impressive sci-fi […]
TERA previews its fight against Gardan of the Ice
Who is Gardan of the Ice? Well, he might just be your new best friend in TERA, if you consider fighting against a very large man with a very large axe to be the foundation of friendship. If so, well… welcome to friendship central when the next patch arrives because Gardan has a very big […]
Warframe is running an experiment on PC to guide new players into crafting
Being a new Warframe player can be an overwhelming experience, particularly in regard to the variety of systems and activities available to you once you've completed the first couple of missions. It would stand to reason, then, that the ability to craft things might go missed by many. It's with that in mind that the […]
Trove adds a new Delve biome to PTS, accidentally leaks a potential new Bard class
Are you ready for more Delve goodness in Trove? If you replied to that question with a groan, well too bad buckaroo because that's exactly what you're getting in the PTS. A new biome is being introduced to the Delve based on the Fae Wilds, which houses two new mounts, three new allies, three new […]
The Division 2 will be getting more content updates this year beyond Title Update 12
Apparently, Title Update 12 for The Division 2 was meant to be the last major update for the multiplayer looter shooter ever, but with the help of player support, the devs of the game will be releasing additional content for the game later this year. "Some of you had noticed that Title Update 12 was […]
Project Gorgon's improved animation system lets it get down with its bad self
As we look forward to seeing how Project Gorgon shapes up this year as it heads toward its 2022 launch, there's one thing that the developers have made a priority this month: Getting jiggy with it. The indie MMORPG said that it's made "a lot of progress" on rewriting its animation system to allow for […]
Wisdom of Nym: What Final Fantasy XIV has lined up for patch 5.5
Amidst all the news last week, the live letter for Final Fantasy XIV kind of got shoved off into the corner, didn't it? Partly because… well, there's not a whole lot to this particular live letter that qualifies as a surprising revelation. Like, it's hard to top "we're going to the moon" as a reveal […]
Valheim concurrency soars past 360K as the game's now sold 2M copies
When we first reported on the early access launch of Valheim, the new Viking-themed co-op survival sandbox, we pointed out that the game was already making a splash, selling 1 million copies and raking in 160K concurrent players on Steam. That player count has since been eclipsed. Significantly. To the tune of 2 million boxes […]
Not So Massively: Torchlight III is less than the sum of its parts
Last summer in this very column, I argued that ARPGs are the pizza of gaming: Even when they're bad, they're still pretty good. The Torchlight games feel like the best example of that. They've never done anything to separate themselves from the pack; they just do the bare minimum needed to provide a functional ARPG […]
Star Wars The Old Republic promises 'tighter, more balanced' Uprisings in next update
Update 6.2.1 of Star Wars: The Old Republic appears to be all about fixing its existing systems. Following word of adjustments arriving to amplifiers in the new update, the devs at BioWare have offered some information about Uprising tweaks that will also be landing with the update. The information comes by way of one paragraph […]
Albion Online's Guild Season 12 officially gets underway in March
It's time once again for a fresh season of GvG goodness for Albion Online as the sandbox MMORPG announced it will be kicking off Season 12 on March 13th, and as with previous seasons, the devs have shared the usual list of pertinent dates. Future dates of note will be Invasion Days on April 10th […]
Gameforge is sunsetting the western version of SoulWorker as the original dev promises a new global version
Bad news for western SoulWorker players today: Gameforge has announced that it will no longer be running the game in Europe and North America, but it'll be picked back up in an international format by Lion Games, the game's original Korean developer. Unfortunately, "an account transfer will not be possible." Gameforge says that payments for […]
Obituary: Guild Wars 2 composer Stan LePard passes away
It's a sad way to start a week with the announcement of the loss of one of Guild Wars 2's musical talents, indeed. Both ArenaNet and games composer Maclaine Diemer shared the news that colleague Stan LePard recently passed away. "Knowing him helped shape and change the course of my life and my music," said […]
The Daily Grind: What MMORPG would've performed better had it launched in a different year?
I was chit-chatting with longtime MOP reader Bruno the other day when we starting yawing about RIFT and EverQuest II and which one was better. I have a hard time answering this question because I like parts of both of them and wish I could smoosh them together – like EverQuest II's crafting smooshed into […]
MMO Week in Review: WoW's valor, Elite's jerks
Demonstrating once again why we can't have nice things, World of Warcraft dangled valor in front of players only to yank its original meaning and import away from us like Lucy with a football, while Elite Dangerous' most awful humans admitted to engaging in a form of abusive "slavery" in-game. But hey, MOP turned six […]
Destiny 2 discusses a quest details UI, returning classic content, and Black at Bungie philanthropy
The weekly Bungie update is once again sharing a diverse cornucopia of Destiny 2 news pieces, from features that slipped patch note notice to the Cosmodrome's "unvaulting." First off, there was word from the Black at Bungie Inclusion Club, which announced that last year's sales of the Black Lives Matter pin had helped raise $425K […]
The MOP Up: Apex Legends Mobile is on the way
The multi-platform hit Apex Legends is finally making the jump to mobile. Droid Gamers reported that Tencent and Respawn are working on a phone and tablet edition of the game for those who want to take their bloodshed on the go. And this is just the beginning of the rest of the news! Read on for a […]
Dual Universe is giving organizations a wallet in the next beta update
If my time watching sandbox MMOs has taught me anything, it's that game devs should probably stop handing players powder kegs and lighters, but here we are with Dual Universe very possibly doing just that in its next beta update, which will introduce a wallet feature for organizations to let player orgs store and transfer […]
Jukebox Heroes: The best of Genshin Impact's soundtrack
Genshin Impact isn't just a game that's easy on the eyes — it's marvelous to the ears as well. Massively OP's Chris has taken to wandering our halls humming its tunes and forcefully grabbing us and shaking us because we hadn't listened to the soundtrack yet. Well, I for one am tired of all of […]
ZeniMax Online Studios goes on a hiring spree for ESO and 'multiple unannounced projects'
Readers are surely familiar with ZeniMax Online Studios' work on The Elder Scrolls Online, but you're also probably curious about what the studio's up to in the future, particularly with regard to the potential new MMO that appeared to be ramping up production that we covered back in October of 2020 when ZeniMax was hiring […]
One Shots: Outer space needs an attitude readjustment
In retrospect, outer space was asking for it. It was giving all of us a cold shoulder, being very distant, and lording its size over us like it was King of Universetown. So can you blame us for grabbing the nearest weapons we could find to blast a hole in space's ego? Scott was on […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMOs give you the most space for letting your mind wander?
One of the things I regularly like to do with playing MMOs is to put something else on my second monitor to watch while I play. This might seem completely contrary to what others enjoy doing – after all, isn't the whole point of playing a game to enjoy yourself with just that one game? […]
Global Chat: Does permadeath mode in MMOs have merit?
Whenever you're stuck for an MMO topic to talk about on a blog, you can never go wrong with chewing on the concept of permadeath! This certainly prompted Unidentified Signal Source to new heights of game development analysis. "Now, I find that the 'waste of time' portion is somewhat case by case," said SDWeasel. "In […]
Black Desert scrambles to address transfer problems from Kakao
If you haven't heard already, your Black Desert account needs to be transferred from Kakao to Pearl Abyss by May 31st of this year, as it could be deleted otherwise. Kakao is wrapping up its operation of the game on February 24th and handing the reins back to developer Pearl Abyss, but there's a bit […]
World of Warcraft announces plans to improve Castle Nathria drop rates in a February 16 patch
Ahead of the upcoming March patch arriving to World of Warcraft, which is introducing Stygia crafting and bringing back Valor points (though in a far less useful form), Blizzard announced an update after next week's maintenance which will provide a flat improvement to drops in the Castle Nathria raid. Specifically, bosses will now drop 33% […]
The Stream Team: A first look at Valheim's vikings
There's a conspiracy afoot to make Massively OP's MJ a viking in Valheim; friends in and outside of MOP are in on it! One of the leading culprits is none other than Chris, who will join her for a first look into this co-op survival title. Join us live at 12:00 p.m. to see how […]
LOTRO Legendarium: How can LOTRO become more alt-friendly?
Lord of the Rings Online has so much to offer players, from an expansive world to thousands of quests to, um, chicken soccer. But the problem with this mountain of content and a leveling scheme that has gone largely unchanged since LOTRO's launch in 2007 is that leveling up alts — additional characters — is […]
WRUP: cmon five more minutes edition
cmon five more minutes. gimme five more minutes. just gimme five minutes. just need five minutes. give me five minutes. only five minutes. demanding five more minutes. strongly suggesting five more minutes. just five more minutes. it's five more minutes. five more minutes isn't really that many more minutes. let me have five more minutes. […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMO characters of yours do you truly miss?
If MMO characters had opinions and feelings of their own, they probably feel very much let down by my decisions over the years. I've left plenty to be abandoned, deleted others, or casually tossed some out to reroll them in an attempt to do it better this time. There are some characters that I dearly […]
The Stream Team: Will werewolves and vampires find peace in AQ3D's Darkovia Chapter V?
The Blood Moon rises in AQ3D, and Massively OP's MJ is hoping that brings the peace to Darkovia that the leaders of the werewolves and the vampires want. But there are those in both groups who don't want that to happen! So how will things work out: Will the powerful orb come into play, and […]
Betawatch: Pantheon shows off its crafting
Could you describe Pantheon as a game about standing in place with other people and slowly leveling up? Maybe, if you were being reductive, but there's a lot more to the game to be shown off. Case in point, the game has some elaborate crafting that has been shown off in the most recent development stream. […]
Whatever happened to Absolver?
Remember Absolver, the martial arts multiplayer title from developer Sloclap and publisher Devolver Digital? There hasn't been much news out of the game beyond a production update post in May 2018, the Downfall expansion release in September 2018, and more recently a balance patch in March 2019. So just where do things stand? In terms […]
Skyforge launches a Mechanoid Invasion for Switch players
Welcome to Skyforge, Nintendo Switch fans! You'll notice a whole lot of immortal deities around you, that's totally normal. Bit of a lack in anti-aliasing, perfectly normal. Screams of normal citizens and gigantic explosions rocking the nearby city as armies swoop in from the sky and seek to conquer the planet? Also totally normal, actually, this […]
An Ashes of Creation player built a card game based on the MMO for the whole community
File this one under "extremely awesome things MMO players did": One Ashes of Creation player has created an entire card game based on the upcoming MMO and released it for the entire community to use. MMO gamer Lashing points out that the game isn't fully complete yet as it's just a hobby, but it's still […]
Century Age of Ashes delays early access, plans second beta following player feedback
Century: Age of Ashes popped up almost outta nowhere last month with its closed beta, boasting a dragon-centric aerial PvP mode. MOP's own Not So Massively columnist Tyler poked his nose into the game already and found it to be a surprisingly good time, in spite of the early state of the game and the […]
DC Universe Online hands out freebies to Xbox players after a 'blank screen' issue made the game unplayable
If you get your superheroic MMOing done in the Xbox version of DC Universe Online, you likely experienced some very specific problems in the last couple of days. Namely, a problem with GU110 that simply had players staring at a black void instead of a game world or an increased number of game crashes. There […]
Warframe offers a brief look at upcoming updates and events arriving this spring
Where I live, we're still under the frosty heel of winter and probably won't see spring until sometime in mid-April if we're lucky. As for the world of Warframe, spring is coming soon, bringing with it several content updates that were outlined in a quick sizzle reel. The video touts the Call of the Tempestarii […]
RuneScape offers another update on its ongoing player avatar refresh project
The devs of RuneScape are very hard at work making very pretty avatars for players. Readers will recall that this was first outlined in a developer livestream earlier this month, and now the devs have taken to updating via dev blog, providing a current progress report as well as an outline of previous work. The […]
Star Citizen previews alpha docking features, launches Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year events
It's a bunch of Star Citizen stuff today, with the usual weekly episode of Inside Star Citizen as well as some highlighted seasonal events that are being celebrated. In the weekly video digest, we get a look at ship-to-ship and ship-to-station docking features that will arrive with alpha 3.13. Ship-to-ship docking is specific to the […]
Valentine's Day begins in Star Citizen, SWG Legends, DAOC, and more
OK, MMOs, we get it, you have chocolate and pink stuff and hearts. This is the last one of these roundups I'm doing this year, I promise. All these games have to do is stop announcing them! I kid, mostly. New content and events are fun. Star Citizen is celebrating Valentine's Day – I mean, […]
World of Warcraft's patch 9.0.5 adds Stygia crafting but will not allow upgrading old M+ items
So the next patch for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is bringing back Valor points… after a fashion. But there are actually some new things available currently on the first build on the game's test server with the mysterious new Stygia Crafting, allowing players who access a rather tucked-away forge in the Maw the option to craft […]
Vague Patch Notes: Emergent gameplay in MMOs isn't a defense of awful behavior
To the surprise (or at least disappointment) of many, it turns out that some players in Elite: Dangerous found an exciting and fresh way to do something beyond the pale. These players managed to find a way to build a form of indentured servitude or slave labor into the game starting from first principles, which is […]
Hackers have successfully sold stolen CDPR source code and internal documents in a dark web auction
Earlier this week we reported on a breach of CD Projekt Red's systems that resulted in a number of stolen pieces of data, including source code for Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Gwent, and Thronebreaker, with the intent of ransoming off the ill-gotten gains. CDPR refused, and now the hackers have gotten their payday by […]
Lunar New Year sales and events arrive to Steam, Champions Online, and gobs more
It's lovely seeing the Lunar New Year holiday continue to rise in prominence in the west – and especially in online video games. And especially when it elbows Valentine's Day out of the way. Here for it! Last night, Steam ushered in the holiday with its massive – but relatively short – Lunar New Year […]
Here's how Star Wars: The Old Republic is improving amplifiers
Star Wars: The Old Republic's amplifier system is a relatively new addition to the game, having been introduced back in 2019 with the Onslaught expansion. BioWare's apparently decided that there needs to be some work done on the system, which is why it's about to roll out a whole bunch of amplifier changes with next […]
Magic Legends casts hype spell for next month's open beta
Things are starting to move faster and faster over at Magic Legends, as Cryptic's upcoming multiplayer title will conjure up an open beta next month on March 23rd. The studio announced this week that the beta will be available both on Cryptic's own Arc platform and through the Epic Game Store. Sign-ups are now available […]
