The Stream Team: Start your weekend with boss bashing in AdventureQuest 3D
Friday is bash the bosses day in AQ3D! At least it is for Massively OP's MJ! King Drachus, that conniving vampire lord, has been added to the daily boss fights, and there are still so many challenges MJ needs to gather goodies from. Join us live at 8:00 p.m. to start the weekend by beating […]
Betawatch: The Burning Crusade Classic may be entering beta this month
It might be time to beta test World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade! You know, again. See, there's a rumor that the next update to the game's classic servers will be in beta testing this month, and while it's not certain it sure is plausible. Who wants to beta test an expansion that came out years ago? […]
Conqueror's Blade gets the Viking touch with Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok on March 18
We all likely figured that Vikings would become a hot commodity in gaming thanks to a certain title's success, but regardless of that assumption, the fact remains that the MMORTS Conqueror's Blade is about to get some Viking flavor when Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok kicks off on Thursday, March 18th. The new season will […]
Whatever happened to turn-based MMO Stash?
I really wanted this "Whatever Happened To" article to be a positive one, and in a way, part of it is: Frogdice's MMO Stash is still alive, it's still playable, and it's still free. Gamers will recall that this indie turn-based MMO entered early access in 2016 and launched in 2018, featuring a cutesy tabletop […]
MMO Business Roundup: ROBLOX's IPO, NCsoft, Nexon's next big thing, and FIFA's latest scandal
Welcome back to another roundup of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. ROBLOX: As planned, ROBLOX went public (publix?) this week, opening its first day of trading on Wall Street at $64.50 a share and pushing up to as much as $74. The NYSE reference price was $45, so that's juicy indeed. As Kotaku quipped, that […]
Wurm Online introduces combat changes and achievements as players create an in-game social space
The latest newsletter from Wurm Online has a little bit of everything, whether you like to fight, like to chase achievements, or seek a place to meet other players and hang out. The post kicks off with the latest update and its changes to combat, which promises more interactive combat thanks to the ability to […]
Blade and Soul adds a new dungeon, new raid weapon, and renewed Soulstone Plains on March 17
While a lot of focus has understandably been about Blade and Soul's upgrade to Unreal Engine 4, that doesn't mean there won't be updates in between now and then. To wit, the Slithering Shadows update on Wednesday, March 17th, will be introducing some new things for players to do. The update's main party piece is […]
DC Universe Online rolls out its second Survival Mode season and its St. Patrick's Day event
Sometimes you just want to run a gauntlet. DC Universe Online is letting you do precisely that with the game's second season of Survival Mode, with players taking on 30 waves of increasingly difficult challenges to earn currency, materials, and of course the ever-inimitable bragging rights. This four-player gauntlet will test the abilities of players to make […]
EVE Online introduces new landmarks, spaceship racing, and an Abyssal Proving Ground event
On your marks, get set, tap in the coordinates of a location into your nav computer, spool up the warp drives, and go! Admittedly, the way to call the start of a race in EVE Online might need a bit of work, but that's just what's happening with the Federation Grand Prix event. The Federation […]
Bless Unleashed's spring update introduces auto-pathing and anniversary gifts
Hey, let's talk about auto-pathing for a moment! This feature is quite prevalent in mobile MMORPGs, where the screen size and lack of mini-map make navigation more difficult, but it does creep into the occasional regular MMO from time to time. For instance, Bless Unleashed. For instance, this week. Auto-pathing is just one of the […]
Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 launched on Xbox Game Pass as ESO celebrates 18M total players
Yesterday's Xbox and Bethsoft roundtable dropped a bit of information about the merger and the future of the games as well as the current state of one of the games at the heart of our modern MMO genre. Let's do a recap! For starters, a ton of Bethsoft games have launched on the Xbox Game […]
Magic Legends lays out its ZEN market, broker system, and battlepass tracks
Anyone who has played a Cryptic game probably is well-acquainted with its slightly convoluted business model. Basically, the studio has a cash shop (the ZEN Store) with all of the really good stuff, but players can buy and sell the currency for that store using a special in-game currency. If it works — works for […]
Star Citizen talks up land vehicle physics changes as CIG devs rebut claims of mistreatment during Texas snowstorm
While Star Citizen certainly loves its spaceships, there are a number of land-based vehicles that deserve love too, and that's just what the latest Inside Star Citizen video provides as it outlines changes to vehicle physics that are in the works that are intended to be more sim-focused instead of arcadey. Players can soon expect […]
LOTRO Legendarium: Analyzing the 2021 LOTRO producer letter
Despite the title of the "February 2021" producer's letter, Standing Stone Games' official annual roadmap was welcomed when it arrived last week. In March. Anyway, it's here, and as always, that means we have a whole lot to talk about as we look ahead to what Lord of the Rings Online has in store for […]
Some RuneScape accounts are still disabled as Jagex enters second week of server issues
RuneScape has not had the best run here in March. Last week, Jagex was forced to pull down the MMORPG's servers and roll them back several hours to correct multiple issues that extended through the weekend and across this week. At one point, the game's website was even toast. While the studio promised that no […]
Path of Exile's upcoming nerfs to Harvest crafting sets the community on fire
According to the devs of Path of Exile, the crafting mechanics introduced in the Harvest league, even after adjustments made in update 3.13.0, made getting good items way too easy. Grinding Gear Games put out a lengthy dev blog that discussed what the team considered to be unintended effects of the system, as players made […]
New test strings hint that The Burning Crusade Classic may be arriving as soon as May 18
The machinery behind the scenes at Blizzard is moving fast on the classic version of the first World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade, and there's reason to start speculating about how soon players will be able to jump in. Among a number of other new strings discovered by Wowhead while mining out the new test server […]
Gamigo says RIFT is 'contributing a great deal' to the studio, promises 10th anny events
Earlier this week, we learned from one of our sources that multiple developers from Gamigo's RIFT team had been laid off from the company, which further added to the fears of MMO players that RIFT was in trouble following the sunset announcements of four other Gamigo MMOs. Initially, the studio did not respond to our […]
The Daily Grind: Do you wish Guild Wars 2 had proper player housing?
A few weeks back, in response to a dumb joke I made about Guild Wars 2's endless parade of cash-shop chairs, MOP's Justin quipped, "Imagine if they had housing," echoing the sentiments of hundreds of MOP readers over the years, including me. I've always considered it a damn shame that Guild Wars 2 doesn't have […]
The Stream Team: Loving the land of lava in Neverwinter
What better place for our favorite fire-lover than the luscious lava of Neverwinter's Mount Hotenow? Massively OP's MJ feels like she's in flame-thrower's heaven dancing around those flowing rivers of lava. D&D night adventures continue with MJ whispering "I lava you" as she wanders the volcano. Tune in live at 9:00 p.m.for MJ's hot date […]
Massively Overthinking: Picking the 'wrong' MMORPG class
Last month, the MMORPG subreddit slept on a good thread about picking classes in MMOs. Let's wake this sucker up. "Am I the only one who is afraid of picking a class and said class ending as the 'wrong' class and get rejected from guild/raid groups just because I picked the weak class to play?" […]
Alien invader survival title Drake's Odds: Survive espouses the virtues of the UFO tractor beam
What self-respecting Earth-invading aliens would arrive without a classic UFO complete with an iconic beam of light that lets them haul things around? Luckily, the players of Drake's Odds: Survive won't have to suffer such ignominy, as the survival sandbox game will most definitely feature a UFO with a tractor beam. According to the related […]
Blade and Soul 2 showcases a cooperative horde mode in latest game footage trailer
We already know that Blade and Soul 2 players are going to have to fight things, but not all threats roam the game's world; some come from a fiery sky fissure. That's the focus of the latest trailer from the game, which offers a in-engine animated look (according to the video's auto-translated title) at this […]
Black Desert just revealed the new Sage class on its afternoon stream
On its splashy reveal stream this afternoon, Pearl Abyss took the wraps off the latest playable class in Black Desert: The Sage. "Armed with the cube-shaped Kyve, an ancient, god-defying weapon, Sage can open rifts in space, calling on Ator's Fist and a range of offensive spells to smite his foes," the studio explains. "He can […]
Fall Guys shows off one of the new maps arriving as part of its fourth season
The fourth season of Fall Guys is supposedly being announced on March 15th with a whole trailer for what to expect, but fans of the game can whet their appetites with the latest preview from the game's official Twitter account. It's showing off one of the seven new levels being added with the update, Skyline Stumble, […]
Whatever happened to Snail Games' Outlaws of the Old West?
In the spring of 2019, Snail Games launched Virtual Basement's then-new survival sandbox MMO Outlaws of the Old West into Steam early access under the Wandering Wizard label, intending to keep it in early access for just a year. Well, it's now been two, and the game is still right there in early access, with […]
Albion Online offers a closer look at the upcoming loadouts feature
Managing your equipment is a vital yet sometimes obnoxious chore, especially when you want to switch gears from combat to crafting as an example. Albion Online's loadouts feature, which is due to arrive with the Call to Arms update on March 17th, looks to not only ease this pain point but introduce a number of […]
Fallout 76's Locked and Loaded update isn't landing until April 27
Fallout 76 players already know that the Bethsoft team's been prepping the Locked and Loaded update this past season, and as of today, we now know when the update is coming: April 27th. Yeah, that's a bit of a long wait. In the meantime, the PTS will come back online tomorrowday for players to check […]
Star Citizen XenoThreat postmortem talks co-op gameplay, performance issues, and PvP imbalance
Players of Star Citizen certainly have opinions about how the game's first dynamic event played out, but how do the devs at CIG think? A postmortem about the event has some insight as several teams chimed in on what went well, what went wrong, and what plans will be made to improve things for the […]
Desert Oasis: A brief history Kakao Games, Black Desert's former PC publisher
It's been a busy couple of months for Pearl Abyss and Kakao games. While Black Desert players knew about Pearl Abyss taking up self publishing duties for the game's western PC release a whole year before the announcement, news of the split became official in December. Fast forward to today, and Black Desert is now fully […]
MechWarrior Online and RUST are slowly recovering after data center fire yesterday
As we reported yesterday morning, a massive fire in Strasbourg, France, took out multiple buildings at the OVH data center where countless companies, including gaming companies, hosted websites and games. While no one was physically harmed in the blaze, several games in our wheelhouse were dealt a nasty blow. Piranha Games' MechWarrior Online, for example, […]
DC Universe Online ushers in St. Patty's Day event and brutal survival mode
Little green-clad men offering magical riches may not seem that out of place in DC Universe Online. We have to imagine that nobody in Gotham or Metropolis will blink twice to see Mister Mxyzptlk frolicking about during St. Patrick's Day. The yearly event is expected to launch today in the game, offering players a special […]
Kakao Games' upcoming survival sandbox Dysterra begins alpha March 18
Eager for another survival game in your library? Kakao Games is publishing the upcoming title Dysterra, an Unreal Engine 4-powered survival game in which players are dropped on an abandoned prison version of Earth and left to fend for themselves. Success will thus be a matter of finding resources, building bases, and fighting it out to […]
Vague Patch Notes: The sneering elitism of the MMO term 'welfare epics'
A few weeks ago, I saw an MMO player unironically complaining about "welfare epics" here in 2021. This is basically the equivalent of saying, "I'm a gigantic elitist turd," and it invites laughter. The devil cannot stand mockery and all that. But that aside, it did prompt a bit of a discussion among the team […]
Saga of Lucimia's founder hasn't been involved in the game's development since last fall
Last fall, we did a "Whatever Happened To" article on Saga of Lucimia, the group-centered hardcore MMORPG that we've had an eyeball on since 2015 and was originally targeting 2017 for launch (that was later moved, of course, with the most recent window being Q4 2021). The game has weathered multiple controversies along the way, […]
World of Warcraft's Wandering Ancient mount is out, but it's taking some time to roll out
The community was asked, and they answered. World of Warcraft players are finally getting the community-voted mount, the Wandering Ancient, a big walking treant with special seasonal coloration for players to enjoy. All of the various seasonal colors have already been datamined by Wowhead, along with the colors for the upcoming Daisy the Sloth pet as […]
LOTRO's Wildwood testing continues while Angmar offers dev tours
It's another round of testing for Lord of the Rings Online's new mid-level content patch, as SSG announced that Update 29 is once again available for preview on the Bullroarer server. "Beyond the Bree-fields lies the lightly travelled wilderness of the Wildwood. This heavily forested area has drawn the attention of two groups of Free […]
'We will never be the same': Cryptic is adopting a permanent work-from-home policy
A lot of gaming companies, including MMO companies, shifted to working from home when the COVID pandemic began in earnest last year. And one of the "silver linings" of the pandemic was supposed to be making work-from-home more acceptable than ever – that maybe offices would become all but moot. Not a lot of mid-size-and-up […]
The Daily Grind: What's the oldest MMO change or update you're still a little angry about?
I still find Final Fantasy XI's old vague patch notes so annoying ("The potency of certain actions has been adjusted") that I named an entire column after it. It's tongue-in-cheek, but the reference is still there. But even that pales to the people who are still angry about Ultima Online's Trammel, approximately two centuries after that happened. […]
Whatever happened to indie tabletop-inspired MMO World Seed?
Cast your mind back to the middle of 2020, when we first covered World Seed, a newly launched MMO crafted by solo Swedish developer Kim Korte under the Ape Egg banner. The game was notable for being one of the few titles to tinker with the classic tabletop motif for an MMO, with a "reshaping" […]
Animal Crossing New Horizons latest transmedia synergy effort is with Build-A-Bear
Animal Crossing New Horizons has been king of the crossovers for a while now, with partnerships with everything from fast-fashion makeup brands to an IKEA catalogue spread. Now, apparently Nintendo is transmedia synergying it up with… Build-A-Bear. Bonus, this is the second article about bears we've gotten to do today, so thanks ACNH. Build-A-Bear, for […]
Century: Age of Ashes preps for its next March 12 closed beta and showcases gameplay in new trailer
Curious to ride on the back of a dragon and blow the smithereens out of others in aerial PvP dogfights? Then you're going to want to get your toes into the upcoming closed beta test for Century: Age of Ashes, which is due to begin on Friday, March 12th, and run through Sunday, March 21st. […]
Vendetta Online enhances Mac support, unifies KoS timers, and preps for further graphical improvements
It's been a little while since we last peeked in on the internet spaceship MMO Vendetta Online, so we suspect it's about high time to catch up, particularly since the game has seen a pretty steady stream of updates since our last report. Looking back over the past couple of months, we note the game […]
MMO Business Roundup: Germany, lockboxes, Distintegration, and CCP vs. the bots
Welcome back to another quick rundown of MMO and MMO-adjacent industry news. German lockboxes: We've gone through two full cycles of lockbox backlash in the last decade, and I thought we might be about to embark on a third, as yesterday headlines lit up around the industry about Germany's plan to reform abusive monetization in […]
Dauntless introduces private Hunting Grounds and addresses performance issues in latest patch
In terms of content, the most recent patch to Dauntless doesn't add much, but what it does add is still pretty important on the performance and quality-of-life side. The one major feature of the update is the addition of private Hunting Grounds, letting players run through the area solo or with a team of their […]
Final Fantasy XI rolls out new Voracious Resurgence content and a new Odyssey foe
The March version update has arrived for Final Fantasy XI, and that means players can face off against a new foe in Sheol: Gaol as part of the game's Odyssey content. It's a tough battle to enter, as you need to be in a party of players with non-overlapping jobs and everyone needs three jobs at […]
Dark Age of Camelot's leveling event draws 'thousands' of characters
It's Fast Times at Dark Age High these days, as DAOC is in the midst of a 10-day "Catch Up in Caledonia" event to help players pump out those levels as quickly as possible. Broadsword said that the event has been a "huge hit" so far with "thousands of characters" sprinting through the leveling process. […]
World of Tanks Console's Season 5 lets all players earn a heavy Polish tank and a bear tank commander
There's a fresh season in World of Tanks Console and this one is a doozy, as all players, whether they have a Season Pass or not, have the opportunity to get a Polish Tier VIII 50TP Prototype heavy tank. Granted, it's waiting at level 100 so it's likely not going to be a cakewalk to […]
Leaderboard: Are you hyped for WoW Burning Crusade Classic?
I don't think I've ever seen people fight over the details of a classic server as hard as they do for WoW Classic. Dipping into the comments of our WoW Factor and Casually Classic columns shows an incredible array of opinions on the right way to move Classic forward and the motivations behind those preferences. […]
Indie space sandbox Avorion celebrates first anniversary – and 300K sales
Avorion's been on our radar for the last year, almost to the day: It's a "procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks" that launched back in March of last year. Yes, I said launched. A real launch. A real MMO launch. Wild. The indie space sandbox […]
