The Stream Team: Returning to EverQuest II's Reign of Shadows
She never did beat that monstrous Morbigog the Pit Horror in EverQuest II's Chaos Caverns, but Massively OP's MJ does not feel like returning to the pit for the achievement yet. Instead, she'll continue on the road of the Reign of Shadows signature campaign. Tune in live at 8:00 p.m. for the next step in […]
Whatever happened to Maguss, Spiral Knights, and Empyrion?
It's time to find out Whatever Happened To a couple of MMOs that have somehow managed to slip off our radars and need to slide back on again. And as a bonus, some of these are good news! First, Spiral Knights – it's a kid-friendly MMO that's been around forever. And by forever I actually […]
Conan Exiles' new PTS build adds more landmass to Siptah, a spider god religion, and combat updates
I'll be honest with you all, I sort of figured that Conan Exiles already had a spider god-based religion in it, but apparently it does now as part of the latest Testlive build. Oh joy, oh rapture. The PTS update has more than just people bowing down to Zath the Spider-God (which also brings related […]
Final Fantasy XIV kicks off Hatching-tide on April 14
Were you the one person wondering why in the world you couldn't get yourself a chicken suit in Final Fantasy XIV? Did you stay up at night longing for the sweet embrace of a feathery costume for you to wear as you stamp about and make clucking noises? If so, you are one weird player and […]
Massively OP Podcast Episode 316: Talkin' trash with MMO Fallout
Justin, Bree, and MMO Fallout's Connor discuss April fools' day around the MMOverse, FFXIV's patch and PS5 beta, WoW's 9.1, Trove's Switch port, and Elyon's closed beta, with adventures in RuneScape, Wild Terra 2, Magic Legends, WoW Classic, and City of Heroes, plus mailbag topics on starting fresh in WoW Classic and irritating season passes.
Star Citizen promises that some 'highly requested new features' will be added to its roadmap this week
Are you ready to watch some new goalposts move around? Or are you ready for some new features to be iterated upon? There really are two ways one can look at the announcement of roadmap updates made by Star Citizen in its latest weekly community update post. The announcement in question states that this coming […]
RuneScape continues its 20th anniversary mini-quest, updates the Collection Log, and adds more follower pets
"They say that April showers bring May flowers, so we hope none of you have hayfever, because we're anticipating a total deluge of content this month," promises this week's RuneScape post, and while this week's update isn't exactly what you'd call a torrential downpour of content, there's still things for players to look forward to. […]
The Stream Team: Fun for First Contact Day in Star Trek Online
Massively OP's MJ wasn't able to celebrate First Contact Day yesterday (even though it's still 42 years away!), but luckily the Star Trek Online event goes for longer than 24 hours! MJ has her chance to build a rocket and have some fun in Bozeman, Montana. She can also hang out in the Synth wave […]
Diablo II Resurrected is beginning its technical alpha this week
Arguably the most interesting news to come outta BlizzConline earlier this year was confirmation that Diablo II is getting a fully remastered version dubbed Diablo II Resurrected. And soon, we'll find out whether it's awesome or just another Warcraft III Reforged disaster, as Blizzard just announced that the technical alpha is poised to begin. This […]
MMO players are working on a Tabula Rasa rogue server, but it's 'a ways off' from being fully playable
This past Saturday we asked our readers what MMOs they felt should have a rogue server of their own. A great number of people in both the comments and the article's tweet pointed in the direction of Tabula Rasa, the history of which has been covered by our Game Archaeologist. It's one of those Twitter […]
Guild Wars 2's Super Adventure Box, Doritos promo (?), and latest round of PvP tweaks are live
The best thing ever added to Guild Wars 2, the Super Adventure Box, has returned to the game with the Super Adventure Festival. Furbish up your jumping skills and get moving through the retro-game maps only to die to that stupid toad. I hate that guy. The festival this year runs through April 27th, so […]
Choose My Adventure: Getting invested in RIFT's Instant Adventures
So, before we begin, this is what happened with one of the polls: a dead-even split between doing Instant Adventures and following the breadcrumb trail. Thanos is pleased. But more than that, it did give me the opportunity to do what was suggested in the comments and just do both things. So that's what I […]
E3 2021 is officially a digital-only event this year
So it was rumored and so it has come to pass: E3 2021 is happening this year, but it'll be free to everyone and won't require anybody heading out to Los Angeles. The event will run from June 12th through the 15th and will be an all-digital showcase for the gaming industry as a whole, […]
Casually Classic: Three things I'm anticipating (and three I'm dreading) for WoW's Burning Crusade Classic
With the Burning Crusade Classic beta underway, it's hard not to be dwelling on the near future of WoW Classic. Everyone's maneuvering their accounts, leveling up characters, and mentally preparing to take the next step (back) into Outland. As I have no interest in the beta (seriously, unless you're a streamer looking for easy views, […]
World of Warcraft's Noblegarden returns for another egg hunt
The Easter weekend may be behind us, but World of Warcraft's Noblegarden stretches ahead. The annual spring event returns to the fantasy MMO this week, laying out eggs and other surprises for players to find. The event, which goes through April 12th, includes daily quests and hidden eggs that pay out in chocolate currency (the […]
Lord of the Rings Online players create a video memorial for a fallen friend
When one of Lord of the Rings Online's beloved community members passed away, friends and fellow players decided to do something in his honor. To honor the life of 37-year-old André "Nabucodonosor" Girodo, friends from the Arkenstone server got together to celebrate his life and record a tribute video as they processed across the familiar […]
Dual Universe has finally admitted JC Baillie is no longer running Novaquark, but it's mum about who is
This piece has been updated at the end; the original is as follows. The Dual Universe community has been churning over the last couple of days following the news that it has a new leader. According to recent stock filings, the president of Novaquark, which has been Jean-Christophe Baillie for many years, is now Nicolas […]
TERA's console version won't fix its latest patch bugs until the end of April
While the most recent console patch for TERA was welcome for anyone interested in playing an Elin Valkyrie, it also brought with its some pretty notable problems. Some runeglaive skins, for example, are not displaying properly for Elin characters. There's also a quest (Any Lost Stuff?) that's impossible to complete, items that are impossible to use […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMORPG has the worst 'wealth gap' between old and new players?
Folks, I want to talk about money – video game money. I was surfing the City of Heroes subreddit a while back when I bumped into a thread about the "wealth gap" in the game – specifically, on the now-two-year-old rogue servers. The meme needs to be seen. There's so much to unpack here. First, […]
The Stream Team: Birthday bashing and Blackwood prologue with Elder Scrolls Online
Yesterday, The Elder Scrolls Online celebrated its official seventh birthday, but Massively OP's MJ gets to eat cake all week long! And boy, does it look good (where's Wonka Vision when you need it?!) As part of the birthday bash, she'll also be partaking in some good old-fashioned bashing while running through the new Blackwood […]
Massively Uplifting: Gamestonk, gorillas, and giving in MMOs
When it comes to feel-good stories in the general media, coming across a positive one about gaming seems harder than finding a four-leaf clover. Thankfully, you don't need the luck of the Irish to find uplifting stories — you've got Massively Uplifting! And March was brimming with kindness, inclusion, helpfulness, and generosity like a pot […]
Multiplayer deceive-em-ups Project Winter and Among Us get new maps
What better way to screw around with friends than to play a game where the objective is to survive a dangerous map and other players in the team out to sabotage everyone else? Fans will be very familiar with this multiplayer gaming set up thanks to the wildly popular Among Us and the under-the-radar (but […]
Neocron's gritty cyberpunks hunt for pretty Easter eggs
Volunteer-led Neocron is enjoying a spring update, courtesy of Patch 2.5.1, even as the team continue to work on more content for this cyberpunk MMORPG. The patch made some adjustments to various mobs, made a whole lot of weapon balance changes, and a hopeful fix for a game stability issue. The game's Easter egg hunt […]
Star Citizen talks about future plans for player-based ship refuel and repair
As it stands now, filling up the tank and repairing the damage of your internet starship in Star Citizen is an automated matter, but the devs are reportedly working on ways to let players take up these tasks according to a recent Calling All Devs video. Manual refueling will become a necessity in-game once the […]
Shadow's Kiss plans a Steam early access launch this summer, ends test builds due to lack of patcher support
Talk about rising from the dead: Shadow's Kiss, the vampire-filled horror MMO that we last looked towards in a Whatever Happened To post in June 2020, has suddenly announced that it's ready for an early access launch on Steam this summer. "Originally, we had not wanted to go with Steam for some logistical and financial […]
Phantasy Star Online 2 teases bosses, concept art, and character races for New Genesis
Most of the news about Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis has either come from the game's official site or from the Rappy.commu Twitter account (which is in Japanese), but as of this past February leading up to now, the global PSO2 Twitter account has taken to localizing Rappy's reveals and sharing them for everyone […]
New UK research finds opening lootboxes is 'structurally and psychologically akin' to gambling
The mountain of research-based evidence against lootboxes has had another leaflet added to the pile. A recent report from researchers at the universities of Plymouth and Wolverhampton in the UK has concluded that opening gaming lockboxes is "structurally and psychologically akin" to gambling. The research, commissioned by the GambleAware charity, analyzed 13 previous studies into […]
Steampunk MMO Noah's Heart aims for a summer 2021 beta
Last summer we delivered to you many precisely crafted words regarding Noah's Heart, a steampunk mobile MMO being developed by Archosaur Games, which is known for a ton of MMOs, including Jade Dynasty and Swordsman Online. Players intrigued by airships and grand promises have been left waiting for the actual product, but there may be […]
Book of Travels previews the different means of transport in the game
While Book of Travels is about walking around the world to discover things, that doesn't mean that world isn't without modes of transportation. Several means of larger transport were outlined in a recent post to highlight some of the ways players can get around when they don't feel like walking. One of the primary modes […]
Valheim can now be played in VR thanks to a modder
Bless the modder community, making games we enjoy even better. That could certainly be said for the VHVR mod, which lets players of Valheim experience the Viking-themed survival sandbox in VR using OpenVR and SteamVR Unity integration. VHVR is the work of Brandon "manicmoose99" Mousseau, letting players explore their landscape in stereoscopic 3-D with either […]
Fight or Kite: For Honor is still the only viking vs. samurai vs. knight game for me
Many moons ago, in the simpler times of 2017, Ubisoft delivered a fantastical game that sought to bring a close to the question all historians have argued for centuries: Who would win in a fight between a viking, a samurai, and a knight? I was extremely hyped at launch for the game. In all honesty, […]
Destiny 2 discusses adjustments to armor mod vendors and certain weapon perks coming in Season 14
The informational run-up to Season 14 of Destiny 2 rolls on in Bungie's latest weekly newsletter, calling out a couple of specific adjustments to armor mod vendors and the Celerity and Bottomless Grief weapon perks. Season 14 will see Ada-1 return to the Tower, where she'll sell two different types of randomly chosen armor mods […]
Wisdom of Nym: Reacting to the latest Final Fantasy XIV live letter
The one down side to Square's most recent live letter was the simple reality that it didn't get to deliver on the tradition of revealing a date. Normally part of the fun of these letters is finding out exactly when the next patch is landing for Final Fantasy XIV, but we've known the date for […]
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen discusses tweaks to health, mana, loot, and enemy DPS, shares a video of class abilities
A recent livestream from Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen had a lot to say, and none of it was associated with NFT minting. Instead, the devs offered a lot of talk about balancing and progression, as well as a look at some class abilities among other things. As we reported before, the stream brought in […]
Omar Gonzalez, a chief architect of World of Warcraft Classic, has departed Blizzard for Dreamhaven
If you're a fan of WoW Classic, you have Omar Gonzalez to thank for it. You may not have known about that, but it's true; Gonzalez was basically the man who locked himself away to find a way to integrate classic data with the modern World of Warcraft client, proving that the project was possible in the […]
City of Titans releases Mac avatar builder, improved menu system
The big spring release has arrived for City of Titans, and while the metropolis' boundaries remain closed to players, this patch represents another stride toward release. The headlining news here is that the Mac version of the avatar builder is now available (as the team is developing a Mac client in addition to the PC […]
Daybreak's owner Enad Global 7 acquires MMORPG publisher Innova for $109M
Enad Global 7 is once again in the news for us here at MOP with yet another buyout, this time regarding its February 25th acquisition of Russian publisher Innova to the tune of $109.8M. Innova, readers will recall, is the company that operates the 4Game digital platform and publishes a variety of titles for the […]
The Daily Grind: What do you think about 'exclusive' zones in MMORPGs?
I want to talk about exclusive zones today – specifically, Guild Wars 2's lounges, something I haven't seen in many other MMOs at all. Essentially, they're special themed maps that act as alternate hub cities, meaning they have pretty much all of the NPCs and craft centers and vendors you'd expect out of one of […]
MMO Week in Review: Little hope left for Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer
Cyberpunk 2077 all but killed off any remaining hope that a multiplayer version is still on deck, thanks to a corporate vision that will offer nonspecific "online experiences" even as the company "reconsiders" multiplayer for its cyberpunk title. In happier MMO news, Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV teased their next big content drops, we […]
World of Warcraft outlines updates being made to improve PvP matchmaking
If your experience in the Arena of World of Warcraft has been a little odd in relation to gaining rating, it's not just in your head. According to a developer post, more players are taking part in the Arena in Shadowlands than ever before, which is causing some unintended effects at the top of the […]
The MOP Up: Skyforge takes Switch players to the moon
Earlier this year, Nintendo Switch users were treated to a full-fledged MMORPG with the launch of Skyforge on the platform. Now, Skyforge is taking Switch players to the moon of Thea with a massive update on April 13th. "Shadow Of Aelion is planned to launch alongside various technical fixes to reduce the amount of crashes […]
Magic Legends provides a video overview of the Dimir Assassin class
Let's ignore the fact that the Dimir Assassin class of Magic Legends is an exercise in PWE and Cryptic's overreaching in lockbox monetization for a moment and take some time to appreciate just what this class is capable of, especially now that it's no longer stuffed in a lockbox and is instead awaiting as part […]
Massively on the Go: Mother Nintendo should make Niantic Earthbound
So, Nintendo and Niantic will work together for more AR games based on Nintendo IPs. No great surprise from me, as I'd mentioned years ago that there were other IPs that would make a better AR game than Harry Potter, and two of the five of them were Nintendo. While I didn't predict Pikmin, the […]
Guild Wars 2 updates legal documentation related to third-party program use, DMCA counter-notices, and more
Ah, online game legal documentation. We all know this as the wall o' text that we often scroll by en route to logging in to a game for at least the first time, but players of Guild Wars 2 may want to pay more attention to these set of rules, as they've seen a variety […]
One Shots: Riding the dino to the prom
You think you were all decked out in finery and had a spiffy ride the last time you went to a formal dance? You ain't got nothing on Skorry! "Spring has arrived in Final Fantasy XIV, and so it was time for my Ishgardian princess to expand her wardrobe a bit," Skorry said. "An FC-mate […]
The Daily Grind: Do you wait until after launch to start a new MMO?
Launch day! The date when everyone is talking about a new MMO, there's a mass of new players, overcrowding, disconnections, and all of the bugs are being discovered! Yes, launch is usually a tumultuous time for any new MMO, and there's something to be said for taking a look at all that tumult and deciding […]
Make My MMO: Elite's Odyssey is a beautiful mess
This week in crowdfunded MMOs, our own Stick and Rudder columnist Chris got his paws all over Elite Dangerous' Odyssey alpha this week, finding the alpha label to be extremely accurate indeed, with plenty of rough edges, balance issues, and a weak test intro – but also one with enormous potential. "Odyssey is a new […]
Lord of the Rings Online leaks Brawler class details
Trust MMORPG players to poke around where developers wish they wouldn't, especially when it comes to prying all of the secrets out of upcoming patches. Thanks to time spent on Lord of the Rings Online's test server, online detectives uncovered a wealth of information about the upcoming Brawler class, even as it's still in development. […]
Torchlight III unveils the new Cursed Captain class arriving with the next update
Pirates and curses just go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so it's not necessarily a surprise that the Cursed Captain is a thing. What might be a surprise is that the Cursed Captain is a new class that's coming to Torchlight III as part of the ARPG's next update, which is due to arrive […]
The Stream Team: Astroneer's second great scrap event
The EXO Salvage Initiative has returned to Astroneer, and Massively OP's MJ is ready to clean up the planets. What? The fact that there are cool new cosmetic rewards is merely a coincidence! Cleaning up is just a rewarding experience. And for any new folks, that includes nabbing last year's rewards on the way to […]