YouTube video series hilariously lampoons MMORPG tropes
If we're being frank here, we have to admit that a whole lot of the structure and interactions of MMORPGs are quite silly if they were applied to real life. Closely examining the skewed logic of these games is a rich field for parody, and fortunately there is one man who is up to the […]
Project Gorgon brings out its Attack of the World Bosses event with new signposts and fewer adds
Eager to go fight some world bosses in Project Gorgon? The Attack of the World Bosses event is kind of the time to do that, with players tasked with running around and killing a quintet of bosses spawning across the game world. But the latest version of the event has some changes, starting with boss respawn […]
The Feast of Swords returns to Final Fantasy XI
Despite its name, the Feast of Swords in Final Fantasy XI does not actually allow you to eat any swords. You will be given no opportunities to much on delicious brined sabers, slow-cooked scimitars, or country-fried claymores. If you consequently decide not to take place out of deep protest, your actions will be respected, but it […]
Warframe rolls out free skins and four weeks of 8th birthday celebrations
Even MOP's MJ did a doubletake when Warframe announced its eighth anniversary celebrations last night. That's because Warframe's launch month is March, not April. Then again, Warframe is still technically in beta and never had a launch. Eh, dates are hard and who really cares when it's an excuse for a party? Yes, Warframe is […]
Amazon's New World adds achievements and updated faction PvP to the alpha
As if to reassure everyone that Amazon Game Studios really is planning on launching New World rather than canning it like everything else, the team has launched another alpha patch today. At the heart of this update is a new ice-themed gauntlet for casters, new expeditions called Lazarus Instrumentality and Dynasty Shipyard, updated milestone rewards, […]
Massively OP Podcast Episode 318: Middle-earth no more
Justin and Bree discuss Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO's cancelation, LOTRO's Bilbo patch, FFXIV's 5.5, and SWG Legends' Bespin expansion, with adventures in WoW Classic, Guild Wars 2, Albion Online, and Cozy Grove, plus mailbag topics on ugly duckling MMOs, reconciling immersion, and superhero MMOs.
EVE Online highlights how industrial players provide the fuel for the sandbox MMO's wider wars
As any player of EVE Online will tell you, waging galactic-sized wars in the game requires a lot of resources — especially when those wars rage on for 41 weeks. It's the job of the industrial players of EVE to keep that war machine fueled and chugging, and those efforts were highlighted by CCP Games […]
Jeff Kaplan leaves Blizzard Entertainment and his position as director of Overwatch
Everything is going super great at Blizzard Entertainment, and the proof of this can be found in the newest announcement of employment shakeups. Jeff Kaplan, a veteran of the studio who was until today serving as game director of Overwatch, has apparently departed Blizzard after 19 years. Given that this is not even the first time this […]
Interview: Mortal Online 2 CEO on stress testing, persistent plans, and the MMO market
It's not every day that I actually get an answer, let alone a number, when I ask an MMORPG developer how many people showed up for a stress test. But that's exactly what Mortal Online 2's Henrik Nyström offered up in response to our candid interview with him this past week, and now it's got […]
City of Heroes' Homecoming buffs travel powers and adds tour guide missions in today's i27p2 update
Back in March, we covered a new patch that had just gone in testing for the test server for City of Heroes' Homecoming rogue servers. (Yes, emulators with proper test servers. It's a weird period in the MMO genre.) Anyhow, that patch is finally live for all Homecoming players today, and it includes some hefty […]
Choose My Adventure: Further group adventures (that weren't IAs) in RIFT
Once again, the polls from last week were a split between people saying I should queue for normal dungeons and others saying I should just roll around in Hammerknell. So, I elected to try them both out for this week's run through RIFT, seeing as some of the comments granted me the impression that finding […]
Flameseeker Chronicles: Possible futures for Guild Wars 2's strikes and dragon response missions
Guild Wars 2's Icebrood Saga gave us a new type of endgame group content starting with its prologue chapter: Strike Missions. Each episode introduced one or more of these mini-raids, up until the release of Champions, which in turn introduced us to dragon response missions, which became the new formula for delivering both new instanced, […]
Chris Metzen's Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent Kickstarter funded in 11 minutes flat
Remember a month ago when former World of Warcraft VIP Chris Metzen announced a new Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting and book called Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent? It went up on Kickstarter this morning, and if you blinked, you missed the funding, as it took only 11 minutes to fund and is still going […]
Swords of Legends Online opens preorders with minimum $39.99 buy-in for closed beta
If you've somehow missed the deluge of class reveal trailers from Swords of Legends Online the last two weeks – or you can't be arsed to watch them all – then good news for you: Gameforge, Wangyuan Shengtang, and Aurogon have released a new video smooshing all the highlights of the Reaper, Berserker, Bard, Spellsword, […]
Casually Classic: Four alternative day one strategies for WoW Classic's Burning Crusade
OK, real talk time, people. Is there anyone out there that, knowing the zone design of Burning Crusade and Blizzard's track record with launches, isn't anticipating an unholy mother of a mess when TBC Classic releases? We're talking about funneling thousands of primed characters through the Dark Portal and into a single zone. It's going […]
Path of Exile exploit banwave hits one of the game's main streamers, furor over accessibility ban caused by a troll
Today in "garbage members of the Path of Exile community" news, we've got a couple of unfortunate instances to report from the multiplayer ARPG. First off, a number of players have been banned from the game due to an exploit in Ultimatum that allowed them to generate excessive rewards. Among those 20 players was Empyrian, […]
Guild Wars 2 Judgment episode is unleashed April 27 – here's the new trailer
Back in March, ArenaNet hinting that the fourth and final episode of Guild Wars 2's Icebrood Saga would roll out in late April, and now we've got a hard date, as the studio just announced this morning that Judgment is upon us next week on April 27th. "With ally Braham, norn of prophecy, on the […]
Playable Worlds' MMO will leverage cloud gaming to simulate a world and be playable on multiple devices
Over the past few weeks, Playable Worlds' Raph Koster has been kicking out lots of blog posts about what his studio's game is aiming to become — in fact there's been so many of these posts that we've started to pool together a list. While we still have no concrete details on what this dream […]
WoW Classic lets you store world buffs for later, pushes Burning Crusade beta forward
A late-cycle patch for WoW Classic hit the servers today with a couple of significant changes to how buffs work in the game. First of all, spell batching has been removed to make player abilities more snappy, and buffs are now prioritized to keep the most important ones on player characters if the buff limit […]
The Daily Grind: How do you occupy yourself when your MMO is offline all day?
As promised, Daybreak's entire suite of MMORPGs is offline for 24 hours today, which means DCUO, EverQuest, and PlanetSide 2 fans are going to be looking for something to do. While some folks retreat to Twitter to crack 420 jokes (go ahead, it's bound to happen), I'm hoping y'all have something better to do. A […]
The Stream Team: Facing Path of Exile's Ultimatum for the first time
After it had such a rocky launch, Massively OP's MJ is glad she waited to jump into Path of Exile's new Ultimatum league for the first time. But she can't hold out forever, so she's ready to jump in. Will things be more settled now? and just how much will she risk? Tune in live […]
Wurm Online previews its upcoming animal update with donkeys
Tired of plodding around in Wurm Online on a cow? Then we've got good news for you because here come donkeys. Yes, with the game's upcoming animal update, donkeys will be available for players and can serve as mounts for non-premium players. There's also the distinct possibility that your horses and donkeys can wind up […]
The Cycle previews its updated UI design
Fans of The Cycle will get to enjoy a new and improved UI in the not-too-distant future, and the latest development diary on the game is all about showing off what's changing with the user interface while also discussing some concurrent gameplay and system-wide changes. For example, the game's seasonal pass is being reworked to […]
Destiny 2 brings back the Guardian Games on April 20 with revamped scoring and a new playlist
Life in Destiny 2 already feels pretty competitive, what with all of the PvP and world first raid races and running to the highest Power levels possible, but now that competition is getting another layer added on as the Guardian Games are returning this coming Tuesday, April 20th. For those who missed out on how […]
Aion EU opens Pangaea, adds the Labyrinth, and reworks Legion contribution in Update 7.9
If it feels like you've seen this headline before it's because you kind of have, except this time around the previously announced update to the EU version of Aion is now officially live for players of the region. Of course, the content that's arriving in Update 7.9 isn't different: There's still a new instance in […]
MapleStory is opening the luxurious Hotel Maple to celebrate its 16th anniversary
No, unfortunately for fans of MapleStory, the Hotel Maple is not going to be a thing in meatspace. What it is going to be is the location for the MMO's 16th anniversary event, offering up some glitz, glamor, and a taste of the high life. In-game anyway. Entering the Hotel Maple requires players to have […]
ArcheAge developer XL Games announces mobile sandbox MMO Moonlight Sculptor
Developer XL Games, which readers will know are the folks behind ArcheAge, and publisher Kakao Games are set to unleash a new mobile sandbox MMORPG onto the world. Say hello to Moonlight Sculptor, a new MMO based on the light novel The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor, which is arriving to the globe in May 2021 and […]
Kickstarted VR MMORPG Ilysia is finally nearing alpha
Last fall, we covered the successful Kickstarter of VR MMORPG Ilysia, which pulled in over $150,000 to become the second-biggest Kickstarted MMO of 2020 (topped only by Wagadu Chronicles). Team 21 Studio studio pitched Ilysia as a traditional MMO "inspired by classic MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest" where gamers can "experience the […]
Sony changes course and announces the PlayStation 3 and PSP Vita stores will remain operational
Remember at the end of March when Sony announced that the PlayStation 3, PSP, and PSP Vita stores would shut down this year? Fans were pretty unhappy, especially as it meant that buying things like DLC and otherwise rare games would suddenly get a lot harder. And in the wake of the response, Sony has […]
Fight or Kite: My mobile MMO experience peaked in 2008 with Parallel Kingdom
It's a distant memory now, but in 2008 I played a mobile MMO that completely and totally had me hooked. I remember sitting on the bus, on my way to class, phone in hand and eyes glued to the map. Click here and smash this deer there. Suddenly, my nemesis appeared, which in this game […]
Albion Online buffs matchmaking, loot, and accessibility for its new hellgates
It's patch day for Albion Online, and if you were one of the players fussed over the state of the hellgates introduced in the base Call to Arms patch, then you're going to be happy with the changes today, as it tweaks matchmaking, makes the gates more accessible to more players, and buffs their rewards. […]
Wisdom of Nym: First impressions of Final Fantasy XIV's 5.5 content
This is a bit of an unusual case. I can't think of any patch in recent memory that's been so split between the quality of its content and the quality of its storytelling, to the point that I almost considered changing how I usually split up this particular column. Ultimately, I decided to go with […]
Book of Travels explains how gear improves your journeys
For most MMOs, a player's gear is a collection of stat points that accumulate to increase combat effectiveness. But for Book of Travels, gear is far more varied and useful than providing swordplay assists. In the game's latest dev blog, the team explains how items, artifacts, and objects will improve your journey in a myriad […]
Genshin Impact arrives to PS5, adds player housing, and brings new quests in April 28 update
Next week's update is bringing quite a bit to Genshin Impact players. On Wednesday, April 28th, the multiplayer RPG will introduce the usual goodies like new story quests involving Zhongli and Noelle, some new characters to shoot for like the Cryo-powered claymore user Eula and the Pyro-wielding Yanfei, and some new enemies to face in […]
Elder Scrolls Online elaborates on Update 30's tweaked proc sets and champion system
While Elder Scrolls Online's Update 30 is still a little ways out, ZeniMax wants to prepare players for a couple of significant combat adjustments that will come with the patch. The first of these involves addressing overpowered "proc sets" in PvP that are prioritizing gear over builds. The studio will be changing such gear to […]
Swords of Legends Online shows off its Spearmaster class
If you're looking forward to Swords of Legends Online but want to be contrary about what sort of weaponry you use to poke at things even though the game is named after swords, may we suggest… spears? That's the whole trick behind the Spearmaster class, the latest one to be revealed. What does it do? […]
Dual Universe promises less tedium, more meaningful PvP, and prettier graphics in latest dev blog
Followers of Dual Universe have been fed a series of dev blogs outlining the future of the in-development sci-fi building sandbox, with the first two posts talking about the team size of Novaquark and the second discussing dev costs. In the third and final post of the series, we get a look at where development […]
Lord of the Rings Online introduces a line of Bilbo Baggins quests
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! It's a LOTRO patch day! That's right: Update 29.5 arrived on the servers rather early in the week, bringing with it a brand-new level-agnostic questline called The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins. All players can grab these 10 missions for free this week (non-subscribers are going to have to pay […]
The Daily Grind: What's the most unique experience mechanic in MMOs?
Bhagpuss over on MMO blog Inventory Full recently penned a piece about an experience mechanic in EverQuest II that I had completely forgotten existed: experience vials. They essentially allow players to store up experience and move it to other toons. That part isn't super unique; Ultima Online, for example, has long had a similar mechanic […]
MMO Week in Review: So LOTRO is breathing easier right about now
It's pretty rare that a story that broke over the weekend is the most interesting thing to have happened all week unless it's a treat from Daybreak, but we've got one for you: Yesterday, Amazon admitted that it and Tencent-owned Leyou have canceled the Lord of the Rings MMORPG that they've been working on for […]
MMO Synergy: The Offspring, NERF, Monopoly, and Evangelion
Who doesn't love a good round of corporate synergy? No, no, don't answer that, just cruise on to the next sentence. Today we're going to round up a few interesting crossovers and promotions between online games and other entities. We'll start with the relatively new Dragon Raja, an Archosaur title that's hoping to ride the […]
The MOP Up: Apex Legends racks up 100 million players
For some games, the key metric to brag by is the total number of players that have come in through one's doors. And if we're to look at this number alone, then Apex Legends has a great reason to boast this month, as the title just crossed 100 million total users. More plans for the […]
Perfect World Games unveils Perfect New World, a new PC, mobile, and console MMO set to launch globally
Apparently, there's going to be a lot more Perfect World going on sometime in the near (or distant) future. During a Perfect World Game Strategy press conference, Perfect World Games announced the release of Perfect New World, a new MMORPG based on the Perfect World IP that's coming to consoles, PC, and mobile internationally. The […]
Global Chat: Is fast travel a boon or a bust for MMORPGs?
While I let you chew on that slightly clickbaity title there, I urge you to check out an essay on Bits & Pieces about the history of fast travel in video games (which, of course, includes MMOs). "Certainly the languid pace of travel in a game like World of Warcraft before its expansions, as well as other […]
Former designer for WoW, StarCraft II, and Diablo IV announces his departure from Blizzard
If you're a fan of live or developing Blizzard titles like Diablo IV, World of Warcraft, or StarCraft II, you were also perhaps a fan of developer David Kim, who worked as a lead systems designer, principle game designer, and game balance designer of those titles respectively. With that in mind, Kim's 14-year tenure has […]
One Shots: Spring is sprung
You seriously are not prepared for the onslaught of pure spring colors waiting for you after the break, so just make sure you have a loved one ready to catch you as you fall backwards in shock. Spring is sprung, and Vincent has captured its full glory in Final Fantasy XIV as part of what […]
The Daily Grind: Which MMO suffers the worst patch-day issues?
So Final Fantasy XIV's latest patch literally broke the ability to visit players on other servers, which is sort of an inauspicious start when the game is literally planning to make that feature even more far-ranging with the next expansion. Still, this is by far the unusual outcome, not the standard one. And the days […]
Corepunk's second Q&A session reveals a strange take on PvP design
The questions keep coming for fantasy-scifi MMORPG Corepunk, and the devs keep dishing answers back. For a second week in a row, Artificial Core compiled a whole bunch of fan questions for the upcoming MMO and answered them to varying degrees of satisfaction. Topics with this Q&A included guild size limits, enchanting, backpack sizes, cross-server […]
TERA and PUBG publisher Krafton files for preliminary approval of its IPO in South Korea
At the beginning of the year, we pointed out that Krafton, the games publisher that handles titles like TERA and PUBG, was getting ready to go public soon. The company has since moved one step closer to that reality as it has filed for its preliminary approval in South Korea. The new IPO stands to […]
Amazon and Leyou have canceled that unfinished Lord of the Rings MMO
For the last few years, we've been covering a new Lord of the Rings MMO that was a collaboration between Tencent's Leyou Technologies and Amazon Game Studios. Back in November, leaked documents showed that the game was meant to be in playable prototype form by this coming June, with a closed beta in the fall […]
