Final Fantasy XIV reveals patch 5.55's new items and goes on sale
Patch 5.55 for Final Fantasy XIV has been out for just about a week now, and that means players have had a chance to get a sense of what's in the patch by this point. (Relic weapons, for one thing.) Still, just in case you had been waiting on it, the official site has updated the […]
Jagex Interview: Everything you need to know about RuneScape's mobile edition
With the insane response to Old School RuneScape's mobile launch back in 2018, the pressure was on for Jagex to deliver an equally deserving product for RuneScape proper. It looks like those efforts are about to come to fruition with this summer as RuneScape Mobile's going through its beta paces on both Android and iOS […]
The Wagadu Chronicles recaps progress on biomes, UI, and tabletop RPG
Have you been keeping up with what's happening in The Wagadu Chronicles' development? No? Well that's OK because the devs at Twin Drums have put together a helpful Twitter thread and an update blog on Kickstarter that summarize the moves made in the studio and the game over the course of this past May. In […]
Choose My Adventure: The slow setup for adventure in Star Wars Galaxies Legends
This week's Choose My Adventure probably had more preliminary preparation than any other game I've had. Most of the time I tend to fly by the seat of my pants to varying levels of success (read: failure), but it was impressed upon me early on that my time in Star Wars Galaxies Legends would be […]
Elder Scrolls Online's Blackwood is officially live on PC, Mac, and Stadia – here's the launch trailer
As promised, The Elder Scrolls Online has gone live on PC, Mac, and Stadia with its Blackwood chapter and sideloading update 30. Console players will be waiting until June 8th to leap in and until June 14th for the Console Enhanced version. The highlight of Blackwood, of course, is the new companion system, which essentially […]
Stick and Rudder: Elite Dangerous Odyssey is not bad, but it is broken
All right. I get it. I understand. The Elite: Dangerous community is pretty rancorous right now, and I can't say that I blame them. The Odyssey expansion arrived with all of the grace of a comet's strike, and people absolutely have a right to be upset about that. I don't know that I'm in that […]
CD Projekt Red sees profits plummet in 2021 thanks to Cyberpunk 2077 woes
We reported yesterday that Cyberpunk 2077 had lost its top director, Adam Badowski, but as it happens, the latest news from the game is even grimmer: Apparently, while the game performed well in its launch quarter at the tail end of last year in spite of all its problems, sales have plummeted to the degree that […]
The Burning Crusade is live today for WoW Classic
No more preparation allowed for the WoW Classic crowd because it's time to once again dive headlong into the broken realm of Outland as The Burning Crusade releases today! Everything old is new again, indeed. Yes, there's even a helpful recap of global release times available for players who are already enjoying the pre-patch and are […]
Swords of Legends Online begins CBT 2 this week with faction PvP, English VO, and harder dungeons
As of 8:00 a.m. EDT today, the second closed beta test round for Swords of Legends Online kicked off, and there has been a wide swath of changes applied to this round. A number of new features are available for testing, while existing features have seen several tweaks. One of the bigger additions is the […]
Tamriel Infinium: Elder Scrolls Online's Rich Lambert on Blackwood, companions, lore, and more
Elder Scrolls Online PC fans are in for a treat today as the MMORPG is dropping its biggest content blast of the year in the form of the Blackwood chapter and update 30. The highlight, of course, is the new map and companion system, but there's loads more to the updates. We had a chance […]
Elite Dangerous Distant Worlds 3 postponed indefinitely as malaise over Odyssey sets in
It's no secret that the launch of Elite Dangerous Odyssey has been poorly handled, with a wide swath of errors and issues plaguing the initial launch and a whole lot of unhappy players bemoaning the update's changes to UI and planets among other things. In fact, part of one Elite podcast points to abyssmal community […]
Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis sets formal launch date for June 9
You knew Phantasy Star Online 2 was launching New Genesis in June. You knew this because SEGA said so. But you didn't know it was June 9th. Now you know that too, as SEGA announced bright and early this morning that June 9th is the magic day. "Due to the PSO2:NGS launch, the scheduled maintenance […]
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs you've dramatically changed your mind about?
I will never forget that when I first started playing City of Heroes back in 2004, my guild an I didn't last but a month or two. While I loved the idea of the game and spent hours obsessively planning out characters, in practice the game at launch was a slow, grindy, punishing mess, and […]
The Stream Team: Acquiring a first Ascendancy in Path of Exile
Of all the time Massively OP's MJ has played Path of Exile, she has never once acquired an Ascendancy class. Today she'll rectify that; she's starting down the path toward her first Ascendancy and all the power that affords. Can she finally get one before PoE 2 comes out? Join us live at 8:00 p.m. […]
Iron Harvest launches Operation Eagle expansion, goes on sale
Iron Harvest 1920's first expansion, Operation Eagle, arrived this past week, bringing with it the American Usonia faction, new flying units, and a new story campaign. Usonia sets itself apart from previous factions with a heavy emphasis on air units and area of effect attacks, with virtually all of their mechs dealing splash damage over […]
Is there a long future in Star Wars Galaxies server emulation?
With high profile news updates like the trainwreck launch of the hybrid CU/NGE rogue server and the addition of Bespin to the Legends rogue server, now seems like a pretty good time to reintroduce yourself to Star Wars Galaxies. But are these developments running on borrowed time? Is there a point where this much noise […]
Star Citizen grants a look at the process of creating AI behavior
As much as MMOs are about other players in a shared area doing things and lending a sense of ambience to a game world, NPCs also bring life to things as they mull about doing a variety of tasks. That NPC and AI behavior was the subject of last Friday's devstream from Star Citizen, which […]
The Soapbox: Reconsidering social media as an MMORPG
At GDC 2011, Raph Koster gave a talk in which he said, "Games are fundamentally social media and always have been." You can watch starting at around 58:18 in the video from back then, and it's admittedly a bit lofty. As a trained educator myself, I don't agree that simply sharing information and knowledge is […]
Fight or Kite: Chivalry 2 is a blood-soaked, action-packed experience of absolute mayhem
Grab your sword. Grab your board. Grab a pile of horse poop. Better yet, grab the head of your enemies rolling on the ground and lob that at your foes. Whatever, you do, grab something and get ready: Chivalry 2 is here! Like a wet fart when all you were expecting was a silent killer, […]
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV's last stretch of Bozja is pretty good, but a little annoying
For various reasons, it doesn't seen as if it's been only a week since the last Final Fantasy XIV patch. (All right, it's technically been just under a week if you want to be pedantic, but you know what I mean.) I attribute this almost entirely to Zadnor, which is… basically just Bozja but more, […]
ARK Survival Evolved releases an ultimate edition, confirms Genesis Part 2 launch date of June 2
The saga of ARK: Survival Evolved will be closing extremely soon — at least in a narrative sense — as Studio Wildcard has confirmed its Genesis Part 2 expansion will be arriving on Wednesday, June 2nd. The expansion, which stars Doctor Who's David Tennant and The Wheel of Time's Madeleine Madden, promises to be a […]
CD Projekt Red assigns a new game director to Cyberpunk 2077
There's some new leadership blood pumped into the veins of Cyberpunk 2077. The RPG's original director, Adam Badowski, has reportedly stepped down from his position in order to "focus on other leadership duties at the Polish company," leaving him to be replaced by Gabriel Amatangelo, who joined CDPR in 2020 and was formerly the game's […]
Do you hear what I hear? Trove is getting a Bard class!
One thing is for certain: Out of all of the MMOs that Gamigo bought off of the now-defunct Trion Games, Trove is the one getting the most love at present. Not only is the title coming to Nintendo Switch this summer, but it's also busting out a brand-new class for players to enjoy. In fact, […]
The Daily Grind: Have you ever given up sleep for MMOs?
There's a saying I always try to remind myself of when it comes to staying up late to do anything (but especially to play games): Don't stay up late to do anything you wouldn't get up early to do. And that rule of thumb works great right up until… you start getting up early to […]
MMO Week in Review: Daybreak, BlizzCon, and Ashes of Creation
It was a strange sort of businessy sort of week in MMO land, as Daybreak's games got a ticket to 4Game, Blizzard canceled BlizzCon again, New World tried to explain its monetization, and Ashes of Creation lost its lead designer. Meanwhile, we dipped our toe into Swords of Legends Online and learned NCsoft is go […]
Xsyon's ranged combat update is live, plans to leave early access after a month of updates
Specially engineered apparatuses meant to fire carefully fashioned sharpened sticks at enemies in order to engage in combat at great distances have been applied to Xsyon. Or to put it another way, ranged combat is live. Yes, now players of the sandbox MMORPG can use bows and arrows on one another. As was mentioned previously, […]
The MOP Up: Overwatch teases a huge new feature
Something big is coming to Overwatch — and no, we don't know what it is just yet. For the game's fifth anniversary, Blizzard teased an unnamed feature that's coming to the game: "One large feature will be announced somewhere in the timeframe between soon and really soon." Speculation ensues. This came as part of a […]
Path of Exile Ultimatum statistics and more game mechanic Q&A answers
Players of Path of Exile have been very busy indeed in the Ultimatum League according to some stats shared by the devs. The data provided shows that hundreds of thousands of Ultimatum encounters were started across all levels, with some pretty high completion rates overall except for the level 78+ bracket, which sees Wave 10 […]
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go's June events bring slowpoke days and poison pvp buffs
Ah yes, summer. Relaxing on beaches, letting shellfish pokemon bite your tail or head to cause evolution, maybe move to an England-inspired territory and gain a poison typing… sounds like a normal summer for the slowpoke family, but also just a bit of what's happening in June for Pokemon Go players. We're seeing shakeups for […]
Camelot Unchained details caravan mechanics and biomes, 'expects' a full game experience by summer's end
Camelot Unchained is has once more delivered its monthly newsletter, this one taking a deep dive into the game's caravan system, or vox rota, as it's referred to in-game. Rota are floating disc platforms that can follow a route placed by players on the ground to help ferry crates of goods from point A to […]
One Shots: A blast from the past
As a kid who grew up on the original series of Star Trek, the nostalgia is strong with this opening screenshot here from Star Trek Online. Forget grumpy Discovery; give me the classic Enterprise crew any day of the week. "I still enjoyed the TOS expansion in STO more than anything else I've ever done […]
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs you're bitter over?
Hello, my name is Eliot, and I'm still bitter over Star Wars: The Old Republic. This is a game I played and enjoyed at launch, and it was a title I had a lot of high hopes for… but unfortunately, it never really effectively delivered on the promise that it had sold itself on, quickly devolving […]
Ashes of Creation provides a look at early siege area gameplay
Previously, Ashes of Creation had only provided a slice of siege area gameplay, specifically focusing on fighting world boss dragons. Now, the devs of the PvP MMORPG are providing a full look at siege gameplay in their latest video preview. The footage in question is noted as being "very EARLY" (emphasis theirs), but it does […]
Perfect World hosts a Steam sale to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of America
If you like getting deals on games and helping charity at the same time (aka the Humble Bundle donation method), then you'll perhaps be interested in Perfect World Entertainment's Steam sale, which is offering some deep discounts on a variety of its games in order to benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. From […]
Get pumped for WoW Classic's Burning Crusade with lore refresh and music video
It's time. Well, it's nearly time. After nearly a decade-and-a-half, The Burning Crusade is coming once more to World of Warcraft — this time to WoW Classic. And as players scramble to get to level 58, stockpile consumables, and theorycraft their best routes through Outland, some also need a refresh on that actual story that's […]
The Stream Week: Slaughter Saturday during the free week of Conan Exiles
Conan Exiles Isle of Siptah just fully launched on pc and consoles, and as part of the hooplah folks can play the game for free on Steam now through 1:00 p.m. EDT on June 3rd. Another part involves exclusive rewards and a community challenge with stretch goals for rewards. Massively OP's MJ wants to help […]
LOTRO Legendarium: How the landscape difficulty slider is changing the rules of the game
For a long time now, one of the chief complaints about Lord of the Rings Online has been that… it's too easy. Players have noted that, for the most part, the landscape content is a breeze to navigate, especially once you've started to outpace it in levels. I don't think this is always the case […]
New World offers a guided tour through lush Windsward
Will summer 2021 culminate with one of the biggest MMORPG releases in years? There are great hopes resting on the largely unproven Amazon Game Studios and its flagship New World. And while it's too soon to make judgments — we'll wait until the beta for that — at least we can embark on a virtual […]
WRUP: New compound instruments edition
Guitarlophone: How many times have you played an electric guitar and just been stymied by how much the stupid thing isn't a xylophone, too? Now you don't have to worry about it! See, the xylophone is just swinging from the bottom of the guitar, so you can play it with your knees! As a bonus, […]
The Daily Grind: What's your pie-in-the-sky wish list for MMO features?
A tab-targeting combat system for Elder Scrolls Online. Real player housing for World of Warcraft. Text chat and guilds for Fallout 76. A simplified and engaging legendary item system for Lord of the Rings Online. Foundry 2.0 for Star Trek Online and Neverwinter. A whole new questing zone for Secret World Legends. That's just part […]
Betawatch: Dreamworld's alpha is a trip and a half
So, remember Dreamworld, or as it's known around these parts, "that game that never sounded remotely plausible"? Well, the good news (for a very, very generous definition of the word "good") is that the title actually released an alpha test version after all (for a very, very generous definition of the word "alpha"). The bad (and […]
The Stream Team: It's Legion vs. Paladin in AQ3D
What's the latest content in AQ3D? A face-off between the Undead Legion and the Paladins! The new Legion vs. Golden Order Assault team vs. team event is in full swing and just added special weapon drops. Massively OP's MJ is excited to participate and try to nab a few for herself. The question is, which […]
Enlisted adds new maps and weapons in latest update, moves Battle of Berlin closed beta to its next phase
The multiplayer WWII shooter Enlisted has seen a couple of updates for both the overall game and the title's current closed beta campaign that kicked off in April, all falling under the subtitle At the Reichstag Walls. For the overall game, this new update brings a Normandy campaign where players must either capture or defend […]
Bless Unleashed answers player questions on PC with a whole lot of nope
There's a whole lot of no in the latest set of community answers for Bless Unleashed. Can players have the option to turn off censorship inside of the game's chat? No. Will there be direct trading between players not via the in-game marketplace? That's a no. Want to skip cutscenes? Too bad, that's a no. Can […]
Theorycraft and peruse New World character builds with this fansite build tool
God bless the theorycrafters and the character builders, for they can sometimes provide some sparks of inspiration and ingenuity, or maybe offer some helpful guidance for those who aren't quite sure how to allocate their character skill points. Or perhaps they can just offer something that can be copied wholesale. No matter which column you […]
Niantic has revealed Pokemon Go Fest 2021 details – and they look quite promising
New details on Pokemon Go's next Go Fest have been released, and there is cause for excitement. While we're already seeing that, once again, players who may not be able to leave their homes due to COVID may get shafted, and there's a hint that there may be some more sponsorship shenanigans. The raid pokemon could be […]
Sylvanaar, a famous World of Warcraft addon developer, has passed away
We have some sad news to report from the World of Warcraft addon community as Jon "Sylvanaar" Akhtar, the creator of popular addons like Prat, Addon Control Panel, and WoW Instant Messenger, has passed away. Akhtar's catalogue of addons have seen nearly 50 million downloads in total on Curseforge, with many of them focusing on […]
PSA: Skyforge is giving away free sub time to all PC players for MY.GAMES' birthday
Skyforge players, or would-be Skyforge players, MY.GAMES is celebrating its birthday, and like any good games studio, it's giving you presents for the occasion. Specifically, that present comes in the form of a blanket code that every PC player can apply to grab seven days of sub time. "To celebrate, you can redeem the code […]
Star Citizen showcases the Hercules Starlifter and Tumbril Nova, leaves massive logs in install folders
This week's video digest from Star Citizen is eager to show off some new toys, as it provides a look at the new Crusader Industries Hercules Starlifter spaceship and the Tumbril Nova tank. The Starlifter segment is pretty much presented like a sales vignette, outlining the ship's features and massive cargo capacity, while the Nova […]
Blizzard is already cracking down on Diablo II Resurrected modders and hackers
Apparently, Blizzard has decided to crack all the way down on the modding community that's popped up around Diablo II: Resurrected. Following the technical alpha – which, I'll note, we thought was fantastic – modders had come with with ways to do everything from unlocking classes to playing on custom servers. One programmer going by […]
