Aion Classic will officially make its western debut at noon tomorrow
Good news for MMO players raring to go in Aion Classic: You won't even need to get out of bed early to do it. NCsoft has announced that the fun begins tomorrow at noon EDT – that's 9 a.m. PDT and 6 p.m. CEST. Naturally, there are some speed challenges on offer for those who […]
New World's latest alpha update reduces PvP penalties, adjusts experience requirements again
Amazon's New World apparently has a couple more patches in store for alpha players after all. Today's update behind closed doors has several changes small and large, including new PvE faction missions, tweaks to guild war declarations, reductions in penalties for PvP death, new and more diverse gear, revamped titles, improved intro cinematic, harder expeditions, […]
Dauntless' roadmap updates include a Repeater refresh, the Omnicell sub-class system, and shock changes
Players of Dauntless have likely been busying themselves with hunting the Chronovore or chasing after Exotics, but it never hurts to look at what's coming, which brings us to the game's roadmap and a host of planned updates. We begin with Omnicells, which is the name granted to the RPG's proposed sub-class system. These Omnicells […]
Guild Wars 2 kicks off Dragon Bash today
Meanwhile, the Dragon Bash festival has returned to Guild Wars 2 as of this afternoon, sending players to Hoelbrak for racing, drinking, moas, drinking, arena PvP, drinking, and the stampede. And drinking. The game is running a login sweepstakes as well that could see you win a sweet monitor or headset just for playing. "Dragon […]
Massively on the Go: Niantic is partially rolling back Pokemon Go's COVID bonuses
Almost a month ago I argued that Pokemon GO's COVID changes should not be rolled back. I was under no illusions that Niantic would necessarily listen to me as an individual, but hoped that I could at least add another voice to the choir singing, "Don't do it." In some ways, I think Niantic has […]
Second Life turns 18 years old this week, counting 70M lifetime accounts
I'm gonna say the M word in this post, and I'm sorry, but metaverse metaverse metaverse. That's because Second Life is back in the news this week, but for happy reasons, as it's turning 18 years old tomorrow. Linden Lab says it will "be marking the milestone with activities ranging from community-created SL18B exhibitions, Meet […]
Choose My Adventure: Awestruck by Star Wars Galaxies' crafting and housing potential
This week has been something of a rollercoaster for me. Of emotions. Of discovery. And, slowly yet surely, of deeper appreciation and enjoyment of Star Wars Galaxies. By the slimmest of margins, setting up some housing beat out digging into crafting in last week's poll, but I soon started to discover that they absolutely both […]
Final Fantasy XIV ups tomestone limits and timeworn artifact rewards with patch 5.57
Have some relic weapons left over to grind? Have a dire need for some tomestone upgrades? The process of both is getting a fair bit easier in Final Fantasy XIV with the latest minor patch, 5.57, which buffs up the timeworn artifacts earned from Delubrum Reginae to three per run. That means getting past that […]
First Impressions: Diving into Oblivion portals with companions in Elder Scrolls Online's Blackwood
Like clockwork, The Elder Scrolls Online has flung wide the gates of its annual chapter release. This time, in Blackwood, we are headed to southern Cyrodiil, where the remnants of the once great empire meet the borders of the Argonian homeland of Blackmarsh. The Elder Scrolls Online loves to capitalize on nostalgia, and Blackwood is […]
Saga of Lucimia on its comms blackout: 'We do not have a firm timeline on anything'
For well over a year now, we have been concerned about the state of Saga of Lucimia's development — namely, if it's even happening any more at all. Back in March, hope for the hardcore MMORPG's future was dimmed by the announcement that founders and project leads Timothy and Joseph Anderson had parted ways with […]
A slim majority of Acti-Blizz investors approved its 'say-on-pay' policy after vote extension
Score another win for the C-suite. As we've been covering, Activision-Blizzard investors represented by CtW Investment Group had been agitating to vote down the company's "say-on-pay" policy and curb its executive payout excesses. Last year, the group was successful at EA but could only declare spiritual victory at AB when it convinced only 43% of […]
Sea of Thieves kicks off its third season with new goodies, new enemies, and its Pirates of the Caribbean adventure
He's the pauper of the surf, the jester of Tortuga, and as of today he's now officially part of the Sea of Thieves. Today marks the launch of the piratical sandbox's third season, featuring an all new set of five Tall Tales titled A Pirate's Life that sees players teaming up with Captain Jack Sparrow […]
EVE Online brings its stealth ship-centric Enter the Portal update online
If you were in the PTS of EVE Online, you already knew about the Enter the Portal update and what it was doing for black ops ships. If you weren't, then you can now experience the adjustments made to these sneaky spacecraft as the update is now officially live. In case you happened to miss […]
The Daily Grind: Would you play a LOTRO Classic server?
Lord of the Rings Online devs surprised players this past weekend by saying that a Classic server for LOTRO might be on the table, after years of dismissing the idea. I was initially intrigued by the idea since I tend to love Classic servers… and then MOP's Justin brought me back to reality, pointing out […]
Ascendants Rising is a co-op action RPG that pits players against randomized bosses in arena combat
"Do you like MMORPGs? Are you tired of the tedious grind, the group hunting, and the long treks before you are allowed to have fun? Or maybe you just don't have time for this anymore? Then, do we have the game for you!" This is the opening salvo from Ascendants Rising, an early access co-op […]
Multiplayer survival sandbox Smalland shares a new gameplay trailer, announces early access later this year
It's been a long time since we heard a peep out of Smalland, the multiplayer survival sandbox game where players are shrunken down to the tiny insect size (read: bite size) that we first got wind of in March 2018. The game has since sprung back up on the radar thanks to a new gameplay […]
Hood: Outlaws and Legends releases its new mountainous heist map and lays out future updates
There has been a lot of noise coming from team-based PvPvE title Hood: Outlaws & Legends recently. Following a video that talked up a wide variety of changes and updates coming to the game, the devs at Sumo Digital have added a new Mountain map free for all players that features a snowy new fort […]
Profane shares updates on developing gameplay features, test scheduling, and textures
Insane Studios has put together another pair of Twitter threads that offer up a wide swath of update details for the developing PvP MMO. In the first thread, we get the largest number of updates that link together with another roadmap update. The devs have managed to figure out how to fix a player movement […]
World of Warships introduces a mode with super battleships for PC, adds new American battleships to console
What's a game like World of Warships without a whole bunch of warships in it? A mistitled game, for one. Luckily for fans of the multiplayer naval battler, there's not going to be a shortage of ships going to war anytime soon, as both PC and console versions have gotten some new updates. The PC […]
Whatever happened to Villagers and Heroes?
Boy, it's been a few minutes since we took a peek into Villagers & Heroes. It's certainly not for lack of appreciation, of course – the game was counted by Justin among one of the perfect 10 MMOs to break you out of a gaming rut. So allow us to catch up with what's been […]
RuneScape releases the next quest in its year-long Elder God Wars storyline on PC and mobile
Today sees RuneScape take yet another step in the year-long Elder God Wars questline. The City of Senntisten quest has officially launched, arriving to both PC and mobile players of the MMORPG, and bringing with it the promise of a wealth of challenges and rewards. "The Elder God Wars is a year-long epic saga that […]
EA is testing transparent lockboxes in a FIFA game
Remember two years ago when the ESA announced an optional new policy for the US games industry that would theoretically encourage games companies to catch up with the then-already-present trend to disclose the odds of items hidden in gambleboxes, lootboxes, and lockboxes? We were all pretty skeptical that anything would ever come of it, since […]
Elyon recaps its first closed beta and plans its second for mid-August
The first closed beta phase for Elyon has passed, and the team is now recapping how that test went and what player feedback was like. One of the first things that the developers noticed was that there was a significant faction imbalance in favor of the Ontari, which is something that the second closed beta […]
Not So Massively: First impressions of Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance
I'll admit I had low expectations for the new co-op action game Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance. The graphics looked a bit dated, and the trailers made it seem a pretty campy. But I play a heroic amount of D&D IRL, and I like action games, so how bad could it be? "How bad could […]
Six months later, Sony is finally putting Cyberpunk 2077 back on the PlayStation store
When Cyberpunk 2077 crashed and burned at launch last Christmas, one of the more surprising side-effects was Sony's decision to not just refund purchases but pull the game from the PlayStation storefront altogether. That decision has held for just a hair over six months now, and CD Projekt Red even cited it as a reason […]
Wisdom of Nym: Things to do in Final Fantasy XIV while you're waiting for Endwalker
At the time I am writing this sentence, there are 151 days until Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker kicks off early access. That's not all that many! That's also a very, very long time. Especially considering that up until this year, we'd currently be staring down the expansion coming out in just a couple weeks at […]
Obituary: Prominent Secret World Legends community leader HolloPoint
I'm sorry to report some devastating news out of the Secret World Legends community today: Prominent community member Mark "HolloPoint" Innes has apparently passed away. The news comes via his friends on the official forums and the Zero Point Report twitter feed. If the name HolloPoint sounds familiar, it should. In fact, we recently joked […]
Legends of Aria dev Citadel Studios will publish CODEX, a 'seasonal shared world adventure' MMO
It would appear that Citadel Studios, the developers of sandbox MMORPG Legends of Aria, has its fingers in a new pie. Readers will recall that the studio announced it was making a multiplayer Viking-themed survival RPG known as The End, and now there's word of the company entering the publishing realm with the announcement of […]
Blizzard surveys World of Warcraft players about their Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker intentions
"A rising tide raises all ships," or so the axiom goes, which is appropriate when one considers how healthy competition is between bigger MMORPGs. And while it's made very clear that there's no animosity-filled feud between Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft (and people should stop beating tribal war drums over it), it's very […]
Lost Ark KR showcases the Sorceress class and some summertime fun in a preview video
Now that we know for certain that the MMOARPG Lost Ark will be heading to the west this fall, preview footage and announcements from the Korean version of the game have a little bit more excitement to them. While we're all going to likely miss out on the contents of this summer update from Korea, […]
World of Warcraft fan animator releases a video that summarizes the current player experience
Are you ready to have your heart torn out by a cute animation, World of Warcraft fans? That seems to be the wide reaction to a recent video released by YouTuber Carbot, who readers will recall is widely renowned for his wide variety of Blizzard game cartoons, including the WowCraft series; he even made an […]
Lord of the Rings Online Q&A talks classic server, progression servers, and legendary item revamp
Lord of the Rings Online's newest producer happily sat down into the hot seat this past weekend for a round of community questions and answers posed to him on the forums. While Raninia said that he couldn't announce upcoming dates, he was more than game to talk about a variety of subjects including cosmetic slots, […]
The Daily Grind: Do you like PvP battlegrounds in MMOs?
I know it's cool to hate on battlegrounds in MMOs, but I kinda don't. I cut my teeth on scrappy open-world gankbox PvP, and then eventually migrated through an RvR phase and TEF PvP before landing on a PvP server for that big game everyone played. And… well open PvP there sucked; it was basically […]
MMO Week in Review: WoW's Chains of Domination and Black Desert's Corsair
Topping off the MMORPG headlines this week was the news that World of Warcraft has finally picked a date for patch 9.1, Chains of Domination: June 29th. So you haven't got long to wait now, though at this point, y'all will have waited over 200 days. Meanwhile, Heidel Ball saw the announcement of the Corsair […]
Diablo III's upcoming Ethereals season is available for testing on PTS
For those who still wish that Diablo III was more like Diablo II, you might want to hop into the game's PTS and kick the tires of the latest season, which is bringing back Diablo II's Ethereal items. The PTS opened this past Thursday as announced, offering up the seasonal return of Ethereals along with […]
The MOP Up: Rogalia says goodbye, farewell, and amen
It may not have been an MMO you heard of — and that's the problem, because it seems like nobody else heard of Rogalia either. Because of this, the MMO sandbox announced that it has to close up shop by the end of July. "This has been a difficult decision but one that was coming," […]
Destiny 2's $85 toaster that was created thanks to charity donations is apparently not very good
Today in "weird-ass philanthropy" news, we take a look at Destiny 2: The Official Toaster. While that might read like a Spaceballs merch gag, there's a little story going on here. In June 2020 during a charity livestream to benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospitals, Bungie challenged its fans to raise $777,777.77 in exchange for the […]
Massively on the Go: Revisiting Star Wars Galaxy's Edge's ARG
A former coworker and I recently went to Disneyland, incidentally on the same day. We were talking about our days there, and she wondered whether the Disney Play app that contains the Galaxy's Edge Datapad AR game is worth getting for people who aren't into Star Wars. I thought about that for a moment and […]
Swords of Legends Online offers a video preview of fishing
It's been a pretty well established fact by this point that Swords of Legends Online is a game that loves to share videos, and while the videos published by this point have been primarily about combat, the latest one would like to reel that back and reel in some fish. The fishing preview video doesn't […]
One Shots: Bro just wants to hang
I think it's beyond unfair that because a creature or person is suffering from gigantism that they have to be pigeon-holed into the role of a raid or world boss. Sometimes giant monsters just want to hang, binge some Game of Thrones, and play fantasy football, you know? Maybe we can make friends with this […]
The Daily Grind: What do you do to be social in an MMO?
People have been saying to me for years that MMO are less social these days. I've never really understood why; I'm still as social as I ever was. But I think that's part of the equation right there. What you get out of a game is in some ways representative of what you put into […]
New World's Edengrove tempts you to take a bite of its apple
Who's ready for some sweet eye candy? New World continues to serve that sort of thing up in spades in its zone tour videos, the latest of which is up and featuring the gorgeous region of Edengrove. As the name implies, Edengrove is a bright and bustling northern zone with a garden theme (and a […]
Blade & Soul teases Dual-Blades class in new trailer
Blade & Soul certainly isn't hurting for character classes that wield a sword, or even classes that dual-wield, but what if there's a class that dual-wields swords? That's what's coming when the game releases its UE4-powered Revival update in the third quarter of this year: the rather on-the-nose Dual-Blades class. "The 14th class coming to […]
Lord of the Rings Online's Midsummer Festival has returned
Lord of the Rings Online's newest holiday, the Midsummer Festival, has returned for another bout of wedding-themed events. While Standing Stone Games isn't bringing back the Midsummer Hobbit Presents (this year, at least), the studio has introduced a whole bunch of pets, outfit pieces, steed cosmetics, housing decor, and even summer-themed musical instruments. If you […]
The Stream Team: The other side of ARK Genesis 2
One thing that is very different about ARK's Genesis 2 map compared to the previous ones is that it doesn't hide the fact it is a space ship hurtling through the universe. And that means the whole set up is quite different. In fact, the ship is separated into two very distinct sides. Massively OP's […]
Heidel Ball 2021: Black Desert announces summer season server, shows off new Corsair class
Earlier this morning, Black Desert held its digital Heidel Ball event, which was stuffed to the rafters with announcements and reveals. At the top of the list is the new Corsair class, which is arriving on June 29th and can be pre-created starting on June 23rd. As with other classes in BDO, this one has […]
Ship of Heroes calls one and all to its July beta event, postpones launch to 2022
Ship of Heroes isn't going to launch this year, fam, but that doesn't mean you won't be able to play it. In fact, the studio would like you to start getting read for a July summer beta event that will be free and open to everyone. This will be the first time that testers will […]
WRUP: It's only slightly used edition
Ah, I see what you have your eyes on. No, don't let yourself give up so quickly, look closer. The container is what's still holding it together, you see. It's been through quite a lot over its time here, but that doesn't mean there isn't still something ineffable about it, wouldn't you agree? Look here, […]
The Daily Grind: Do promotional server rulesets hurt or help MMO communities?
I was reading some interesting chatter on the Lord of the Rings Online forums following last week's announcement that SSG is rolling out two new progression servers (after closing an old one down). Some players are predictably excited about starting over and experiencing these faster and slower progression shards, but there was a bit of […]
The Stream Team: Taking on AQ3D's new Pyramid of Crocos Challenge
AQ3D is always adding to the game, and this latest content update unveiled the new Pyramid of Crocos Challenge. Massively OP's MJ is ready to test out the new mechanics in this continuation of the Sandsea story dungeon. Word is the all-new water breathing potions will come in handy! Along with a challenge and rewards, […]
