World of Warcraft Classic is on the edge of its next big thing: WoW Classic Cataclysm slipped into beta this week, and though we don’t know exactly when it’ll launch for real, the clock is now ticking on the clash between the Classic fans who loved Cata and the ones who think it ruined everything. Fun.
Meanwhile, Dune Awakening delivered lots of hype (but no release date yet), New World delayed Season of the Guardian, and Scars of Honor’s $200K Kickstarter ended unsuccessfully as development marches on.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic is open for beta testing now - Remember when World of Warcraft had just launched Cataclysm? Are you eager to do that again? Stop shaking your head and shouting that you aren't. It was a rhetorical question.…
Dune: Awakening’s Direct shows off graphical touches, film references, and the basic survival loop of the game - You may not have noticed this, but the new Dune movie is out! The second one, even, which means it's two more movies than most Dune adaptations get. What does…
New World delays Season of the Guardian indefinitely following PTR feedback - Just last night, I was telling my husband that New World's Season of the Guardian was set to launch next week, so he'd better get ready. Well, scratch all that…
LOTRO Legendarium: Untangling LOTRO’s complicated travel system - Considering how absolutely huge Lord of the Rings Online's Middle-earth has become, I'd say finding efficient ways to traverse its landscape is paramount to any adventurer. Some questlines will have…
Even Zeus couldn’t get Fortnite’s Myths & Mortals season online without a major delay - You know what the Greek pantheon really needed? More gods and goddesses with guns. If that was the case, then ancient mythology classes would be far better attended. At least…
EA CEO talks up aspirations for AI tools and expanding Apex Legends ‘beyond the traditional battle royale universe’ - If you need any evidence that the push for AI tools is akin to drinking some brainworm-filled Kool-aid, you need look no further than remarks made by Electronic Arts CEO…
Vague Patch Notes: Sort your own MMO community, guy - One of the things I note is that every so often - not all the time, but every so often - something will just stick in my craw. I'll just…
Albion Online tackles player concerns over new European server population, timers, transfers, and more - When Sandbox Interactive announced a new server to accommodate the burgeoning European population on Albion Online - one intended to balance the existing western and eastern playerbases even more -…
Nightingale’s roadmap includes a lot more QOL than the offline mode - If you were among those grumbling at Nightingale's mini-patch earlier this week, Inflexion's latest missive ought to make you feel better - or at least more confident that something bigger…
Massively Overthinking: Are we ‘optimizing the fun out’ of MMOs? - MMO dev Damion Schubert recently retweeted a thread penned by a user named Zarathustra that presents our Massively Overthinking discussion for the week. Now, I'm 5'1" - meaning the closest…
Overwatch 2 is collaborating with Cowboy Bebop on March 12 - There are times when crossover events just seem like a bad idea at first glance. Not because of world inconsistencies, but... well, Overwatch 2 crossing over with Cowboy Bebop is…
Here’s what we know so far about Elder Scrolls Online’s 2024 roadmap - Not quite two months ago, ZeniMax Online Studios released not just the plot of Elder Scrolls Online's latest yearly arc but also the basic outline of its roadmap for 2024.…
‘Survival crafting MMORPG’ BitCraft plans closed alpha for April 2 – here’s how to sign up - That upcoming MMORPG sandbox BitCraft is heading into closed alpha is not a shock: Clockwork Labs has been teasing it for months. The new revelation today is precisely when it…
Q4 2023: NetEase’s revenues soar as the company invests in the western gaming industry - I am not sure whether it's dawned on MMORPG fans yet, but NetEase is doing a lot more than jousting with Blizzard and milking Diablo Immortal over here: It's been…
Throwback MMORPG Scars of Honor’s $200K Kickstarter bid ends unsuccessfully - Exactly a month ago, Bulgarian startup studio Beast Burst Entertainment began a $200,000 Kickstarter for its MMORPG Scars of Honor, and as of this morning, that Kickstarter has ended unsuccessfully,…
Into the Super-Verse: What kind of legs does City of Heroes have in the longer term? - So it's time to start talking about the future of City of Heroes. To be fair, I'm not talking about it from a financial standpoint. It seems patently obvious to…
Hey game devs, stop namedropping Star Wars Galaxies and make a spiritual successor - If you're an MMORPG gamer who watches the mainstream gaming space, you probably know that most gaming sites take any opportunity they can get to take a giant dump all…
Helldivers 2 tries to further explain recent balancing as players push back against nerfs - The days after a balance patch are never usually ones that are full of celebration and excitement, so in that regard the reaction from the wider Helldivers 2 community isn't…
Over 42,000 people played City of Heroes Homecoming in the last month - Last night, the City of Heroes Homecoming team posted some intriguing numbers on player operating systems that got speculation about the current playerbase size pumping. In addition to the revelation…
The Fallout TV show is finally airing on April 11 – here’s the brand-new trailer! - Would you believe we've been talking about the Fallout TV show for almost four years? Yep! Announced back in 2020 and funded through Amazon, the show is run by the…
The Crew 2 heads into maintenance mode with this week’s final update - We suspected it was coming, but we can still be sad about it: Ubisoft is putting The Crew 2 into maintenance mode following its final update, which rolled out yesterday.…
Fractured Online’s latest update boosts soloers and grants free respecs ahead of F2P weekend - Dynamight Studios is all about the free this weekend: We've previously noted that the studio is setting its Kickstarted sandbox MMORPG Fractured Online free-to-play from tomorrow to Monday next week,…
Final Fantasy XIV will launch on Xbox on March 21 - Well, it looks like the beta for Final Fantasy XIV on the Xbox Series X|S is not going to last particularly long after all. A new trailer is out announcing…
‘Professional fraudsters’ admit the 189GB hack of Epic Games was a hoax supposedly used to get $85K - Last week news broke of a supposed hack of Epic Games in which a hacker gang called Mogilevich claimed to have gotten away with 189GB of data from Epic Games…
Tamriel Infinium: Ranking Elder Scrolls Online’s 10 races from worst to best - One thing that I appreciate about Elder Scrolls Online is that any race can be any class. None of that racial or gender-locking for this MMO, no sir! That wide-open…
Perfect Ten: MMOs where you can play as robots and cyborgs - Robots are, let's face it, very important. You might say that's not true, and to that I say: When you get to write the columns, you get a rebuttal, but…
MultiVersus suddenly breaks radio silence nine months after its multiplayer open beta shutdown - Back in March of last year, Warner Bros. and Player First Games made the baffling and upsetting announcement that the open beta for its online multiplayer platform fighter MultiVersus -…
So who wants hoverboards? Destiny 2’s Guardian Games is live with free stuff - Who do you you love? Hover... boards. And by god, Destiny 2 is going to deliver them. Right now, in fact, as the much-touted Guardian Games All-Stars and Guardian Games…
Diablo IV unleashes the Gauntlet, its first PvE competitive game mode, today - Just when you think you've mastered everything about Diablo IV, the minds at Blizzard have devised its first competitive PvE challenge to keep you on your toes: The Gauntlet. Arriving…
Choose My Adventure: Starting on the road to success and self-reliance in Nightingale - A lot of the first few hours of Nightingale are tutorial. That's probably not terribly surprising considering survival sandboxes need some guidance (and it's also not a surprise if you…
Skull and Bones is already seeing discounted prices at some retailers just three weeks after release - Usually sales are considered a good thing, but in the case of Ubisoft's multiplayer pirate-em-up Skull and Bones, a discounted price might be considered to be something of an ill…
Lost Ark is merging a total of 57 unique servers over the next two maintenance periods - The fact that Lost Ark is about to get some major server merges is no great revelation - and that's because Amazon and Smilegate have been talking about it since…
Myth of Empires promises Greece, Persia, Rome, and Egypt civs along with 1000-person servers - MOP's Chris and MOP's Sam have both taken a look at Myth of Empires so far in the two weeks since it launched here in the west, finding it generally…
Albion Online is launching a new fresh start server for Europe and the MENA region - If last year was the year Albion Online went to Asia, this year is the time for journeying to Europe. Of course, Albion Online's European playerbase already exists and plays…
Former Bungie composer announces he doesn’t want to enter politics but is running for Congress anyway - Most people nowadays can only dream of being able to retire in general comfort and security, but it looks as if former Destiny and Halo composer Martin O'Donnell is going…
Crema now says 1.8 will be Temtem’s last feature patch as it waffles on the game’s MMO status - It hasn't even been been a week since Temtem's studio Crema prompted mods to lock down the game's subreddit and tried to convince everyone that the game really is an…
Rockstar developers push back against corporate demand to return to physical offices in April - Apparently, Rockstar Games believes that the only way it can get its next big release out the door is by mandating employees to work in-office, and as one might expect,…
Wisdom of Nym: What people don’t really get about the Warrior of Light in Final Fantasy XIV - Not so long ago, I saw a very foolish comment complaining about Final Fantasy XIV from someone who did not play or think about the game beyond disliking it. This,…
Fight or Kite: Myth of Empires’ early gameplay is classic survival fare, but not as amazing as the trailer - A title like Myth of Empires rolls off the tongue like a turtle running down a flight of stairs: You can’t imagine how that would work, and you’re instantly sad…
Critter-catching MMO Duel Revolution launches to withering accusations of P2W, bugs, and bad gameplay - In these tired and jaded times, it's very often easy to believe that indie game efforts are a beacon of light in the darkness of megacorp monetization schemes and barely…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 460: The crafting episode!
The Stream Team: Final Fantasy XIV streaming rolls on with a guest host and friends
The Stream Team: Sharing the classic action RPG world of Secrets of Grindea
The Stream Team: Starting Neverwinter’s The Dwarven King by R.A. Salvatore
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming visits creative supergroup bases in City of Heroes Homecoming
The Stream Team: Diving headlong into bug and robot-filled hell with a friend in Helldivers 2
The Stream Team: Searching for Nephus in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Refilling the pages of Warframe’s grimoire
The Stream Team: AQ3D’s March of the Undead Legion begins
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
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