This week in MMOs, we’ve been enjoying World of Warcraft’s The War Within, both with impressions and modding recs. Also this week I had to explain the “you’re getting a delve” joke in WoW to a younger colleague, and now I feel about thousand years old. Thanks Carlo!
Meanwhile, we lamented the loss of Magic Awakened, witnessed the demise of Concord, welcomed No Man’s Sky Aquarius, and prepared for this week’s New World Aeternum beta.
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
First Impressions: The War Within breathes new life into World of Warcraft – After being mostly disappointed with Dragonflight, I was wondering if my decision to return to World of Warcraft for the Worldsoul Saga was a mistake. I’d already pre-ordered The War…
Casually Classic: The five World of Warcraft mods I use as a non-modder playing The War Within – Generally, I don’t use mods for MMORPGs. Or most video games. It’s not that I take some high-minded principled stand against them; I have absolutely no problem with their existence…
No Man’s Sky’s Aquarius expedition is here with fishing, diving, and skiffs – You’re ’bout to have that Aquarius song from Hair stuck in your head for a few days, and I’m sure Hello Games is sorry about that, but yes, No Man’s…
Sony is killing Concord on September 6 and issuing refunds – It would appear that this particular Concord did not so much fly as it arced momentarily upwards before flopping back to the ground. Only a couple of weeks after the…
Fight or Kite: Harry Potter Magic Awakened was the most full-featured MMO you never played – The sudden and unexpected announcement that Harry Potter: Magic Awakened is being shuttered and taken offline everywhere save the original Chinese servers came as a huge blow to the game’s…
Guild Wars 2 just unveiled a new 5v5 PvP mode called Push with beta starting next week – Somebody go tell MOP’s Sam that Guild Wars 2 is about to get a new PvP mode and he may actually like it! ArenaNet just published a dev blog discussing…
LOTRO Legendarium: The easiest LOTRO virtues to get as a low-level character – One of the most important yet easiest to overlook parts of your character’s growth in Lord of the Rings Online is investing into virtues, especially early on in the long…
New World offers in-game loot for testing Aeternum next week – open beta preloading begins September 11 – New week starting on September 13th, Amazon is finally opening up the Aeternum beta for all comers, both PC and console. But if you’ve already played New World on PC…
Once Human addresses content, performance, and the unresolved currency bug – There are a lot of questions likely floating around Once Human, and while some player matters are perhaps not getting the resolution gamers would like, some of them were answered…
Here’s what to expect from Nightingale’s massive Realms Rebuilt update when it lands next week – Nightingale fans have been waiting for Realms Rebuilt all summer – since even before we knew it was called Realms Rebuilt. But your wait is almost over as the massive…
Massively Overthinking: Monetization dealbreakers in MMORPGs – A few weeks back, I overheard my kids complaining about some custom Minecraft server that was apparently trying to monetize survival mode, which seemed ridiculous to them because if they…
Throne & Liberty cranks up the marketing machine with a new video series ahead of launch – Don’t look now but we’re less than four weeks away from the new launch of Throne and Liberty here in the west, which means NCsoft should be ramping way up…
Mabinogi celebrates 20 years with an in-person event in Korea as the western version shares a roadmap – Mabinogi crossed the major 20-year milestone earlier this week, which is obviously cause to celebrate across the globe, but the biggest party happened at the Olympic Park in Seoul, South…
Stars Reach releases video footage of its movement tech from earliest testing to now – When writing up a post about last week’s Stars Reach dev blog on character movement, I kept thinking one thing: This article needs a video so badly! Describing character movement…
You have one year to move your Skyforge account and characters to the new publisher, starting… now – At the end of August, we were startled to learn that MY.GAMES had sold sci-fantasy MMORPG Skyforge to another company and was transferring publishing to yet a third party. The…
Wayfinder returns to the PlayStation store with the Echoes update – While Wayfinder fans on the PC got to enjoy (or at least, experience) the sweeping Echoes relaunch back in June, PlayStation 5 fans have been twiddling their thumbs waiting for…
World of Warcraft previews its super nostalgic fall 20th anniversary event – You World of Warcraft players have finished up The War Within by now, yes? No? Well, all y’all better get on top of that because Blizzard’s cooking up another heap…
Concord’s players are jumping to their deaths in matches to chase trophies before the game shuts down – If you’ve played a game on the PlayStation, you know that platinum trophies require a great deal of time and effort in order to pick them up. Single-player or multiplayer…
New World’s latest Aeternum videos spotlight the MMORPG’s settlements, factions, and allies – New World’s cavalcade of videos that direct potential new console players to the game continues, and much like some of the previous episodes, the latest duo are exactly revelatory, even…
Elder Scrolls Online’s update 43 has brought home tours to PlayStation and Xbox – Elder Scrolls Online players on console are finally joining their PC and Mac friendos today as update 43 rolls out to Xbox and PlayStation consolers. As we noted on a…
Minecraft is getting a live action movie April 4 and it looks like a fever dream – It’s impossible to deny that Minecraft is a juggernaut IP, but is it ironclad enough to withstand the withering potential of box office failure? Whether anyone wants to or not,…
Funcom is optimistic Dune Awakening will work on most PCs but admits Xbox Series S is ‘a challenge’ – With all of the buzz Funcom has been generating about Dune: Awakening, you’d be forgiven if you thought the conversation topic well had dried up, but that’s where you’re wrong…
Seven-year-old multiplayer sandbox Astroneer announces its first DLC, Glitchwalkers – Hey, we did not see this coming, and we’re not even mad: Multiplayer space sandbox Astroneer is getting a full-fledged DLC. “Over 7 years and 20 updates after its early…
Fallout 76’s Milepost Zero update and Season 18 Country Road are live – Bethesda has been talking up Fallout 76’s Milepost Zero for months now, so it’s no surprise – but it’s here as of last night. “Milepost Zero introduces Legendary Crafting, a…
Perfect Ten: The reward categories for killing a major enemy in MMORPGs – If an enemy exists in an MMORPG that you are supposed to kill in some fashion, it is going to offer you some kind of reward. This is compounded in…
Aion Classic EU’s Dominance update is live today with two endgame PvE instances and a PvP map – Dominance – aka patch 2.8.5 – is live for the EU version of Aion Classic today. “With Dominance, players who have achieved the new max level of 58 can explore…
MapleStory’s MapleStory Fest returns for its seventh consecutive year on October 26 in LA – Hey, west coast Maplers – and anyone else with the will and the way to travel – today’s MapleStory announcement is for you. Nexon posted this morning that it’s bringing…
Shroud of the Avatar adds $18 and $27 monthly subs to offset the costs of development – Catnip Games has admitted that the free-to-play Shroud of the Avatar isn’t exactly making the studio a lot of money. That’s one of the primary takeaways from the MMORPG’s latest…
Choose My Adventure: Fractured Online offers a perfectly good PvE sandbox, so why am I not in love? – Here we are past the month of August (yes really) and I am left kind of conflicted about my feelings toward Fractured Online. On the one hand, I’ve had a…
Corepunk halts pre-orders, says ‘level of interest in the project has exceeded […] expectations’ – Corepunk’s Artificial Core announced last night that it is shutting down pre-orders for the MMOARPG – but not out of a sense of impending doom. Instead, it’s because the studio…
Pick Me Pick Me is a multiplayer ‘AI-powered PvP dating sim’ with bizarre monetization – You probably clicked on that headline to wonder just what in the deuce a PvP dating sim is about. Well we unfortunately can’t tell you from first-hand experience, but we…
Wisdom of Nym: Let’s talk about Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s key artifact – Yes, I’m having a bit of fun in the title here. Obviously there is one main artifact that serves at a major plot element in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, which…
Temtem’s final content update is live with selectable season passes and improved quality-of-life – Today is the day when Temtem is considered a fully built game by developer Crema, even as the studio hit this milestone with some controversy. Patch 1.8 is officially live,…
Final Stand Ragnarok re-emerges with a new champion, progression overhaul, and new game mode – So. Final Stand: Ragnarok. You all remember that game? It’s the side project of Camelot Unchained studio Unchained Development that went into its third early access release this past March…
Age of Water adds new story, new boss fights, and new ship modules in Against the Tide update – The suggestion that players of Age of Water are facing a challenge is pretty obvious in the title of the multiplayer game’s latest update. After all, it’s literally saying they’re…
Wayfinder ‘stealth releases’ its Quality of Life 2 patch for Steam and PS5 – What’s perhaps better than a quality-of-life update that promises to improve your overall experience in a game? It’s when that patch surprises you by coming out sooner than expected. That’s…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
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.
