Did anybody else let out a cheer when Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online finally came back up on Saturday on day four of a hardware maintenance that was meant to last only Wednesday? We’d long since run out of pipeweed is what I’m saying. I always joke to the team that we are not an uptime monitor, but it sure felt as if we were last week. In other MMO news, Anarchy Online’s first progression server went live, Ashes of Creation announced a delay, Torchlight Frontiers dropped its alpha NDA, Guild Wars 2 launched the warclaw mount, Shroud of the Avatar closed its physical office, and Path of Exile’s Synthesis expansion went live. In meta news, we debuted another new column: Massively Uplifting, our monthly look at feel-good stories in our genre! Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review! THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES Torchlight … [Read more...] about MMO Week in Review: The LOTRO and DDO tech team deserves a nap and a hug
Star trek v star wars
Star Trek Online: Age of Discovery Review
I got into Star Trek Online terribly late, so there was a Hell of a lot to learn. I am a mediocre Starship captain at best, but I honestly have so much fun playing the episodes of Star Trek Online. There are a lot of fascinating parts about the Age of Discovery update. Perhaps the most interesting is that it is the first time Star Trek Online has had a storyline that was a part of an on-going and currently-running series. Sure, Star Trek: The Next Generation had Super Nintendo games when it was still airing, but this is an MMO with thousands upon thousands playing actively, able to play a story that is presently unfolding before our eyes. That’s incredible, and something I certainly wanted as a kid. Players can access this new content by making a new character in the “Discovery-era” Federation or by simply logging onto their regular character. This is really great for new players, as you start a new character, in a new storyline, and once you complete the first two … [Read more...] about Star Trek Online: Age of Discovery Review
Perfect Ten: Best MMO debuts by year, 2007-2017
Continuing from my previous column, I’m going to be running through the second decade of graphical MMORPG launches and picking the best title to debut in any given year. From doing the first decade, I know that this thought exercise isn’t always fair; some years have several great contenders, while others see one mediocre one rise due to a lack of competition. Still, it’s kind of fun to look back at MMO history and to see which game was really the best of that year. And if you ever felt sore that a particular title got overlooked, well, consider this a retroactive awards ceremony of some sort. Let’s dive right in where we left off with 2007! 2007: Lord of the Rings Online Remember back when Turbine used to be an awesome indie MMO studio? I do, especially when the studio had great back-to-back releases with DDO and LOTRO. Lord of the Rings Online might have been initially seen as a WoW clone, but its devotion to recreating Middle-earth and giving players all … [Read more...] about Perfect Ten: Best MMO debuts by year, 2007-2017
MMO Week in Review: Fallout 76, Bless Online, and Elder Scrolls Online
Support Massively OP on PatreonWere you too busy gaming this week to pay attention to MMO news? Get caught up every Sunday evening with Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review! How do you pick one big story in a week like this? You don’t: You just roll with all the big ones. This week, we learned Bethsoft is working on a new Fallout game, Fallout 76, with a rumored online and/or MMO component, which set the internet on fire. ZeniMax then freaked its community out when players discovered spyware had been patched into Elder Scrolls Online; the studio apologized, saying it was added in error and will be removed this week, never having been activated or used. And then there was Bless Online, which soft launched into early access with server outages, downtime, dupes, and refunds from folks upset over the game’s lack of endgame content. Stay tuned for our own hands-on with the game’s first week, and then read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and … [Read more...] about MMO Week in Review: Fallout 76, Bless Online, and Elder Scrolls Online
Wot I’m Playing – Roundup
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been enjoying the Winter Olympics both on television and in War Thunder, where the Russian developers celebrated the Sochi games by adding a couple of special events. First there was a Biathlon, each team having to race through a series of checkpoints, periodically engaging a number of targets (either tanks or barrage balloons), before finally having to land on an airfield to finish the match. If you’ve ever wondered what the biathlon might be like if the competitors decided not to shoot at the targets but take pot-shots at each other on their way around the course, the War Thunder event gave you some idea. In some matches teams would focus on the objectives, in others they just ignored the whole checkpoint business and instantly headed straight for the opposition forming a mass dogfight around the start line, finishing only when one team was wiped. The second event, Curling, was a little more tenuous, with each side having a number of … [Read more...] about Wot I’m Playing – Roundup