Any hopes we had that Lord of the Rings Online’s Great Server Migration would go to plan were dashed immediately this week as it became clear the game’s infrastructure wasn’t at all up to the task of transferring a large and eager playerbase all trying to move at once. While SSG ultimately opened the new servers (with housing disabled), transfers still continue even now, taking some players over 48 hours in transit, and we fully expect it to drag into a second if not third week.
Meanwhile, Throne & Liberty launched its Wilds of Talandre expansion, Fractured Online announced it has been acquired by a player’s company, Pantheon released the Druid class, and RuneScape is getting a new CEO. Plus Guild Wars 2’s Repentance is coming on Tuesday!
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
Lord of the Rings Online hopes to finally open 64-bit servers today as transfers remain in limbo – On the dawn of a day that was supposed to be the next great era of Lord of the Rings Online’s history, a week of botched transfers and scattered communication…
Throne and Liberty’s Wilds of Talandre expansion goes live this afternoon – Throne and Liberty’s first major expansion, Wilds of Talandre, is officially going live today following significant downtime that began yesterday. The expansion, already out in Korea, will introduce global players…
Fractured Online and its dev team have been bought out by a new studio – and it’s not a crypto scheme – Kickstarted MMORPG sandbox Fractured has been teasing something big coming for the last month, punctuated by a promise from Dynamight’s Jacopo Gallelli earlier this week that he’d just signed a…
Guild Wars 2’s Janthir Wilds: Repentance content launches March 11 – Guild Wars 2’s quarterly cadence marches onward next week as March 11th sees the formal launch of Repentance, the third content chunk (and therefore the second post-expansion chapter) of the…
Lord of the Rings Online’s transfer woes persist into third day, 64-bit servers coming Friday – Suffice it to say, this hasn’t been the triumphant week that Standing Stone Games was hoping for Lord of the Rings Online. What was supposed to be a one-day transfer…
‘I think we’ve cooked’: MMO sandbox BitCraft prepares for a Steam early access beta – Way back in 2021, we started following an up-and-coming MMORPG sandbox sim called BitCraft that – despite its perhaps inauspicious name – was not actually a bitcoin monstrosity at all…
Stars Reach passes $550K on Kickstarter and unlocks a detailed guild alliance system – The Stars Reach Kickstarter continues to climb since its debut last week, as Playable Worlds has now pulled in over $550,000 from players eager to jump into the MMO sandbox.…
Massively Overthinking: What should MMO corpse runs look like in 2025? – A couple of years ago – yeah, I save weird things in my “ideas bin” folder – MMO designer Damion Schubert tweeted about a chat he had with a Vanguard…
APB Reloaded is fully online after a month in the void as Little Orbit calls Fallen Earth its ‘next big priority’ – After a month offline, APB Reloaded is fully back – and we don’t just mean the test server. At the beginning of February, both Little Orbit MMORPGs – APB Reloaded…
LOTRO Legendarium: The forging of new communities in LOTRO’s great server migration – As I write this, it’s Tuesday morning, and we are well underway in what I’m calling the Great Server Migration of 2025 in Lord of the Rings Online. By the…
Blockchain MMO EVE Frontier hires a real-world economist to help refine its in-game economy – EVE Frontier, the “hardcore” survival space MMO that CCP says can’t possibly do what it does without being on the blockchain, is apparently taking its in-game economy extremely seriously, or…
The First Descendant previews next week’s update, confirms the end of older console support in June – The First Descendant is continuing to hype up its earlier previewed March update as this week brought another developer livestream for the Season 2 Episode 2: Into the Void update,…
Why I Play: Splatoon 3 – 2025 edition – When I first reviewed the original Splatoon, I noted that Nintendo didn’t “get” online play yet but had instead created a game that did well with its overall vibe: painting maps…
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s Unova Tour was functional but no fun – Pokemon GO’s just announced the next Go Fest, but the recent Unova Tour LA Tour and now the Global Tour have both recently concluded, and I’ll admit, the fact that…
Wyld Land is a top-down bullet hell roguelike MMO from a top Roll20 and OrbusVR dev – If you’re into tabletop RPGs, then you’re probably familiar with Roll20, the virtual tabletop (VTT) website that lets players enjoy their favorite TTRPGs without all of that pesky “meeting up…
Elder Scrolls Online shows off the Exiled Redoubt dungeon coming with the Fallen Banners DLC – If you thought that the first dungeon that Elder Scrolls Online previewed was a bit of a mouthful, you may be pleased to learn that the other dungeon being bundled…
Brighter Shores launches the first phase of its combat rework – I don’t think anyone was going to argue that Brighter Shores had the most engaging and thrilling combat system in the MMO space. In fact, the initial implementation of fighting…
Storyboard: How do you roleplay in MMOs that don’t want you to roleplay? – Readers, I am about to blow your minds. Are you ready to have your minds absolutely blown? It’s going to be a huge shock, I promise. It turns out… I…
Path of Exile extends the Legacy of Phrecia event, talks up likely June expansion – If you found yourself enjoying the Legacy of Phrecia event in Path of Exile so much that you wish it would never end, well, good news: It won’t. Or at…
Fight or Kite: Steel Hunters brings mechas to the extraction shooter genre – I don’t think of the giant mecha genre as being a genre I’m wild about, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for it anyway. I suppose…
Dark and Darker was yeeted from the Epic Games Store following Nexon lawsuit – Last month, we covered what appeared to be the messy middle of the ongoing legal saga between Nexon and Ironmace over the Dark and Darker franchise. Back in 2023, Nexon…
Perfect Ten: Ranking real-world holidays in MMOs from worst to best – There are really only two categories of MMO festivities: the ones made up for the game itself and the ones “inspired” by real-world holidays. Sure, some games try to slap…
‘Infinite’ sandbox MMO DreamWorld unveils a gameplay trailer and runs an open playtest until March 16 – Four years ago we first started covering Kickstarted game DreamWorld, a so-called “infinite sandbox MMO” that made some sky-high promises and hung its hat on an AI tool that lets…
Vague Patch Notes: The MMO starter experiences that fear new players – Last week, I talked a bit about power creep. But buried in there was something that you could easily miss as a guideline for this week’s column, in no small…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen introduces the Druid class and applies several fixes and adjustments – It’s time to get all nature wizard up in Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen as the sandbox MMORPG has officially released the Druid class in its latest patch. Described by…
Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis brings quests, spring, and anniversary events in March – Regular players of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis celebrate two anniversaries: one for NG and one to mark the wider release of PSO2 specifically. It’s that latter event that’s…
WoW Factor: Undermine(d) highlights World of Warcraft’s chaotic silly side – World of Warcraft Update 11.1: Undermine(d) is finally here, and it’s certainly got the community buzzing. I kind of suspected this would be the case, but now it’s confirmed: This…
Fallout 76 hopes to convert you into a ghoul on March 18 – Until now, Fallout 76 has offered one and only one racial choice for the game (ugly human). But that’s all going to change on March 18th when player ghouls arrive…
Elite Dangerous pauses new colony establishment to address an unspecified ‘important issue’ – The first week of system colonization’s open beta in Elite: Dangerous has passed, and it’s been an extremely active week, with over 8,000 systems claimed and 13,000 facilities completed so…
Lord of the Rings Online delays 64-bit server debut as transfer system is hammered – This is our utter lack of surprise that yesterday’s massive attempt to allow Lord of the Rings Online players to move all of their characters to the new 64-bit servers…
Choose My Adventure: Blade & Soul NEO doesn’t seem that different from Blade & Soul to me – I suppose I might have tripped myself up going into this month’s game in terms of expectations. See, I know that Blade & Soul NEO was kind of like a…
Lord of the Rings Online has opened transfers to four new 64-bit worlds today (and it’s a cheerful mess) – Hopefully many of you were able to reserve your names yesterday on Lord of the Rings Online’s four new 64-bit realms, but there’s something even more important happening today. As…
RuneScape is getting a new boss as Jagex CEO Phil Mansell is stepping down – On the heels of RuneFest, we’re witnessing a changing of the guard at Jagex: CEO Phil Mansell is stepping down. Mansell has served as Jagex CEO for the last eight…
Skull and Bones delays its second year of content to April 15 to execute ‘very ambitious and exciting plans’ – If you were among those players champing at the bit to get into Skull and Bones’ second year of content, you’re going to unfortunately have to wait a bit, as…
PvPvE extraction RPG Dungeonborne will sunset in May after less than a year in early access – The yawning gulf of early access shutdowns has claimed yet another title. Dungeonborne, the medieval-styled first-person PvPvE extraction RPG that began early access last July, has now confirmed that it…
Wisdom of Nym: Why are Final Fantasy XIV’s event quests getting worse? – As I write this, I am looking forward to the Little Ladies’ Day event in Final Fantasy XIV… or more specifically, I am looking forward to the rewards from the…
Stars Reach’s Kickstarter broke half a million dollars already, deep-dives the fishy princess Hansian species – Less than a week into its whirlwind Kickstarter – remember, we didn’t even know there’d be a Kickstarter two months ago! – Stars Reach has raked in $500,000 in crowdfunding.…
WoW Classic’s Season of Discovery servers have ‘many many many months of content left,’ says Blizzard – The future of WoW Classic’s experimental Season of Discovery servers may be more rosy than once imagined. In a lengthy post, the project lead said that there are “many many…
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.