Announcing new board members press release

The significance of Vanguard’s development, release, long-running drama, second chance, and eventual closure should be of great interest not just to game historians but to everyone who plays MMOs, period. What happened with this game caused a huge fallout in the industry, and we are still feeling some of its effects even today. As our own Bree once put it in her blog, “Vanguard’s implosion was a big deal at the time and marked the beginning of the post-World of Warcraft destruction of the industry that hobbled Age of Conan and Warhammer Online a few years later.” While the crash and burn of Vanguard was a very well-known tale several years ago, I’m wondering if today there might be many who are quite unfamiliar with what happened to this unassuming title back around 2007. Let me put on my old fogey glasses and we shall begin! Enforcing the Vision Brad McQuaid, a longtime MUD player and designer, was brought on board with Verant Interactive (later SOE) to … [Read more...] about The Game Archaeologist: Vanguard Saga of Heroes

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! This summer just keeps on keepin’ on with the big news. This week, Guild Wars 2 had a rocky launch for its latest content episode, Trion bought up what was left of Gazillion, the Final Fantasy XIV community was rocked by a scandal, Overwatch did the hamster dance, Legends of Aria got a huge graphics revamp, Trove launched its Geode expansion, Elite Dangerous launched a new chapter, and Fractured came to Kickstarter. We also unveiled our newest editorial column, Vague Patch Notes, and delivered our big impressions piece on Bless Online. Plus Star Wars Galaxies celebrated what would’ve been its 15th birthday! Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions. THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES Trion just bought up Gazillion’s assets to beef up its MMO … [Read more...] about MMO Week in Review: Praise Joko (July 1, 2018)

Today’s guest post is from DDOCentral’s Matt, who wanted to give Bio Break’s readership a deeper look into Dungeons and Dragons Online’s Masterminds of Sharn expansion. Thanks Matt! Dungeons and Dragons Online (DDO) released its fourth paid expansion on May 14th, 2019 titled Masterminds of Sharn. The three previous paid expansions for DDO are Menace of the Underdark, released on June 25th, 2012, Shadowfell Conspiracy, released on August 19th, 2013, and Mists of Ravenloft, released on December 6th, 2017. Masterminds of Sharn is the first paid expansion for DDO set in the Eberron universe, which was the original DDO campaign setting when the MMORPG launched in early 2006. After thirteen years, DDO finally leaves the small frontier settlement of Stormreach on the southern jungle continent of Xen’Drik where the adventure began for the great metropolis of Sharn, the City of Towers, located on the central continent of Khorvaire. Sharn is not only the … [Read more...] about Guest Post: DDO Masterminds of Sharn review (part 2)