Cockfighting laws 2017

In all our many roundups at the turn of the year, we’ve never done one on the legal dramas that have affected the MMO genre. That changes today! Of note, there’s… the lockbox scuffle as various countries turn their watchful gaze on the industry and self-regulation collapses in a puddle of shrugs; the Crytek lawsuit against Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium; the potential for dead online games to skirt DMCA laws; multiple Pokemon Go-inspired lawsuits and criminal trials; the end of the Warner Bros. and Tolkien estate lawsuit; the continuation of the Oculus/ZeniMax Media lawsuit; the cease-and-desist filed against Asheron’s Call emulators; and a whole ton of Blizzard lawsuits, including the capsizing of the Bossland cheaters following multiple Blizz victories. My favorite, however, is Andrew’s research into whether lockboxes legally constitute gambling – from last January. Enjoy! Call of Duty swatting incident leads to man’s death in Kansas … [Read more...] about A look back at the MMO industry’s law dramas of 2017

As we did in 2014, 2015, and 2016, today I’m going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from the end of 2017. We gave out 19 formal awards this past year, all in addition to dozens of other recaps, roundups, listicles, predictions, bloopers, oddities, polls, provocations, and retrospectives. It was by far our biggest content dump to date, even bigger than last year! Following our deep-dive into our awards and the attached reader polls, I’ll be recapping all of the end-year articles in one convenient place in case you missed something over the holidays – enjoy! MMO of the Year: Elder Scrolls Online (2017), Black Desert (2016), Final Fantasy XIV (2015), Nothing (2014), Final Fantasy XIV (2013), Guild Wars 2 (2012), Star Wars The Old Republic (2011), Global Agenda (2010), Fallen Earth & Dungeons & Dragons (2009) Community Poll: Elder Scrolls Online (2017) Elder Scrolls Online (2016), Elder Scrolls Online & … [Read more...] about Massively OP’s 2017 awards debrief and annual recap

As Counting Crows told us, it’s been a long December, although the fact that it has also only just started being December speaks to something unpleasant in the makeup of this particular month. But it also means that this is a good time to check in on the overall health of various MMORPGs and see which ones look to be in the healthiest state at the end of the year. This is, I hasten to point out, not a scientific process; last year I pointed to Marvel Heroes as a not-quite-MMORPG title that was still in a very healthy and robust place, and it later turned out that this was entirely not true and had been built upon a foundation of lies. But we’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it in 2018. What are the healthiest games running right now? 1. World of Warcraft Expansion announced, subscribers still subscribed, reasons to be hopeful about that next expansion, and so forth. World of Warcraft continues to be as healthy as ever and shows no sign of slowing down. I mean, … [Read more...] about Perfect Ten: The healthiest live MMORPGs at the end of 2017

Daybreak Game Company has released their outward look for 2017 for DC Universe Online, and the content is looking pretty fancy. To end off the year, Daybreak will once again have an open episode period, allowing players to access (virtually) all episodes regardless of membership or content ownership. Next year’s updates will include large content updates: First, just to doubly reiterate, we are continuing development on large content releases (Episodes), similar to what you are experiencing with Amazon Fury Part III. We know how important new story, new characters, and new primary progression is to everyone’s fun in the game. We are very pleased so far with the new gear system implemented in Episode 27. While we are looking at feedback for minor improvements, the core concepts of the best gear being on the vendor, auto-leveling dropped gear, and so on, remains the plan going forward. In addition, Daybreak is continuing work on the planned revamp of player stats, item and … [Read more...] about DC Universe Online Focuses on 2017 Updates

I hate being disappointed. I doubt I’m alone. In general, I try to temper my expectations and accept negative outcomes just as much as positive outcomes. But it doesn’t always work. One particular case is with Nerd Kingdom and TUG. I am very disappointed that TUG never really saw the light of day. The vision the Nerd Kingdom sold me in 2013 during its Kickstarter is one I’m still very much sold on. But it’s a pipe dream now as Nerd Kingdom, the company behind TUG, is no more. Nerd Kingdom’s parent company, IGG, dissolved the studio in May of 2019. Given the circumstances of how this game took money from the public and then went belly up within a few short years, I thought this would be a great topic for Lawful Neutral, so I went researching to try to figure out what exactly happened to Nerd Kingdom and where it all went so wrong. What I found disappointed me a second time, this time not because TUG never saw the light of day but because Nerd Kingdom was … [Read more...] about Lawful Neutral: TUG’s Nerd Kingdom is the Real Slim Shady