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'World of Warcraft' keeps players indoors with a 100 percent XP bonus
If the world of Azeroth has been the place you've turned to find some time away from all the news about the coronavirus pandemic, Blizzard has something that should make your stay more productive. From now until April 20th, your World of Warcraft character will receive a bonus called "Winds of Wisdom," which will increase the amount of experience they gain by 100 percent. The buff is available to Battle for Azeroth, Legion and Starter Edition players -- alas, no love for those of us grinding it out in World of Warcraft Classic.
Amazon's supernatural colonialism MMO 'New World' lands in May 2020
There are three things you need to know. One, Amazon is building an open-world MMO called New World. Two, New World is set in a supernatural, 17th century environment filled with bears, spears, bows and arrows, and legions of undead creatures desperate to remove you from their land. And three, New World is due to hit PCs in May 2020.
‘No Man’s Sky Beyond’ trailer reveals expanded multiplayer and VR
Players can get their first look at the world of No Man's Sky: Beyond, the long-awaited update to the popular space exploration franchise. Hello Games just released the first trailer for Beyond, which will include even more MMO-style gameplay and support for VR. After last summer's Next set the stage for what multiplayer mode and shifting perspectives could bring to the game, expectations have been high.
Amazon is co-developing a 'Lord of the Rings' game
Lord of the Rings fans have been patiently waiting for the long-promised Amazon series. While we still don't know when the show will debut or who will star in it, Amazon has more Lord of the Rings news. Today, Amazon Game Studios announced that it's working on a Lord of the Rings massively multiplayer online game.
Coherence lets any developer create persistent online games
The future of many games is supposedly online, but there's a problem: it can take a massive amount of effort to create and run the infrastructure for a persistent online world. Coherence thinks it can come to the rescue, however. The veteran-backed startup (more on that in a moment) has unveiled an open cloud platform that will let development teams of "any size" create persistent online worlds, regardless of the scale. This would let them focus more on the actual game than on the networking behind the scenes, the company said.
'World of Warcraft Classic' debuts on August 26th
You now have a date to add to your calendar if you're hankering to revisit World of Warcraft's early days. Blizzard plans to launch World of Warcraft Classic on August 26th in the Americas and the UK (August 27th in most other places). It'll be available to all regular WoW subscribers at no extra cost. If you missed the demo, you'll have more chances to play ahead of launch. "Select" WoW subscribers will get into a closed beta test that starts May 15th, while a trio of "focused" stress tests will begin May 22nd for veteran players who opt in.
'World of Warcraft Classic' will gradually introduce PvP combat
When World of Warcraft Classic arrives in the summer, how will player-versus-player combat work? Just like it did when the original game launched, apparently. Blizzard has outlined a gradual introduction for PvP fights that will mimic the initial rollout. To start, there will be no kill tracking or reward system -- if you take down other players, it's mostly for the thrill of it. You'll have to wait for a second phase before an honor system and rank rewards kick in.
After Math: It's Spooky Season
The air is crisp, the leaves are changing and everywhere you look, you'll find decorative gourds on display. And y'all know what that means: we're just a few weeks from Halloween! Plenty of companies are already getting into the frightful mood. French researchers figured out how to fingerfy a phone, Telltale's staffing levels have been reduced to a shambling corpse, and Toyota once again warned that its Priuses could go all Christine on their drivers.
Here's what Amazon's 'New World' MMO looks like
Amazon's New World has been in the works for some time, and while there's no release date as yet, some leaked footage from a closed beta gives us a look at what it's like to play the MMO RPG. The person who leaked the footage posted over two hours of gameplay on PornHub, of all places, and YouTube channel Less Than Epic distilled that to nine minutes of material.
‘EVE Online’ crowdsourced science data will soon be publicly available
In March 2016, space MMO EVE Online added the Project Discovery minigame which let players classify proteins in their downtime to help researchers. After collecting data for over two years, the project's team recently uploaded it to the publicly-available Human Protein Atlas database for scientists to use all over the world.
The first major 'Sea of Thieves' DLC lands on May 29th
Swashbuckling pirate MMO Sea of Thieves will receive its first major update on May 29th. Microsoft's Xbox team made the announcement on Twitter with a short CGI trailer for 'The Hungering Deep' -- the first of six free expected DLC packs. Of all the criticisms leveled at Sea of Thieves, the most common (apart from bottlenecked servers) seem to be over its lack of content. But that's precisely what developer Rare has pledged to address in continued updates.
'Eve: War of Ascension' reimagines the venerable space MMO for mobile
Complex space sim Eve Online will be 15 years old this year, surviving in a less MMO-friendly market with various spin-offs like Dust 514 and Valkyrie, as well as a free-to-play version. Developer CCP teased a new mobile Eve title last October, and now EVE: War of Ascension is set to launch on iOS and Android sometime later this year.
Pirate simulator 'Sea of Thieves' hits Xbox on March 20th
Rare's cartoony pirate simulator Sea of Thieves sets sail for your Xbox One and Windows 10 March 20th. Microsoft's stab at breaking out of its Forza, Gears of War and Halo release cadence can't get here fast enough, and if you're feeling impatient you can preorder right now to unlock some bonus bits. What're those, pray tell? Access to the shared-world's closed beta in addition to some cosmetic items, according to Xbox Wire.
Malware scare forces five-year-old MMO to shut down chat
Tera, a Korean MMO that debuted in the US in 2012, has shut down its in-game chat system after some players discovered a potentially serious vulnerability. According to the players' report (Google docs), Tera's chat interface uses HTML, which people can exploit to blast players with external images and links, as well as to collect people's IP addresses. More importantly, someone truly unethical could use it to spread malware. It's an interesting wrinkle for a game that's been up and running for five years, and it's not entirely clear if its North American publisher, En Masse, has known about the vulnerability before the players published their report.
‘Eve Online’ is going mobile next year with ‘Project Aurora’
Popular space MMO Eve Online has been doing pretty well lately, bringing a massive map, galactic trade economies and the vastness of space to players over its 14-year history. It's made several moves to keep folks interested in its PC-based game title, too. Developer CCP Games has made Eve Online free to download and play while also allowing players to participate in finding exoplanets in real life. Now the team is partnering with mobile game developer PlayRaven to bring Eve Online-style multiplayer action to mobile devices. Dubbed "Project Aurora," the upcoming title for iOS and Android is set to launch later in 2018.
Return to 'Smuggler's Run' in the next 'GTA: Online' expansion
For the next expansion to GTA: Online, Rockstar Games is looking to its past. "Smuggler's Run" will task you to move inventory for the perpetually paranoid Nervous Ron by land and air. "Smuggler's Run opens up the air corridors above Los Santos and Blaine Country, providing new business opportunities while introducing a range of planes, choppers and even ultralights as highly viable options for transporting criminal cargo across the state -- simultaneously opening up some creative new methods of dispatching any rival gangs along the way," a post on the Rockstar Newswire says.
Watch the 'Destiny 2' gameplay reveal right here!
Activision and Bungie want to show you what playing Destiny 2 is like. And, lucky for you, the pair will do so via livestream. The future is a pretty wild place, no? We're on the ground in Los Angeles catching all the news firsthand, and if you want to watch along with us, that's what the embedded video player below is for. The whole shebang starts at 1pm Eastern and you can bet that there will be at least a few instances of Nathan Fillion charming us all as robot Cayde-6. You know, like he did in the Destiny 2 teaser trailer back in March.
'Secret World Legends' arrives on Steam on June 26th
The Secret World's mix of supernatural horror and real world settings made it a cult hit with MMO fans, but the game's developers are now gearing up to bring even more players into fold on the game's 10-year anniversary. The rebooted, free-to-play "shared-world action RPG" version of the game, now titled Secret World Legends, goes live on Steam on June 26th.
Robot Nathan Fillion is here to make you think 'Destiny 2' is charming
You'd think with its shooter MMO Destiny receiving its final content addition today, its creator Bungie would give it a moment gracefully riding into the sunset before championing its replacement. But an image leaked earlier this week sparked rumors of a September 8th release date for its sequel, which is seriously called Destiny 2, might have forced the studio's hand to release...a teaser for the game's official trailer, coming out this Thursday at 10 AM ET. Yeah.
The US Navy wants gamers to stop the rise of the machines
In a bid to help solve its real-world problems, the U.S Navy has called upon the aid of the most dedicated corner of mankind -- gamers. Launching its own week-long online game on March 27th, the Navy plans to crowd-source ideas in a bid to help them tackle the issue of singularity. While this sounds like the plot to a Terminator prequel, technology's rapid advance has caused genuine concern among the office of Naval Research (ONR) over the rise of highly capable AI. In the browser-based game, contributors will be able to post ideas and interact with other players as together they devise solutions to the futuristic problem. Ideas that manage to reach critical mass in the MMOWG (massively multiplayer online war game) have the potential of being adopted by The Navy and put into action.
