The last few years have been quiet on the legal issues in games, but in true 2025 fashion, this year was a legal drama-llama. Granted, maybe a little bit more on the “Ally McBeal” side of legal drama than the “Matlock.” But hey, I’m here for it. From corporate-facepalm shenanigans to Roblox spending another year […]

There are some very fun abilities to use in Warframe, but one of my favorite is Mesa’s fourth ability, Peacemaker. In a game full to the brim with guns, a Warframe has an ability that is just “draw more guns.” And it’s actually very useful, arguably up there with any other games the game has to […]

As I type this, we’re at the top of January and waiting for two events that should be happening in the WoW Classic space this month. The first is the Burning Crusade Anniversary prepatch on January 13th, which will reshape the systems of those servers and open up some more character options. But the second […]

Whether furry, feathery, or scaly, a little pet can offer a boon of companionship, even in a virtual setting. Sure, not everyone’s into collecting and displaying vanity pets, but those people are defective and will be picked up by our thoughtcrimes unit soon for reprogramming. As for the rest of us, let’s boast about and […]

A week ago, I was talking about Warframe’s Tauron Strikes and noted that they were, at the end of the day, a collection of Win More buttons. And this is something that I stand by: I think they come by that particular distinction honestly, since there needs to be both a reason to get them and […]

You know, for all the MMORPGs we cover here on MassivelyOP, the ones that speak to me personally enough to actually capture my precious free time are few and far between. In 2025, while I at least dipped a toe into a long list of games, the ones I submerged in can be counted on […]

Every time people discuss new things they would love to see in long-running MMORPGs, I see at least a few people speculating about things that aren’t just not happening but would fundamentally break the game. And it always makes a little twitch start up right behind my eye. It’s not that I don’t understand the […]

By now, World of Warcraft fans are used to the multi-stage format that Blizzard employs to roll out its expansions. It’s never a one-and-done affair, is it? There’s the prepatch, the launch, and post-launch content and season unlocks. This time around, however, the studio added an extra stage in early December with the debut of […]

Ahhh… can you smell that new house scent? It’s an aroma laced with fragrances of potential, creativity, and belonging. That’s right, player housing is now a reality in World of Warcraft, and although this is only early access and the initial iteration of the system, there’s a ton of room for players to claim and […]

Welcome to the end of the year, everyone! Somehow we all got here, seriously, and that means it’s time for our annual roundup of stories and events over the last year. I’m sure that some of these will have people saying that they were not surprised by anything that happened over the course of 2025, in […]

It feels like we’ve been dancing around this maddening question for decades now: What makes MMORPGs so compelling, addicting, and immersive? What is that “special sauce” that’s hooked us for a long time now? There are a few contenders for answers. Perhaps it’s the interaction between a “massively multiplayer” community that gathers in a virtual […]

Pokemon Go’s not perfect, and there’s always something to complain about, but the winter Precious Paths season is certainly looking strong in some ways. Yes, there are some very wrong turns ahead, but there’s enough good to light a fire even in this player’s cold heart. Today’s Massively on the Go is here not just to warn […]

Where were you when you first heard about the original Guild Wars? For me, it was late 2004 when the online gaming world was entranced with World of Warcraft. I was reading through a games magazine that posted a whole spread on this new project that some outfit called ArenaNet was making. What caught my […]

Well, I kind of expected this would happen. No matter how much or how little I might think of an MMORPG or MMO, I never like to really see less of them, but my return trip back into New World for this round of Choose My Adventure just reaffirmed that Amazon is throwing the baby […]

This past summer, MOP’s Justin mentioned a joke about Navy vessels having a goat mascot aboard, which was sadly debunked by MOP reader and Navy vet Bullwraith. Alas, no boat goats for us. But it did provoke another thought: There are some really ridiculous conceits in MMORPGs that we just let slide! For example: the […]

You may not believe this, but I didn’t really want to write this column about Final Fantasy XIV because it is entirely based on a game of telephone that is going to disappoint someone down the line. Let’s take a moment to recap. Back a couple of weeks ago, Naoki Yoshida (producer and director of FFXIV) gave […]

So a while back, in the comment section of one of these columns, a commenter noted that at the end of patch 7.3 in Final Fantasy XIV the Warrior of Light does not actually prove Calyx’s philosophy incorrect. He loses against us, sure, but he doesn’t lose after we systematically tear apart his basic philosophical approach […]

Whenever anyone asks me about setting up a (new) forum for MOP, one of the reasons I give for not doing it – and a reason that is still true to this day – is that most MMORPG forums tend to devolve into the same dozen arguments over and over and over and I just […]

I would love to see Hollow Knight: Silksong crossover material in an MMORPG. That’s not the same as saying that I want an MMORPG set in that world; while I wouldn’t say no to that, I don’t think it’s inherently necessary. But a crossover in an online game that lets you dress up in masks and shells […]

December 2nd is coming awfully fast — just two weeks now! — and the excitement for World of Warcraft player housing is hitting a fever pitch, especially with many testers exploring the system in beta. It’s great to see the creativity of this community spring up around the system, and I look forward to even […]