MMO Week in Review: LOTRO’s character customization expansion

Lord of the Rings Online characters will soon be able to adopt a whole new look as Standing Stone Games announced this week that it’s expanding character customization rather dramatically, with a much wider range of faces, hairstyles, skin tones, eye colors, body types, and discrete sliders for all sorts of body parts…. for humans, for now, anyhow.

Meanwhile, Raph Koster opined on the metaverse, Wayfinder delayed its beta and therefore its early access, Nightingale hedged on giving a launch window, and we gave New World another shot.

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

Raph Koster predicts the future of the metaverse is a ‘virtual Machu Picchu’ – that you can leave – If you’re not exhausted of seeing the word “metaverse” just yet, MMORPG developer Raph Koster has published a blessedly brief whitepaper on the evolution of online spaces like MMOs into…

Lord of the Rings Online is testing major new customization options for hairstyle, skintone, and gobs more – Standing Stone Games opened up Lord of the Rings Online’s Bullroarer test server last night with multiple surprises for content and customization. “LOTRO is celebrating the uniqueness of every player!”…

Wayfinder delays its global beta to May and its early access to summer – We’ve more than once expressed skepticism that Wayfinder might need a bit more time to cook and wouldn’t make its May early access launch, and as of today, Airship Syndicate…

Perfect Ten: 10 reasons New World deserves a second look – If you were one of the many, many players who skipped off New World after giving it an initial try, well, we don’t blame you. The launch was a bit…

Nightingale recaps March playtest, plans another test in May before finalizing launch plans – Inflexion Games has a new Nightingale dev video out this week, and it homes in on the March playtest, which devs say was the first round of testing that stayed…

Dungeon crawler Dark and Darker goes to ‘Plan Z’ by releasing its playtest via torrent – The incredibly odd and unfortunate saga of multiplayer dungeon crawler Dark and Darker continues to vie for weirdest story of 2023. After getting the boot from Steam and legally tussling…

LOTRO Legendarium: Is the Burglar LOTRO’s least-loved class? – In most MMOs that I play, I confess a certain attraction — if not affinity — for seeking out the least-played and -loved class that title has to offer. It…

World of Warcraft’s new underground zone comes with two new factions and dragonriding additions – We are just a couple of weeks away from the arrival of World of Warcraft’s Update 10.1 — and with it a brand-new zone in the Dragon Isles. Or, more…

Players cry foul over Call of Duty Warzone cash shop skins that offer unfair advantages – More often than not, the term “pay-to-win” is used as a weapon against almost anything, but in the case of some discovered premium skins coming to the DMZ mode of…

Gloria Victis introduces a siege mode for Valley of Death and a werewolf boss for guilds to fight – With Gloria Victis making its full launch this past February, the next logical step for the sandbox is to introduce a werewolf. Yes, this is totally normal progress. Don’t question…

Why I Play: Pokemon Go (and why I shouldn’t) – I won’t lie: Many, many problems with Niantic often cause me to re-evaluate why I continue to play Pokemon GO, especially in recent weeks. Maybe it’s the sunk cost fallacy…

Kickstarted Fractured Veil delays early access to September after engine upgrade – Just about two years ago, we first learned about a new survival MMO called Fractured Veil. It pulled in $110,000 on Kickstarter to fund a unique multiplayer base-builder set in…

Storyboard: When is an MMO story ‘real’? – So we’ve had some fun with talking about MMO stories that are player-driven and MMO stories that are pre-scripted. Both of them have advantages and drawbacks. But there is also…

Elder Scrolls Online counts 22M players, teases Necrom content, and schedules April 17 PTR test – If you’re the sort of MMORPG fan who puts a lot of weight behind player numbers (and we’ve argued that you probably shouldn’t), then you might be pleased to note…

LOTRO and DDO are ‘almost ready’ to debut new forums – Great news for Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online players who are tired of the eye strain of reading the MMO’s antiquated forum, as Standing Stone…

Anvil Empires solicits serious testers for upcoming technical pre-alpha tests – MMO players were treated to a delightful surprise at the end of March, when Foxhole developer Siege Camp took the wraps off its next venture: Anvil Empires, a serious persistent…

Elite Dangerous joins a host of science fiction-focused events at the London Science Museum on May 4 – May the 4th celebrations are usually aimed at the Star Wars fandom, but this year the London Science Museum will expand them to include Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Elite:…

Dune Awakening’s latest teaser video focuses on the terrifying sandworm – Don’t get too excited, but Funcom has posted another video as part of its “Shigawire Reels” series for upcoming MMO Dune Awakening. In fact, the studio has quietly trickled out…

Chronicles of Elyria dev again recaps backend work, saying ‘the core platform is nearing completion’ – We now return you to your regularly scheduled recap of whatever the heck is happening with Chronicles of Elyria, which… still doesn’t appear to be all that much. Soulbound’s Jeromy…

EVE Online players commandeered a dormant guild and made off with $22K in plunder – As most longtime MMO players know, leaders going AFK for extended periods can result in all kinds of shenanigans in player organizations behind their backs. I’ve seen whole cities and…

Microsoft president and US intel say Russian operatives are targeting gaming for espionage – Earlier this week, we covered the bizarre but sadly believable news that the military secrets leak every major newspaper is currently focused on may have been promulgated through a Minecraft…

Massively Overthinking: How to alienate your MMORPG playerbase – I am not a Pokemon Go player, but I can’t help but stare at its many trainwrecks thanks to the detailed coverage of our Massively on the Go columnist Andrew.…

Star Citizen releases alpha 3.18.1, prepares for a free fly event, and recounts March’s dev progress – After nearly a full month since its initial 3.18 launch, Star Citizen is considering itself fully operational once again with the launch of alpha 3.18.1, which is both noted as…

Camelot Unchained improves Valkyrie race, says 10-year-old project is gaining momentum – Winged warriors are at the forefront of Camelot Unchained’s latest newsletter. The RvR MMO spent the month shaping up its Valkyrie race to look at fearsome as they act in…

Elder Scrolls Online’s Arcanist class hopes you like the color green – At its Vegas community event yesterday, ZeniMax Online Studios deep-dived the Arcanist class coming to The Elder Scrolls Online in the Necrom expansion. “With the all-new Arcanist class, arriving soon…

Warframe’s Duviri Paradox mesmerizes players on April 26 – here’s the new trailer – Warframe’s next big thing is almost here: The Duviri Paradox launches on April 26th, and there’s a brand-new trailer to celebrate. “Arriving for all platforms on April 26, The Duviri…

DC Universe Online delays Shock to the System another week, plans name reclaim event – Hope you didn’t have your heart set on DC Universe Online’s Episode 45: Shock to the System launching today, fam, and heaven forfend you took off work for it because…

V Rising drops new trailer to celebrate May 17 launch date for Secrets of Gloomrot expansion – So we already knew that Stunlock Studios is planning a big expansion called Secrets of Gloomrot for vampire survival game V Rising, and we knew that had been delayed from…

Path of Exile launches Crucible for console today as PC delivers new 321K peak concurrency – Crucible is coming to console today as Path of Exile preps the expansion and its new league for PlayStation and Xbox – and console fans have reason to be excited…

Elder Scrolls Online kicks off its Necrom prologue quest today – It’s time to ready your soul for the approach of Elder Scrolls Online’s Necrom, friends, with the launch of the traditional prologue quest today. As usual, the quest is open…

EverQuest II’s Empire of Antiquity is live with a new dungeon and two raids – Empire of Antiquity is the kind of expansion that would’ve gotten my attention back when I was still embedded in the EverQuest franchise, both in terms of its visuals and…

Star Vault says newly announced sci-fi MMO Mortal Exodus won’t pull resources from Mortal Online 2 – We’re not sure whether to raise our eyebrows or be impressed by the ambition shown by the fact that a small company with two live games (including a newer game…

Lost Ark’s April update and Sweet Sugarpetal Festival go live tonight – here are the patch notes – Lost Ark fans better furbish up their patchers because the spring update is officially live tonight – technically, tomorrow, as downtime begins at 3 a.m. EDT in the morning and…

City of Heroes Homecoming is testing two new arcs and a Storm Blast powerset – If you know anything about me and City of Heroes, it’s probably that I have an absurdly huge number of storm characters. I just can’t stop myself from rolling new…

Choose My Adventure: The Songblade makes Neverwinter’s Bard rock even harder – Most of the time when I’m beaten over the head by an MMORPG’s meta, I tend to thumb it in the eye and tacitly ignore it. In the case of…

Wisdom of Nym: This is how Final Fantasy XIV wants you to play, even if it doesn’t say so – It is not a surprise that Final Fantasy XIV wants you to play the game a certain way. There are mechanics in place to make that happen. If the developers…

Albion Online surpassed 300K daily players – a new record – thanks to Albion East’s launch – So, after all the downtime and compensation issues, was the launch of Albion Online’s Albion East server a success? By the measure of player count alone, it sure looks like…

EVE Online’s month-long battle at X47L-Q concludes with a destroyed keepstar and trillions of ISK in losses – Over the past few weeks, a battle has been unfolding in EVE Online in X47L-Q, which drew in some impressive numbers in terms of players and ISK losses. That fighting…

War Thunder welcomes Minecraft to the ‘gaming playerbases leaking military secrets’ club – Over the last half week, the intelligence community has been reeling over a serious leak of military documents that apparently were promulgated through a Minecraft server before hitting 4chan and…

Swords of Legends Online continues to focus its updates on cash shop items instead of content – At the top of this year we wondered whatever happened to Swords of Legends Online and found that the answer was a continually updating cash shop… and not much else.…

Casually Classic: 20 tips for surviving the WoW Classic community’s hardcore mode – “Just one more hour of WoW Classic. One more hour, then I’ll go and play something serious. Or be a productive member of society. Promise.” I’ve been saying a lot…

Elder Scrolls Online studio addresses allegation of fan art used on cash shop skin – In July 2020, an artist by the name of Relan Daevath created some Elder Scrolls fanart featuring some incredible-looking tattoo flash styled after some of the gods of the game’s…

World of Titans fails its Kickstarter, pulls its demo, and promises ‘something huge’ – all while selling founder’s packs – The end of 2022 and the very beginning of 2023 offered up some hefty MMO studio drama centered around the game TitanReach. In summary, the game’s IP was allegedly stolen…

Ashes of Creation talks Alpha 2 development, zones, and content production – Ashes of Creation is once again sitting creative director Steven Sharif in front of a comfy den and making him do a livestream. This time, however, it isn’t a monthly…

‘Our bad’: Wildcard addresses Ark Survival Ascended debacle and server sunsets – When ARK: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard announced an Unreal Engine 5 remaster that would ultimately close the game’s official servers (unless they copied original server data for private games…

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.

Advertisement