Working As Intended is Massively Overpowered Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce’s favorite place to muse about game design, the MMO industry, and worlds gone by. Previous entries published on Engadget. [Follow this column’s RSS feed]
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Working As Intended: LFD, community accountability, and the balance of power in classic MMOs
At the heart of the WoW Classic argument over the dungeon finder tool is the professed belief that LFD ruined socializing in part by...
SeedInvest tells Shroud of the Avatar investors that Portalarium eluded its accountability efforts
Shroud of the Avatar has been a black mark on the MMORPG genre, Kickstarted MMOs, and genre founding father Richard Garriott for years, and...
MassivelyOP’s complete 2021 awards debrief and annual recap
As we did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, today we're going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from the...
Working As Intended: The MMOs we lost in 2021
This is always one of the most depressing roundups I do around the turn of every year, and this year... well, we lost some...
Working As Intended: The hits and misses of MassivelyOP’s 2021 predictions
Last year's MMORPG predictions didn't exactly go to plan, since in 2019, we weren't really expecting 2020 to play out the way it did....
Working As Intended: Brute-forcing the MMO industry
If you're a music fan, and you probably are since you're a human, you've probably come to grips with the sense that somehow the...
Camelot Unchained boss rebuts theory that its studio finances are in disarray
Dedicated readers of MassivelyOP already know that Camelot Unchained has become an MMO saddled with controversy over the last couple of years. Originally Kickstarted...
Palia is a new ‘community simulation MMO’ from former Blizzard and Riot devs
A few weeks ago, I attended a press event for a new game assuming I would not be impressed by the offerings. Instead, I...
Working As Intended: Touring my new SWG Legends houses (and looking at Bespin deco!)
If you're a fan of MMORPG housing, Star Wars, Star Wars Galaxies specifically, or just chatter about MMOs, then this very self-indulgent Working As...
Hands-on with Amazon’s New World first expedition, Amrine Excavation
The funny thing about our ongoing pandemic is that it didn't really change the way video game previews are done. It turns out that...
Working As Intended: There is no good reason for MMO gamers to fund Dreamworld
Not quite a month ago, we covered the Kickstarter for a wildly ambitious MMORPG, Dreamworld. We were, uh, pretty skeptical about the game's chances....
Interview: Camelot Unchained lays out its innovative alchemy system
One of the major slices of content being worked on in this current 90-day quadrant of Camelot Unchained development is its crafting system, specifically...
MassivelyOP’s complete 2020 awards debrief and annual recap
As we did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 (whee!), today I'm going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from the...
Working As Intended: The MMOs we lost in 2020
I'm happy to report that the list of MMOs that sunsetted in 2020 was shorter than in previous years, but I'm sure you'll join...
‘I saw a City in the Clouds!’: Previewing Star Wars Galaxies Legends’ Bespin expansion
There are very few MMORPGs that can plausibly compel me to sit down and log in the weekend of a big real-life move, seeing...
Working As Intended: Decorating MMORPG houses in SWG Legends and beyond
I've been mulling over how to do a piece about MMO housing for a while now, spurred on by colleagues and readers who've said...
Star Wars Galaxies fans debate Legends, PvP, the economy, and more on community podcast
When fellow Star Wars Galaxies Legends player, YouTuber, and friend of MOP Napyet asked me to join him for a podcast last week, I...
Working as Intended: The big list of City of Heroes rogue servers, 2020 edition
It's been a weird and wonderful year for City of Heroes fans. In April of 2019, the expose of a secret City of Heroes...
Working as Intended: Sparking joy in MMOs
On this week's podcast, I mentioned that I'd just finished off Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, something that superficially seems unrelated...
Working As Intended: Deep-diving Star Wars Galaxies’ endgame crafting
When I leaped back into Star Wars Galaxies via the SWG Legends rogue server mid-2018, I didn't really truly think I'd stay all that...
