Ever tried to jump into an older MMORPG game that's been around the block and felt overwhelmed to the point that you go back to your old standby game? FFXIV new players are feeling that and Square Enix needs to figure out a why around that. Are Story Skips the right answer, though? We'll then dive into some upcoming games and talk about some games that maybe aren't long for this world! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

02:00 FFXIV Story Skip And Being Overwhelmed In Older MMORPGs

28:37 New Test, Interested? (Deceit 2, Ashfall, Warhaven, And More)

42:22 Games Going Down (Redfall, Space Punks, Skull and Bones, and More)

54:16 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure, and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

Throne and Liberty is making a few changes, for now, and The Day Before could be changing its name, but before we dive into news bits we'll take a look at a few upcoming new games on our radar like New World's expansion "Rise of the Angry Earth", SoulFrame, The Front's beta, and we'll dive into an interview with Abyss Online to see what the hell this MMORPG even is! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

03:03 New Games (New Word expansion, SoulFrame, The Front, and Abyss Online)

01:06:16 Rapid Fire News Bits (The Day Before, Elder Scrolls Online, Throne and Liberty, & more)

01:13:43 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure, and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

Gamescom 2023 brought a LOT of multiplayer news to the table and we'll dive into thoughts on Nightingale, The First Descendant, Second Wave, Dragonhold, and more! Then we'll chat bad new like Wayfinder's continued issues, Evercore Heroes going into maintenance mode over a closed beta and layoffs at Bioware! Lastly, we'll look at Microsoft's new deal proposed to the CMA which sees cloud gaming of their titles head to Ubisoft??? All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

03:24 Gamescom 2023 (Nightingale, First Descendant, Second Wave, Tarisland, & more!)

27:07 Uh Oh! (Evercore Heroes, Bioware layoffs, Wayfinder, & more)

49:10 Microsoft's new CMA Proposal with Ubisoft

51:07 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about MMORPG and multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

We want Wayfinder to succeed, but sometimes it's really hard to look past multiple stumbles, and not being able to even access a paid early access period is just one REALLY big stumble. We'll dive into our final Palia thoughts, our hopes for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre game, and finally hit up some games that would LOVE to have a do-over this week... like Destiny 2's State of the Game! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

03:10 Launches And Releases Review (Palia, Wayfinder, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and More!)

36:00 Roll it Back News! (Destiny 2, Embracer Group, and More)

44:20 Guild Wars 2 Secrets of the Obscure Hype

47:50 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about MMORPG and multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

The end of the year is closing in and multiplayer games that were coming in 2023 may have moved to 2024, but some have actually made it, so we'll dive into the new releases and talk about what games coming up we're pumped for and which we may not be all that interested in! We'll laugh at a dev stealing gold and selling it, Dark and Darker Launching, and review Square Enix's financial mess of a report. Oh and a DFO dev was selling gold... imagine that! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

03:29 Upcoming Multiplayer Games of 2023/2024 We're Looking Forward To

26:17 Interesting... (Killer Instinct, Dungeon Fighter Online Dev Stealing, and More)

38:58 WTF? (Square Enix Finances and Dark and Darker)

47:55 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about MMORPG and multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

The weekend was absolutely DOMINATED by two games and their respective festivals. FFXIV revealed DawnTrail at FanFest 2023 and Grinding Gear Games went hog wild at ExileCon talking about Path of Exile 2! We'll dive into both, talk about some devs having an arrest warrant sought for them, and Palia now that the NDA is gone! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

05:09 Week of Fests! (FFXIV FanFest and ExileCon)

25:35 What? (Arrest sought for Dark and Darker Dev, Jected Goes Offline Mode, and More)

38:00 Palia NDA drop and Nearing Launch

47:16 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about MMORPG and multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

Let's talk about why we love MMORPGs... and a few things we'd wish they just wouldn't do anymore. After that, we'll dive into news from Genshin Impact, Ashfall, Project L, Stampede Racing Royale, and so much more on this multiplayer jam-packed episode! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

06:20 What Draws You To MMORPGs? What Should They Change?

28:15 What? (Ubisoft Accounts, Genshin Impact Bomb Threat, and More)

42:20 New Games (Stampede Racing Royale, HAWKED, Ashfall, Project L, and More)

54:05 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

The FTC basically got it handed to them by Microsoft as challenges go nowhere and it's likely the Activision Blizzard purchase will close soon. That's great news and so are ABK's financials, but could Overwatch 2 and the Overwatch League be in a bit of a bind as the game preps for a Steam release? We'll dive into some new games coming, including Stampede... a 60-person kart racing battle royale! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

04:22 New Games News (Stampede Racing, Wayfinder WA, One Punch Man World, Stampede)

24:40 WTF Game News (Ethyrial Goes F2P, Bungie and Zenimax both in courts, and more)

43:07 Activision Financials, Overwatch 2 and the Overwatch League issues, and Layoffs

54:23 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

NARAKA: Bladepoint is going free-to-play but is that the right move and is the 2nd anniversary the right time for the melee battle royale to do so? PIONER drops addition details about the action shooter MMORPG, and Netherlands is still trying to make loot boxes illegal. Then we move to WTF news about Overwatch 2 slow PvE content delivery plan, Ubisoft's next dumb NFT based game, and we'll cap it all off talking about why WildStar failed! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

03:25 New Games News (NARAKA Goes F2P, PIONER, and Netherlands and Loot Boxes

26:38 WTF Game News (Overwatch 2 Story content, Ubisoft and another NFT game, and more)

41:50 Why Did WildStar Fail?

50:52 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!

It appears that even when things are supposed to be redacted they might just still be visible later as Sony, Microsoft, and the FTC are learning. We review a few of our favorite pieces of information coming from the FTC's suit to stop the Activision Blizzard purchase. Then we run down a veritable laundry list of games with big news this week, including Guild Wars 2' new Secrets of the Obscure expansion, The Cycle: Frontier closing, The Realm Online's weird ride, Project Loki, Wayfinder changes, and more! All that and more on this week's Always Online!

Discussion Timestamps:

00:00 Show Intro

04:50 Games Coming and Going (GW2 expac, The Cycle, Project Loki, The Realm Online, Wayfinder, & More!)

49:27 Activision, Microsoft, Sony, and the FTC Suit

59:34 Weekly Bombs (DA-Bomb / A-Bomb) And Question Of The Week

Always Online (formerly the Free-To-Play Cast) is the official podcast (and videocast) of MMOBomb.com about multiplayer online games. Always Online takes on the week's biggest news with plenty of opinion, weekly bombs, community feedback, guests, laughs thrown in for good measure and much more. Have fun and expect a new episode next week!