It's been a brutal week for both the old and the new guard of the MMO genre. World of Warcraft announced losses of over a million subscription players in the last three months, while Star Wars: The Old Republic dipped under a million subs and revealed plans to adopt a hybrid free-to-play model to counter its shrinkage. But don't panic! As analysts point out, WoW has Mists of Pandaria to look forward to, and F2P SWTOR will likely result in "significant profit" for EA, though Forbes predicts doom for Activision.
The rest of our top MMO stories lie beyond the cut.
- Guild Wars 2 unleashes an impromptu stress test
- The War Z gets a new website, 100,000 beta registrations in 24 hours
- Massively's Hands-on with MechWarrior Online
- ArenaNet devs discuss PvP tournaments and e-sports
- Hindu group asks QuakeCon to pull SMITE from competition
- The Secret World's first update is now live, includes marketplace and bonus rewards
- The state of Star Trek Online
- The top 10 MMO trailers that give us goosebumps
- ArenaNet's Chris Lye on the impending death of the subscription model
- Industry execs conclude that gamers like free games
- Cryptic producer says Star Trek Online is 'not dying by any means'
- Finding an Age of Conan hidden faction
- Gender choice and guild drama
- Zentia announces the end of its run
- Diablo III exploits and competitive tournaments
- The Soapbox: 'L2P' and the antisocial MMO
- What Scott Hartsman's AMA portends for RIFT
- Why we play Glitch
- The Secret World's one-month checkup
- ArenaNet talks emotional connections in Guild Wars 2
- The best weather systems in free-to-play
- Guild Wars 2 provides a visual overview of World vs. World
- MechWarrior Online showcases the Atlas [Updated]
