MMO Week in Review: Daybreak’s defiance (July 12, 2015)

July 12, 2015 8:00 PM

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Following the arguably mild sentencing of Lizard Squad hacker Julius Kivimaki in Finland this week, Daybreak Game Company President John Smedley lashed out on Twitter and Reddit, discussing openly the ongoing harassment he’s been suffering since last year, when Kivimaki allegedly called in a bomb threat that diverted Smedley’s plane. (Kivimaki has not yet been convicted of that crime, however, and awaits trial for that and many other charges.) Apparently, Smedley’s defiance was taken as a dare by Lizard Squad, whose members claimed responsibility for persistent DDoS attacks on Daybreak’s multiple MMOs and services that lasted for several days over the past week. Lizard Squad has ramped up its assault on the company, using Twitter to threaten and doxx other Daybreak employees and offer a horrifying $5000 reward for the desecration of Smed’s father’s tombstone.

Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Chaos Theory: The Secret World introduces Issue #12: To the Dark Tower Below - We've known for quite some time that The Secret World's next issue would be dungeon-based. We also knew it would take place under the Orochi Tower. Today, the devs shared much more information during a livestream,…

Camelot Unchained crammed a bunch of people into a zone and it went pretty well - Camelot Unchained's Mark Jacobs returns with the game's latest Friday update. He says that it's a short one on account of a monster update coming next week, but there's still plenty of reading for fans of…

The Soapbox: Star Citizen is still worth the wait - Wow, it's Star Citizen and Derek Smart in the same post! OK, now that I've stopped laughing (again), you can call me crazy because I remain optimistic about Cloud Imperium's space sim opus. Yes, I'm still optimistic despite the verbal…

WoW Factor: Draenor’s imminent content drought - We know that Hellfire Citadel is going to be the last raid in World of Warcraft's current expansion. We know that the expansion wasn't going to even have flying, but it was added in due to…

Revival recaps its June dev blogs, talks physical coin storage - Fantasy sandbox virtual world Revival has released its latest newsletter, which takes a look back at the various dev blogs penned by the Illfonic team in the month of June. Topics include a day in the…

Here’s a bit of info on Guild Wars 2’s veteran character slots - Guild Wars 2 forum user Linfang posted a blurb about veteran character slots yesterday that's probably worth a read if you're a fan of ArenaNet's fantasy MMO. The info comes from the GW2 FAQ and subreddit,…

Black Desert video review rips MMO beta as a ‘shallow game’ - When it comes to MMO betas, don't you usually want to cut through the hype and hysteria to get at the truth of whether or not the game is, y'know, good? YouTuber KineticGTR sought to do…

Trion’s voxelbox Trove celebrates formal launch today - Trion's voxelbox Trove leaps from open beta to formal launch today, putting that extra server capacity Trion prepped last month to good use. "At launch, Trove features 9 playable classes; challenging procedurally generated dungeons, landscapes, and lairs;…

Path of Exile: The Awakening launches today - [AL:POE]The ground is rumbling underneath Path of Exile and will soon erupt in a plume of fiery content. The Awakening, a long-awaited content update, finally is going live today at 3:00 p.m. EDT. The Awakening starts…

ArcheAge’s skill queues lead to near-instant kill exploits [Updated] - Skill queues are meant as a way for players to "store up" commands and have all of those commands finally executed in one fell swoop. They are not meant to create lengthy instant implementations of multiple…

RaiderZ is shutting down in August - Perfect World is shutting down RaiderZ, effective August 7th at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The firm says that payments back-dated to May 7th will be refunded to your Arc account balance and will be available for spending…

SWTOR: Knights of the Fallen Empire makes large-scale operations and flashpoint changes - [AL:TOR]This autumn's Knights of the Fallen Empire won't be shaking up just the narrative foundation of Star Wars: The Old Republic but its group content as well. A new developer diary posted today outlines all of…

Final Fantasy XIV previews Alexander, claims 5M all-time subs - [AL:FFXIV]It might not be your cup of tea, but Final Fantasy XIV is certainly the cup of tea for a large number of MMO players, though how many remains unclear. At a recent event in Japan,…

Skyforge early access begins today for founders - Ready to get a jump on all of the other chumps who didn't buy a founder's pack for Skyforge? You can do that today. The game's early access has begun, and owners of the packs can…

TERA’s latest patch invites you to go berserk - [AL:TERA]Do you want to get angry? Do you already feel pretty angry? Do you feel so angry that you want other people to hit you in the face just because you're so angry? Then you'll be…

Star Citizen dismisses ‘feature creep’ concerns, declares Star Marine has NOT been canceled - The year thus far has not been the best possible year for Star Citizen. The game has seen a few people depart from prominent positions, delays to planned release schedules, and an essay by the ever-contentious…

Tamriel Infinium: Why I believe Elder Scrolls Online’s Veteran Ranks are here to stay - I am forever on the fence about gated content. One day I'll find myself championing the idea that veteran, loyal players should have access to content that is meant for them and only them. The next day,…

Derek Smart says Star Citizen, ‘as has been pitched, will never get made’ - The most polite possible way to describe Derek Smart is "contentious." He's indisputably worked on several games of huge scope without great reception. But he's also in a unique position to evaluate the ambition behind Star…

The Alexander raid dungeon launches in Final Fantasy XIV - [AL:FFXIV]Yesterday, Final Fantasy XIV previewed Alexander; today, the game has patched it in. That's a pretty aggressive patching schedule even with the game's reputation of huge patched content. Not that this was exactly news, as players knew…

Former WildStar dev Stephan Frost is now WoW’s design producer - WildStar lost a lot of dev talent over the past year, but at least one ex-Carbine staffer has landed on his feet. Former WildStar design producer Stephan Frost has stepped into the same role at Blizzard,…

THIS WEEK’S STREAMS