This week, eyebrows across the MMOverse lifted when John Smedley, just seven weeks after the cancellation of crowdfunded Hero’s Song and the closure of his indie studio, was announced as the leader of a new MMO studio under the Amazon Games banner, with most of the Pixelmage studio intact. Smed has thus far not responded to request for comment, but we’re sure he’s a bit swamped right about now.
Meanwhile, it was Fan Festival weekend for Final Fantasy XIV; Massively OP’s Eliot Lefebvre dragged himself outta bed at the crack o’ dawn to report on the Red Mage, swimming, and how Naoki Yoshida literally came out on stage in full Samurai gear to announce the new job.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Amazon Game Studios gave John Smedley a new online game team to run - If you wondered what John Smedley was up to following the death of Pixelmage Games and Hero's Song in December, now you have an answer: Amazon Game Studios picked him…
Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival XIV Europe: Samurai, Doma, and theme songs - [AL:FFXIV]If you're a fan of Final Fantasy XIV, the European fan festival is something you've been waiting for more or less since December's Japanese fan festival. We've been eagerly anticipating…
Lost Continent: ArcheAge Revelation’s fresh start servers aren’t doing newbies any favors - [AL:Arche]It’s been over a month now since ArcheAge’s massive update 3.0 went live, adding oodles of new content to Trion’s expansive fantasy sandbox. The update, dubbed Revelation, is indeed monumental:…
Preview: Path of Exile reveals The Fall of Oriath - [AL:POE]Path of Exile fans, today is the big day: Grinding Gear Games is officially unveiling your next expansion, dubbed The Fall of Oriath. It turns out that the place your Exile called home…
Elder Scrolls Online now boasts 8.5M players - [AL:ESO]At a press event today at ZeniMax Online Studios HQ, Elder Scrolls Online's Matt Firor announced something we rarely get out of any MMORPG studio these days: a headcount. Firor…
Smed’s new Amazon studio is basically Pixelmage Games - Amazon Game Studios announced yesterday that it had picked up MMORPG genre veteran John Smedley to helm one of its up-and-coming online game studios. Today, it published a blog post…
LOTRO Legendarium: Checking out LOTRO’s housing improvements - [AL:LOTRO]Like probably most of the population of Lord of the Rings Online, I was initially interested in player housing when it first came out, gave it the ol' college try…
Five reasons behind the failure of Hero’s Song - In July of 2015, MMORPG fans were stunned to hear that John Smedley was stepping down from his post as president of Daybreak. After all, he had been in the…
Massively Overthinking: Are MMOs designed for ‘low-skill gamers’? - Ages ago on the MMORPG subreddit, a player made a bold statement: MMORPGs are designed for low-skill gamers. "I remember being dazzled by EverQuest and Ultima as a child," he…
Perfect Ten: Terminology the MMORPG genre needs - MMOs, like any other hobby, have their own terminology. We have the term "newb" for new players, "noob" for players who aren't actually new but still make new player mistakes,…
Hyperspace Beacon: SWTOR’s latest raid might be a too little too late - [AL:TOR]When Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, I was champing at the bit for raids. Then when I heard about the launch bugs from friends, I really didn't want to have…
The trouble with master writs in Elder Scrolls Online - [AL:ESO]Probably the loudest complaint about the otherwise-nifty Homestead housing in The Elder Scrolls Online comes from the players who argue that acquiring the necessary master writs is an intentionally time-consuming…
Emily ‘Domino’ Taylor departs Daybreak and the EverQuest franchise - Emily "Domino" Taylor, long-time EverQuest franchise crafting wizard at SOE and now Daybreak, announced that she's leaving the studio at the end of the month -- just a week after…
Blizzard: WoW Tokens are ‘harmless’ and ‘make people happier’ - In a new interview with Glixel, World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas opened up about the creation and use of WoW Tokens in the Blizzard ecosystem, especially in light…
City of Heroes fans plan April 28th anniversary celebration - Who says you can't celebrate the life of a sunsetted game? The Titan Network isn't buying it: It's once again hosting a City of Heroes anniversary party on the game's…
Star Citizen free-fly, 3.0 release interview, and Around the Verse - Valentine's Day may be over, but the chalky candy hearts and five-foot teddy bears remain. You know what's one other thing that's still around? Star Citizen's Valentine's Day promotion, which…
World of Warcraft’s Hazzikostas discusses the goals for future Artifact Power implementation - There has been some back-and-forth about World of Warcraft's Artifact Power system. The problem that people have run into, essentially, is that the game's initial exponential power curve for artifact…
Guild Wars 2 Art Director Daniel Dociu is leaving ArenaNet - Yesterday, ArenaNet's Mike O'Brien announced to forumgoers that longtime studio Art Director Daniel Dociu "will be leaving ArenaNet" and Guild Wars 2. "Daniel Dociu will be leaving ArenaNet," O'Brien writes.…
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen recaps the state of the game, defends the class matrix - Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's latest newsletter includes a state-of-the-game memo from Creative Director Chris "Joppa" Perkins, who recaps the game's progress since the last one (apparently in May of…
Choose My Adventure: Reconsidering WildStar, from pre-launch to now - In order to talk about WildStar, we kind of have to talk about Firefly. And no, not in the obvious way where we talk about how dearly the game wants…
Chaos Theory: The Secret World predictions 2016 vs 2017 - It's no secret that The Secret World had a rough year in 2016. I just really wish I could say differently. And it's especially sad because I had such hopes…
Paragon introduces K-pop-themed Shinbi hero - Epic's MOBA Paragon revealed a new playable hero this week: Shinbi, a K-pop themed melee superstar who's possibly a reference to pop star ShinB from GFRIEND, which incidentally hit MMO…
Jukebox Heroes: Vote for your favorite MMORPG theme songs of all time! - On a couple of past occasions, I've amused myself by posting countdown lists of my favorite MMORPG theme songs in this column. I was coming back around to the notion…
Conan Exiles gets spotlighted for nudity and for its digital comic - The long-standing joke, for ages, was the man who adamantly explains to others that he purchases Playboy magazine for the articles, not the pictures of naked women. The online version…
Revelation Online starts open beta on March 6 - [AL:Rev]Are you unwilling to pay for beta access but also desperately curious about playing Revelation Online? You won't have to wait much longer. The game's open beta begins on March…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 104: WoW Token resistance
Battle Bards Episode 92: Dragon’s Prophet
The Stream Team: Celebrating SMITE’s new Kuzenbo with codes
The Stream Team: ARK’s big Broodmother raid, take two
The Stream Team: Catching thralls in Conan Exiles
Warframe community rallies for weekend Extra Life stream
The Stream Team: Landmark’s last weekend
The Stream Team: Skating through The Secret World’s new challenge
The Stream Team: Picking a perfect ArcheAge pet
The Stream Team: A Landmark scavenger hunt
The Stream Team: Death to Hex’s death worm hydra
The Stream Team: The heart is where the Hellbugs are… in Trove
The Stream Team: Sparks fly in Black Desert for Valentine’s Day
The Stream Team: A Marvel Heroes Beast breakdance-athon and giveaway
The Stream Team: Would you love a Paladins Maeve? Watch and win!
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Are flying mounts really necessary in WoW Legion?
Have WoW’s Legendaries lost their shininess?
The Founding of WoW’s Quel’Thalas and the enmity of Trolls
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 little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
