Blink and you’ll have missed it: Daybreak actually hinted at the return of an official Fan Faire this year, something the studio hasn’t done since 2014, when it was still called SOE.
Early Anthem buyers were also treated to their first weekend of demo/testing, which didn’t exactly go to plan.
Meanwhile, we saw layoffs at NCsoft, Daybreak delayed PlanetSide Arena, RuneScape’s studio is up for sale, SWTOR players are petitioning BioWare for love, and Facebook is still pure trash.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
EA rushes to add more server capacity for Anthem’s overloaded VIP demo - Anthem's VIP demo is live today, and everything is just fine! Well, maybe not. BioWare maybe doesn't have quite enough servers for the massive influx of players diving in, meaning…
EverQuest producer teases 20th anniversary events and the resurrection of Fan Faire - Daybreak just had a tough year, but EverQuest is focusing ahead on 2019. This March, the game turns 20 years old, and Holly Longdale's first producer's letter of the year…
Star Wars: The Old Republic fan petition asks for more funding for the game to give it new life - The state of Star Wars: The Old Republic is an odd one. It would seem odd to contend that the game is dying, but as the fan-created petition to revive the…
Perfect Ten: The worst MMORPG expansions of all time - A great MMO expansion brings so much to the table: fresh excitement for a game, new classes, innovative features, expanded vistas, additional races, and more. Pull it off right, and…
Wisdom of Nym: A measured evaluation of Final Fantasy XIV’s Blue Mage - It's fair to say that a lot was riding on the first limited job for Final Fantasy XIV. It's not just that the job itself needed to be fun, it's that…
EverQuest II announces anniversary events and new ‘old-school PvP’ event server - Venerable poster child of the MMO genre EverQuest is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and it just recently announced a cavalcade of events to commemorate the occasion, but it's…
Daybreak is delaying PlanetSide Arena’s early access launch to March - Daybreak has announced that it's delaying PlanetSide Arena's planned early access launch from January 29th to March 26th. "What we’ve discovered during playtesting is that while we’ve made significant strides…
LOTRO Legendarium: Five lessons I’ve learned from replaying Shadows of Angmar - Over the past three months, I've been exclusively playing on the Anor progression server in Lord of the Rings Online. During that time, I've taken my Hobbit Minstrel from 1…
Facebook lawsuit reveals ‘friendly fraud’ tactics it employed against underage online gamers - For many of us, Facebook use is something we do grudgingly -- we're never quite liking the social platform, but we're also unable to completely disconnect from it. From selling…
RuneScape dev Jagex is up for sale by its struggling Chinese owners after posting record high year - Remember a couple of years back when RuneScape company Jagex was bought out by China's Shandong Hongda, a company known primarily for its iron ore mining operations, to the tune…
Wisdom of Nym: Analyzing and overthinking Final Fantasy XIV’s 4.5 revelations - I wonder if we're actually going to find out our destination for the next expansion in February. Remember, we still don't actually know where we're going when Shadowbringers releases; when asked…
Fallout 76 previews new Survival mode, triggering community commotion - Apparently, some people thought that wandering around an devastated, irradiated wasteland full of vicious mutant creatures wasn't dangerous enough, which is exactly why Fallout 76 is adding its new Survival…
Massively Overthinking: Why aren’t you playing the MMO most like your favorite sunsetted game? - This week's Massively Overthinking question comes to us from reader Smuggler-in-a-YT. "Star Wars Galaxies had its problems, but the sense of community, purpose, and story (through its Star Wars IP) created…
The Daily Grind: Do you approach all MMOs with PvP as ‘PvP games’? - I saw a thought-provoking exchange on Reddit this week that's too good to sit on. It was in a thread for an MMORPG in which players were complaining about rampant…
Cyberpunk 2077 creative director joins Blizzard to work on an unannounced new project - A sudden shake-up has occurred at Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red, as it appears that the game's creative director, Sebastian Stępień, has left the studio to join the team…
Post-apoc survival MMO Last Oasis plans spring early access, opens closed beta signups - You just never know with survival games that call themselves MMOs whether they really mean it, but we've caught another one today: It's called Last Oasis, and developer Donkey Crew…
Leaderboard: Are you all-in for Elder Scrolls Online’s Elsweyr? - Elder Scrolls Online's Elsweyr is not exactly what I wanted - I'm a Hammerfell and Morrowind girl - but we already got Morrowind, so Elsweyr is basically close enough and…
SuperData December 2018: World of Warcraft returns to the rankings, Fortnite takes the year - Back in December, hearts skipped beats over the realization that not a single Blizzard game made it into SuperData's top global revenue rankings for gaming in the month of November.…
Star Trek Online update brings Mirror Universe Tilly, free tardigrade pets, and better skin - You can't keep a bad captain down -- or an available voice actress who is bearing the sole burden of representing her entire TV show in an MMO. Star Trek…
Choose My Adventure: Fighting for friends in Elite Dangerous - Combat in Elite Dangerous is hard, but finding friends was just a bit harder. At least, it was in the way that I had set myself up to do it.…
Leaderboard: Do you think Bethsoft is going to take Fallout 76 free-to-play? - One of the claims floating around Reddit and YouTube is the claim that stores across the globe, from the UK to Australia to even Poland, are pulling and marking down…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Wrathstone DLC has hit the PTS – here’s what to expect - Boom! Elder Scrolls Online players have known about the Wrathstone DLC for only a week, and now here we are welcoming its arrival on the PTS today, along with the…
Astellia confirms it’ll be buy-to-play in the west, won’t be a ‘smash-and-grab’ - At PAX South this weekend, Astellia reps did indeed sit for a panel on the game as promised - a panel hosted, apparently "at the last minute," by none other…
EVE Evolved: Solving conflict avoidance in EVE Online - Back in October, I made the case that wars were literally ruining EVE Online for the huge number of players living in high-security space. War corporations were using the system…
Warframe’s 2019 roadmap includes three new suits, cinematic quest, and Melee 3.0 - Digital Extremes has an action-packed 2019 in store for Warframe players, with an increased focus on "on-going shorter turn-around content" rather than slower, large content updates. Some of the additions…
NCsoft West mobile studio Iron Tiger hit with layoffs ahead of Aion Legions of War launch - Remember back at the end of 2015 when NCsoft was talking up its reinvestment in western franchises and studios? One of its plans included a new NCsoft West mobile studio…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 205: Dragons and other MMO rarities
The Stream Team: Waking up the staff in Conan Exiles’ Tower of Bats
The Stream Team: Deep-diving ARK Extinction’s green cave, part II
The Stream Team: How long can you last in Survived By?
The Stream Team: Shot Online because why not?
The Stream Team: Sentient sentinels and other City of the Sun God sirens in Secret World Legends
The Stream Team: Working toward an Isle of Madness visit in The Elder Scrolls Legends
The Stream Team: Libraries and lightsabers in SWTOR
The Stream Team: No more naughty Necroknight in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Searching for the Sacred Shrine in Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series
The Stream Team: Onward into more Outpost Zero
The Stream Team: Finishing Warframe’s Fortuna starting missions
The Stream Team: Going on Guild Wars 2 adventures
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
• What you need to know to about WoW’s Battle for Dazar’alor raid
• Azerite gear gets more powerful in Battle for Azeroth Season 2
• Every (non-gathering) profession gets a new item in WoW 8.1.5
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 bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
