MMO Week in Review: Daybreak, Funcom, and Tencent

Ah, the start of a new year: the best time for industry shake-ups. Last year’s were pretty devastating, you’ll recall. So far, though, the big two we got this week are mainly just head-scratchers, as Tencent attempts to buy up the parts of Funcom it doesn’t already own, and Daybreak spun off at least three new substudios still under its banner, saying Standing Stone remains unaffected.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Daybreak formally announces the new substudios for PlanetSide, EverQuest, and DCUO - Last year was riddled with rumors coming out of Daybreak Games, as last summer the once-glorious MMORPG company registered multiple websites and trademarks for Darkpaw Games, Rogue Planet Games, and Golden Age Studios, plus…

Tencent wants to buy out the rest of Funcom as board recommends focusing on DUNE - My inbox this morning had half a dozen tips and press releases on this Funcom story, so you know we're doing it first thing: Yes, Tencent is attempting to buy…

Vague Patch Notes: Chronicle of a Daybreak death foretold - On Tuesday, Daybreak Games announced what amounts to a form of slow death. Technically, sure, what it announced was that the company is splitting up its game development into a…

Why I Play: Is Star Trek Online worth playing in 2020? - Star Trek Online is a hard game to get into. When I first tried it early in my MMO career, I hated it and barely lasted a few hours. A…

Daybreak says its studio split-up will have ‘no impact’ on Standing Stone, LOTRO, or DDO - Following the big (but not unexpected) announcement that Daybreak is fracturing into a trio of studios underneath a publishing arm, one of the questions that has arisen is what might…

EVE Online player makes a 1 million PLEX bid for charity - Last week, we reported on a PLEX for GOOD charity event being run by EVE Online to benefit the Australian brush fires victims. That was pretty good on its own,…

WoW Factor: Oh no, Visions of N’zoth is real bad - Based on a wholly informal poll based on what's going around the community right now, I've compiled most of the agreed-upon positives for the most recent World of Warcraft patch.…

Perfect Ten: The best value MMOs in 2020 - While there is nothing wrong with dropping some money on a worthy game, many of us are looking to be as frugal as possible when engaging in MMORPGs. It's good…

Guild Wars 2 is spiffing up a weapon set after players complained about meh reskins - Here's the thing: When you make an MMO that focuses heavily on cosmetics, especially paid cosmetics, you are gonna find a lot of players nitpicking those cosmetics. There's a reason…

LOTRO Legendarium: Rating the best active racials in Lord of the Rings Online - Picking a race to play in Lord of the Rings Online isn't as consequence-free as you might encounter in other MMORPGs. For starters, the races have specific starting zones and…

Saga of Lucimia announces tentative launch date of Q4 2021 - Over the course of 2019, Saga of Lucimia went relatively quiet on the publicity front. It closed its pre-order store for stage two of its closed alpha phase, and apart…

Fallout 76 previews Wastelanders’ NPC factions and towns - Delayed to 2020 as part of the disastrous Fallout First announcement, Fallout 76's Wastelanders expansion is digging into details of what players can expect as the the content continues streaming…

Blitzchung: No regrets for speaking up for Hong Kong despite Hearthstone suspension - Chung Ng Wai, better known as Blitzchung, took a big risk when he spoke out in support of Hong Kong on an official Hearthstone stream. He wound up with a lengthy…

Massively Overthinking: The one about MMORPG content roadmaps - You know what word I love to hear from MMORPG developers? Roadmap. If you're a millennial or older, you surely remember roadtrip life before widespread GPS - sitting in a…

Profane is a full-loot open PvP sandbox of territorial domination - Maybe you're among those who are upset at New World's shifting focus and you're wondering where your next fully open PvP MMO is. Perhaps you could consider giving Profane some…

The second season of ArcheAge Unchained’s ArchePass begins today - The never-ending saga of ArcheAge Unchained and its beleaguered ArchePass continues as this week Gamigo announced yet another round of changes for the system coming with its second season. Notably,…

World of Warcraft took a tumble in SuperData’s December 2019 revenue rankings - SuperData's December 2019 report on the global games industry's monthly revenue is up, and it's a head-scratcher indeed. On the PC side, there hasn't been a huge change at the…

Interview: Star Trek Online’s Jarrod Fisher looks back on 10 years of MMO trekkin’ - If you haven't heard the word yet, this year marks the 10th anniversary of Star Trek Online, which released way back in 2010. To say that the MMO has come…

Catch up on World of Warcraft’s overall story arc in just one and a half minutes - Yes, you read that title right: This one and a half minute video will get you fully up to speed on World of Warcraft's ongoing story arc from Wrath of the…

The Daily Grind: How do you feel about the new Daybreak situation? - We've all had a couple of days to process the news that Daybreak Games is splitting most of itself into smaller sub-studios each controlling a small portion of games, and…

Black Desert’s new axe-wielding Guardian is now live along with her launch events - The Guardian has officially joined Black Desert on PC here in the west as of today, wielding her trademark axe and shield to kick some enemy butt. Kakao's patch notes…

Kickstarted VR cyberpunk MMO Zenith grows its team, lays groundwork for pre-alpha - One of the uplifting victories for the genre in 2019 was the fact that a couple of unorthodox titles were pretty successful in their Kickstarter campaigns. One of these, Zenith,…

Riot Games’ $10M settlement could climb to $400M due to California state agency filings - Allow us to recount events for a moment: In 2018, a Kotaku expose blew the lid off of a deeply alarming "bro culture" work environment that normalized a variety of…

Phantasy Star Online 2 promises closed beta testing dates ‘soon’ - Calm down, Phantasy Star Online 2 hopefuls! Why would everyone be so antsy about a lack of any firm dates for the game's closed beta testing? Other than the fact that…

Choose My Adventure: Villagers & Heroes on mobile feels like a true themepark MMO (for better or worse) - Choose My Mobile Adventure has changed locales from the Black Desert on over to the world of Villagers & Heroes, a game that has sat firmly on my “meaning to…

Lawful Neutral: Examining the ArcheAge class action lawsuit – and what it means for gamers - Gamers threaten lawsuits a lot. Most of the time they threaten lawsuits over things that aren't really something they can sue over, usually due to misunderstanding what some legal concepts…

Harrowstorm hits the Elder Scrolls Online PTS with new housing and PvP queueing drama - As promised, Harrowstorm - the first DLC headed to The Elder Scrolls Online in 2020 - landed on the public test server alongside update 25, and it's packed full of…

Chronicles of Elyria dev blog’s ‘mood piece’ turns out to be ‘photobashed stock art’ - The idea of a mood board, which collects a variety of images from various sources to bring inspiration, isn't exactly a foreign one. Perhaps that's what Chronicles of Elyria was…

UK NHS director calls out lootboxes as ‘under the radar’ gambling - As much as the developers who make lockboxes would probably like for the random packs of items to start slipping back under the radar, that keeps not happening. A new…

Temtem ramps up for its early access launch with an anime-style launch trailer - Stress testing is over and today marks the official early access launch of Temtem, the critter collecting MMO in the style of Pokemon, and what better way to hype up…

Guardians of Ember is sunsetting once again as Gameforge and Runewaker drop contract - Do you folks remember a few years ago when Guardians of Ember launched? It was an isometric hack-and-slash MMO built by Runewaker (you know it from Runes of Magic), whose…

EVE Evolved: Fight or Flight is a season for change in EVE Online - January marks not just the beginning of a new year for EVE Online but also the start of a new seasonal development strategy for the 16-year-old sci-fi MMO. This winter…

Wisdom of Nym: Gunblades across Final Fantasy XIV - I think we can all agree that the explanation given for where the name "gunblade" comes from in Final Fantasy XIV is very silly, as is the idea that "gunblade"…

Not So Massively: Magic: Legends isn’t at all what I expected – it’s better - When we first got word of an MMO in the setting of Magic: The Gathering years ago, a Diablo-style ARPG probably isn't what anyone had in mind, but that is…

Albion Online has officially deployed the Queen update today - It's the eighth major update for post-launch Albion Online, Major Outlands rework makes living there feel pretty fine! Hideouts for guilds there, three new towns to play fair, Open-world fighting…

CIG fires back in response to Crytek’s request to pause Squadron 42 lawsuit - Earlier this month we reported on a request from Crytek to halt its ongoing breach of contract lawsuit against Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium without prejudice - and without fees…

Last Oasis takes a cheeky jab at New World’s PvP about-face - The woodpunk survival sandbox MMO Last Oasis saw a hot iron and decided to strike. With the furor that's still raging over New World's decision to tone down its FFA…

Temtem has had a bumpy but active early access launch - It's the way of things when an MMO first launches to hit a variety of potholes along the way. So it was for Temtem, which arrived to early access yesterday…

Presidential hopeful Joe Biden calls out Silicon Valley game devs as ‘creeps’ - It would appear that US presidential hopeful and former vice president Joe Biden has an unkind view of most Silicon Valley tech companies and video game developers. An interview with…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 256: Queens, vikings, and vampires

The Stream Team: Giving Guardian a go in BDO

The Stream Team: See the Sunken Sewer in Dungeons and Dragons Online

The Stream Team: Playing with the Emperor’s Hand in SWTOR

The Stream Team: Working with AQ3D’s werewolves

The Stream Team: Celebrating the Year of the Skritt in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Construction and kitty collection in Conan Exiles

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.