MMO Week in Review: Blizzard’s brand-new boss

Meet the new boss, same as the… well, actually we don’t know how samey Johanna Faries is going to be just yet. She’s replacing the controversial Mike Ybarra as the president of Blizzard, and Blizzard was in a rough spot even before his reign, so she doesn’t exactly have a high bar to clear here. Time to wait and see what happens next.

Meanwhile, The Day Before drama still won’t go away, we took a long look at Palworld and found it pretty decent, Wayfinder got hit with layoffs, and Zenith decided to become the latest MMO to spin off a non-MMO sidegame.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Johanna Faries is the new president of Blizzard following Mike Ybarra’s ouster - Following last week's layoffs, it didn't seem likely that the potentially frozen throne at the head of Blizzard Entertainment would remain vacant for long. As of today, Microsoft has announced…

Vague Patch Notes: Why we drift away from MMORPGs we still love - Why did I stop playing Star Trek Online? Was it because there was some change made to the game that made it no longer fun to play? Did it come…

Former devs of The Day Before recount a workplace of employee fines, shifting whims, and ‘pure megalomaniacal chaos’ - However badly managed The Day Before may have looked upon its disastrous early access release, the reality was reportedly much worse than anyone could have imagined. Anonymous Fntastic devs and…

Working As Intended: Yes, you can make money as a newbie in City of Heroes - Something I've heard over and over from commenters and even newbies in City of Heroes Homecoming ever since the official license was announced is that it's just too hard to…

First Impressions: Palworld copied all the right homework to graduate as its own enjoyable game - You know how the back of a box of Hamburger Helper or other boxed dinner mixes encourage you to toss in extra ingredients to "make it your own"? That's a…

Massively Overthinking: Do you care more about MMO stats or looks? - This week's Massively Overthinking is fully inspired by the unicorn backpack meme, which Black Desert studio Pearl Abyss tweeted out last week with the caption "stats over looks any day."…

Into the Super-Verse: Early SOs pose a perplexing problem in City of Heroes Homecoming - Last week, I talked a bit about how to gear yourself up in City of Heroes. Just yesterday, Bree gave an example for how to make money so you can…

Skull & Bones’ free open beta begins February 7 – here’s the new trailer and season preview - Ubisoft is hyping up the free open beta for Skull and Bones, and we have to note right up front that while the devs are calling it an open beta,…

Destiny 2 director Joe Blackburn vacates his position for ‘a new adventure outside the walls of Bungie’ - After nearly a decade of working at Bungie and four years as game director of Destiny 2, Joe Blackburn has left his position, moving on to "a new adventure outside…

Kickstarted VR MMO Zenith is launching a spinoff F2P co-op RPG called Zenith Infinite Realms - Zenith - the Kickstarted VR MMO that has yet to actually produce the PC-centric version promised during that campaign - has been hinting at struggles for a while now. Back…

NCsoft announces plans to move Aion, Lineage II, and Blade & Soul to its Purple platform - Readers might remember that back in 2019, NCsoft launched its own games platform known as Purple, which lets players enjoy the studio's mobile games on PC along with features like…

Massively on the Go: Preparing for Pokemon Go’s Los Angeles Sinnoh Tour - Pokemon GO's Sinnoh Tour is coming to Los Angeles February 16th-18th, but despite its already being sold out, Niantic is still dangling some key features behind closed curtains, such as…

Hasbro’s Wizards of the Coast denies that it’s looking to sell off Dungeons & Dragons - Remember the uproar yesterday when a Chinese website scooped the story about how Hasbro was apparently shopping around the Dungeons & Dragons IP in order to offset its terrible toy…

Palworld counts 19M players across Steam and Xbox, becomes the largest third-party release for Game Pass - The juggernaut that is the early access survivalbox Palworld doesn't appear to be slowing down any time soon, as developer Pocketpair has once again shared player numbers on Twitter: 19M…

Casually Classic: When will WoW Classic stop adding expansions? - This spring, the era of Wrath Classic will officially come to an end when the Cataclysm Classic pre-patch hits ahead of the summer launch. With no current option to stay…

Ashes of Creation showcases how PvP will work for caravan runs in latest preview video - Last November, Ashes of Creation highlighted the act of moving goods from one place to another in a caravan, which was certainly an illustrative look at the activity but ultimately…

Elite Dangerous unveils 2024 plans for powerplay rework, next Thargoid War step, and ‘at least’ four new ships - The playerbase of Elite Dangerous is waking up to some unique emotions today: a sense of hope and excitement for the spaceship sandbox. That's thanks to a recent livestream from…

Embers Adrift’s 2024 roadmap promises more solo support and a free trial coming this month - Embers Adrift's Stormhaven Studios is the latest MMO team to deliver a juicy roadmap - and it's promising "big steps" for the indie title, though it doesn't include hard dates…

Wayfinder studio Airship Syndicate is laying off a dozen staff as execs reduce their own pay - If you've seen the rumors on Twitter this afternoon that Wayfinder's team is suffering layoffs, well, I'm sorry to report that they're true, and while it's not the 2500 laid…

Hasbro is selling the Dungeons & Dragons IP – and Tencent is the potential buyer - There's a potentially big business deal happening in both the world of tabletop gaming and video gaming: Insider sources reporting to Chinese news site Speed Daily have confirmed that Hasbro…

Perfect Ten: Why MMOs should never ditch text chat - If you ever want to feel what an MMO is like without any sort of text chat, then spend a stretch of time in Fallout 76. The silence in that…

Phantasy Star Online 2’s latest update adds more story and raises the level cap as SEGA America begins layoffs - Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis players are in for a treat today, and they deserve it after waiting through a nine-hour maintenance with multiple delays. SEGA's arcade-y take on the…

The Quinfall discusses its business model, gameplay, and beta testing plans in Q&A video - Vawraek Technology has posted a new video for its upcoming MMORPG The Quinfall featuring some player Q&A about the title, and the answers provided are either generally pretty direct or…

Tencent-backed Chimeraland is shutting down at the end of March - Back in September of last year, we checked in on Tencent's strange survival sandbox Chimeraland only to find that very little had happened... followed two days later by an utterly…

WoW Classic Season of Discovery’s next phase includes Gnomeregan raid, but no more GDKP runs - The next phase for WoW Classic's Season of Discovery servers is imminent, and Blizzard is sharing some -- but not all -- of the changes and additions coming to this…

The first two Warcraft games and the original Diablo are now on Battle.net - For too long, you have had to live in a universe where your only access to the original Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, its sequel Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and…

The Soapbox: Casuals and soloers need challenging MMO content too - In a recent press Q&A around the announcement of Elder Scrolls Online's Gold Road chapter, Zenimax creative director Rich Lambert appeared to dismiss the idea of offering more challenging open…

Throne & Liberty KR will bolster endgame with coop dungeons, dungeon finder, and less ‘forced content’ - NCsoft's Jong-ok Ahn is back on the official Throne & Liberty site with another producer's update this week, this time talking about the Resistance event on Korean servers - specifically,…

Choose My Adventure: Genshin Impact is a perfectly lovely single-player RPG - Before I begin, I want to point out that I promise I didn't write that headline just to get anger clicks. I don't want anger. Seriously, I have enough reasons…

Enshrouded celebrates over one million players, vows to continue to ‘kick some bug ass’ - While it's certainly nowhere near as viral as another survival game in early access, Keen Games' own multiplayer survivalbox Enshrouded hasn't been a slouch in the player numbers department itself,…

Bungie announces genius Destiny 2 collab with BioWare’s Mass Effect franchise - This week in transmedia synergy crosspromos that will break your brain along with the sanctity of whatever canon is left to us in MMOs is BioWare and Bungie, which have…

Guild Wars 2’s Lunar New Year Festival arrives alongside latest round of profession nerfs - Happy class balance day, Guild Wars 2 players! Also happy lunar new year! Yes, the January 30th update this afternoon offers both tears and beers. Let's start with the good news,…

A Blizzard dev cleverly yoinked a decade of WoW sub time before layoffs - It's one thing to leverage a whole mountain of in-game gold into being able to play World of Warcraft for free, but it's another thing altogether to cash in a…

Elder Scrolls Online previews Scions of Ithelia DLC and Update 41, now on the PTS - Long before they embark on The Elder Scrolls Online's Gold Road in June, players will be dipping into the first DLC of the year - and in fact, you can…

Loric Games, founded by Mythic vets, picks up fresh investment and Jeff Hickman to build a survival game - Remember back in 2022, when we first learned a trio of Mythic vets - Brian Johnson, Ray Soto, and Mythic co-founder Rob Denton - were putting the band back together…

Wisdom of Nym: The franchise references for jobs in Final Fantasy XIV - There is not a single game in the history of the franchise that has not been referenced in some capacity by Final Fantasy XIV. This in and of itself is…

Interview: Survival MMO Age of Water on monetization, sandbox play, and the Q1 early access launch - Way back at the end of 2020, we first caught wind of a new sandbox called Age of Water: Developed by Three Whales Studio under Gaijin Entertainment's inCubator guidance, the…

Camelot Unchained’s latest newsletter reaffirms its old-school business model - We've had one Camelot Unchained newsletter, yes, but what about second newsletter? Then prepare for paragraphs from City State Entertainment as it showcases the work of animation debugging and lighting…

Mad World’s Steam launch is more like Sad World - Too little, too late? That may be the epitaph to Mad World's nine-month trek to bringing the game to Steam after last year's launch. We already knew that this grimdark…

City of Heroes players filled Homecoming’s latest $8.6K monthly donation round in three hours - When NCsoft granted Homecoming LLC a license to operate City of Heroes at the top of January, one of the questions a lot of newcomers to the situation had focused…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 455: Odyssey to the abyss

The Stream Team: Joining in on the Nightingale stress test

The Stream Team: A Mad Tea Party in Dungeons & Dragons Online

The Stream Team: Going after SWTOR’s latest achievements

The Stream Team: Previewing City of Heroes Homecoming’s new Arsenal powersets

The Stream Team: Guild Wars 2’s Year of the Dragon

The Stream Team: Entering Elder Scrolls Online’s Shrine of the Golden Eye

The Stream Team: Blowing up birthday Borg in Scorpion’s Abyss on Star Trek Online’s 14th anniversary

The Stream Team: Starting again in AQ3D with a revamped experience

The Stream Team: Moving a first timer through the next round of Final Fantasy XIV’s Pandaemonium raid

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.