MMO Week in Review: Salute to Smed (July 26, 2015)

July 26, 2015 8:00 PM

Were you too busy gaming this week to pay attention to MMO news? Get caught up every Sunday evening with Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!

Daybreak reps confirmed this week that veteran John Smedley, who led the MMO-building company for almost two decades, has stepped down from his position. The outspoken game head has recently beleaguered by extreme harassment by online thugs and supposedly will return from his vacation with a new role.

Though Daybreak and Smed have been otherwise silent on the topic, Smed’s rivals have not. “John was the driving force at the helm of SOE as they committed more and more resources to online gaming when almost nobody else was willing to do so,” Camelot Unchained’s Mark Jacobs wrote. “[I]f it wasn’t for him and SOE, I have no doubt that our slice of the gaming industry wouldn’t be where it is today.”

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

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

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Ambitious Project Gorgon is back on Kickstarter - Third time's the charm for Project Gorgon's Kickstarter, right? We hope so, as the ambitious indie fantasy sandpark is asking for a modest $20,000 to further its development. Unlike most Kickstarter MMOs, Gorgon has already been…

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Camelot Unchained’s Jacobs offers progress report, praise for his dev team - Camelot Unchained's traditional Friday update has been published, and CityState's Mark Jacobs has a lot to talk about on the heels of the recent beta delay announcement. He says that less than 50 of the game's…

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MMO Burnout: Why I want an Assassin’s Creed MMO - I play a fair amount of single-player stuff when I'm not playing MMOs, and at the risk of outing myself as one of those infernal dudebros, I love the Assassin's Creed franchise. And I do mean…

Phantasy Star Online 2 is IP-blocked again in the west - If you're a western fan of Phantasy Star Online 2, I'm sorry. SEGA still doesn't care to take your money, apparently, because the company's on-again-off-again IP blocking scheme for PSO2 is on again. A few days…

Marvel Heroics: Help! What hero should I play? - Superheroes are quite used to hearing cries of distress and pleas for help, but who lends a hand when the caped crusaders need assistance? I do, that's who! Also the wider Marvel Heroes community. And probably…

Final Fantasy XIV adds in progression endgame content and more PvP options - [AL:FFXIV]Final Fantasy XIV has been rolling out its Heavensward endgame in a series of stages, and the last stage has finally arrived. Patch 3.05 is now live, and it includes the Allagan Tomestones of Esoterics (the…

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Massively Overthinking: Dealing with toxicity in MMO communities - This week's Massively Overthinking comes to us from Kickstarter donor Dahui, who asks, "What do you think MMO developers can do to try to minimize the toxic behaviors that are so prevalent in some of the…

Kevin Sorbo headlines SMITE 10M player Hercules promotion - Actor Kevin Sorbo, a '90s geek icon for his title role in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, will voice a mostly new character in MOBA SMITE. ... That character is Hercules, of course. In fact, it's Retro…

Hearthstone’s second expansion is called The Grand Tournament - [AL:Hearth]Blizzard's big Hearthstone announcement is an expansion called The Grand Tournament. It was revealed on a livestream earlier this afternoon, and it's got a trailer (that you can view below the cut) and a dedicated website.…

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Hyperspace Beacon: Everything you need to know about SWTOR’s Togruta - [AL:TOR]Since the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, there have been two human-like species that players have feverishly demanded be made into a playable species: the squid-like Nautolans and the colorful Togruta. It's only taken…

No Man’s Sky shows off an infinity of worlds - If you sit down and play No Man's Sky, you'll never see exactly what you see in this trailer. That's the big draw of the game, that everything is randomly and procedurally generated so that there's…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS