MMO Week in Review: Daybreak week

It was a massive week for Daybreak MMOs, which often don’t get much glory individually, but all five of them got something tangible this week: Lord of the Rings Online released the Mariner as well as preorders for Corsairs of Umbar, EverQuest II began beta for the Ballads of Zimara expansion, Classic EverQuest announced its December Laurion’s Song expansion, DC Universe Online launched GU138 Justice League Dark Cursed, and even PlanetSide 2’s Halloween events began.

Meanwhile, we saw Gigantic revived – briefly – and welcomed returning players to Final Fantasy XIV for its 6.5 Growing Light update and New World for its Rise of the Angry Earth expansion.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Lord of the Rings Online opens preorders for Corsairs of Umbar expansion, launching November 1 - As expected - although not as properly communicated from the studio - Lord of the Rings Online's Corsairs of Umbar is officially open for preorders today. Yesterday, Standing Stone Games released…

Final Fantasy XIV’s 6.5 Growing Light arrives with MSQ update, dungeon, and Island Sanctuary content - New World isn't the only top MMORPG with a big launch today: Final Fantasy XIV's patch 6.5, Growing Light, is officially rolling out to the live servers. In addition to…

Motiga’s MOBA Gigantic has been resurrected… for 33 hours starting this afternoon - So here's a nice surprise for a Thursday morning: If you missed the old Motiga MOBA-shooter Gigantic, you can play it again - briefly. MMO readers will recall that Motiga…

New World’s population – and queues – continue to climb thanks to Rise of the Angry Earth - Following the launch of New World's paid expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, the game is once again on an upward trajectory in terms of population - once again with…

EverQuest II opens preorders and beta for Ballads of Zimara expansion, coming in November - Bards, listen up: EverQuest II's 20th expansion is launching next month, and it'll be music to your ears, literally. It's called Ballads of Zimara, and it's open for preorders now…

Diablo IV launches on Steam alongside Season of Blood on October 17 - Who had Diablo IV as the next Blizzard game to flock to Steam for more players? Probably most of us, honestly, given how the game fell off this summer, but…

Embers Adrift opens up subscription perks to all for its anniversary event - It's already been just about a year since Embers Adrift first reached launch, and that's something to celebrate for any MMO. Even more so when you're a dedicated old-school indie…

LOTRO Legendarium: Are we ready for LOTRO’s Corsairs of Umbar? - They say that as you get older, time seems to pass by much more quickly. Perhaps that explains why 2023 feels like it's been breaking the speed limit. It's certainly…

EVE Online’s Crimson Harvest Halloween event brings murderous good times to New Eden - What does Halloween in space look like? For players of EVE Online, it looks like the annual Crimson Harvest event, which has come back to the stars of New Eden…

Global Chat: So who’s ready for EverQuest 3? - Hibernating fans of the EverQuest franchise stirred from slumber this past month to hear that EG7 and Daybreak may actually be progressing with a real MMO sequel... for 2028. Of…

Whatever happened to the pirate-themed survival sandbox Atlas? - The last time Atlas, the survival sandbox wearing a pirate costume, made any sort of public noise was on Friday, June 30th, when developer Grapeshot Games announced the start of…

WoW Factor: For Khaz Algar! - This is not really a column about Khaz Algar in World of Warcraft, or at least not in the sense that you might expect it to be. That's because there's…

Ten-year-old Camelot Unchained gets all technical and mechanical with this month’s newsletter - For you patient and persistent fans of Camelot Unchained, City State Entertainment put out its 101st newsletter for the long-in-the-coming MMORPG. This time around, the team talked about the "mechanical"…

DC Universe Online goes dark and cursed for its October update - Hope you weren't expecting sunshine and posies in DC Universe Online this month because this superhero MMORPG is all about embracing its shadowy side in October. [AL:DCUO]On Thursday, Daybreak released…

Massively Overthinking: What’s the most chaotic behavior you’ve seen from MMO players? - A week or two ago, I found myself discussing Ultima Online by way of trying to convince our work chat that players often do the opposite of what developers expect…

Foxhole announces Naval Warfare update for October 26 with massively multiplayer ship content - Foxhole and Anvil Empires developer Siege Camp unveiled a big update for the former on today's announcement stream: Foxhole is getting a massive patch that brings naval warfare into the…

PlanetSide 2’s Halloween event, Nanite of the Living Dead, is back through October 31 - Lest you think that Daybreak had forgotten about PlanetSide 2 in its mad rush for announcements and releases for its five other MMORPGs this week, the studio has kicked off…

Vague Patch Notes: Why people can’t just ignore things they don’t want in MMORPGs - As I often do, I'm going to start this column with a bit of history. But in this particular case, it's a bit of history that I did not personally…

Former Ubisoft execs and employees were detained by French police over sexual misconduct allegations - It looks as if the French authorities are moving against Ubisoft employees who were among those accused in the studio's wide-reaching sexual misconduct exposé. French newspaper Libération reports that five…

EverQuest’s 30th expansion, Laurion’s Song, launches in December – with class swapping - With Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II both debuting new expansions this week, you had to figure EverQuest was close behind, and as of last night, that assumption…

Drakantos is an upcoming free-to-play MMORPG promising hundreds of missions and multiple heroes - "Two-dimensional pixel art... so hot right now," read a reader comment about an earlier spotlight of a different pixel art-style MMORPG, and it appears that he is right because we've…

Sega’s cancelled PvPvE shooter Hyenas was reportedly a doomed project from the very start - Have you heard about Hyenas? It's OK if you didn't, as this PvPvE shooter from developer Creative Assembly and publisher Sega had a pretty small shelf life, entering a closed…

Perfect Ten: The delicate balancing act of designing MMORPGs - MMORPGs are complicated. We all know that. But one of the things that I think is easy to overlook is how and why MMORPGs can be intensely complicated just from…

Pirate101 releases Sinbad Chapter 3, declaring ‘We’re back!’ as the game turns 11 years old - Don't ever count a pirate out of the fight before you see the white flag! Despite seeing a content drought in previous years, Pirate101 is churning out more story content…

Lost Ark’s next update arrives October 11 with the romantic continent of Pleccia - If it seems as if the September update for Lost Ark just landed yesterday, well that's because this fall is moving along at a clip, and indeed the October update…

Warcraft Rumble will officially launch on November 3 at the start of BlizzCon - Well, apparently some of the news about this particular franchise is not actually waiting until BlizzCon. Warcraft Rumble, previously known as Warcraft Arclight Rumble, now has an official launch date…

Star Trek Online is discontinuing its 3-D-printed ship partnership with Gameprint - There are a whole lot of different ships in Star Trek Online, and considering the customization and personal investment that a player can have in their ships, you'd probably agree…

Funcom celebrates its 30th anniversary as it looks back at Anarchy Online, Conan, and Secret World - It's a landmark year for Funcom, as the Norwegian video game developer celebrates its 30th anniversary. The studio got started making games for the Genesis and SNES before making a…

New World’s Rise of the Angry Earth expansion is officially here – and so are the queues - New World's Rise of the Angry Earth expansion has officially launched this afternoon, and if today is anything like last night, players can expect queues as the hype train leaves…

Choose My Adventure: What weapon goes best with New World’s new Angry Earth flail? - There's always this little buzz before an MMORPG gets a major content release or expansion drop. People are flitting around doing their final checks or rushing to goals, preparations are…

Mike Ybarra says World of Warcraft and its IP will get the most news at BlizzCon - Do you spend far too much time analyzing floor plans for this year's BlizzCon and need to know which of Blizzard's franchises is getting the short end of the stick?…

Dark Age of Camelot celebrates its 22nd birthday with experience and PvP boosts - Broadsword has a busy anniversary season ahead of it: A week ago, Ultima Online celebrated its 26th birthday, and now Dark Age of Camelot is following with the festivities for…

Wisdom of Nym: The packed October for Final Fantasy XIV following patch 6.5 - Tomorrow, patch 6.5 will be live for Final Fantasy XIV. That's the last patch of the Endwalker cycle, which means the first part of the MSQ wrapping things up with…

Epic Games raises Fortnite prices in wake of layoffs and financial woes - Once again, Epic Games is asking for your help. Well, it's not so much asking anyone for assistance as it is jacking up the prices in its most popular title.…

Wildcard sunsets ARK Survival Evolved official servers, confirms no Steam cross-play at ARK Ascended’s launch - "We aren't meant to live forever," reasons the title of a video for ARK: Survival Evolved, which is part of a wider send-off for the now-closed official servers of the…

Guild Wars 2 Discord drama sends community scrambling for a new server - An environment turned sour apparently spurred a number of Guild Wars 2 mods and admins to break off from the main unofficial Discord server to create a new one last…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 439: The upcoming MMO show

The Stream Team: Flinging the flail around in New World’s Rise of the Angry Earth

The Stream Team: Making our way to Menzoberranzan in Neverwinter

The Stream Team: Truckers on ice in Party Animals

The Stream Team: The further adventures of a City of Heroes Homecoming alt

The Stream Team: Exploring the Wizard’s Tower in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Be a Borg with this Star Trek Online giveaway

The Stream Team: Halloween F.A.R.M.ing in Astroneer

The Stream Team: A first-time run through Final Fantasy XIV’s final Myths of the Realm 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.