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Tencent Seeks to Fully Acquire Funcom
In a press release on Funcom’s website, the Norwegian-based company running Conan Exiles and working on the upcoming Dune survival MMO announced that the tech investment company Tencent was in the market to acquire full controlling interest via purchasing all other stockholders’ shares.
read moreDaybreak Spins Off Game Franchises
Daybreak Games announced on Tuesday that they were spinning off three of their four game franchises into separate studios. Last year, eagle-eyed Twitter user MSandersonD had scoped out some new trademarks being registered by Daybreak, setting off speculation of this very action coming.
read moreDDO Publishes 2020 Producer’s Letter
Standing Stone Games made the news twice today. Firstly with the not-really-news reassurance from publisher Daybreak Games that Daybreak’s announcement that it’s spinning off its three franchises off into separate but connected studios will not affect SSG, and secondly by publishing their 2020 Producer’s Letter for Dungeons and Dragons Online.
read moreBethesda Invites You to the Dark Heart of Skyrim
Recently, Bethesda Softworks announced the next Chapter in their Elder Scrolls Online saga, entitled Greymoor. In it, Zenimax Online invites players to venture to the land of the Nords in a year-long adventure centering around three DLCs and the main Chapter.
read moreAstellia Launches as an MMO on Steam January 30th
Brunson E&A has announced that their MMO Astellia is set to launch on Steam on January 30th. Promising no pay to win mechanics, the game features a civilization of heroes who can call upon Astells to help protect their land
read moreElite Dangerous Releases Its January Update
Earlier this week, the folks at Frontier Developments have released their January update for players of Elite Dangerous. Commanders both new and veteran will be able to take advantage of this primarily bug-fixing patch that launched on January 14th.
read moreDDO Previews Alchemist Class, Balance Changes
Today, Dungeons and Dragons Online opened up their Lamannia test server to give players their first hands-on look at the new alchemist class, class changes, and other iterations on current content. First publicly discussed at GenCon last August, this complex class is set to be a support role, using various chemical mixtures to harry its foes or assist its allies in the form of thrown vials.
read moreA Decade of Change: Early Access
The internet got introspective in the past couple of months when it wasn’t arguing over exactly when the decade ended. Setting pedantry aside for a moment, let’s discuss changes to the concept of early access over the past ten years and whether or not it it has a positive effect on games. Back in the day, most games were released to the public at launch, and only folks who knew someone was able to finesse their way into a closed beta, with a rarefied fewer getting alpha access, both of which were frequently covered by non-disclosure agreements.
read moreA Retrospective on MMOs in 2019
While it wasn’t a supremely transformative year for MMOs, in 2019, the industry has started to see more and more of a paradigm shift in the kinds of MMOs being released, worked on, or even theorycrafted. For years, players and the general public equated MMO to games that followed World of Warcraft’s model, which was a more cemented version of EverQuest’s model, and the industry shied away from innovation because that was risky.
read moreWorld of Warcraft to Launch Patch 8.3 on January 14th
In 8.3, WoW players will have to wrestle with the usual class changes as they gear up to tackle more content. This expansion unlike the previous 8.2 doesn’t really add any new landscape to visit, but rather does a sweeping set of changes to existing areas in time with the story of players heading to Ny’alotha, the Waking City, for a new 12-boss raid.
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