Post by Morreion on Dec 31, 2019 23:18:35 GMT -5
Top MMO News Stories of 2019 (MMOGames)
Guild Wars 3 May Be in Development
In October ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien, known by the community as MO left the company after 19 years. At the time an unnamed source told Kotaku that he hand been working on an unannounced Guild Wars project that could potentially be Guild Wars 3. The source also said that Guild Wars 3 hadn’t been officially greenlit but that the work O’Brien and his team had been doing could have developed into a sequel. Since then there hasn’t been any update on the story but a number of other high profile departures from ArenaNet have taken place.
WoW Classic Launch
The launch of WoW Classic was somewhat overshadowed by some other events that were going on for Blizzard at the time, you’ll see more about them later. However, Vanilla WoW fans finally got what they had been asking for, a fresh start in World of Warcraft from the beginning, or at least as close to it as they will ever get. The launch also seemed to bring out some of the worst in people though, just before launch there was a debate about which servers to go on to avoid Twitch streamers because they weren’t part of the original experience in the game. A few months on now conversations about WoW Classic have died down fairly quickly. That’s not to say it wasn’t successful, but it was a bit like when Pokemon Go launched, everyone talked about it for a couple of weeks and then the vast majority of “tourist” players left and only the dedicated core remained.
Blizzard Boycott
As previously mentioned, there was one Blizzard story that dominated them all this year and that was the boycott and backlash the company faced after suspending a pro-gamer after he showed his support for the Hong Kong protestors in a live event. The two casters who were interviewing him were also suspended. This resulted in a very public backlash that included US Senators as well as gamers and non-gamers across the world. There was even an employee protest at Blizzard HQ over Blizzard’s reaction to the events. In the end, Blizzard decided they would give the esports star his winnings and reduced everyone’s suspension to 6 months. Shortly after the story was all but forgotten as Blizzcon made some major announcements that seemed to distract fans.
Brad McQuaid’s Death
This year the MMO industry lost one of its icons when developer Brad McQuaid suddenly died in November. McQuaid is best known for his work on fantasy MMORPGs starting with the original Everquest. He went on to create Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and was working on the development of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen at the time of his passing. His death was unexpected and surprised the entire community. Developers of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen have said they would continue the visionary work McQuaid had started.
Riot Games Discrimination and Walkout
This year had a rough start for Riot Games as it was knee-deep in sexism, sexual harassment, and discrimination allegations. In response, Riot suspended their COO and hired their first Chief Diversity Officer. Five lawsuits came about as a result of the allegations and two of them were forced into private arbitration. This while tech giants Google and Facebook announced they were ending forced arbitration for harassment cases. Riot continued to make a number of unpopular choices for their employees which resulted in an employee walkout, the first time that had ever happened in the video games industry. It all finally came to an end at the beginning of December when it was announced that Riot Games would pay at least $10 million to about a thousand female employees who are eligible for a share.
In October ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien, known by the community as MO left the company after 19 years. At the time an unnamed source told Kotaku that he hand been working on an unannounced Guild Wars project that could potentially be Guild Wars 3. The source also said that Guild Wars 3 hadn’t been officially greenlit but that the work O’Brien and his team had been doing could have developed into a sequel. Since then there hasn’t been any update on the story but a number of other high profile departures from ArenaNet have taken place.
WoW Classic Launch
The launch of WoW Classic was somewhat overshadowed by some other events that were going on for Blizzard at the time, you’ll see more about them later. However, Vanilla WoW fans finally got what they had been asking for, a fresh start in World of Warcraft from the beginning, or at least as close to it as they will ever get. The launch also seemed to bring out some of the worst in people though, just before launch there was a debate about which servers to go on to avoid Twitch streamers because they weren’t part of the original experience in the game. A few months on now conversations about WoW Classic have died down fairly quickly. That’s not to say it wasn’t successful, but it was a bit like when Pokemon Go launched, everyone talked about it for a couple of weeks and then the vast majority of “tourist” players left and only the dedicated core remained.
Blizzard Boycott
As previously mentioned, there was one Blizzard story that dominated them all this year and that was the boycott and backlash the company faced after suspending a pro-gamer after he showed his support for the Hong Kong protestors in a live event. The two casters who were interviewing him were also suspended. This resulted in a very public backlash that included US Senators as well as gamers and non-gamers across the world. There was even an employee protest at Blizzard HQ over Blizzard’s reaction to the events. In the end, Blizzard decided they would give the esports star his winnings and reduced everyone’s suspension to 6 months. Shortly after the story was all but forgotten as Blizzcon made some major announcements that seemed to distract fans.
Brad McQuaid’s Death
This year the MMO industry lost one of its icons when developer Brad McQuaid suddenly died in November. McQuaid is best known for his work on fantasy MMORPGs starting with the original Everquest. He went on to create Vanguard: Saga of Heroes and was working on the development of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen at the time of his passing. His death was unexpected and surprised the entire community. Developers of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen have said they would continue the visionary work McQuaid had started.
Riot Games Discrimination and Walkout
This year had a rough start for Riot Games as it was knee-deep in sexism, sexual harassment, and discrimination allegations. In response, Riot suspended their COO and hired their first Chief Diversity Officer. Five lawsuits came about as a result of the allegations and two of them were forced into private arbitration. This while tech giants Google and Facebook announced they were ending forced arbitration for harassment cases. Riot continued to make a number of unpopular choices for their employees which resulted in an employee walkout, the first time that had ever happened in the video games industry. It all finally came to an end at the beginning of December when it was announced that Riot Games would pay at least $10 million to about a thousand female employees who are eligible for a share.
Other stories at the link!
