MMORPG News: Blue Protocol, Tower of Fantasy, New World, Elyon, PSO2, Genshin Impact, Crowfall & More!

Man, is this a week or what? Blue Protocol, New World, Tower of Fantasy, Genshin Impact, PSO2, Elyon, Crowfall, Final Fantasy XIV and even new MMOs like Rebirth, Valiance and so much more.
Yes, if it wasn’t evident, we have a metric ton to talk about in today’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News video.
So, I guess let’s just jump on in!

Let’s start this week off with Tower of Fantasy. For those of you unaware, this is an open-world Anime MMORPG, one that I’m highly anticipating.
We had a trailer released earlier this year that showed us some of what the game had to offer, but the two new trailers released detailed much more:
We got one showcasing character creation, which is quite extensive it seems, and one showing what the world has to offer, providing a deeper look at various aspects of the game including more emphasis on combat, more of the story, and finally more exploration of the world.
And let me tell you.. while yes, the UI is disabled so we’re unable to accurately discern what the game will look like with it enabled, UI aside, this game looks and plays beautifully, which is crazy.
If you’re looking for more info, I strongly recommend checking out our dedicated Tower of Fantasy page.

TERA is in the news for two different reasons today: First, the game finally upgraded to a 64-bit compatible client, meaning less crashes, less lag and.. more opportunities for the game, which is honestly about time.
Players have been waiting on an upgrade for a long while at this point, too long. The update brought with it new dungeons and a new raid as well, for players that wanted to jump back into the game.
Then second, they’re creating a kind of MOBA mode spin-off.. TERA: Battle Arena, which will take heroes from the game and give you control over them, taking them into battle against other players for… no reason, really. This is a pointless mode and a waste of money, but they need to spend the money we give them somehow!

For the few of you that still play Runes of Magic, or for those of you looking to return, this is the perfect opportunity to as Gameforge is holding Summer events all month.
Different events will take place every week, providing a plethora of things for players to do. If you’ve been waiting, then this is probably your best bet to get in-game and participate!

Roughly 2 weeks ago New World held their “density test,” which allowed thousands of players into the upcoming MMO concurrently, and.. well, the results have been mixed.
On the positive side, players were saying that the game has a lot of promising features, all of which were kind of.. a work in progress, I guess, but the core of the game seemed to be a lot of fun. But then at the same time, on the negative side, players were saying the game felt empty, and nothing at all like an MMO.
Both positive and negative players agreed on one thing though: New World is not ready to launch, not at all. It’s evident that the game needed to be delayed a year to polish the issues it had, and Amazon grossly overestimated their abilities when developing this game.

Vindictus actually just rolled out their brand new character, Lethor, and man is she fun. I took her for a good ride last week and she’s a smooth, flexible fighter – probably the most fun I’ve had in Vindictus has been on her.
This is their 16th character – 16th!!! After all these years they’re still somehow continuing to push out not only new content, but new classes to keep players playing. They’re smart, I’ll give them that.
They know where their market is: Cute new female fighters that are better looking and play better than the last addition to the game. I’ll give you credit there, Nexon.

Rebirth Online is a brand new MMORPG released onto Steam to.. pretty negative reviews. Mrs Stix and I are going to play through and do a dedicated video on this soon so be on the lookout for that! For the time being, I’d advise against playing the game until we take a proper look at it.

If DC Universe Online and Champions Online are bumming you out, then you might be interested in Valiance Online, a brand new upcoming superhero MMORPG.
Earlier this week it began its one-week Open Beta test, allowing anyone and everyone to jump in-game and take the game for a test-ride!
There’s currently no NDA in place that will stop players from streaming, recording or otherwise sharing their experience in the game, and there will be periodic updates over the course of the beta test that could, and likely will require the occasional restart of the game client.
I’m excited to see this game in a publicly playable state, and honestly, might end up streaming this before the beta closes.

For those of you unaware, a little while ago Ascent: Infinite Realm was renamed “Elyon,” and the game underwent an entire overhaul, changing everything about the game. Recently, the game held a Closed Beta test and players finally got to take the game for a test-run.
Quite a bit was experienced: The combat changed from tab-target to a complete action combat system like TERA or Black Desert, the graphics were improved, the abilities were altered, the game itself at its core was changed.
Instead of the MMO taking place predominantly within the skies – as per its name “Ascent,” the game now takes place on the ground, with the ability to fly around, but aerial combat and content being limited.
But the most important thing that was taken away from this was the fact that Elyon has been confirmed to be releasing within South Korea this year – in December specifically. And with a Global launch of the game confirmed, you can bet it won’t be long before we get our hands on it!

Last week Phantasy Star Online 2 launched onto Steam – finally, I know. And it has had almost 20,000 concurrent players every day since, which is.. really, really damn good considering there are still many players playing through the Microsoft store.
With the Steam release, 33 countries gained access to the game as part of their “Global release,” which while wasn’t entirely global, allowed for quite a number of additional players to play.
But this update brought quite a bit with it: Episode 4, which is set 2 years after the events that transpired in Episode 3 was released, introducing the level cap up to 80, bringing with it new abilities, there’s a brand new PvP Arena, a new overhauled Friends List, additional character slots, ARKS missions, Alliance Quarters, Seasonal Events and so, so much more.
And with Episode 5 right around the corner – this is an ideal time to get into the game if you haven’t already, or were waiting on the Steam release!

Mrs Stix finally wrote up, recorded and edited her full thoughts and impressions on the upcoming Genshin Impact RPG.
Currently, the game is undergoing its final PS4 Closed Beta test, however it is confirmed to be releasing “before October” on PC and mobile devices, with the PS4 full release being delayed a little later towards the end of the year.
Overall, it seems as though Genshin Impact is a beautiful game that holds a lot of promise. It has fast, smooth, high quality action combat, a plethora of characters and plenty of things to do, but it’s held back by its limited dailies, its grind and the characters that are locked behind the terrible Gacha system.
While it’s fully playable without spending a cent, the fun – the variety, will only be accessible to players that sink a lot of money into the game.

For those of you that thought Bless Unleashed would remain an Xbox exclusive.. boy were you wrong. While it was confirmed to remain as such, Neowiz announced they would be self-publishing once again over on PC, and then a couple days ago announced the game would ALSO be launching on PS4 as well!
The Beta test for the upcoming launch actually being scheduled next week – on August 20th! The Beta test will run through August 24th, and players can pre-register for the Closed Beta in advance if you’re looking to experience the game on PS4, otherwise, wait for the Founder’s Packs to roll out and waste money on another head-start.
Or wait for the PC Founder’s Packs – they’ll both accomplish the same thing! Burn a hole in your wallet.

I know, I know. “But Stix, Path of Exile isn’t an MMO!” True, but we still cover it whenever anything exciting happens! And you know what? Something exciting just happened!
It was confirmed that the next League is scheduled to be rolling out onto PC on September 18th with consoles following shortly after on September 23rd. And they’re already planning for the next patch, 3.13 after this one goes live next month – which is a crazy release schedule!
I don’t know how the devs manage to pull this kind of release schedule off, but somehow they do and kudos to them!

This has been a long time coming. Crowfall, an MMORPG announced back in 2015, has finally entered Beta testing as of last week – and it’s in rough shape. Not bad shape, but players have noted how rough the game looks and feels.
Which stands to reason, of course, as Crowfall isn’t anywhere near being in a complete state, and likely won’t for several years to come. But it’s promising knowing – or more than knowing, seeing that the game has hit this milestone, even if it did take 5 years to achieve.
At least we weren’t scammed out of almost 10 million dollars.. like Chronicles of Elyria.

And finally, the news you’ve been waiting for.. On July 31st, the Blue Protocol Twitter posted several interviews they did with various different Japanese media outlets. These were interviews they did online, with several of the staff members – the ones directly responsible for the livestreams that have been handled up until this point.
And there was a lot of information to cover. I went over every facet of the interviews in my recent dedicated Blue Protocol video, but for those of you that want kind of like a “TL;DR”, then:
They wanted to stress that there is a lot of content they need to work on fixing. This is what they’re focused on now. Instead of developing new content, they want to go ahead and fix concerns current players had with the game, as it’s important players enjoy what they see.
They wanted to reiterate that the recent Closed Beta test was just that – a test, and as such, a lot of it is subject to change.
They confirmed they will be utilizing Megaserver technology, allowing everyone to play on the same server, much like The Elder Scrolls Online does, preventing issues with rolling onto different servers to your friends, and that they’ll be implementing “channels” to separate players.
They confirmed they’re working on new classes, but they want to introduce the classes in a way that won’t make old classes feel obsolete as these newer classes will likely improve on things that already pre-existing classes do.
But most importantly, they went on to note that they were already looking at a potential Open Beta date for Japan, and a follow-up Closed Beta test – but they need to remedy the issues that players have with the game first.
Which means once they have things ironed out, they plan on an additional Beta test – that much was all but confirmed. That sounds promising!