MMORPG News: Blue Protocol Closed Beta, Ashes of Creation Alpha One, Tower of Fantasy Closed Beta, Elyon Release Date, Aion Classic & More

Alright, we got plenty to talk about this week. And when I say plenty.. I mean plenty. Ashes of Creation, Blue Protocol, Genshin Impact, Tower of Fantasy, TERA Origin shutting down..
Yup – we got quite the packed week. We have plenty to talk about so let’s jump right into this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News!

Let’s start this off with some Aion news first. We have 2 different sets of information to cover: First, we have Aion Classic. It was announced that South Korea would be receiving their very own Aion Classic servers for players that want to relive the early years of the once-popular MMORPG.
With this incarnation of the game, players will be taken back to a time before the game went free-to-play, as Aion Classic will be a subscription-based MMO, requiring players to pay a monthly fee to participate in the content.
It is unconfirmed whether or not North America or Europe will be receiving the Classic versions of the game, but according to Gameforge they’re in talks to port the game over to the European publisher.
Finally, the very same European version of Aion has a large update coming, the “Prison of Time” that will be introducing.. you guessed it, new gear, new monsters and more. It’s not an enormous update but it’s solid in terms of content to do while waiting for something larger.

Fans of TERA should know by now that Gameforge has acquired publishing rights for the game in North America after En Masse shut their doors recently, but what you didn’t know was that not only will the PC version of TERA continue to receive small updates periodically, but the console version is going to continue to be developed.
As in, the PC version of the game might receive a new dungeon once or twice a year, but the console iteration of the game will be receiving new classes, new races, entirely new areas – it will be developed as if the game were still played by a large population of players, and this is actually promising.
TERA’s an MMO that I will always appreciate due to it allowing for Mrs Stix and I to meet. The console version has quite the update planned though, providing players to play cross-platform between PS4 and XBox – something many MMOs don’t actually allow for.
Additionally, there will be server merges going on to incorporate that cross-play functionality, to allow for players to play together regardless of platform so long as they’re on the same regional servers.

I know players have been waiting for an update on Champions Online for a while now. I’ve been waiting to jump back into the game until this update went live but unfortunately it seems as though the update that was planned for this year is now delayed until 2021.
According to the developers, they had planned for the update to go live this Fall, with the update announced back in September, but – and they apologize for the repeated delays – however, they’ve just been having difficulties pushing the content out within a reasonable time-frame, so their only choice was to delay it.
It is unconfirmed when specifically they’ll release the new update, with “Early 2021” being as close to a release date as we got.

Recently, the developers behind the upcoming Ashes of Creation MMORPG released a new class-trailer showcasing the Cleric class in action. Or, at least the Cleric class from the current Alpha One version of the game.
The trailer did about what you’d expect: It showed the classes various abilities and how they interact with not only characters but also the world.
And while I’m still firmly of the belief that abilities are still a little.. stiff and clunky, this is a great step in the right direction for the game. I look forward to seeing what additional class trailers are going to showcase and seeing their progress made over the course of the Alpha One test.

Bless Unleashed is currently playable on PC – they’re holding a Closed Beta test for the game all week with the Beta access ending on November 9th.
While I haven’t had the opportunity to play it yet, both Mrs Stix and I will be streaming the Beta today, in just a few hours, and tomorrow over on our Twitch channel – for players that are interested in seeing how optimized the game is – seeing how much content the game has, and overall getting a feel for whether or not the game is actually going to be worth playing.
We’ll have a full dedicated look and our thoughts and opinions on the game up shortly after – sometime next week for players that can’t make the stream but for those of you that would prefer to try the game out for yourself.. this is the opportunity to.
According to the developers behind Bless, they have supposedly “learned a lot of lessons from Bless Online.” Hopefully one of those lessons is how to run a game without scamming your players, but we can only hope.

I don’t really cover mobile games in the news anymore, but every so often I find one I need to talk about.
Today, that is TERA Origin. The reason I want to talk about it is because Netmarble, the developer behind the game has revealed they’re shutting the game down. Mrs Stix played it for our mobile channel MMOByte Mobile and as a fan of TERA.. said it was absolute garbage, so it’s promising to see terrible mobile adaptations of good PC games shut down.

Players were furious when Blizzard revealed the upcoming Shadowlands expansion would be delayed. Yet if they hadn’t delayed it, and it released in the broken state it was in, players would have.. also been furious that they didn’t take their time fixing the issues ahead of the launch.
I don’t understand gamers sometimes, it just seems impossible to win regardless of which route you take. Either way, Blizz confirmed a few days ago that Shadowlands finally has a confirmed, scheduled release date: November 23rd – yes, that’s a mere 2 weeks away.
Finally, we’ll be able to step into the Shadowlands and see what the expansion truly has to offer and I’m incredibly excited. The first major raid is also scheduled for December 8th, so you have a few weeks to prepare yourself!
Mrs Stix and I play on Stormrage and will have our own guild set up by the time Shadowlands launches if you guys wanna play with us. We’ll be maining this for months!

The last time I did a video on Dungeons and Dragons Online.. was years ago? Man how time flies. Well, it looks like Dungeons and Dragons Online is actually rolling out their large “Fables of the Feywild” expansion – or at least they did back on the 5th. The expansion brought with it quite a bit of new content.
A ton of new quests, a new area, new zones, a new raid. The expansion pack is currently going for $40 over on Steam for those of you that play the game and are interested in partaking of what the expansion has to offer.
I know Mrs Stix is excited for it. It has unicorns and.. yeah that’s all she needs to be excited about a game.

I know a lotta you guys are highly anticipating Patch 1.1 next week.. it’ll finally introduce new content for players to do for those of us that are bored.
And while I’ve covered what is coming in the past – the conclusion to the Liyue story, some new quests, 4 new characters, reputations, personal waypoints, new features and functions..
I wanted to let everyone know that not only is the game finally introducing its first seasonal event – Unreconciled Stars – which will allow you to unlock Fischl if you haven’t already, but the game has earned $250 million dollars.. in its first month alone, on mobile devices exclusively.
Which is absolutely ridiculous. That’s a lot of people spending money on the game and is definitely showing the gaming industry where we should be headed in the future.

It’s always promising to see older MMOs receiving content updates, so seeing that Final Fantasy XI is still regularly pushing out content – regardless of if it’s large or small, is refreshing.
The latest update coming this month features the second chapter of the new story arc – with additional story coming in the coming months. There will be new quests, new missions, new content and new items added for players to earn as they push through the update.

I know there’s been a lot of drama going around recently regarding ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained, with Gamigo slowly introducing more and more pay-to-win into Unchained, but today we’re here to talk about their latest update: Rise of Nehliya.
The update is scheduled for November 12th and shows no signs of being a paid DLC like the Garden of the Gods was. At least it doesn’t look like it right now.. who knows what they’re ultimately planning.
New quests will be available that take players into the unexplored area Mythsrane Gorge, there will be new systems, features and enhancements made to the game, there will be a new PvE siege with a large boss to do battle against – Nehliya.
Overall, content is content regardless of how large or small and it’s good to see more coming for the game – even amongst allegations of ruining Unchained with the very pay-to-win Unchained was made to avoid.

This is a game I’ve been eagerly anticipating for a long while now, and with the game being as close as it currently is to being playable, I figured I have to at this point include this today.
I just did a video talking about its newest trailer yesterday, but the game is shaping up quite nicely. I’ll have – hopefully, if everything goes according to plan, access to play the game this month over on our Twitch channel, once again, for those of you interested in seeing how the game plays.
And let me assure you, it’s going to be quite the spectacle.

Elyon had quite a few announcements made last week. On the one hand, we have a 100% confirmed release date for South Korea: December 10th, 2020.
This isn’t an international release, granted, but they did express back when the game went under “Ascent: Infinite Realm” that the game would launch internationally shortly after the South Korean version.
Although with Kakao’s recent Quarterly Financial Report being publicly accessible now, it looks as though a 2nd Quarter 2021 release is when we’ll be receiving the game.
However since the game will launch in South Korea, that means you’ll be able to play the game if you have access to a South Korean Social Security Number and a VPN.
There have been a significant number of overhauled features and functions that I think could be both good and bad for the longevity of the game, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it ultimately ends up going.

While The Wagadu Chronicles didn’t actually require their Kickstarter goals to be hit – they had funding outside of the game so this was just a means to prove there was interest in the game, they did manage to end up fully funded, raising around $200,000 dollars – which is a crazy number.
I know, they’re backed by Riot Games, so they have all the funding they likely need to build a large, successful MMO but this goes to show that there is a large number of players legitimately interested in the game and its development.
The Wagadu Chronicles is a very different type of game, with a large focus on community, role play, and non-combat activities. Something that will definitely take the game in a very different direction to most MMOs and what people expect out of them.

Tower of Fantasy recently went into Closed Beta testing – unfortunately for the mobile version of the game only.
While Tower of Fantasy is going to be a cross-platform MMORPG, much like Genshin Impact – with the difference being that Genshin Impact isn’t an MMO, they haven’t revealed any information pertaining to the PC testing phase of the game yet.
All we’re currently shown is gameplay on mobile devices, and I’ll be looking at it much more closely over the coming days but I’m hoping we can get a proper look at it on the platform we’re all wanting to see it on sooner rather than later.

And finally, what is likely the most important news.. Bandai Namco reported that they received more Closed Beta applications than they had initially expected for their upcoming Beta test and as such, they’ll be holding a lottery to determine winners.
This was on November 2nd, 2020. However, since then, players over on our Blue Protocol subreddit have reported that they have been receiving their Beta-test confirmation emails, accepting their application and providing them access.
The beta test in question starts today, Saturday the 7th of November 2020 at 7PM Japanese time so good luck to participants! Make sure you take the time to leave feedback, as that is what these tests are for!
Bandai Namco haven’t revealed whether this will be their final Closed Beta test for this year, but considering we’re in November it’s definitely likely.
The MMO is still on schedule to launch next year in 2021, likely having a few Beta tests leading up to the release to test final functionality of their systems so stay tuned for additional chances to participate in the future!