MMORPG News: Blue Protocol, Tower of Fantasy, ODIN: Valhalla Rising, New World, Gran Saga

Alright, we got plenty to talk about this week. And when I say plenty.. I mean plenty. No joke. Blue Protocol, Crimson Desert, New World, Tower of Fantasy, ODIN.
Yup – we got quite the packed week. So buckle yourself in, apply those eye-cucumber things that they do in movies all the time, get yourself something to drink and snack on because we got quite a video for you.

Let’s start this off with KurtzPel. Everyone by this point should be well aware of how much of a disaster KurtzPel has been ever since it launched – with the pay-to-win, the removal of core PvE features, the cash shop.. but KOG Games, the team behind the game have announced a massive new update planned for later this month.
This update in specific is going to add in an entirely new PvE progression system, full PvE dungeons – albeit we’re unsure how many specifically, as it seemed as only one dungeon was showcased, and quite a bit more.
I was surprised to see this as KOG have only been concerned with PvP and adding in new Karma’s for players for the longest time now.
This just might be what the game needs to really secure a larger more dedicated playerbase.

Kakao just revealed at G-Star 2020 their brand new trailers for the upcoming cross-platform ODIN: Valhalla Rising MMORPG, and my god it looked good.
It showcased a large, completely open world – a seamless open world void of any loading screens.
It featured a lot of the various environments you’re going to explore, it provided a look at mounted travel, aerial travel – yeah, they’re going to have aerial mounts for players to ride and explore with as well.
And they gave us a confirmed “2021” release date. Not an exact date, but a year nonetheless. There was no mention of the global release date but considering this is Kakao you can bet it won’t be too long after.

Pearl Abyss recently revealed their 3rd Quarter Financials, and with it came a small announcement we’ve been waiting a long time to hear: Crimson Desert, after an entire year of silence, is finally getting a large reveal event, that will showcase quite a bit of the game and how it’s shaping up.
This reveal event is going to take place next month – in December 2020.
It will feature actual in-game footage – something that we’ve been highly anticipating seeing after their initial trailer and will hopefully confirm exactly what type of game the pre-sequel is going to be, as people to date are still confused on whether or not this is singleplayer or an MMO.

Speaking of the 3rd Quarter Financials from Pearl Abyss, another game mentioned was Elyon. I’m aware hype for Elyon has died down quite substantially over time, but it’s worth noting that they gave a 100% confirmation that Elyon will be launching around April, May or June 2021 in North America and Europe, joining the likes of “Black Desert Online.”
So for anyone that was looking for a release date for the game.. at least currently, that’s about as close as you’re going to get. But it’s a release date nonetheless, and it’s going to be an MMO we get to play!
Although they also confirmed that it’s going to be buy-to-play as opposed to free-to-play like was originally intended, so that might highly limit the overall success of the game.

There hasn’t been a whole lot to talk about concerning Phantasy Star Online 2 recently, but one thing worth noting is that while we over in the West haven’t received the same cross-over events and costumes that Japan has, we are getting some pretty sick collabs nonetheless.
Case in point, the new Guilty Gear and BlazBlue costume event. Sega announced that there would be plenty of new goodies for players to collect: Hairstyles, outfits, thematic decorations and more as part of its Thanksgiving event.
PSO2 is still doing very well, with Episode 6 on the horizon and New Genesis rolling out next year, so if you’ve ever been interested in trying out the game, this is your chance to jump in ahead of the final Episode launch!

I’ve never played Destiny 2.. but this has kinda made me want to. When their most recent expansion, “Beyond Light” launched last week – they launched to nearly record-breaking concurrency numbers.
Almost 250,000 players logged in simultaneously, all playing through the brand new content that came along with the expansion – and you can bet there were login issues as a direct result of the large number of players all bombarding the server simultaneously.
This expansion is enormous. Although at the same time it’s also pretty expensive. Mrs Stix and I will probably begin streaming Destiny 2 over on Twitch starting next week so if you guys either want to play with us or just want to see why so many people love Destiny 2, this is the perfect time to!

Final Fantasy XIV has opened up a new section of their website, much like they always do, in anticipation of their upcoming 5.4 patch: Future Rewritten.
There isn’t much in the way of content shown, but we do see that Ryne and Gaia are highlighted, there is a continuation of the story now that we’re back to the Source, the new Eden’s Promise raid, Matoya’s Relict dungeon, and more.
Specifics will become available the closer we get to the release of the patch and after the next Live Letter on November 27th – which we’re definitely looking forward to as Mrs Stix has been absent from Final Fantasy XIV ever since she ran out of things to do in it.

I know new content isn’t a surprise in Blade & Soul; Honestly, the game gets updated probably more frequently than any free-to-play MMO I’ve ever seen. Nevertheless, the brand new patch that went live earlier this week introduced the new Golden Harvest Festival along with an additional area: Primeweald.
This new area is aimed at players at level 60 and is an auto-hunting zone without PvP. Additionally, there are new outfits, there’s new gear, new items.. what you’d expect. NCSoft need to make their money after all.

New World had a lot to talk about this week. There was a recent demo unveiled that included several large changes to the game. On the one hand, there was an entirely new zone added: Reekwater. This zone is targeted at endgame players and is set within a dark swamp.
Then they went on to show off the new Fishing life skill. And.. that was pretty much it. While they haven’t introduced a whole lot in the way of neither features nor content yet – it’s promising to see the developers hard at work trying to get the game ready for release next year.
There were some minor buffs and nerfs, including balancing changes introduced in the patch that went live a couple days ago as well but they’re not really worth delving into.
I know that getting this game into a state that players want is no doubt going to be very difficult to do – but I’m hoping the next demo includes additional features and improvements players were wanting.

It’s been a month or so since Mrs Stix and I last played Craftopia – that’s because we’d kind of hit a wall in things to do.
And although the developers behind the early-access game have pushed out regular updates, there hasn’t been enough to really warrant our return – until recently, that is.
Last week they’d announced not only were the reducing the frequency of their updates so they could focus on making them larger in scale, but they were adding in dual-wielding – something that I know many players have been eagerly anticipating for a while now, a new way to actually repair your gear instead of tossing them out as soon as their durability depleted, and most importantly – new bosses.
Well, new bosses, enchantments, skills, items… but the bosses were where we were interested. We’d only ever encountered the Golem in our playthrough, so seeing that there will now be additional bosses with different mechanics to overcome is exciting.

The last time I discussed GRAN SAGA was after seeing Closed Beta footage of the mobile version of the game. I noted that the mobile version looked pretty garbage – and that I hoped the PC version would be better.
Last week, NPIXEL, the developers behind the game revealed a brand new gameplay trailer in 4K – showing off a lot of the world, the combat, the UI, the mechanics, the Gacha system – yes, a Gacha system in an MMO. And honestly?
It.. it doesn’t look terrible, but I’m still not really seeing what I want from the game. It looks and feels very reminiscent of a mobile MMO with auto-play features – something that I don’t think I will be able to invest myself into.
But I have a more dedicated video on GRAN SAGA coming for those of you that are interested! Although do note that we still haven’t seen the PC gameplay, yet. So there’s that!

Tower of Fantasy recently went into Closed Beta testing – unfortunately for the mobile version of the game only, with the PC beta test coming some time next year.
However, many Youtuber’s have uploaded videos on the game – on its first hours, and I was impressed with what I saw. Not only was the character creator incredibly detailed, but the character models, the game world, even the story all seemed pretty good.
There were no auto-mechanics present – which is the complete opposite of GRAN SAGA which was heavily auto-play, and we saw players around actively engaging in content with the player recording.
I actually looked at this in much more detail in my dedicated Tower of Fantasy video for those of you interested in checking that out!
This looks incredibly promising, and I can’t wait to see how the game plays on PC.

And finally, what is likely the most important news.. Bandai Namco made a brand new blog post on their website concerning their most recent Closed Beta test.
They thanked everyone that had the opportunity to participate in the test, and went on to apologize for the disconnects that happened over the course of the test in question. But this is what these tests are for, right?
They found out the issue and remedied it quickly enough. Concerning the Beta test itself, though, the devs revealed that they were able to generate “5 times the load concentration compared to the Closed Beta test,” and have went on to confirm that their match-making system remains stable, without crashes or becoming unstable.
This Beta test was primarily targeted at the match-making aspect of the game, so it’s promising to hear things were going well. They were also testing out the chat features, amongst a few other things but didn’t really delve into them.
Additionally, new potential classes have been datamined for the game, ranging from things like the Gunslinger, to the Vanguard, to the Engineer. I went into this in a little more detail in my dedicated Blue Protocol video if you’re interested – which went live just yesterday.