MMORPG News: Blue Protocol Live Stream, Lost Ark Closed Beta, PSO2’s Steam Announcement, New World, Tower of Fantasy and More!

Woo, what a week this has been so far! We got a ton to talk about today, but before we jump in, if you guys aren’t already, then come and follow Mrs Stix and I over on Twitch.
We stream there 3 to 4 times per week, and you know what? Are actually going to be streaming a couple hours after this video goes live.
These streams are a way to get the entire community involved in our videos, as every stream will be used to create dedicated videos on the games we’re streaming.
If you’re interested in appearing in a video, or just want to see how various MMOs are doing in 2020, come on over and join us at twitch.tv/mmobyte – we’d love to have you become a part of our journey.
Otherwise, we have another week filled with MMORPG News for all of you today. Are you guys ready? If so, raise your hand. Anyone? No? Okay. Either way, welcome to this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News. Let’s jump right in.

Let’s kick this off with Lost Ark. It was revealed last week that Lost Ark would be opening pre-registration for the Japanese launch of the game. Yes, after launching in South Korea, China and then in Russia, Japan always seems to be the next region to follow.
With this in mind, the game is going to be open for Closed Beta registration on Thursday, June 25th.
I know a lot of you are still highly anticipating Lost Ark, and I’m well aware that Japan normally poses no restriction on their games other than the odd IP block, which is actually fairly easy to work around with something like ExitLag or any other VPN.
The Closed Beta doesn’t have a confirmed release date currently, but it’s interesting knowing that if you can’t or won’t play the Russian version, there’ll always be the Japanese version until it launches Globally.

We got some awesome new TERA-related news for both PC and Consoles! Earlier this week the PC game received another major patch that brought with it a brand new dungeon called Draakon Arena, which is the first dungeon designed purely for max level 70 players.
If new endgame content sounds promising, then jump on in and try it out. On the other hand, the Awakening update is actually rolling out onto consoles come June 30th, which brings with it new Apex skills for each class as well as the Dark Reach Citadel dungeon.
Fans of either type of platform should be well entertained if TERA is your sole-form of enjoyment in terms of MMO.

For those of you unaware, both ArcheAge and ArcheAge Unchained have received the brand new Garden of the Gods “expansion” on the 11th, along with the release of yet another brand new “fresh start” server, much to the dismay of the playerbase.
While the content provided within the DLC, and yes, I’m going to refer to this as a DLC because that’s what it feels like to me, is definitely something you’d see in their regular updates, it’s worth noting that players were instead charged to access it.
This came as a surprise to players after they were promised all future content would be free after purchasing the base-game.
If that wasn’t upsetting enough for players, it was announced that only players who purchased the Gold DLC Pack would have access to the new Fresh Start server, with the Gold pack being a minimum $20 more expensive than the next highest tier.
However, Gamigo being Gamigo, after sales of the Gold pack no doubt left a lot to be desired, decided to allow Fresh Start access to players who purchased the Silver pack as well.. meaning players who bought the Gold pack exclusively to play the Fresh Start servers were scammed out of $20 they wouldn’t have otherwise had to have paid.
Yup, you can imagine exactly how enraged the community is right now. This was all done within the 24 hours leading up to the release of the expansion! So you can bet it’s off to a fantastic start.

This is actually pretty awesome news! We had a brand new Anime MMORPG announced this month: Tower of Fantasy. The game is being developed in China and is being built as a cross-platform open-world action MMO set in a futuristic setting.
We have several fantastic looking Anime titles in the works right now: Blue Protocol, Genshin Impact, Gran Saga and now Tower of Fantasy so it’s looking as though the Anime genre is making a comeback after years of being overrun by crappy South Korean MMOs that die months after they release or indie MMOs that never even fully release at all.
Tower of Fantasy looks like it’ll likely release in 2021.

You guys knew this was coming. A brand new gameplay trailer was released for Amazon’s New World MMO.. and players are not very happy.
I did a dedicated video on this that has gone on to garner over 60,000 views in the last few days if you want a more in-depth look at it, but suffice it to say… the trailer, whether or not it did the game overall justice, has shown that the game is still far from being in a finished state.
And it launches into Closed Beta next month, releasing in August. That is far too close for the state the game is in right now.
While New World might be a great game – right now, it definitely lacks a lot of polish for it being a AAA title.

IMCGames, the team behind Tree of Savior have recently rolled out a roadmap for 2020. You know what, considering how lacking the population is for the game, I’m honestly surprised that they’re still actively updating it as much as it is.
While they’re working on migrating to a 64-bit environment, the most important, noteworthy part of their roadmap is actually concerning the classes found in-game. There are currently 5 professions, and 80 total classes in Tree of Savior, totaling 85 classes.
Balancing that number of classes is no small feat. Instead of continuing to add in additional classes, IMCGames are instead going to focus on remaking existing classes and balancing them – a task I truly would not want to undertake.

With MapleStory 2 shut down, Nexon can re-focus on both MapleStory M and the original MapleStory title a little more. In light of this new focus, MapleStory has recently gained a brand new character: Adele. No, not the singer.
Or, at the very least will gain her when she becomes available on June 24th.
Then there were alterations to various bosses, maps, the new Reverse City and a plethora of other things that honestly warrants a look at the official patch notes because otherwise I feel as though I’d drag on for the next 5 minutes.

For those of you anticipating any news pertaining to the upcoming isometric MMO Corepunk – probably the only isometric MMO we’ll get for the foreseeable future, you’ll be glad to know that not only did I do a dedicated video on it yesterday, so if you want something more.. in-depth, go ahead and watch that, but a brand new trailer has been released.
And it looks pretty damn good. It showcases more group activities, some of the voice acting, enhancements to movement speed, combat, and the world. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect so much to be shown – but it’s a welcome addition to an already packed month with content and info dumps.

For those of you playing Aion on the European servers under Gameforge, which let’s be real here.. you should be as the North American servers are kind of dead, you’ll be happy to know that earlier this month a new update went onto the live servers.
The update added new accessories, new weapons, new transformations, the ability to craft runes, and most importantly, the brand new five-player instance called Ara Infernalia. Yup, that was a mouthful.. and before you make a “that’s what she said” joke.. don’t be that guy. We’re all mature adults here.

Alright, so Haven isn’t necessarily an MMO, but neither is Genshin Impact. And I’m gonna be honest with you all here.. Haven is like a Western version of Genshin Impact, aimed at actual Western players.
The game is going to be cross-platform between both PC and consoles, as opposed to PC and mobile devices which is a nice change of pace from all the Asian titles announced and built around mobile devices.
Not much is known about the game thus far, but it has an active battle combat system, a beautiful world, and tons of content to consume all while being completely open to explore at your own pace.

Who here’s currently playing Albion Online? Oh, tens of thousands of you? Sweet. I take it you’re aware of the new development progress update video posted onto the official Albion Online Youtube channel then, yeah? Oh, no you’re not? Well, then.
Apparently, there’s a ton of information you’ll need to sit through then because there’s a lot planned to come. Brand new Avalonian weapons, new spells, new abilities, new dungeons.. I hope you’re all prepared.
I really need to get back into Albion Online but I just haven’t found the time to with everything going on with my move.

Who here remembers Torchlight Frontiers? The MMORPG being developed within the Torchlight IP that after a lengthy development period, was overhauled into a multiplayer RPG.
Well, this month it rolled out into Early Access for around $30, and people are upset. Very upset. The game spent its entire first day bogged down by maintenance and bugs, which honestly isn’t unexpected.
This is the new norm these days and it’s something people need to get used to. But I took to the Steam page and.. over 70% negative reviews? Yikes.
While yes there was some pretty crappy downtime, it looks like a lot of the reviews are not only regarding that, but also the fact that it seems to be kind of a.. crappy game overall.
Take that with a grain of salt though as I’m sure reviews are a little more negative than they would otherwise be due to all of the upset players that were prevented access to the game over the weekend.

After their most recent maintenance, the PSO2 team addressed a large amount of the issues plaguing the game.. and fixed some of them. Many of them are still prevalent, preventing quite a few players from accessing the game.
This is due to the terrible Microsoft Store, and I believe they’re aware of this, as the announcement also came that PSO2 will be officially rolling out onto additional PC platforms in the near future.
Steam is definitely what players are hoping for, but it’s unconfirmed what platforms specifically will house the game.
That’s not it though, we’ll also be receiving Episode 4 in August, Episode 5 in September, and Episode 6 sometime between October through December, catching us up completely with the Japanese version of the game.
There is going to be plenty to do in-game over the coming months, if they’d just release it onto Steam so people could play it without the Tweaker we’d be set. Because let’s be honest.. most people aren’t savvy enough to even know that the Tweaker exists and just gave up.

The latest Blue Protocol stream was held yesterday, and they talked quite at length regarding the game.
From how many people hit max level, to the ratio of players that could play the game at max settings, to improvements they’re looking to make and additional beta tests.
It was a 2 hour long stream though, and honestly it’s easier for me to just wait for them to post the announcement pertaining to the stream on their website, that way I can better elaborate on what was revealed.
I’ll have a dedicated Blue Protocol video coming Sunday evening or Monday morning with everything you need to know about their latest stream, so keep an eye out for it!