MMORPG News: FFXIV New Viera Race, New MMOs, ESO, SWTOR, FFXI, RIFT & More!

Now, a lot has happened over the course of the last week. I feel like saying this is becoming a little redundant though as there’s always a lot of news it would seem.
Regardless, I hope you’re prepared this week. We got some new goodies and some throwbacks to another generation.
So, sit tight and get ready for this weeks Byte of MMORPG News!

This marks a first for me: Talking about Final Fantasy XI – the predecessor to Final Fantasy XIV. Yes, the game is still very much alive and is actually getting a huge new update for the Red Mage class!
You can read all about the buffs by visiting the official Final Fantasy XI website but to summarize: There’ll be magic accuracy buffs, changes to enfeebling spells’ duration, changes to Immunobreak.. and more.
If this sounds like gibberish to you then no problem, but if you understand what I’m talking about then it may be exciting news for you since Red Mage’s have been in dire need of some attention.

Earlier this week the team behind Anthem went ahead and revealed some of their launch roadmap, highlighting the content surrounding the upcoming release titled “Part one: Echoes of Reality”.
They went on to reveal various things about the game in an “Ask Me Almost Anything About Anthem” Twitter post, such as the very limited personalization options for your character, with players being able to select from a pre-generated selection of heads, the main customization being for the characters’ Javelin, instead.
Additionally, BioWare also discussed their Cataclysm feature that will be time-limited world events that will have players take on large groups of hostile enemies, provide various mysteries and challenges for players to solve, and have players combat extreme weather conditions.
All in all, the game looks to have promise but time will tell whether or not it’ll be worth investing much time into.

I know, I know. This isn’t something that I’d normally include in a weekly news video but I feel like I need to include it nevertheless.
Apex Legends is the newest Battle Royale game to hit the shelves and I gotta say.. kudos. The game, in less than 72 hours, has accumulated over 10 million players.
Within 24 hours of its launch it had gained over 2.5 million players and had over 600,000 concurrent players at any given moment during that day. Now, having hit over 10 million players, the game is sitting at over a million concurrent players online.
That is a feat not many games can achieve. So, if you’re looking to get into the next big craze – Apex Legends may very well be it.

Amazon Game Studio’s New World sandbox-MMO has an NDA in place that prevents players from showcasing or discussing much of what they get to experience over the course of their time in-game.
However, some new information has recently come to light that I believe fans will be interested in! Amazon claim that the game isn’t a “survival game” in the traditional sense of the genre, going on to state that it is 100% an MMO with “MMO features”.
Now, fans of the genre know that MMO’s typically have thousands of players playing alongside one another, unless they’re hub-based.
While there are rumors abound stating that the game will be able to hold 10,000 players per server, it has been confirmed to, at least at this time, hold approximately 600 per server.
This is not confirmed to be the final number, but it’s at least something to go off of. If they continue to expand the population limit the game could very well go on to be worthy of holding the title of an MMO.
New World’s actual world is significantly smaller in scale than traditional MMOs but Amazon claim they plan on expanding the world as the game continues to be developed.
Additionally, New World will have a story that players progress through and follow, unlike most survival games.
Players will be able to form guilds in the way of “companies”, holding up to 50 people at a time and the game will be aimed at fans of open-world PvP.
Good news, though, you can’t directly attack your own company members, so they can come help! Or join in if you’re ganking or griefing other players. Either/or.

Here’s an old one! Raise your hand if you’ve ever played Dark Age of Camelot. Okay, two of you, gotcha. For fans of the game, or hell, for players that have never tried Dark Age of Camelot, now is a fantastic time to jump in.
The game is hosting a plethora of events beginning this month that you’ll no doubt want to participate in.
Additionally, the team behind Dark Age of Camelot are hard at work introducing a Realm vs Realm population balancing system to hopefully re-balance the sides.

I feel as though this week’s news video is going to feature a lot of throwbacks to older MMOs.
Nevertheless, for those of you unaware, the team behind Ultima Online announced at the beginning of the year that the game will be experiencing an entire year worth of “high seas content”, featuring updates to fishing, sailing, treasure hunting and pirate-hunting.
Rising Tide, the very first update planned is currently live on the test server this week. So jump in if you haven’t already and get to testing!

I know players have a very.. conflicted history with Star Wars: The Old Republic. It could’ve been so good but ultimately.. ended up going in the complete opposite direction, much to the dismay of fans.
And that’s alright. The game is still alive and kicking, regardless of its population issues.
Its most recent update “Jedi Under Siege” didn’t do much in the way of remedying those issues, but the team behind the game have teased a possible reveal regarding the game’s future plans during the next community event in April.
So if you’re one of the people still playing, don’t lose hope yet. News is right around the corner!

In some pretty cool news for a change, ZeniMax is actually handing out 500 crowns to every player that has logged in ranging from January 1st 2017 to February 7th 2019.
This is supposedly to “show appreciation to the ESO community that keeps surprising us.” Crowns will be distributed to players on the PC on the 11th, and console players on the 13th.
It’s always kinda cool when companies give back, especially when it’s premium currency like this, but, knowing the playerbase.. there’ll likely be players that still find some reason to complain about free Crowns.

Here we go, a new take on the MMO-genre: Romans: Age of Caesar, a strategy-themed MMO by Firefly Studios, the people that brought you the MMORTS, Stronghold Kingdoms.
Firefly describe the game as “a co-operative grand strategy MMO”, with the game being a “shared world builder” that has players work alongside one another to attempt to “rebuild the great cities of Rome.”
Players will supposedly be able to occupy the same large continent, building and trading with every other player on the same map.
Each city will be comprised of 16 players, and each city will have to protect themselves from invasions while simultaneously attempting to establish trade partnerships and rebuild!
This sounds like it could potentially be very, very fun! I’m actually looking forward to this one.

Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy XIV will be launching their third expansion titled Shadowbringers on July 2nd.
This is roughly five months away, but Square went ahead and made pre-orders for the expansion readily available for players that want to prepare early.
The pre-order bonus includes a new minion and an earing that provides players with a 30% boost to XP all the way up to level 70. This makes leveling alts a hell of a lot easier.
To top it off, players that pre-order now will also be able to get in-game early on June 28th for a minor head start!
So, if you haven’t already, then go right ahead and pre-order the expansion now! It brings with it the new Fran-inspired Viera race that fans of Final Fantasy XII and Tactics will likely recognize along with additional classes!
I’ll be pre-ordering it as I’m currently playing it!
Additionally, if you’ve never purchased Final Fantasy XIV but are an active Twitch Prime subscriber, then you can grab the base-version of the game for free right now until May 3rd.
This will provide the game completely free of charge with an entire month’s worth of free game time for merely being a Twitch subscriber.

For fans of Rift, yes, there are still fans of Rift, you’ll be happy to know that Gamigo, having purchased Rift from Trion last year have finally rolled out an update for the game.
Granted, the update only included a few tweaks, but was accompanied by a reassuring little note: “In preparation for future content releases, and to encourage more hybridization amongst tanks in raids, we have removed Legendary Hits from bosses in Bastion of Steel, Tartaric Depths, and Intrepid Rise of the Phoenix,”
Whether this is a confirmation that the game will continue to have additional content added as time goes on or if the skeleton crew working to keep the game online will only focus on just that: Keeping the game online remains to be seen.
But, we can still be hopeful… even though Gamigo is known as the MMO Graveyard.