MMORPG News: League of Legends MMO, Blue Protocol Combat Overhaul, Crimson Desert, Genshin Impact, Elyon, PSO2

This has been a busy couple weeks. Elaborating on Crimson Desert, Blue Protocol’s combat changes, Genshin Impact’s new patch and content, a new League of Legends MMORPG and just so much more. This is going to be long. Really, really long.

Otherwise, we have plenty to talk about so let’s jump right into this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News!

In an interview with IGN earlier this week, the devs behind the upcoming Crimson Desert MMO – if we can still call it an MMO – that’s entirely up for discussion at this point, went a little deeper into what the game is going to offer.
There’s going to be various villages players will find, plenty of NPCs to talk to–to take quests from. According to the devs players will “often find themselves on the move.” They opened up a little regarding the dungeons you’ll encounter – in specific the Time Dungeon.
Dungeons, if you recall, were not present in Black Desert Online and have always been a heavily requested feature.
Combat is what was most interesting here as they noted you’ll be capable of pick up enemy weapons and utilize them in combat, meaning that there isn’t necessarily going to be “specific classes,” kind of like the RaiderZ MMO for those of you that recall.
They then elaborated a little on puzzle-solving, but unfortunately left out any mention of the MMO-aspect of the game, like they have repeatedly done. So at the end of the day we’re left with the uncertainty of whether this is an MMO with a large emphasis on single-player, or a single-player game with MMO features.

Speaking of Crimson Desert and Pearl Abyss, it turns out that isn’t where the news ends. Black Desert Online, Pearl Abyss’ flagship title is changing hands in North America and Europe.
Currently, Kakao Games publish the game within the aforementioned regions, and they’ve done so rather successfully up until this point.
However, as of this month it turns out Pearl Abyss, having grown large enough off of the success of their games are taking back publishing rights and are choosing to self-publish pretty much everywhere in the world.
This is good news for players that thought Kakao were doing a poor job at publishing the game or that the game was too pay to win, and at the same time means potentially faster updates since it’ll be the same company handling publishing in both South Korea and the West.
The new Nova class is on the horizon as well, rolling out onto the live servers on December 22nd. So we have a lot to look forward to!

Typically I keep mobile news out of these videos, but every so often I come across something I ABSOLUTELY have to talk about. Today, that’s Final Fantasy XI R.
Unfortunately, it turns out the upcoming complete overhaul of the still popular PC MMORPG has been cancelled by Nexon. Yes, Nexon was in charge of the game so it probably would’ve been pretty terrible regardless, but this is just Nexon being Nexon.
After 5 whole years of development on the game, and millions of dollars invested into the project, Nexon opted to just throw in the towel, like they’ve done so many times in the past. And this is why you don’t get excited for Nexon games.

I know a lot of you have been eagerly anticipating the upcoming Mad World MMORPG. The game was slated to release this year – but ran into quite a few problems that repeatedly set the development of the game back quite a bit.
So much so that the game ended up not only delayed into next year, but to an undisclosed date next year.
However, in light of this delay, it turns out that the developers wanted to at least appease – to a degree – their disappointed playerbase, and went ahead and released a brand new trailer for the game.
Again, it’s uncertain when the game will ultimately end up releasing next year, or whether the game will release at all next year but I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated with progress moving forward!

This might be the biggest news in the MMO-scene for a while, but Ghostcrawler – a former very popular WoW vet turned League of Legends dev has confirmed via Twitter that Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends is in the process of developing an entirely new game.
And that game is in fact an MMO. Whether it’s an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, or rather an MMO like Crimson Desert was supposed to be, or the “Magic the Gathering” MMO that really isn’t much of an MMO remains to be seen, but it’s confirmed to be “massively multiplayer.”
He went on to state that Riot were hiring for this new project, so if this is something you’ve ever wanted to be a part of – a next generation MMO with a company as large as Riot – this might be your chance.
I’m personally hoping the MMO is set within the League universe, but this hasn’t been confirmed. The game might end up being set in an entirely new universe and IP.

If it wasn’t bad enough that Bless Online and Bless Unleashed are a thing, it turns out the devs behind Astellia Online have taken note of the success the aforementioned games and developers had, and are pulling much of the same tactic.
Yup, it turns out that a brand new version of Astellia is here: Astellia Royal, a free-to-play, slightly altered incarnation of the game with servers based within South Korea.
I just did a video on this yesterday for those of you wanting specifics, but suffice it to say, this is the worst possible scenario that could’ve come from Astellia as this is going to potentially destroy the buy-to-play version that has been online for the last year.
And that’s a just middle-finger to players that spent their hard earned money on Founder’s Packs and – well – the game in general, since it isn’t free.

It’s rare to see a developer be transparent with their community, but Artificial Core, the developer behind the upcoming Corepunk MMORPG has revealed that they’re delaying their December-planned Closed Beta until next Spring.
This is due to a number of reasons, including but not limited to the release of WoW’s Shadowlands expansion and Cyberpunk dropping.
Let’s be real here: As good as Corepunk looks, there’s no way they’re going to have players willingly testing the game when there are two much higher anticipated games worth playing – at least temporarily.
It’s refreshing to hear them admit that. According to the devs, they’re making a lot of progress on the game and are looking forward to players testing the game next year.

Who here remembers Drakensang Online? That’s a walk down memory lane for me. I played this back at the beginning of this channels life, almost 4 years ago now?
After not covering the game for almost 4 years, because – and let’s be real here – the game has been in a state of maintenance mode for a long time now, Drakensang is receiving what is arguably their largest content update ever, introducing hundreds of new quests, a brand new storyline along with new bosses, items, areas to explore, dungeons, PvP arenas and more.
This is a huge update that is definitely worth covering, and should warrant another look at the game now that I think about it. If you guys have been waiting for an update that could potentially bring you back into the game, this very well might be what you’re after.

This is the update I’ve been waiting for. This is the update that will get both Mrs Stix and I back into Phantasy Star Online 2, finally.
Episode 6 released in PSO2 earlier this month – or at least the first part of Episode 6 did, right? And with that update came the new Phantom and Etoile classes, new story, an increase in the level cap all the way up to level 95 – which is ridiculous considering when we last played.
And a ton of other content. New events, new ARKS missions, a new ultra-hard difficulty mode. Seriously, if you’ve been holding off on coming back to PSO2 after Episode 3 or wherever you left off, much like we have, then I feel like this might be the best opportunity to jump back in.
New Genesis launches next year and will take the game in an entirely new direction, so it’s best you get the most out of the game while you still can!

Mrs Stix and I got to participate in the final test phase of the upcoming Elyon last month, and honestly we had fun in it. The game finally launched last week within South Korea, after years of delays and a complete overhaul of the game, but the question on everyone’s minds was “when are we going to be able to play it?”
It was confirmed to be coming out in the 2nd Quarter of 2020 initially, but since then we’ve learned that that may not be the case.
Regardless of whether that date still holds true, the devs behind the game have opened up and begun fully promoting the English website, prompting players to believe that the game is closer to release over in the West than ever before.
Their official Twitter still claims “Expect ELYON to be released in the West in 2021” so that’s reassuring.

Rarely do I have the opportunity to cover Star Wars The Old Republic, so today’s a little special. It turns out their latest update, Echoes of Vengeance is live and brings with it a ton of new content. Both the Echoes of Oblivion story and Spirit of Vengeance flahspoint, new login rewards, an emote window, new PvP rewards and more.
Mrs Stix and I have been meaning to get back into this game as this has always been one of her favorite MMOs so this might be a solid opportunity to.

This has been an incredibly interesting month so far. We’ve had news–updates on games I haven’t talked about in months, years even.
Case in point: Perfect World International just announced that they’ve launched their brand new Northern Realms: Celestials update, bringing with it a brand new PvP mode, new maps and new content.
This is one of my first MMOs – one of the games that got me addicted to the genre as a whole, that I wasted over 2 years and thousands of dollars in. Seeing it continue to get updated with new content is a little bittersweet for me, even considering how pay-to-win the game is.

I covered Mabinogi earlier this year, but this month marks the release date of their newest update: Hypernova: Eclipse. The update in question brings with it the conclusion to Chapter 7 along with the sixth night of the Seven Nightmares.
There are numerous events going on in the meantime, and plenty of new content to consume both before and after the update goes live – some of which I’ve already been doing in my upcoming dedicated video on the update, hopefully next week.
There are some sweet rewards up for grabs too, so you might wanna jump on in and see if any of that is worth it for you. P.S: Imagine if the game looked as good as that trailer looks.

Vela Games, a studio made up of experienced League of Legends vets have confirmed that they’re currently in the process of developing a brand new MMO-MOBA hybrid that they’re referring to as a “MOCO,” a “multiplayer online co-op” game.
This is a game that is going to feature both PvP and PvE, with dungeons, raids and various other types of MMO mechanics. Whether it’s going to be a full-fledged MMORPG remains to be seen, but it doesn’t seem entirely likely.
Nevertheless, Vela claim this is a new genre of gaming for both MMOs and MOBAs. Very little is known about the game currently. Whether it’ll be a 3rd-person action game, a top-down isometric game, a tab-target game. Everything is up in the air, but time will tell what type of game this ends up being.

We got some great early Christmas news from Bamco and Blue Protocol. No, it isn’t concerning another test phase or the full release date, but, rather, concerning the combat.
When we played through it, we thought the combat was pretty good, but there were a few things notably missing from the system.
According to two different Tweets from the dev studio behind the upcoming MMO, they’re in the process of overhauling – or, rather, improving the combat system a little by adding in additional features and mechanics: The “Assault Attack” and “Dodge Attack” actions.
The Assault Attack is a brand new combat mechanic that increases your damage based on the height with which you fall, meaning you’ll want to initiate encounters with the ability.
The Dodge Attack is going to be usable after dodging at the correct time, essentially acting as a parry, with the ability slashing directly after coming out of the dodge animation.
Additionally worth noting here is the fact that the combat actually looks much smoother than it did during either Alpha or Beta test, which is a fantastic step in the right direction.

For those of you that are still playing Genshin Impact, I’m sure you’re going to enjoy this. On December 23, Genshin Impact will have its Patch 1.2 rolled out onto the live servers, bringing with it the frigid region of Dragonspine, south of Mondstadt.
I’m not certain how large the region in specific is going to be, but it’s confirmed to be large enough that it’ll take a little time to explore, with unique enemies specific to the region, new areas to explore, new ways to waste money- I mean, new characters to Wish for and more.
Mrs Stix is going to be streaming this on the 23rd – which is, I believe, a Wednesday? For those of you that want to join in and participate in the events going on or even that want to play with her. She’s incredibly excited about the new patch and what it offers players.