MMORPG News: Blue Protocol Closed Beta, Genshin Impact Closed Beta, Population Zero Early Access & More

If you weren’t already aware, Mrs Stix and I have just started streaming MMORPGs over on Twitch 3 to 4 times per week.
We’re going to be moving through several MMOs per month with all of you guys – our community – in an attempt to provide much deeper, much more community-driven reviews on MMOs and how they’re doing in 2020.
So if you’re interested in joining in on the fun and potentially being in a video yourself – make sure to follow us over on twitch.tv/mmobyte – we’d love to have you accompany us.
We’ll actually be streaming a few hours after this video goes live, so you’re actually in luck if you wanted to participate!
Otherwise, we have another week filled with MMORPG News for all of you today. Lots of juicy news that will no doubt whet your appetite just a little.
So stand up, stretch those legs, and let’s jump into another Weekly Byte of MMORPG News!

Every few months we get small tidbits of information regarding Mad World. Earlier this week, we actually got a brand new gameplay trailer for the game showcasing 5 minutes worth of footage captured from the.. Alpha? Beta? Pre-Alpha?
Whatever phase it’s currently in. While there was no accompanying voice-acting, no narration, no music at all, it did give us a more current view of not only the UI but also the combat and graphics, which is honestly something we’ve been needing for a while now.
The game is shaping up to be something.. with potential. Not great-looking by any means, but it looks like it definitely has potential. There’s plenty of room for improvement, granted, especially considering the game had an expected release date of 2018 initially.

Astellia has had its fair share of both success and failure over the last year, and while the South Korean iteration of the game has shut down, the North American version has continued to live on!
However, as of last month it seems as though the North American publishers who have been in charge of the game all this time are no longer managing it, instead, allowing for a completely different studio, Studio 8 to take over.
This.. was an interesting direction to take the game and I’m not sure it’s honestly for the best. Nevertheless, all we can do is wait and see what happens and hope that the game doesn’t shut down too soon. Or if it does, that at least we get more time out of it.

For those of you anticipating World of Warcraft’s new Shadowlands expansion like I am you’ll be happy to learn that Blizzard have revealed that although a lot of their developers are stuck working from home, they have every intention of delivering the game this year.
I know a lot of people have been wondering if the expansion would end up delayed, like Final Fantasy XIV’s next patch, ESO’s Greymoor update and Guild Wars 2’s new patch, but nope, apparently, the game is still completely on track.
Unlike the aforementioned games though, Shadowlands never had an exact release date, more of an estimated “by the end of 2020” time-frame. So while it very well could have been delayed, it’s likely it wasn’t delayed much.

If you’ve been keeping up with either the channel, or Chronicles of Elyria in general then you’d be well aware of how bad the state of the game is.
It went from “being developed by a fully staffed team” to “whoops, we’re shutting down the entire team and ceasing development all together” in a matter of days.
However, after the mass amount of negative press they got for that they seem to have completely changed their tune – stating now that they “still have every intention to deliver the game” and that “they always planned to,” contradicting their initial statements.
So here we are, with the team consisting of one guy and a few part-time potential staff pitching in when and if they can find the time to, promising to deliver the game eventually, begging for backers not to take them to court. Um.. yeah, okay, cool.

Population Zero is a brand new survival adventure MMO – and I’m using the term “MMO” loosely here – that just launched into Early Access on Steam.
The game is unique in so that you have a finite amount of time to complete your objective: To restore functionality to your cryopod and survive “the great purge” that threatens the extinction of our kind.
This throws you out into a dangerous world filled with aliens whose sole objective is to murder you. You need to survive, repair your cryopod and build up a base to survive all while working with hundreds of other players.
While traditionally it’s about the same as any other survival game, it offers more in the way of unique RPG mechanics and a larger focus on multiplayer aspects but it has received quite a few negative reviews due to Early Access bugs.
Whether or not the game is able to overcome these issues remains to be seen but the game definitely has the potential to be a solid game in the future.

I know a lotta fans of Horizon Zero Dawn have been eagerly anticipating any news regarding a potential sequel, and while I’m sure Guerilla Games are no doubt hard at work trying to push a sequel out, it’s worth noting that their recruitment process lists certain interesting requirements.
While Horizon Zero Dawn is a singleplayer RPG, I believe I was told that there was supposed to be a form of co-operative play present in the final product. This stands to reason as Guerilla Games are now recruiting staff with experience in “online games” and “MMORPGs.”
This is an intriguing turn of events – one I never saw coming. While this is in no way a confirmation that the game is going to be an MMO, it is worth noting that this could mean something in the way of larger-scale online multiplayer functionality, something I believe that the Horizon sequel could definitely benefit from.

I’ve always loved Dungeon Fighter Online. It’s one of the few hub-based MMOs that I’ve always enjoyed playing through.
Granted, I never made it too far through the game and that was due to having to wait each day to play due to the stamina system present – something I’m definitely not a fan of in any game.
But with the introduction of Season 6, Act 1 – titled Ascension, the level cap in the game has been increased from a maximum of 95 to 100.
I can only imagine the grind that is going to be necessary to make that climb, something that was already difficult enough to obtain as-is. For players like me anyway that are lazy.
The new Ascension update allows players to tackle various new dungeons, obtain a ton of new gear and even some events in celebration of the new update.
Something that is worth noting though is that there’s currently a leveling event going on right now that provides boosts and bonuses for players that use this as an opportunity to hit the newly coveted level 100.

I know some of you guys played Mortal Online. It was a PvP-focused MMO that honestly didn’t do nearly as well as the developers had hoped.
Thus, they put their heads down, brainstormed a way to save the game, and decided to make a brand new game based on the same IP: Mortal Online 2.
This is also a PvP-focused MMO and as of a little over a week ago, it actually went into Closed Alpha. This means that a select group of players are capable of logging in and testing the game out – or more specifically, testing the combat out as that is the main focus of this Alpha test.
They released a trailer for the Closed Alpha test and I can definitely say that it isn’t looking bad at all. Nothing great, sure, but they’re moving in the right direction for the type of game they’re making.
Obtaining access to the game requires a $149 donation though – something I assure you is vastly overpriced for what is being offered.

Genshin Impact recently completed their latest Closed Beta – allowing for thousands of players to get in-game and experience everything first-hand.
General reception was very positive with players claiming the game was beautiful, the world was large and filled with life and the combat was immensely fun.
However, the issue players found with the game was that after rushing to endgame as fast as they possibly could – there was a lack of content, as if bypassing the majority of the game to hit the no doubt repetitious endgame would somehow fill them with a plethora of things to do.
Hugh Tsai, the producer of Genshin Impact went on to state that the Genshin Impact team, which has over 500 in-house developers working on the game is hard at work making sure there will be a surplus of content to consume when the game goes live hopefully sometime this year.
Not only that, but they’re also working on adding in additional dungeons, land masses, characters and realistically any other content they can think of.
From what I can tell, the team over at miHoYo are putting a lot of effort into making sure this game is a quality title upon release.

For those of you that have been eagerly anticipating the newest Guild Wars 2 update, you’ll be happy to learn that while the team and game’s voice actors are in fact quarantined, the patch and all of its content is still moving along with its release.
Or has it already released? I feel as though it’s expected to release sometime this week as this is actually being written up and recorded during the week as opposed to on the weekend itself.
Nevertheless, the newest Guild Wars 2 update will not feature any voice talent initially, with the entirety of the update being exclusively text-based due to the aforementioned voice actors being quarantined.
However, after they’re allowed to continue to work within the studio, ArenaNet have confirmed that voice acting for the game will be recorded in full and applied after the fact to the content already in-game.
So if you’re hurting for content, you can go ahead and participate in the content knowing that it’s in an incomplete form, or you can wait and play through it with full voice acting once it’s finished and ready.
I know a lot of people have been complaining about this but no game is worth the potential risk.

Blue Protocol wrapped up its first Closed Beta test what, a week and a half ago now? 2 weeks ago by the time this goes live.
Both Mrs Stix and I got to participate in it and got to play through the game over the course of the weekend. We got to test out 2 of the classes, we got to test out the combat, we got to test out the questing system, crafting system, upgrading system. Everything.
By the time we were finished we were both convinced that Blue Protocol is going to be an incredibly beautiful, very fun Anime MMO, by far the best Anime MMO out there and definitely one of the biggest releases of 2020 or 2021, whenever the game ultimately releases.
I went and did a 4-Episode series on Blue Protocol detailing every facet of the game I possibly could if you’re all interested in checking that out. It was my attempt at making sure the community is as updated as they possibly can be with regards to what to expect from the game.
The Closed Beta itself had some issues during the first day with downtime, but Bamco made up for it by extending the Beta test an additional day, providing players even more opportunities to test features out.
While the game is still scheduled for a release in some form in 2020, it’s unconfirmed when a Global version will follow – or, heck, if a 2020 release within Japan is still likely at this point.