MMORPG News: Blue Protocol June Livestream, Lost Ark Global, Genshin Impact Closed Beta, New World and PSO2

Man! What a week this has been. I got a ton to update you guys on..
If you weren’t already aware though, Mrs Stix and I have been streaming MMORPGs over on Twitch a few 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 carry- I mean, 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. So stand up, stretch those legs, and let’s jump into another Weekly Byte of MMORPG News!

It has been a very long time since I last discussed Ashes of Creation, and that’s because it’s been a very long time since it’s had anything worth discussing.
The team behind the game have lifted the NDA on the pre-Alpha, and with it, we’re beginning to see additional footage come to light. And you know what? It’s honestly looking pretty good.
Not great, but for where it’s at in its development, it’s looking pretty good. A full almost 2 hour long video has been released for the game for those of you interested in seeing how the game plays, but otherwise, they still expect to be able to launch into full-Alpha, which they’re titling “Alpha One” this coming Fall.

Zenith raised over a quarter million dollars during its Kickstarter, making over $280,000USD when they had initially sought a mere $25,000.
But we’re not here to talk about how much it managed to raise. Instead, we’re here to discuss the new Alpha footage. Or, the pre-Alpha footage and their upcoming Alpha test.
The studio behind the upcoming MMO released a new video a little over a week ago showcasing pre-Alpha footage from their Eastern Plains zone. In the clip, we’re shown some basic movement, physical combat, and a stagger gauge according to the devs.
While I’m definitely of the opinion that Zenith is far from ready, and that VR itself is not ready for the MMO genre currently, I would like to say that it’s reassuring seeing the amount of progress made in the development cycle thus far.

So I did a video last week talking about the disastrous announcement that was ArcheAge Unchained’s Garden of the Gods new upcoming DLC.
After announcing that the game would have all future content updates for free, Garden of the Gods is going to be a paid DLC exclusively, meaning to access the new content, the new gear, the new areas, you’re going to be required to spend additional money due to a broken promise or bad practice. Or both.
They went on and claimed that this was due to them needing to make up for “deficiencies in ArcheAge Unchained’s launch,” in essence stating that the reason was because Unchained didn’t do very well.
Reception of this announcement has been very critical, with even more players opting to drop the game, seeing the game decline even further into an already highly empty state.
You gotta give Gamigo credit though: They’re consistent in screwing things up.

I did a dedicated video on Odin: Valhalla Rising last week. If you’re interested in learning everything about the game, then I urge you to go ahead and search that out.
Either way, Project ODIN has now rebranded under the “Odin: Valhalla Rising” name. Much like Genshin Impact, Gran Saga and other cross-platform titles, Valhalla Rising aims to provide players with an MMORPG that looks and plays as good as Black Desert, cross-platform on both Mobile devices and PC.
While there is a fully dedicated trailer for the game out now, and the team behind it actually revealed some of the classes that are going to be present in-game, what is most worth noting is the fact that the devs have secured a deal with Kakao Games, the publisher for Black Desert Online, to publish the game.
Yup, so.. yeah. That happened.

One of the biggest releases of this year was no doubt going to be Phantasy Star Online 2. People have been highly anticipating this game for 8 years now. While I’d like to say it definitely didn’t disappoint – that’d be a lie.
The game itself, while yes definitely behind the Japanese release in terms of content is still a very enjoyable game, but the fact of the matter is, the Microsoft Store and Sega collectively screwed up the launch so bad that a large number of players have been unable to even log in to play.
And those that did? Have suffered so many issues that I’d actually recommended people wait until their upcoming June 10th maintenance before logging back in. Even Mrs Stix had her game delete itself out of nowhere after playing for an entire week straight – which is ridiculous.
While this has definitely hindered the success that PSO2 will see overall, I’m hoping Sega and Microsoft get their heads in the game and get this sorted out on PC before the player population declines further than it already has.

Here’s one I know the majority of you haven’t heard about: Elteria Adventures. This is an MMO supposedly centered around “player creativity” and “freedom.”
You’ll be able to build, and destroy everything you see and touch, providing gameplay unlike any other. According to the developers, “the game fuses together several game genres, aiming for greater degrees of creative freedom.”
Yup – the goal of the game is to provide players a large sandbox world that they can do whatever they feel like doing.
This seems a little too good to be true though to be honest. Peria Chronicles was supposed to offer this and look where it ended up.

For those of you anticipating new content in Temtem.. you’ll be saddened to hear that you’ll need to wait a little longer.
The Spring update was broken into two parts, with the first part launching during the Spring period, and the second part being deployed concurrently with the Summer patch.
This makes sense: A lot of developers are delaying updates in response to the state of the world right now and it’s not like Crema, the team behind Temtem is a large developer.
Either way, come Summer we’ll receive clubs, over 20 new Temtem, rock climbing, the final evolutionary forms for the starter Temtem and more.

I’m not one to claim an MMO is dead, but holy – seeing Population Zero’s concurrent player numbers at.. what, 13 players online as of writing this is.. disheartening to say the least.
The game has been plagued by issues ever since rolling out onto Steam and I believe has finally gotten ahead of the the majority of bugs people were encountering, but I fear it’s a little too late at this point. Nobody is playing the game anymore, and all interest has dried up.
You guys were right when you said its name was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Were you curious how the third Guild Wars 2 expansion was coming along? Well you’re in luck. In a small interview with TheGG.net, Andrew Gray, the lead Content Designer at ArenaNet revealed a little information regarding Guild Wars 2.
He went on to elaborate on the third expansion – the expansion everyone is looking forward to, stating that while work was coming along, he was unable to give any real information on the expansion itself, nor how close to releasing it actually is. Unfortunately.
He also mentioned that ArenaNet is “always thinking about the future,” when asked about Guild Wars 3.

Good news! Sea of Thieves just launched onto Steam, and has a concurrent player count of over 10,000. That’s honestly more than I thought it would’ve garnered especially considering how lackluster its launch was.
I mean, heck, I wasn’t even aware the game was launching onto Steam so this is actually news to me. The game is currently on sale for $40, so if it’s something you’ve been waiting on then I recommend taking the time to try it out now. It’s more alive than ever!

I know you guys have probably had enough of “new multiplayer survival RPGs” by this point, right? Too bad! Frozen Flame is a brand new upcoming multiplayer survival RPG.. and the developers promise that it’s going to be a “fresh take” on the survival RPG genre.
How, you might ask? Reading through what the game has to offer.. nothing really makes it seem anything different to what we already have: The world is dying, there is a large boss fight, the game holds 50 players, you can craft, build settlements, PvP.. about what you’d expect.
Nevertheless, the devs had asked for $50,000 during their Kickstarter, and managed to amass $130,000 by the end of its run, so clearly players are interested in what they see! To me? Iunno. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the future of the game holds.

For those of you that have yet to register for the final Closed Beta – then this is your chance. Applications close in less than 2 weeks and you’ll lose the chance to test the game out before it comes out later this year.
Additionally, miHoYo have re-opened the Content Creator Program to aid content creators in producing content for the game.
While people are claiming it’s technically closed, I managed to sign up recently, and had a friend of mine sign up just 2 days ago and get accepted so I urge you to if you create content in any form.

So I did a video Thursday evening regarding Lost Ark. It turns out that despite some peoples thoughts – Smilegate have been hard at work on a global release for the game.
It’s unclear how far along they are with regards to the English translations but the official Lost Ark Facebook page let future players know that they’re still not only working on it, but also unable to confirm exactly when they plan on releasing it.
However, they claimed to have news to release on that front soon enough. So keep an eye out!

The Gods have not graced MMO launches over the last week.
The Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor DLC rolled out and.. then promptly went offline, with the rest of the servers due to a game-breaking bug that allowed players who hadn’t purchased the content to access it.. while locking some players that did purchase it out completely.
Yup, quite the debacle. After spending the better part of a day attempting to remedy the situation and finally bringing the game back online, it had to be taken down again just hours later due to additional bugs.
Yup. I believe all is well now though, so go on in and enjoy to your hearts content!

In anticipation of New World’s launch, the New World team are holding a giveaway for potential Alpha keys. There are 40 Alpha keys in total being given away and the giveaway ends on June 9th at midnight.
If you’re looking to participate in the Alpha.. then now’s your chance to apply. It is interesting that they’re holding another Alpha test though.. instead of a Beta test when we’re this close to the game releasing, right?

I know you guys are waiting on Blue Protocol. So it is with that anticipation that I want to remind you all that the Blue Protocol team over at Bandai Namco promised us a brand new live stream this month.
It’s unconfirmed specifically when we’ll get the new livestream, but nevertheless it is still on track to happen. We’ve not received any update from Bandai Namco pertaining to the cancellation of the stream so we can all look forward to additional information soon.
Maybe even the next Closed Beta!