MMORPG News: Kurtzpel Registrations, New Old-School MMOs, City of Titans/Heroes MMOs

MMORPG News: Kurtzpel Registrations, New Old-School MMOs, City of Titans/Heroes MMOs

February is actually off to a pretty good start! Lots of positive news for a change – something that is always a refreshing change to receive.
So sit back, make sure your underwear is over your pants like every good superhero does and let’s fly into this week’s Byte of MMORPG News.

Legends of Aria

I haven’t covered Legends of Aria much over the last few months and that’s because it was seemingly going along smoothly.
That changed earlier this week, though.
Citadel Studios had promised that they would steer very clear of pay to win in their game as they wanted to bring back the theme of an “old-school sandbox MMO” that every dev and their mother seem to believe we need right now.
So you can understand why fans of the game were taken a little.. aback when they announced some of the items that would be added to their cash shop.
Originally, the team stated that the only items in the cash shop would be cosmetic, but as of this week, they have plans to add potions that speed up skill acquisition and stones that allow you to store your skills, swapping them in and out at any time.
While not inherently pay to win, it is the beginning of what could be considered a very pay to win cash shop in the future, especially since it contradicts what was promised when fans crowdfunded the game.
Derek Brinkmann, the project lead for Legends of Aria stated that “upon deep reflection, we have come to the conclusion it’s not the right way to avoid pay to win for this game”.
Yup, offering only cosmetic items as opposed to giving advantages to paying players is definitely not the way to avoid pay to win.
Putting items in the cash shop that allow players to get further ahead with less time invested is a step in the right direction, I 100% wholeheartedly concur with that thought. Oh wait, no I don’t.
This is a terrible decision and as such a lot of players are already claiming they are seeking refunds, and fans are abandoning the game in troves.
Good job, Citadel.

Albion Online

Another MMO I haven’t really covered is Albion Online, and this one’s a pretty big announcement to boot!
Albion Online is introducing new randomized dungeons to the game in the form of their new Oberon update. Players will be able to seek out completely randomized dungeons scattered throughout the game world that they can subsequently tackle with up to 4 other players.
The entrances to these dungeons, as should have been evidently clear, are completely random, and spawn with a timer upon entering.
If you’ve played World of Warcraft then they function similarly to Mythic+ dungeons; you enter, then they have a timer that you race against attempting to beat the clock for amazing rewards.
There is new loot, enemies, and a lot of expansion planned for this feature in the future. So keep your eyes peeled and get hunting!

Dauntless

Speaking of hunting, I got some pretty cool Dauntless news for those of you that weren’t aware.
In December, Phoenix Labs announced that it was attempting to bring cross-compatibility between the PC version of the game and both Xbox One and PS4, allowing players to play with one another regardless of the platform they use.
This is a very daunting (don’t mind the pun) task to undertake and as such Phoenix Labs have taken to working with Epic and their Epic Games Store to achieve this.
In more surprising news, Phoenix Labs also have plans on releasing Dauntless onto both the Switch and mobile devices. Whether or not they will feature cross-compatibility between platforms remains to be seen but I’ll keep you guys updated!

Azusa RP

Have you ever wanted to play an old-school pixel game, something like Chrono Trigger or Suikoden.. but as an MMO?
Well then you might be in luck. Azusa RP launched onto Steam on the 30th and is just like the aforementioned games.. but played as an MMO.
While I have yet to play the game in any capacity, the game’s creator, Victor Luis Santos has stated that it has “extensive character customization, various unlockable races, jobs, multi-generation characters, player-built cities, playable villains” and more.
“Start as a Civilian, Fighter or Master and end as a King or a God.”
The entire game is player-generated, providing various dungeons and villages that other users create themselves, and finally, if you so desire, play as the villain and bring down ruin onto everything other players create.
Which admittedly.. makes me worry about the game’s future, especially with trolls wanting to mess with people and destroy what they build.

KurtzPel

KOG Games, the team behind the upcoming Action MMO KurtzPel have just opened global registrations for their next stage of testing. Additionally, KOG have updated their official Steam page for the game in preparation for a Quarter 1 2019 release.
Although not much has been expanded on, we have been gifted with not only a new trailer, but also a fully functional official website.
So if you’re looking to get into the game, registration is now available!

Black Desert Online

I wish I could go more than a week without talking about Black Desert Online but that doesn’t seem like much of a reality.
Regardless, the Lunar New Year begun in BDO on Wednesday and beought with it a plethora of events and new features. The Cakewalk, Serbianca’s Couvhers and Mommore Hunt events.
More importantly, though, BDO introduced the new Devour system, allowing players to convert previously enhanced gear into Enhancement Chances. Weapons must be +8 and armor must be +6 to use.
Additionally, a new Privacy Mode has been added to the game allowing you to hide your online presence from other players.. which is a completely useless feature, but one they deemed necessary, for some reason.
The most important update this month, though, and an update that was overlooked by the BDO team themselves, along pretty much all gaming news sites was the change to the Battle Royale mode, or more importantly, the rewards for it.
To sum this up real quick, you gain additional rewards for landing in the final 20 players if you have a Kamasylvia’s Blessing buff active.
The buff happens to be a cash shop item that is purchasable for $24 monthly. It provides, by itself, an energy regen and an increase to loot drops.
But providing players additional rewards if they pay for them.. yeah, shady as fuck and a real scumbag thing to do. Very disappointed with this move.

Fallout 76

I don’t really want to hate on this game because I’ve never even played it, but holy shit Bethesda’s mishandling of the game is almost incomparable to anything I’ve seen from such a normally semi-competent developer.
Since Fallout 76 launched, they have scrambled time and time again to fix the insane amount of bugs that have plagued the game, and with their most recent patch.. well, suffice it to say that the community has not taken lightly to it.
The update actually undid a large amount of work that had been done fixing issues, re-introducing many bugs, such as the ability to duplicate items – and nerfs that weren’t warranted.
Players still actively playing Fallout 76 have taken to Reddit to voice their displeasure, with many claiming they have finally washed their hands with the game after repeated disappointment.
Which is completely understandable. Fallout 76 has been an absolute mess and I don’t know if the game is even salvageable at this point.

MapleStory M

For those of you playing the mobile port of MapleStory, MapleStory M, you might be excited to know that Nexon recently received a large content update that brought with it three new explorer classes to the game:
The Arch Mage that focuses on Lightning and Ice magic, the Hero that wields large two-handed weapons and the Shadower.. yes, that is legit its name, which is a dagger wielding rogue-like class.. called Shadower. You gotta wonder where these people come up with these names.
Additionally, new class growth support events along with the Lunar New Year events are now in place, along with a new system called Emblem Enhancement – allowing players the ability to extract Emblem Tracers from Elite items.
So, if you wanted to participate in any of the events, especially the leveling event taking place, now’s your chance!

Guardians of Ember

This one has had its fair share of.. drama over the last year. Guardians of Ember originally launched onto Steam as a buy to play MMORPG before being removed from Steam due to the publisher manipulating Steam reviews.
Since then, Gameforge has bought rights to publish it and we all know the kinds of games Gameforge publishes: Only the highest quality.
So, for those of you that want to try out an alternative to Path of Exile.. which is probably no-one, then Guardians of Ember is available to play completely for free now!
I don’t know why publishers keep taking dead games and trying to milk them, like.. please, c’mon, just let them die.

Onigiri

For Anime fans, Switch fans, or both, you may find this one of interest to you!
The free-to-play Anime MMORPG Onigiri launched onto the Switch on January 31st and has additional plans of expanding their release onto Steam sometime this month.
The team behind Onigiri have stated that they have plans of making the games playable cross-platform with Steam players and Switch players sharing the same servers as one another.
The game is currently available on both the PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One – however, the new release onto Steam and the Switch will not work cross-platform with any of those as they share a different server.
For those interested in what the game is like, we’ve done videos on it in the past so we’ll include a link to it in the description and pinned comment.

Ship of Heroes

I don’t really do videos on superhero themed MMOs because there aren’t really any noteworthy ones in production or at the very least, far enough through production to be worth noting.
However, recently Ship of Heroes’ boss Casey McGeever released an update on the forums revealing what they’re currently at work on – superpowers, animation, lag, missions, effects, costumes and leveling.
They’re also contemplating if and when they’ll be able to open up Apotheosis City for Alpha or Beta testing.
Finally, McGeever told players that Ship of Heroes is roughly where City of Heroes was at a similar time in terms of development.

City of Titans

Speaking of new superhero themed MMOs, which actually seems to be a slight theme to this weeks news video, City of Titans just released info in the form of a Twitter post as well.
In 2018, City of Titans suffered a large setback when they lost three months worth of data. Regardless, they continued hard at work attempting to catch back up to where they were prior to the disastrous event that occurred.
As of January 31st, 2019, the team behind City of Titans are happy to announce they are all caught up and even finalizing their Alpha test server for players to finally jump in and take the game out for a ride.
That’s two superhero themed MMOs for the price of one! Honestly, hopefully one of these games can fill the void people have that DC Universe Online and Champions Online just can’t fill.

  • author image
    abet Reply
    Feb 6, 2019 @ 20:13 pm

    hi, sry OOT, but what is outro songs in your youtube video ? (when patreons slide start)
    thank you

  • author image
    flamedragon Reply
    Feb 15, 2019 @ 13:48 pm

    what the name of the outro songs?

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