MMORPG News: Lost Ark Update, Peria Chronicles BETA, Astellia Online, Talion & More!

Oath is an upcoming sandbox MMORPG. I had the opportunity to speak with two of the developers behind the game and I have that interview coming soon, but even without having posted that, Oath has hit its Kickstarter goal.
More than that, they almost doubled their Kickstarter goal. This means that Oath is officially in development!
If you’re unaware of what Oath is, then you can head on over to their Kickstarter page or wait for our interview this month.

This is an old one, dating all the way back to 2008.
Pirates of the Burning Sea has been stagnant for a long while at this point, but the community has refused to give up on it after all this time, even after having lost the support of its original publisher.
Then, a few months ago it was announced that the game would be revived by Vision Online Games who plan on modernizing the game and taking it in a new direction while revitalizing the playerbase through a dedicated marketing campaign.
It’s amazing what the MMO community can do when they care about the game they’re playing as opposed to being toxic.

In Black Desert news, Pearl Abyss have released a roadmap featuring their expected content releases of this quarter, ranging from new mounts, new areas and an entirely new region.
One such region is the large new “Underwater Ruins” expansion for PC players. The expansion rolls out on May 22nd and features new water-themed locations for players to explore.
Then, in.. strange news, Kakao Games, the current publisher for Black Desert in South Korea agreed to transfer publishing rights in South Korea to Pearl Abyss.
Pearl Abyss will then directly handle publishing worldwide for the game with the exception of North America and Europe.
Yup.

I haven’t actually seen much in the way of news with regards to Astellia Online in the last couple months, but every so often the team behind it release a small glimpse into the game.
Last week it was showcasing the Warrior and Scholar classes.
Other than briefly talking about them, not much more in the way of content was shown but they’re trying.. almost admirably to keep people hyped for the game even though it’s being labeled Bless 2.0.. or was it Bless 3.0? I forget.

Bless Unleashed went into beta testing last week and the overall consensus was that it was.. okay. From the handful of people that tried it, anyway.
Not much was included in the beta but more is expected to be showcased in the future.
When specifically is unknown but Namco Bandai are moving along at a good enough rate that we’ll likely be seeing the title release in the near future.

Nexon posted an announcement on their website dedicated to the Project New Leaf update.
It included various changes like a 60% reduction to World Boss HP, more severe penalties for purchasing mesos via gold trading websites, and a lot more.
The most important thing, though? A new upcoming large expansion is planned for this Summer. Although no details have been revealed, Nexon have promised additional information will be made available in the near future.
However, at least according to the Steamcharts, MapleStory 2 has had a decline from an average of over 40,000 concurrent players down to a mere 1,000.
This just counts Steam and not players that are playing via their official launcher, but a drop that steep can’t be good.

For players that are interested in obtaining the GARO-themed gear or GARO-themed mounts, you may want to be aware that come patch 5.1, they will be retired. What this means is that none of the GARO-related items will be obtainable.
But you have until, like.. the end of this year to win them. So get to it if you have yet to!
Also worth noting is that the Heavensward expansion for the game is being given out completely free to all owners of the base-game.
So if you bought Final Fantasy XIV originally and would love to try out its first expansion, now’s your chance to redeem it for free!
One final note, I’ll have my Final Fantasy XIV video review posted this month in preparation for Shadowbringers’ early access launch next month. So get ready!

The team behind Lord of the Rings Online recently held a livestream to celebrate the game’s 12th anniversary. In it they went on to tease various bits of info pertaining to upcoming content.
This includes the new 64-bit client and a new expansion raid. Fans were ecstatic, and for good reason. They have their shit together for this year!

In preparation for the Elsweyr expansion next month, ZeniMax has released a new trailer featuring the Necromancer class.
Yeah, that’s.. that’s it. I covered everything else regarding Elsweyr in a past news video and nothing new has come to light. But hey! There’s a cool new trailer so you should check that out!

So as I’m sure you’re aware, the highly anticipated KurtzPel launched into early access last week. And it wasn’t good.
There were a lot, and I mean a lot of complaints regarding the game, the locking of specific weapon types behind pay-walls, rampant pay to win and just.. so much drama that I would be better off listing it all in a video dedicated to it.
But, as of a few days ago, the KurtzPel team released a formal statement admitting their fault and promising to remedy the issue in question.
All weapon types or Karmas have since been made available free, and hopefully the pay to win is at least drastically reduced. Since I know for a fact no free to play game can run without being pay to win to a degree.
For players that already purchased the weapon types, the KurtzPel team plan on reimbursing you in the form of unique costumes for free. So.. at least it’s something.
I’ll have an official KurtzPel video up in the coming week or two.

It’s been seven whole years since TERA launched. SEVEN! In celebration of this, En Masse have a plethora of events planned for the entire month.
So if you’re looking for a reason to get into the game, or, get back into the game, then this could be an opportunity to! There’s gonna be a ton to do!
Additionally, a new “companion” system has been added into TERA. A system that makes the game significantly more pay to win.
See, at level 66 you earn your own companion, a combat ally that gives you various combat buffs and automatically pops potions for you when you need them.
However your combat ally has stamina, which of course is recovered through use of cash shop items.
The maximum amount of companions you can hold at any given time is also expandable via the cash shop, along with re-rolling your RNG companion skill.
So.. yeah. Cool.

Yes, Guild Wars. Not Guild Wars 2, but its predecessor. Guild Wars is actually turning 14! Or, just turned 14, even.
The game launched back in 2005 and has been online ever since, maintaining a loyal playerbase.
In celebration of its 14 year anniversary, ArenaNet have announced that they’ll be halving the price of the game – every version of the game, including the large collection bundle.
Additionally, various tweaks have been made to the core game. So take note!

Yup. Black Desert, Final Fantasy XIV, Elder Scrolls Online, TERA and now Guild Wars 2, this week’s turning out to be quite the week.
So ArenaNet announced last week that War Eternal, the final episode in this season of the Living World has a confirmed release date. May 14th. Yes, this coming Tuesday! It’s really that close.
So for those of you that have been eagerly awaiting new content.. you won’t have long to wait!

Nope.. nothing related to its Western release yet. Regardless, Smilegate, like Pearl Abyss have released a roadmap of new content for the game.
It features things like automated pathing while on the ocean, a new continent, and a new dungeon type that introduces a new environment: Marine.
Also! I actually got into Lost Ark and I’ll be recording gameplay for it for posting later this month! So keep an eye out!

I’d reported on her upcoming release in the past but Eira, the gun-wielding Void Witch is finally live on the official servers.
Earlier this week also began the Golden Time event in Vindictus which provides players unique goodies whenever they log in between now and June 4th.
So if you’re interested in tackling the game from scratch yet again-but this time, with a gun-wielding babe then this is your chance. There are XP boosts on for the next week.

I dunno. Is this news video featuring literally every single moderately populated MMORPG in the market? I feel like it is. But I digress.
NCSoft has announced Blade & Soul’s upcoming major update, Scarlet Tears- and it’s coming out next week! Scarlet Tears adds the new “Scarlet Conservatory” 12-player raid along with the remaining two chapters of the Temple of Succession story.
Accompanying the update is the new Dragon’s Bounty event that will allow players to further upgrade their accessories and add new outfits. You know, the normal way NCSoft cons money outta its playerbase.

In the last 6 months, I believe I may have done.. a single news segment on EVE Online. Well, you’ll be surprised then to hear that May 28th marks the release of EVE’s new “Invasion” expansion.
There was a ton of information released regarding the expansion, so if you’re interested in everything that was added I suggest heading on over to EVE’s official website as trust me, there’s far too much for me to even sum up here without dragging this on for a solid ten more minutes.

For those of you interested in upcoming Mobile MMOs – and I know there are a lot of you, then Talion, which actually looks pretty good for a mobile title – visually, anyway, will be launching later this month on the 28th.
Like every Mobile MMORPG to date, Talion features two very unique factions: One bent on the pursuit of power and the other being sworn to freedom. Yup, you gotta give it to Korean Mobile MMO developers: They know how to innovate.
Especially with the game’s gender locked classes. That’s what we want in our games. And yes, if you weren’t aware.. I was being facetious.

So, Peria Chronicles had a recent multi-day beta test of their game for select people to partake of. Unfortunately I’m not South Korean so I wasn’t invited.
#feelsbadman but nevertheless, people captured some very, very interesting character creation.
Granted I’m not really able to showcase the character creation because it’s upload by another Youtuber and I don’t want to steal their content, I do recommend checking Youtube itself.
The amount of customization is probably more than in any Anime MMO outside of maybe PSO2.
Additional testing phases are planned in the near future so do keep a close eye on the game! Who knows, you might actually get in.