MMORPG News: WE GOT NEW MMOs! Destiny’s Sword, Eternal Magic, Blue Protocol, League of Maidens

If you were unaware, last week Astellia Online held a Closed Beta that had thousands of players testing out the upcoming MMO.
My wife MrsStix and I got into the closed beta and gave out 100 Closed Beta keys to our viewers and we posted a first impressions video of sorts to the channel.
If you’re interested in our thoughts on the game, how it played, what it looked like and whether or not you should go ahead with the purchase – as it will be a buy to play MMORPG, then head on over to that video.
For everyone else: The team behind Astellia are already hard at work planning their 2nd Closed Beta – which again, we’ll be giving out Beta keys for, along with several copies of the game completely free as part of a giveaway.
So make sure you’re subscribed to our channel and each of our Twitter pages – which will be linked below as we’ll announce it via Twitter and the Youtube community section before each event. Make sure you take advantage!

Last week, or earlier this week for people who opted to not purchase the Early Access edition for Shadowbringers, Square released their updated Shadowbringers expansion.
According to various sources, Shadowbringers was the largest, and simultaneously most densely populated by players expansion to date.
I have a video recorded for posting next week regarding my experience in Shadowbringers but for those of you that have yet to take the plunge.. right now is as good a time as any.
The game is packed with players, content to explore and honestly, you’re missing out on one of the best told stories in an MMO. Pertaining to Shadowbringers, that is. This expansion is remarkable.

In more somber news, Dragon’s Dogma Online is shutting down.
After four years of being online, and having some of the best character creation, interactable action combat and a Pawn system not present in any other MMO.. Capcom have called it quits.
The MMO never even made it to the West! Even despite how good it was.
According to Capcom, “it has become too difficult to continue offering a satisfactory service,” thus instead of working through their issues, or allowing someone more competent to publish it, they’ve opted to just put the nail in the coffin and axe it all together.
The game is still playable up until it goes down on December 5th 2019, and if you’re looking to play it, it’s currently available in the PlayStation store until July 11th.
Otherwise.. I guess it’s back to Dark Arisen. Or hoping Dragon’s Dogma 2 is in the works.

This one’s a little unusual. Destiny’s Sword, a Kickstarted funded strategy MMO that I had no idea existed has ended their funding, raising over $23,000.
Supposedly, the game has a large focus on PvP faction wars, a fully-featured guild system, boss battles and a “quest-like system.” From what I can tell it looks very different to anything else I’ve seen in the genre.
Which could be a good thing.

Last week, ahead of Final Fantasy XIV’s Shadowbringers launch, Blizz released Rise of Azshara, World of Warcraft’s latest large update that brought with it the new Nazjatar and Mechagon zones to explore, Azshara’s Eternal Palace raid, the new 8-boss “mega-dungeon” Operation Mechagon, an edited Heart of Azeroth system, and.. other stuff.
For a more in-depth look at exactly what Blizz added with Rise of Azshara, I recommend visiting the official World of Warcraft website – it’s packed with info.

For those of you still paying attention to Fractured you’ll be happy to know that Dynamight Studios recently wrapped up their first Alpha test and are already planning a second Alpha for July 10th.
Of course, like all indie-funded MMOs, only people who backed the game with a purchase of a Knight package will receive access to the second Alpha.
This means that everyone else is forced to wait until a Closed or Open Beta before they’re given access to the game.
The second Alpha will focus on adding new content in the form of creatures, spells, crafting, equipment and housing options.

So last month I did a video on Eternal Magic, a new upcoming MMORPG that looks like it was released back in 2005. It’s supposedly a “classic MMORPG” set in a “huge fantasy world” with a “flexible class system” and “dynamic combat.”
The game is being published by 101XP who are most notably known for.. Browser MMOs like League of Angels along with Mobile MMOs like Era of Legends.
If that isn’t enough to get you excited, and the video in the background right now isn’t whetting your appetite then you’ll be glad to know that they are beginning their Closed Beta on July 17th.
To participate in the beta, all you need to do is purchase one of the pre-order packs. Packs begin at $15 – with the most expensive pack coming in at a whopping $65.
Which is ridiculous. But that’s how we’re treated these days – bags of money dangling off of trees for developers and publishers to just up and pick ’cause we’re that desperate.
Just a quick note: Bless Online, Warlords Awakening, Guardians of Ember, DK Online and a handful of others have released with this same model, attempting to take advantage of our community.
Be wary, as this is highly likely to be a cash grab.

Lost Ark has just announced yet another region is going to be getting the game: Japan. They’ve just signed a publishing contract with GameOn, a Japanese publisher to release the game in Japan.
That makes several countries already – with North America and Europe not included.
Speaking of the Korean server, Smilegate have just announced another large content update for the game and although there is currently no confirmed release date, and the content in question has yet to be revealed, they did announced the addition of a new Assassin class.
Worth noting however was that they mentioned plans on yet another country obtaining publishing rights recently. It is unconfirmed what country, but people have a few ideas. What do you think?

I just did a video on this yesterday, but Blue Protocol is a brand new upcoming Anime MMO from Bandai Namco.
It is unconfirmed whether it’s an MMO – featuring groups of players working in tandem or instead an MMORPG with hundreds if not thousands of players simultaneously occupying a space.
Either way, it’s being made similarly to Tales of Arise with an emphasis on “pushing the limits of what PC hardware can do” while providing us with a rich story and graphics right out an Anime movie.
I’m excited for this one, as I mentioned in my video yesterday. It looks amazing and has a lot of potential.

I did a segment on Atlas a couple weeks ago and detailed how the team behind Atlas were working on a single-player version of their MMO. An MMO that holds up to 40,000 players on a single server.
I was baffled as to why people would want a single-player MMO but figured y’know what, I doubt that’ll ever be a thing. Boy was I wrong.
It has since been announced that the Atlas single-player mode has gone into beta testing. Yup, you heard that correctly.
To beta test the new single-player mode, the MMO itself is being put on hold while they iron out all the issues with it.
Until that date, you can expect the MMO to be put on the back-burner, even though people paid for the MMO, not the single-player mode attached.

Black Desert is launching onto PS4 – we all knew that. Were we aware it was launching on August 22nd? Maybe. What we didn’t know though was that preorders for the game have now begun.
While the PC version of the game is available right now for $5, the largest preorder package that will have a 2 day headstart is going for $100. Man, you guys really know how to make your money!
Next up: Black Desert on the Switch with $100 packs available. Prepare your wallets!

I’ve done 2 separate videos on League of Maidens over the last 2 months. Why? Because I have some faith that it’ll be a pretty decent game.
I’ve been in contact with the developers behind the game and they seem pretty relaxed and dedicated to providing players with an MMO they can enjoy.
They’ve rolled out countless updates over the last few months and after seeing that, I went ahead and reached out to them asking if they’d be willing to do a giveaway.
A giveaway that would allow 50 of you to get in-game right now, without having to spend a cent, and test the game out in all its glory.
The giveaway in question is located on our website – so head on over there if you want your chance to win!

Finally, it turns out that Genshin Impact is not going to be an MMO. At all. The team behind the game have yet to elaborate on exactly what “online features” will be available, but the MMO-aspect of the game is now dead.
Which is unfortunate as I’d really hoped to be able to play that with some of you guys!