It’s time again for our MeinMMO format “MMORPG News in Two Minutes”. We summarize the most important news around the best genre in the world. Look forward to many new contents for World of Warcraft, the testing of new servers for Lord of the Rings Online, as well as Ultima Online and much more.
This week’s highlights:
- On July 24, 2024, the Pre-Patch for WoW: The War Within went live. With it: Comprehensive changes for all classes. The first login to the game could take particularly long due to the new war party feature.
- The preparatory events for the new expansion start on July 31, 2024. Early access is scheduled for August 23, 2024. On August 27, 2024, the actual launch of the addon follows.
- Pre-Patch 11.0 caused some issues. For instance, it could happen that someone else is currently accessing their war party’s bank.
- If you want to wade through the complete German patch notes from the Pre-Patch, visit worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com.
What else happened? For New World, the closed beta for the new console version started on July 25, 2024. The test runs until July 31 at 6:00 PM and takes place in two phases. From day one, participants can jump into the fray with a new character. However, endgame tests are also planned starting July 28.
Unfortunately, there was some trouble at launch, as many European interested parties could not activate their invitation code for the PlayStation 5. The reason: Only 20 of the more than 45 EU countries are allowed for the test. A detail that Amazon Games had not communicated sufficiently in advance.
The trailer for the new console version of New World:
New Servers for HdRO and Ultima Online
This happened with the big MMORPGs:
- 500 employees from the World of Warcraft team have formed a union. The founding process began over three years ago, during the major sexism scandal at Blizzard.
- On July 25, 2024, the Molten Core and Onyxia’s Lair opened their doors for the Season of Discoveries with some adjustments.
- On July 31, 2024, the Rise of the Zandalari will be released for Cataclysm Classic. Included are the heroic dungeon versions of Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman.
- With the expansion Janthir Wilds, the first new raid in five years will land on the servers of Guild Wars 2 in August 2024. This will be fully integrated into the main story of the addon and can optionally be experienced as a convergence for 50 participants.
- A reward from Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail is struggling with an entertaining bug. Meanwhile, scalpers are selling limited free goodies online at outrageous prices. By the way, if you want, you can play the Final Fantasy MMORPG at gamescom with producer Naoki Yoshida (via finalfantasyxiv.com).
- On July 24, 2024, a small update for Lost Ark was released, which adjusted the currently ongoing Super-Mokoko-Express-Event (via playlostark.com).
This happened with the small MMORPGs:
- With the update Paths to Glory Albion Online received a new achievement and mission system on July 22, 2024, which is meant to guide newcomers and provide additional incentives for veterans. Other innovations include several crystal weapons, extensive adjustments for the streets of Avalon, as well as optimizations for guild islands, fate boards, and more.
- In a livestream, the developers of Star Wars: The Old Republic presented the innovations of update 7.5.1 (via swtor.com).
- Fractured Online officially left Early Access on July 24, 2024. Alongside the launch, there was a fresh server start (via Steam).
- Old School RuneScape remains good for quirky news despite its high age. First, a player “completed” the MMORPG after 1,758 hours, then it went after 16,000 chickens.
- For Ravendawn a new update has been announced, which is set to go live on August 9, 2024. Not only gameplay improvements have been promised, but also fresh PvP and PvE contents.
- With Infinity Land a new fantasy MMORPG in anime style for PC and Mobile has been released.
- A new armor type, the Norrathian Armory, has been introduced for Everquest 2, which allows you to share items with other account characters (via everquest2.com).
- For Lord of the Rings Online, tests of the new Legendary Server Mordor are currently taking place. Angmar and Mordor are expected to go live on July 31 or August 1, 2024. The release of update 41 is also planned for July 31 (via mmorpg.com).
- The open beta for the New Legacy server of Ultima Online started on July 26, 2024, and is expected to run until July 28 (via uo.com).
- On July 22, 2024, the first boss dungeon with Sanctum of Rebirth was released for RuneScape (via mmorpg.com).
This happened with MMORPGs in development:
- For Throne and Liberty, an open beta phase took place. The MMORPG from NCSoft and Amazon Games has been well received by many testers. However, some annoying hiccups were noticed. For the Korean version, a comprehensive update went live on July 24, which will also improve the Western version.
- The VR MMORPG Ilysia has received a comprehensive update after poor reviews in the early access phase. Even fundamental things like movement were completely revised.
- For Scars of Honor, a new developer update was released, which introduced the new continent Irongarth and the sun elves (via Youtube).
- The early access for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is scheduled to start in December. The developers have released a comprehensive fact sheet for the EA phase (pantheonmmo.com).
With that, we have summarized the most important things that have recently happened in the world of MMORPGs.
What were you excited about this week? What frustrated you? Let us know in the comments at MeinMMO. If you are looking for affordable MMORPGs in 2024, the following list might help you: The 12 best free-to-play MMORPGs 2024 in comparison
