It’s time again for our MeinMMO format “MMORPG News in Two Minutes.” We summarize the most important news regarding the best genre in the world. Look forward to news about ArcheAge 2, Aion 2, Throne and Liberty, Corepunk, WoW: The War Within, Final Fantasy XIV, ESO, and many other online role-playing games.
The highlights of the week:
- The launch patch of WoW: The War Within will already be released on August 14, 2024 – featuring extensive class adjustments. From August 23, 2024, all pre-orderers of the Epic Edition will be able to dive into the contents of the new expansion. The worldwide release will occur on August 26 or 27, 2024.
- For about eight years (!), not a single 100 fans played the MMORPG Allods Online concurrently on Steam. Accordingly, the recent influx of players into the fantasy world of Sarnaut is quite surprising. Currently, there’s even a new all-time high on Steam with a growth rate of 2,559 percent (via steamdb.info).
What else has happened? Looking at the upcoming MMORPG releases, we have created new overview pages for WoW: The War Within, New World Aeternum, Corepunk, Throne and Liberty, and Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds, or comprehensively updated the existing articles.
Xal’atath plays an important role in the new trailer for WoW – The War Within:
WoW Cinematic: Threads of Destiny
Final Fantasy XIV supports Square, gets mobile version
What happened with the big MMORPGs:
- The new Dawntrail class of the Pictomancer is so well received in Final Fantasy XIV that many players are switching their main class.
- Meanwhile, the MMORPG and the mobile sector are ensuring that Square Enix remains profitable. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the Japanese publisher wants to develop a mobile version of FFXIV primarily for the Chinese market.
- Staying in Eorzea: The player who has achieved the toughest challenge in Final Fantasy XIV is moving right on to the next challenge.
- And once again FFXIV: On August 27, 2024, the temporary EU data center Shadow will close its doors (via de.finalfantasyxiv.com). With the extra fallback worlds, developers managed to ensure a smooth Dawntrail launch.
- Many players are already celebrating Xal’atath, the antagonist of WoW: The War Within. An important factor: She has been slowly built up over several expansions. Additionally, she is at the center of the new cinematic for The War Within.
- In the pre-event of WoW: The War Within, you can currently level up to level 70 at lightning speed.
- Until August 19, you can play The Elder Scrolls Online for free, as the developers have launched a new free-play event in celebration of QuakeCon 2024 (via elderscrollsonline.com).
- Based on feedback from beta testers, the developers of Guild Wars 2 have announced a long list of spear changes for various classes for the Janthir Wilds expansion (via guildwars2.com).
- Amazon Games has released some statistics after the console test of New World Aeternum. More than 680,000 quests have been completed, and over 3.6 million enemies defeated. The bow has been used the most (via newworld.com).
What happened with the smaller MMORPGs:
- A new raid boss, the Spider Queen, appeared in Tarisland on August 5, 2024 (via X).
- The two new, legendary servers of Lord of the Rings Online bring fresh air to the leveling experience in Middle-earth – thanks to an event that unleashes Nazgûl upon you.
- The Legacy servers of Ultima Online are currently undergoing several beta weekends. Fans of the 27-year-old MMORPG classic can expect more than just a nostalgic trip to original Britannia.
- From August 8 to 12, 2024, the test servers of Rift are surprisingly open. However, it seems there are no new features for interested players to check out (trionworlds.com).
- Pearl Abyss has released a financial report with details on Eve Online and Black Desert. The space MMO is enjoying rising revenues (and a player record, thanks to the Equinox update). Meanwhile, the revenue figures for Black Desert have slightly declined but are still about three times higher than those of Eve Online (via irsvc.teletogether.com).
- Speaking of Black Desert: The expansion Mountain of Eternal Winter has now also been released for the console version of the MMORPG (via console.playblackdesert.com). PC players have been able to explore the winter region for over two years now.
- With patch 26.010.1, the first patch for Albion Online: Paths to Glory went live on August 7, 2024. The German list of hotfixes can be found at albiononline.com.
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What happened with the MMORPGs in development:
- After criticism of the new rune system of Throne and Liberty, developer NCSoft is responding with sensible changes, thus easing the Pay2Win accusations. Despite the improvements already implemented in the Korean version, NCSoft continues to treat the new MMORPG in quarterly reports as an unwanted stepchild.
- The development of ArcheAge 2 is delayed. The MMORPG will not be presented to the public at gamescom 2024, and the release may be pushed to 2026.
- Aion 2 is still planned for 2025. Additionally, a new MMORPG based on a globally recognized IP is reportedly in development, which is expected to launch in 2026 and utilize Unreal Engine 5.
- “The most frustrating experience for new players that I have ever had in an MMORPG” – MMORPG expert TheLazyPeon has taken a look at the third alpha test phase of Corepunk and provided a critical interim assessment. By the way, Alpha Test 4 will run from August 6, 2024, to September 6, 2024. It is expected to enter Early Access on November 26, 2024.
With that, we have summarized the most important things that have recently happened in the world of MMORPGs.
What have you been excited about this week? What have you been upset about? Let us know in the comments. By the way, there was a new special from MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz the other day, in which he listed some killer features that no new online role-playing game should do without: These 10 great features should be included in every MMORPG
