It is time for our MeinMMO format “MMORPG News in 5 Minutes”. We summarize the most important news around the best genre in the world. You can expect dragons in Albion Online, cheating GMs in WoW, the release date of Aion 2 and more information about the lore of Guild Wars 3.
Highlights of the week:
- The last major patch of World of Warcraft Midnight was leaked – by Blizzard itself. A classic.
- There are still Game Masters in World of Warcraft. But they cheat for their friends. Unpleasant when it becomes apparent. Even more unpleasant, when one loses their job because of it. Now Blizzard is struggling with a trust issue.
- World of Warcraft completely removes a game mode. A declaration of bankruptcy, says MeinMMO demon Cortyn.
- This weekend in Berlin, the Fan Festival 2026 for Final Fantasy XIV takes place. We expect exciting news for the new expansion of the MMORPG. Our colleague Alex is on-site to ask the developers questions after the announcements that have not been answered yet. You can find the program for the stream on the official Lodestone.
What else has happened? Aion 2 has a release date! In addition, there were concrete details this week about the supporter packs and the early access phase. Furthermore, the developers from NCSoft talked about a planned console version and revealed how many active players in South Korea have subscribed. Spoiler: Aion 2 is not really Free2Play.
Elder Scrolls Online disables one crown store, another remains
What happened with the big MMORPGs:
- The next remix event of World of Warcraft is already in the works. We will probably have to wait a while for another event.
- Sometimes it just takes one detail to experience failure in World of Warcraft. Even a small comma can cause chaos.
- Crafting good items in World of Warcraft is easy through professions. But unfortunately, the professions are anything but easy to understand. Many players therefore do not even try.
- Free housing items in World of Warcraft are always welcome. We will show you how to quickly grab 3 of them.
- In the official ESO forum, community manager ZOS_Kevin announced that the crown store has been removed from the MMORPG’s website. You can still purchase crowns there, but those who want to make purchases in the shop must log in to the game in the future. Additionally, they want to adjust the regular showcase articles for the crown store and promote the offers in the shop in different ways.
- On July 30, Archboss Ramus appears in Throne and Liberty. He rides into battle on an impressive dragon. You can find information about the phases and rewards on playthroneandliberty.com.
Everything revolves around the best genre in the world on the YouTube channel of MeinMMO. Recently, a video went live there, in which we present you with 8 hopefuls of the genre:
What happened with the small MMORPGs:
- The creators of RuneScape want to dethrone World of Warcraft by 2031 and sound so megalomaniacal that you might believe them.
- For Lord of the Rings Online, Update 49 was released on July 22, featuring the Angmarim Sorceress as the new class for the monster play. You can find the patch notes on lotro.com.
- The MMORPG Ni No Kuni Cross Worlds celebrated a kind of restart on July 23, 2026 – without the old crypto/blockchain model, but with a new adventure journey that aims to make onboarding easier. If you want to take a look at it on PC or Mobile, you can do so at ninokuni.netmarble.com.
- The next update for Albion Online (one of the very few successful MMORPGs of the past 10 years) is named Dragonfire and will be released on August 31, 2026. Featuring: the titular dragons, the ancient lands, and new rewards. For fans of challenging PvE content, this could be a fantastic update. You can find more details on the official website of Albion Online. And here is the trailer:
What happened with the MMORPGs in development:
- What is Guild Wars 3 about and why do we step into the role of the Vael Guardians? MeinMMO summarizes what is known about the story and lore and what that could mean for the magic and the skill system.
- The class-based MMORPG SpiritVale has launched in early access on Steam and was able to attract so many players to the servers at times that even the established competition looks old.
- In the latest developer update about Stars Reach, Raph Koster and Co. talked about the current status of the MMO and what is still missing to start early access on Steam.
- The free-to-play MMORPG Clash of Adventurers is currently inviting to playtest on Steam. The game is based on Unreal Engine 5 and each class is supposed to take on only one role (Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer). Therefore, cooperation in groups is essential.
With this, we have summarized the most important things that have happened recently in the world of MMORPGs.
What have you been excited about this week? What have you been annoyed by? Let us know in the comments. If you are looking for an overview of the history of online role-playing games, you will find it in this comprehensive special: Over 60 years of MMORPGs: We look at the beginnings, premieres, highlights, and failures
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