Category: mmorpg

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OrbusVR Winter Festival And New Raid Out Now For VR MMO

Today marks the beginning of the 2020 Winter Festival in OrbusVR and the launch of the brand new group raid dungeon, Citadel. You can find more details in the latest official OrbusVR blog post.

OrbusVR Winter Festival

While we have multiple VR MMOs on the horizon, such as Ilysia, Zenith, and Archgate to look forward to, there is already one out in the wild named OrbusVR. It’s been out for about three years now on PC and features full crossplay and cross-progression on Oculus Quest.

As is customary with MMOs, OrbusVR is no stranger to timed thematic content updates that are connected to real world seasons, such as the Winter Festival. This year will include the Heart of Strangers questline, snowman critter capture, and floating light quests. There’s also the Snowman Transmog set, just like last year.

In terms of new content this year there is a snowman pet reward for completing the Critter Capture quest and a fireplace to put in your house and a snow-themed mount.

OrbusVR Citadel Raid

Technically the raid has been sort of “out” in beta since December 3rd, but this week was the full launch. You can access it from a secret tunnel in the dragon shop inside Highsteppe. It’s a length dungeon with four major boss fights requiring strategy to get through safely.

Naturally, there will be lots of new loot to gain from the raid including new +4 armor and weapon sets, as well as an extremely rare +5 legendary weapon. They’ve got fancy magical auras that pulse through them, which is pretty neat.

OrbusVR is prepping for a big three-year anniversary celebration next month and will soon put out Quest 2-specific enhancements so players can see the mounts and tool belt items of those around them, as well as more fully-rendered characters instead of placeholder ghost avatars like on Quest 1.

Let us know what you think of this news down in the comments below! Do you regularly play OrbusVR?

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New Zenith Trailer Shows Expansive VR MMO Gameplay, Coming To Quest With PC VR Crossplay

Zenith is an upcoming JRPG-inspired VR MMO that raised over $280,000 on Kickstarter to help fund development. It will feature fast-paced action combat that’s reminiscent of Beat Saber mixed with Until You Fall, in addition to a Japan-meets-Cyberpunk art style.

We’d already seen some glimpses of gameplay, but the trailer footage posted on Reddit yesterday is the first really clear look into the game’s world, art style, and tone overall. You can watch it all embedded below:

This is Zenith, the JRPG inspired VRMMORPG that we’ve worked on for the past year. What do you guys think? from r/OculusQuest

A few things stand out in this gameplay. Not only do we see the player fighting off a group of enemy that has surrounded them, implying Vader Immortal-style lightsaber dojo moments of needing to spin and respond to attacks quickly, but there’s also a brief glimpse of climbing as well. Since this is an MMO, we can assume the world is quite vast so being able to discover locales both vertically and horizontally could be really great.

On the Steam page, which simply states a 2021 release window, there are various screenshots, GIFs, and more as well. From everything we’ve seen, fans of the first VR MMO, Orbus VR, will likely have a lot to look forward to here. There’s also a Discord server setup already with well over 10,000 members and counting.

The Steam page lists all major PC VR headsets, including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality. Zenith is also planned for both PSVR and Quest. According to the Reddit post on the Quest subreddit the team has “already implemented basic Quest support in our pre-alpha” and it will be fully crossplay with PC VR as well. The PSVR version is not currently confirmed to support crossplay.

zenith vr mmo screenshot 3 zenith vr mmo screenshot 5 zenith vr mmo screenshot 2 zenith vr mmo screenshot 4

There’s no release date yet other than just 2021.

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First Gameplay Teaser Arrives for VR MMORPG Ilysia Ahead of Spring Kickstarter

While virtual reality (VR) fans of MMORPG’s already have the likes of OrbusVR: Reborn to pass the time at home, 2020 will see the competition ramp-up as Kickstarter funded Low-Fi and Zenith are both expected later this year. If they weren’t enough, indie developer Team 21 Studio has released its first teaser gameplay trailer for MMORPG Ilysia, with a crowd-funding campaign slated to arrive this spring. 

The team has big plans for Ilysia, building an expansive world where players can do the things expected of an MMORPG. Go on quests with friends, explore a vast land filled with cities and dungeons and encounter massive world bosses, known as Guardians. Standing hundreds of stories tall, Guardians aren’t bosses you directly fight, instead, they contain dungeons and exploration zones. You can climb and explore these Guardians while exploring Ilysia or choose to avoid them.

Gameplay will involve collecting and making weapons, clothing and other useful items, all of which is stored in a personal Caravan. You’ll be able to customize and decorate the caravan with the treasures found in Ilysia plus it’ll have several other uses. You’ll be able to use it for resting as well as a means of fast travel and other players will also be able to visit your caravan.

To give you an idea of Ilysia’s current size the team notes in a blog posting: “Currently, and at launch, Ilysia will be roughly 20 km by 24 km (12 mi by 14 mi). When Xander and I wander through the world, it takes us about 2 and a half to 3 hours to run from one side of the world to the other, taking into account that is without any obstacles or enemies slowing us down as would be the case in the full version of Ilysia. This size will more than double as we continue to work on Ilysia.”

Ilysia screenshot2

To help make this all possible Team 21 Studio will be launching a Kickstarter this spring with a date and funding target still to be revealed. Before that takes place the team has begun a pre-funding round on its own website for those really keen to support Ilysia, with three tiers offering unique items as well as access to the first Alpha and Beta versions.

Ilysia will support headsets including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index. As further details are released, VRFocus will keep you updated.

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Kickstarter Funded MMO Zenith to Release a Pre-Alpha Very Soon

Last year indie dev team Ramen VR launched a highly successful Kickstarter to crowdfund an MMORPG called Zenith. Now the studio has announced that an early pre-alpha is on the way later this month for founders who backed the initial campaign.

Zenith

The pre-alpha will be made available eligible backers on 21st March 2020, supporting Oculus Rift/Rift S, to begin with. As development continues more headsets will be added to the roster, with Steam VR and Oculus Quest planned for later. All the funding tiers from $35 USD and above are included in this pre-alpha. As this is a very early build Ramen VR does stress that many of the core features are still missing but it does still offer the first fully playable loop of Zenith.

Lauren Frazier, co-founder of Ramen VR notes in the video below that account creation won’t feature (that’ll come later) so players will be given pre-created characters. Also, the servers will only run at the weekends, with the pre-Alpha held for at least a month, possibly longer. There will be three environments for players to explore, the main Zenith city itself, a dungeon/cave type location and a larger grassland area.

A cyberpunk style VR MMORPG inspired by anime and JRPG classics, Zenith is an ambitious project to create a living, breathing world which players can explore, go on adventures with others, fight enemies and craft items. Players will be able to pick and customise their character and class to suit their gameplay style, all with full-body avatars – no floating heads.

Zenith

The brainchild of Frazier and fellow co-founder Andy Tsen, who met during the Oculus Launch Pad program in 2017, they were only looking to raise $25,000 from the Kickstarter but went on to hit $280,075 from 3,415 backers instead. This allowed them to hit several stretch goals for even more content.

Ramen VR will be releasing further updates on Zenith over the course of March for those unable to access the pre-alpha. In the Kickstarter the team estimated a launch would take place in August 2020 so the pre-alpha should be a good indication of how things are progressing. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Zenith, reporting back with the latest updates.

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VR MMO OrbusVR Gets First Pack Of Paid DLC Content In Q2 2020

The team behind VR MMO OrbusVR has been extremely generous with the game’s post-launch support. Massive feature updates, content additions, expansions, and new features have all been added to free, but now they’re shifting to paid DLC content.

Honestly, I’m surprised it has taken this long. Non-subscription MMOs like The Elder Scrolls Online have been using this format for a while now with great success. The DLC will include 10-15 hours of new content, 5 new zones, 3 new armor sets, 2 new weapon sets, pets, mounts, housing furniture pieces, and achievements. However it will not include new classes, harvestable items, new potions, a higher level cap, or anything that would give DLC purchasers an edge in the game as a whole.

The first ‘Mini Story Pack’ for OrbusVR is set to be a story-focused DLC aimed at exploration and questing, separate from the rest of the game, and is due out in Q2 of this year on all platforms (PC VR and Quest) for $9.99. According to a recent email from the company:

“For the first Pack, we’re showing you a different side of Patreayl and taking you to several mini zones within the current overworld where you’ll befriend and assist a society of sentient lizards. We’ll be introducing a couple of new mechanics, as well as throwing it back to original Orbus by bringing back a few old enemies.”

This pack of missions starts in Pierre’s shop where you are tasked with locating a missing lizard aided by a newly created gadget that lets you shrink things and people. What follows is a sort of Bug’s Life-esque adventure it sounds like across the world’s many “micro-ecosystems” in search of the lizard.

OrbusVR is expected to get 2-3 story DLC packs this year, including this first one with plans for a larger expansion at some point potentially after those are out.

You can read more about the story DLC on the official OrbusVR blog. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

The post VR MMO OrbusVR Gets First Pack Of Paid DLC Content In Q2 2020 appeared first on UploadVR.

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VR MMO OrbusVR: Reborn Celebrates Two Year Anniversary With Winter Festival Of Strangers

This month marks the two-year anniversary of the first-ever true VR MMO, OrbusVR. Earlier this year it relaunched with a massive overhaul in the form of OrbusVR: Reborn and has received a staggering stream of updates ever since.

Kicking off last week, the team behind OrbusVR is currently running the Festival of Strangers, which is a massive winter-themed event running until January 7th, 2020. The landscape is dramatically altered for the festival with new quests, missions, and monsters — as well as “a few surprises” to discover. As expected, the new beasts are known as “The Strangers” and they’ve arrived by way of the dangerous snow storms. You can grab a quest to fight the Strangers from the Strangers Festival NPC outside the gates of Highsteppe.

Other additions for this update include new critters to capture, lots of wintery-themed decorations, and brand new furniture for player houses.

OrbusVR isn’t the most visually impressive VR game, it doesn’t revolutionize what it means to be an MMO, and it’s made by a small indie team, but that doesn’t make it any less of an accomplishment. The community is strong and friendly and the team works hard to keep the game updated and lively.

If you’re at all interested in checking the game out there is a very generous free trial that lets you go all the way up to level 10, which is a hefty chunk of content. There aren’t many dedicated persistent online games in VR yet, so OrbusVR certainly stands out in that regard.

Let us know what you think if you’ve given the game a try!

The post VR MMO OrbusVR: Reborn Celebrates Two Year Anniversary With Winter Festival Of Strangers appeared first on UploadVR.

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VR MMO Zenith Surpassese $200K In Kickstarter Funding, Over 800% Of Target Amount

Zenith is an upcoming VR MMORPG from the developers of Conjure Strike that features a distinct anime-style aesthetic and touts action-focused combat inspired by Beat Saber.

The Kickstarter still has about two weeks left to go but it’s already earned over $200,000 reaching more than 800% of its targeted $25,000 goal between over 2,300 backers. That’s a lot.

Watch The Kickstarter Trailer for Zenith:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGXs-R7gUXo

The original $25,000 goal was extremely low and I frankly had trouble believing an MMO even remotely like the one they were promising would be possible on that sort of budget — even if they have additional outside funding. But 10x that amount? Now you’ve got my attention.

Since Zenith surged through the original target in just four hours it has gone on to surpass six of its seven planned stretch goals, including: in-game familiars, a ‘Ramen Review livestream by the develoeprs’ player vendors for selling goods, player housing customization, transmogs for visual customizatoin, and a new playable race. The only stretch goal left at the $250,000 mark is a level editor.

Zenith is ambitiously targeting not only PC VR headsets like Rift, Vive, and Index, but PSVR and Oculus Quest as well and it will also be playable on non-VR PC setups. Plus, they’re planning for fully compatible cross-play between all devices and PC at once, similar to OrbusVR, VRChat, and Rec Room.

As exciting and epic as Zenith sounds, I will stress that this is a Kickstarter which means that not only is the game ever actually getting released guaranteed, but the core developers are relatively untested generally speaking since they’ve never shipped a game together of this scale and they’re a very small team. That being said, I’m pretty optimistic.

Currently the “Estimated Delivery” date is August 2020, but I’ve followed enough Kickstarters to know that probably actually means alpha by that date and maybe a full launch or wide Early Access release on PC by Spring 2021 if I had to guess.

Let us know what you think down in the comments below!

The post VR MMO Zenith Surpassese $200K In Kickstarter Funding, Over 800% Of Target Amount appeared first on UploadVR.

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[NOW LIVE] Nostos Livestream: Open-World Online VR RPG Beta Test

Curious about how we livestream the way we do? Then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup. For today we’re playing the Beta Test for upcoming online VR RPG Nostos.

We’re back again with another livestream, this time of Nostos, planned for today 9/6/19 @12:30PM PT on the UploadVR YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Mixer.

Nostos is currently running a Beta Test period that will last until September 9th, so for today’s livestream we’re diving into its gorgeous anime world to see what the online open-world VR RPG is all about. The game is in development by NetEase and is slated for release later this year. It will also include cross-play with non-VR players. We’ll be playing via Steam on an Oculus Rift S.

The Nostos stream is planned to start around 12:30PM PT today and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or two. We’ll be hitting YouTube, Twitter, Mixer, and Facebook all at once. You can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UW89v84mmM

You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist and various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!

And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next other than Nostos! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.

The post [NOW LIVE] Nostos Livestream: Open-World Online VR RPG Beta Test appeared first on UploadVR.

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Online VR RPG Nostos Latest Beta Test Includes Two Hours Of Story Content

Open-world online VR RPG Nostos is currently holding a four-day long Beta Test featuring cross-play between both VR and non-VR PC players until September 9th and it will include lots of new things that weren’t in the previous test.

For being one of the most anticipated VR games on the horizon (if the popularity and interest our coverage has seemed to generate is anything to go by) we still know very little about the title, generally speaking. After getting to try it briefly at Gamescom 2018 it’s been lots of mystery. Luckily, this weekend’s Beta Test should be a good opportunity to learn more for anyone lucky enough to get picked.

According to the developers at NetEase, this Beta Test will include two specific ‘main’ missions that encompass about two hours story content. This latest Nostos Beta will also include a larger map, more gameplay elements like a motorbike you can ride, and new side missions not seen before. It will also include more graphical effects such as rain and snow, more ancillary details like clouds and grass, and more optimization fixes.

Gameplay Screenshots from Non-VR PC Version:

To play the Nostos Beta on the highest settings they recommend at least an i7 9700k with 16GB of RAM and a 1080Ti GPU. Release date is still a bit confusing because the official Nostos Twitter account says “Q3 of 2019” still, which means this month technically, but then at China Joy previously this year they stated a Q4 2019 release date. Maybe a surprise announcement is in store soon.

We’ll be playing in the Nostos Beta today and are planning to livestream it over on your YouTube, so keep an eye out for that in a few hours or you can watch the archived gameplay afterward. The beta will last until September 9th.

nostos beta test september info image

Let us know what you think of Nostos down in the comments below!

The post Online VR RPG Nostos Latest Beta Test Includes Two Hours Of Story Content appeared first on UploadVR.