Alpha 1 – Test 1 has come and gone, and it’s been glorious. Come find out what’s coming next in June’s test!

Hi, fellow gamer and MMO enthusiast!

Alpha 1 – Test 1 has come and gone, and it’s been glorious! While content, as announced, was very limited, we’ve received great feedback on the basic mechanics of the game, and are truly glad to know they’ve been appreciated by most of the community. We’re also happy there were no critical bugs, just a bunch of minor annoyances we’ll quickly get rid of 🙂

The only notable exception to the above were the login issues related to the SpatialOS launcher and game loading. In this regard, we’d like to extend an apology to all of you who were affected. We’re already working on a proper launcher & patcher and a different login system, and will be inviting testers with issues to try them out before the next phase begins.

Speaking of when it begins, Alpha 1 – Test 2, is set to start in June – exact day to be revealed. Aside from the obvious bug fixes and QOL changes, here’s a roadmap of what we’ll be working on in the next two months!

Housing

Our first focus for A1-T2 is the expansion of the existing crafting and building systems, which have earned plenty of positive feedback so far.

While in A1-T1 you could only claim a land parcel and build a house in it, in the next test you’ll be able to progress much further and keep yourself busy for a few days. Below you can find a brief list of the new content planned.

Housing Log & stone houses of different size; New house types (not guaranteed);

Storage Chests! Yes, this was a really basic missing feature.

Decorations Outdoor (fences, braziers, …); Indoor (rugs, head trophies, tables, beds);

Crafting Tanning Tub (leather curing); Workbench (leather armor crafting);

New Functionalities Item quality; Item durability; Move/Destroy (for items in claims); Blueprint/Item rotation; “Relinquish claim”; Advanced snapping.



World Building

Many of your pointed out that the continent of Myr, while large and environmentally varied, is quite uninteresting to explore due to the lack of points of interest and unique creatures. We couldn’t agree more!

That’s why, one by one, we’re picking a biome / point of interest and populating it with unique art assets and groups of creatures, each one featuring specific characteristics, abilities, and loot. During A1-T2, all the abilities will be added to the spellbook of new characters, while in the future you’ll be able to learn them by defeating the creatures that have mastered them!

And now let’s get to the first region we’re focusing on: the Deadwoods!

Deadwoods

The Deadwoods biome can be found in two distinct areas of Myr:

The Whispering Woods, a large region that has to be crossed before reaching the Vale of Shadows;

The Creeping Woods, a smaller region in the North-West of the continent.

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The region has a dark, gloomy look and is infested by two groups of creatures: undeads and spiders – including a couple terrifying… undead spiders!

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Here are all the new foes you’ll be facing:

Spiders Giant Spider Spiderling Brood Mother Crawling Horror Spider Lich

Undeads Zombie Skeleton Skeletal Warrior Skeletal Mage Ghoul



…and a list of the new abilities mastered by such horrors, categorized by school of magic:

Assassination Paralyzing Strike Poison Strike

Warfare Heavy Blow

Abjuration Absorb Mage Armor

Alteration Weaken

Conjuration Cobweb Entangling Web Ice Spikes Poison

Enchanting Fear

Invocation Chilling Touch Deep Freeze Frost Blast Magic Missiles

Necromancy Blight Mana Drain Paralyzing Touch



It is not guaranteed all of them will be included in A1-T2, but we’ll do our best!

Porting

Last but not least, in May we’ll be facing one of the most annoying things a dev can face: technology upgrades! 🙁

Specifically, here’s a list of the systems we’ll have to migrate:

Unity 2018.1 -> Unity 2018.4 Massive usability improvements… …that include many breaking changes, thus tools to be updated and adapted.

SpatialOS Unity SDK -> SpatialOS Unity GDK Switching from an old, almost-abandoned tech to the latest integration between Unity and SpatialOS… …which should totally lead to a more stable game and faster development speed… …at the cost of a (likely) very time-consuming, cursing-riddled porting.

Raknet -> KCP/TCP Networking shenanigans; Lower latency and more stable connections!



That’s it. We hope we’ve been able to give you a good overview of the exciting changes to come!

Got any comment? Let your voice be heard!

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