Siege Camp’s ambitious upcoming war-centered sandbox MMORPG Anvil Empires continues along in pre-alpha, its tests punctuated by dev blogs, including the latest, which focuses on the game’s online world tech. The studio calls it “large worlds tech,” and a prototype – and its associated map – are due in the next round of testing, though SiegeCamp warns it’ll feel a little rough initially as the landscape is rebuilt and tweaked.
“The new map will be roughly 8 times the surface area of the test map used in prior tests. The simulation and networking will be split across two R2 instances with a virtual border dividing the two ‘regions,'” the team writes. “To get a sense of scale in this map [embedded below], there are approximately 100,000 trees in this world and all of them can be interacted with and chopped down by a player. While the map used in prior tests was temporary, this new map will form the basis of the actual world of Calligo.”
The dev blog also touches on the introduction of animal breeding, horses, stables, donkeys, animal-driven mills, player housing settlements, and the market, dubbed the local exchange.
“When building a Settlement from scratch, there is a progression and sense of direction for the founding players. However, when joining an existing Settlement it can be a lot more unclear on how to progress or contribute as a citizen. There are two new experimental features being added to help give such players more agency and focus so they can establish themselves within a village or town. First, House Areas allow individual players or small groups of two or three to own a small piece of property within a Settlement where they can build structures, park vehicles, and store resources. Within this area, players are free to build equipment like Anvils and Sawbucks or run a small farm. This allows citizens to invest in a role and produce materials or equipment. These resources can then be contributed to the Settlement using the new Local Exchange.”
