Dynamight Studios’ CEO Jacopo Gallelli decided to open an AMA for Fractured, and curious players responded with a wide swath of questions about the developing sandbox’s systems.
One of the first questions asked about the game’s recent price reduction and whether that represented a “weakness” in business plans. Gallelli admitted that the initial pricing for alpha and beta access was too high for an indie, but he believed that a price shift couldn’t have happened sooner than this for fear of upsetting early backers.
Another question asked about fast travel in Fractured, noting that fast travel systems can often be abused. According to Gallelli, fast travel can only happen between two large player cities, each with a Harbor Office, and at a significant cost besides (a base fee, plus a surcharge based on inventory weight and the Harbor Tax set by the destination city).
On the subject of abusing systems, Gallelli addressed a question about preventing zerg tactics and massive guilds holding all territories, with plans to include player character collision, diminishing CC returns, nerfed AoEs in PvP, population caps for sieges as well as limiting sieges to those who signed up, and high costs of gold and resources for city maintenance as possible roadblocks to prevent massive guilds stagnating territorial PvP. And speaking of town maintenance, resource nodes are geographically linked (mines in mountainous regions while crops can grow in fertile lands), so trading between towns will be “mandatory” according to Gallelli.
One of the last answers confirmed that testing for other races like the Tartaros will come during beta, while plans for other schools of magic and additional spells for existing magic schools will unfold as development progresses. And on the subject of development progress, the game will hold its next alpha sometime in October and will last about a month or possibly longer. As for beta, that is being eyed for some time in the second half of 2021 and will likely feature servers running 24/7.
