If you’re playing an early access or beta MMORPG, you know in the back of your mind that nothing you’re doing is for keeps; the game will invariably be wiped. But if you weren’t fine with that, you wouldn’t be testing the game in the first place. So bear that in mind when we tell you that Raph Koster’s pre-alpha MMORPG Stars Reach is about to wipe the current phase of the game.
“We are doing a wipe this week,” Playable Worlds warns. “This includes everything you have built, everything you have collected, and all skills and characters. Also, all the wild flora as well. Gone. We are keeping planets, rocks, dirt, fauna, and space.” Today’s playtest is also nixed, but that’s because the devs are doubling down on performance improvements; expect optimized flora, homestead limits, and new player tweaks.
In the meantime, expect the next patch – dubbed Dynamic Update – on Saturday. The patch notes make clear the “dynamic” part refers to the newly transient nature of wormholes.
“What this means is that wormholes will stay up for a random amount of time. During that time, you can travel through the wormhole, far beyond the reaches of Servitor-controlled space, and end up on a ‘wild’ planet. There, you can explore and exploit that planet as desired. BUT… the wormhole is definitely going to collapse. If you’re still on the wild planet when it does, then you’ll have no choice but to release and be reformed according to your last-saved ReLife pattern back in Servitor space…without anything you acquired on the wild planet. So, it’s a race against time.”
We also spy improvements to wormhole missions, skill learning at skill kiosks, better meteors, the UI, and loading screens.
Readers will recall that during Stars Reach’s Kickstarter, devs outlined a plan to hit early access by the end of this year with a proper launch in 2026.
