alpha

Ashes of Creation preps for September’s Alpha 1, shows off its action combat

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Need a good dose of Ashes of Creation news to spice up your week? Intrepid Studios popped its head back up to talk up the game, starting with the revelations that Ashes is going to make an appearance at Gamescom next week and kick off its Alpha 1 testing next month.

The Alpha 1 test will span seven months and cover 100-player open world battlegrounds, 200-player castles and sieges, and the city horde mode, which challenges players to work together to protect a town from rampaging NPC invaders. At some point down the road during this test, name reservations will open up for backers.

Lead Developer Steven Sharif also popped onto Discord to share some other tidbits about the game features and systems. If you wanted to know if crossbows will have scopes (they will), if there would be quest dailies (there will not), and what surprises weapons will hold (some have skills!), then you’ll want to peruse this list.

Intrepid whetted fans’ appetites for this upcoming MMO with an action combat gameplay trailer. Where is this trailer? Where might you find it? Don’t fret, it’s been waiting for you below… waiting for you all your life.

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Betawatch: Fallout 76 shares details on PvP and crossplay (August 17, 2018)

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There’s still stuff happening with Fallout 76, even though players aren’t testing it yet. You can at least test things out in your mind now that you know about the game’s progression and PvP plans. Perhaps “testing games in your mind” could be a Perk. Of course, you’ll want to make sure that you have the game on the same platform as your friends, as a lack of crossplay has been confirmed at this point.

But let’s not stop there; let’s catch a few other beta stories, yes?

So this is all rather shady, but we promise you that our list below is properly illuminated and trustworthy. We have it all vetted by you fine people! Notice something on there that shouldn’t be? Let us know so we can fix that! And that includes if something skipped phases without us noticing or just went quiet for an extended period of time. We appreciate your notifications.

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Rend moves to new server hardware, throws out a huge balance patch

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Rend is enjoying some strong popularity since transitioning into early access at the end of July. To handle the influx of interested adventurers, Frostkeep Studios moved a whole host of North American and European servers over to new and better hardware earlier this week.

Since the studio also changed the saga restart timer from 72 hours to 24 hours, it manually reset seven of its servers to restart their sagas and get on this new timeframe. It is even granting bonus AP for any of the server ascensions that happened before Patch 2.1.

Patch what, now? The studio pushed out an update this past Tuesday with a huge number of balance changes and several bug fixes. As a result of all of this, talent and skill perk points were reset and will need to be reallocated. Frostkeep also used the patch as an opportunity to warn players that abusing the outcast system is a bannable offense, especially against “new or inexperienced” players.

Join the MOP Stream Team today at 2 p.m. EDT, when we’ll be diving back into the game live on OPTV.

Source: Rend, #2, #3

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Hi-Rez’s Realm Royale playerbase and reviews are way down on Steam

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Yikes – Realm Royale is apparently struggling, proving once again just how hard it is to break into one of these new runaway subgenres. GitHyp (via GIbiz) has a report this week on the size of Hi-Rez’s battle royale playerbase after just two months of life.

“At the time, we thought Realm Royale could be PUBG‘s first serious competition on Steam with no other recent battle royale game coming close to 100k players,” GitHyp writes. But since then, the game’s activity level has apparently sunk to around 7000 concurrent players, which as the analytics firm notes is a loss of 93%. Streaming of the title is down too, aside from the ongoing $100K weekly tournaments. GitHyp attributes the downslide to Steam’s mixed reviews, which focus primarily on balance concerns.

Earlier this week, Hi-Rez reorganized into into three core studios, one apiece for SMITE, Paladins, and Realm Royale, as if to emphasize GitHyp’s assertion that the game isn’t dead yet and the company’s not giving up on it any time soon; it’s still in alpha on PC, and it has yet to launch on console.

Source: GitHyp via GIbiz

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Pre-alpha colony sim MMO Seed will grant players the tools to fight toxicity

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Seed resurfaced this summer after intensive work by studio Klang Games building out the colony simulation MMO (plus a big influx of investor money), and this month, it’s put together a handy Q&A featuring questions from its community and fresh answers from the devs.

Notably, Klang says that players will be able to password-protect their colonies to invite friends as well as join colonies with open borders; there will be a whole-planet view; and your bank account will move with you if you move colonies (though objects need to move physically). The studio is also working with a Harvard law professor on government structures available to players, with the intent that players “be able to implement laws to fight against toxic behavior.”

“To make this game genuinely scalable, we have to give virtuous players just as many gameplay tools as delinquent players,” the studio explains.

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Fallout 76 won’t allow crossplay but is talking up mods and multiplayer

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Bethesda isn’t really that keen on allowing crossplay with its games these days. The studio recently confirmed that Fallout 76 isn’t going to feature crossplay between platforms, nor is Elder Scrolls Legends going to get it any time soon.

No specific reason was given for the decision, although there were heavy hints that Sony’s stance against crossplay was a factor in this. “Fallout 76, sure: It would be nice if I could play on my Xbox and my kid is playing on his PC and we can play together, but if we can’t,” said SVP Pete Hines. “But for Legends it’s absolutely critical.”

At least Bethesda is working on several features to make its communuty happy despite this, including a committment to mod support and an in-game photo mode.

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Torchlight Frontiers is being built by an ‘all-star team’ of former Torchlight and Diablo II devs

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“So now I am very, very pleased to announce to everybody that we are taking the next step with Torchlight and making an MMO.”

By pulling back in some of the Diablo II and original Torchlight developers into the new Echtra Games, Max Schaefer has “gotten the band back together” to craft the upcoming MMOARPG Torchlight Frontiers. “To do justice to the Torchlight franchise and to take it to the next level, we really had to assemble an all-star team that’s capable of doing it,” explained Schaefer.

In the game’s first dev video, Shaefer walked fans through the genesis of this project and promised that this wasn’t a “generic MMO” but a true Torchlight game through and through. He talks up the persistent mechanics of an MMO and the “living, breathing world” that will grow over time.

Give the dev diary a watch after the break!

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The Black Death starts you in your underpants. Deal with it.

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Thanks to the latest patch for the medieval survival sandbox The Black Death, all players will start their lives in the game in their underwear. It’s best to tap into those deep-rooted nightmares early, in our opinion.

The recent patch wasn’t just about roleplaying Captain Underpants and the Plague Doctors. The team said that the priority for the patch was to fix some LAN server issues and put an end to land claim exploits that were running rampant on PvE servers.

What else do we have here? Well, girls are starting to get their own clothes, although right now this is limited to a primitive vest. YOU’RE WELCOME, FEMALES. There are also new dagger animations, a “new potato procedural resource” whatever that is, and a sleeping bag for players’ tents. Truly, this is a patch to rival all others.

Source: Patch notes, #2

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Zeal tosses out patches like there’s no tomorrow

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Did our reporting on Zeal get you interested about the possibilities for this upcoming action RPG? Then you might want to be tracking the game’s ongoing development as it patches up through the pre-alpha test cycle.

So far this month, the game has seen multiple updates that have added features and systems such currency for cosmetic items, lightning and fire halos, several horse mounts (including armored and hell variants), team chat, truly casual 3v3 matchmaking, additional prime skills, fast ground casting, and plenty of adjustments for the PvP arena.

There are also many, many tweaks for the various game classes. Zeal’s roster includes the Judicator, Cleric, Ranger, Wizard, Warrior, and Outlaw. Which one will you play?

Source: Steam

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Orake’s devs ask someone, anyone, else to take over this 2-D MMO

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No, you’ve probably never heard of Orake before — and chances are that you never will again, either.

The crude-looking indie MMORPG has been slowly but steadily progressing through development this year with monthly patches. However, the team seems to have hit a wall and is now begging someone else to take over this project and bring this 2-D title to completion.

“We no longer have time to work on Orake,” the team announced this month. “If anyone is interested in taking over the development of Orake 2-D MMORPG, please contact me on the Orake 2-D MMORPG Discord.”

So… that does not look promising for this game’s future. What do you think?

Source: Steam. Thanks PlutoForeverNinthPl!

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MapleStory 2 is getting really close to launch, you guys

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With its second closed beta run and done, MapleStory 2 is turning its sights to something bigger. Something grander. Something… launch-ier.

Nexon said that it’s going to announce the launch date for this 3-D sequel to the hit MapleStory on August 21st. “Not only will we reveal the official release date, but our team will also discuss the future content schedule of the game,” the developer said.

In the meantime, players can start reserving their names and even create their first character so that they can hit the ground running when MapleStory 2 launches. You’ll need to buy a founder’s pack to access this perk, however. It’s probably a good thing that Nexon has made these packs available for purchase again!

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Fortnite expands Android testing, wants to match players up depending on their control scheme

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Good news for Android players who felt left out of the initial batch of Fortnite beta invites: Epic Games announced that the test has expanded to additional devices, and you can read the full list on the website to see if your phone or tablet is included.

The studio gave a “Summer Skirmish midway recap” that was full of fun stats for those interested. Epic also said that improving server preformance “remains a top priority” during this skirmish series and that it wants to adhere to “simplicity, match tension, and upholding the integrity of battle royale” with this event.

Epic is reportedly working on tech that will match up players based on what type of peripheral that they use to play Fortnite, whether that be mouse-and-keyboard, touch screens, or controllers. And this is neither here nor there, but a massive sniper rifle is on the way to the game as well. Boom. Headshot.

Source: Twitter, Fortnite, Gamasutra, Polygon

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Project Gorgon’s casino features games with ‘strategic elements’

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Project Gorgon is an MMO that packs itself full of activities, all of which it does in its own special way. You can clearly see this in the way that the devs talk about the game’s upcoming Red Wing Casino, which will add even more ways to waste invest your time playing.

Instead of being a standard video game casino with a slot machine and blackjack, Project Gorgon’s casino is going to feature minigames with more strategy. One example that the devs teased on Twitter was a jewel matching minigame.

“I want every game in the Red Wing Casino to have at least some strategic element,” the lead developer said. “So there’s no slot machines. To clarify, the casino is not just a match-3 game. The Red Wing Casino is a place that you’ll be able to visit in-game. It’s geared toward players with skills in the 40s (both combat and crafting skills), although anyone can visit and spend some cash.”

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