Hey, folks!
It seems like it’s been a while since our last big “milestone” update, so we thought it would be good to let you know how things are progressing.
Back in April, we outlined our high-level priorities for our next milestone. Our focus at the time was to stub out the basic elements of a “campaign”: resources and capture points on a pre-set map.
In the time since, we’ve shifted things a bit. Instead of focusing on high-level game systems, we decided to go ahead and bite off some of the more challenging, foundational pieces of the game – i.e. the “big ticket” items that make an MMO work.
These are huge, very challenging features that we knew we would have to face at some point, like stitching parcels together seamlessly to make large worlds that can support hundreds (and thousands) of concurrent players, and optimizing client performance to get more than a dozen characters on the screen. The temptation is to “kick the can” on this stuff because game systems are more fun and easier. But we can’t launch until we overcome these challenges, and matches (like Hunger Dome and Siege Perilous) can only get you so far. We decided it was time.
As a result, the next big deliverable is going to look a bit different than originally proposed.
Top priorities include:
- Increasing the size of our current world/continent
- Made up of randomized land parcels,
- Stitched together seamlessly (players can run from one to the next with no loading or zone boundary)
- Up (and persistent) over a longer period, i.e. days instead of hours
- Supporting dozens of combatants with 30+ FPS
- New respawn rules (to accommodate larger continent)
…followed by…
- Resource spawning and harvesting (by players instead of factories)
- Crafting (using resources and recipes to create items)
- Crowdfunding entitlements (i.e. giving backers a “test copy” of the buildings in their pledge packages)
- Building placement in the 3D world by players (instead of pre-built by us)
And, time permitting, we hope to also include …
- Improved/New chat system
- Improved/New settings screen
- Improved/New skills system
- Improved/New team selection
- New localization tools
(”Hope to include” means that these items are being worked on, but they are low priority for this milestone. We won’t delay testing the high priority stuff if this stuff isn’t done.)
This is being done in parallel to the ‘live game service’ development track. While we’re working on these big ticket items, we’ll continue to add stuff to the current test:
- Ballista construction (in Siege Perilous)
- New catapult (in Siege Perilous)
- Myrmidon testing (in both Hunger Dome/Siege Perilous)
…and we’re just starting our next archetype, which I’m happy to reveal is: the Guinecean* Duelist!
"Yes! … but WHEN?!"
I know, it begs the question: when will this stuff be available to test?
We are still reluctant to gives any specific dates for the above because we hate to be wrong and disappoint you. We’ve learned that it’s better to stick with our usual refrain: we’re working on everything as hard as we can, and we’ll get it into your hands to test as soon as we possibly can!
That’s it for today! As always, happy to hear your thoughts and feedback, and look forward to seeing you (and the Myrmidon) in the test very soon!
Todd Coleman and Gordon Walton
Co-Founders, ACE
*pronounced "guh-KNEE-shun"