above-and-beyond-technologies
Latest
Some Assembly Required: Virtual world roundup for 2014 and beyond
Just over two years ago there was a great disturbance, as if millions (or so) of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. Yes, something terrible had happened: a beloved virtual world was destroyed. And that left a number of sandbox refugees looking for a new place to call home. At that time, Some Assembly Required offered a roundup of the then available virtual worlds that could possibly offer accommodation, depending on what qualities players most desired in their games. But as things are wont to, they changed; a lot can happen in the MMOverse in 24 months, from additional features in existing games to new games to the loss of more worlds. So it's time to update this list of virtual worlds to reflect 2014 and beyond. Take a look and see what titles or titles-to-be have the sandbox features that best make a game a home for you.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding December 15 - 28, 2013
'Tis the season... but not for news! With minds focused on the holidays, it looks as if not much happened in the realm of crowdfunding since our last Make My MMO update. Just how slow was it? It was so slow that Star Citizen did not announce earning another $2 million. A few tidbits did, however, did trickle out. Novus AEterno met its goal within 102 hours and still has a month of funding ahead. On the other hand, Empires of Tahn followed what seems to be the new norm: cancel the project before getting the dreaded "unsuccessful" label. And one title that is already strong in its development has jumped back into the crowdfunding realm; The Repopulation aims to incorporate even more features into the sandbox. There are also a couple dev blogs to speak of and a few odds and ends, all of which you will find rounded up for you below.
The Repopulation returns to Kickstarter, launches Steam Greenlight campaign
If you still regret missing the opportunity to support the sci-fi sandbox The Repopulation during its first crowdfunding campaign, you're getting a second chance! Above and Beyond Technologies would like to offer players even more features than are currently available and has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to reach those goals. Concurrently, the studio has also launched a Greenlight campaign on Steam to expand the game's exposure beyond its current community and offer an additional payment option. So now players have two ways to show their support for The Repopulation: vote yes to get the game Greenlit and/or pledge financial support through Kickstarter. As a thank you, those who backed the first Kickstarter campaign will receive at least one Beta preview weekend invite as well as access to the first round of closed beta. The beta preview weekends will kick off the next round of testing in March 2014. [Source: Above and Beyond Technologies press release]
The Repopulation's housing video offers decorating tips
Location. location, location. It applies to in-game real estate, too! The Repopulation has three locations players can enjoy housing: in NPC cities, player cities, and instanced. To give players an idea of what housing is about, Above and Beyond Technologies has released a video discussing housing options and touring the instanced housing. The nearly 10-minute tour showcases the housing interface, complete with new structure placement bar, and the actual decorating. Some highlights gleaned from the demonstration include the abilities to lock structures/items in place so they aren't accidentally moved, to scale placed items larger or smaller (as well as a reset button), to rotate items, and to raise and lower items. Get all your decorating tips in the video below. [Source: Above and Beyond Technologies press release]
The Repopulation improves housing and inquiries in November
November is a time to go home, see your family, and quite possibly remember why it was you left home and avoid seeing your family for the rest of the year. The result is that it makes a lot of sense for The Repopulation to focus on things like hearth and home over the month of November. A status update for the last month has just come out, and it includes the usual array of incremental improvements along with some big new features. For example, the game has a new UI for placing structures within houses and nations, allowing objects to be rotated and scaled as the placer desires -- and there's the option to save the rotation and scale settings for easy cut-and-paste placement. A new calendar system was also introduced, and the inquiry system has been expanded to allow players a chance at tracing the source of an NPC's problems via the Diplomacy skill. Players looking forward to the sandbox title should take a look at the full rundown of November updates.
Lots of Repopulation bugs were squashed in October
The Repopulation's monthly update has been published on the sci-fi sandbox title's website. Polish was the order of day for much of October, as Above & Beyond Technologies asked its alpha testers to suss out the "most annoying" bugs before it set about squashing them. The October update focuses on AI improvement and also pays a bit of lip service to the game's maneuver and mission systems. An extensive list of fixes and client changes is yours via the links below.
The Repopulation's second alpha trailer bares it all
Our hands-on experience from PAX Prime let you know that the graphics of The Repopulation were pretty great, but now you can see for yourself. Above and Beyond Technologies has released a second alpha gameplay trailer that shows everything except the kitchen sink! The video walks players through the natural environments of the dynamic world filled with detailed flora and fauna, with detours to show off player-built housing as well. But lest you think this sandbox is all serene, the second half blasts into combat footage. Get a glimpse of just about every available feature from character customization to resource harvesting to building to sieges in the trailer below. [Thanks to J.C. for the tip!]
Battle and usability being improved in The Repopulation
Someone always wants to play a melee character. You could give everyone in an MMO the ability to shoot something dead from two zones over and there would be at least one player rushing into melee range to smack at it. Hence why The Repopulation has made a point of upping melee's viability by improving its ability to hit a moving target; if someone's going to do it anyway, it may as well be viable. Medical abilities have also been improved, and the game's crosshairs and aiming assistance have both received an upgrade. The other two major areas of improvement for the game's past month of development has been the addition of new content near Plymouth (including a truly massive cave network) and improvements to missions and mission templates to make the game easier to jump into. The inquiry system also allows players to collect data on the game world, and the Surveying skill allows players to figure out where harvestable resources are located. Take a look at the full patch notes for an in-depth look at how the game has changed as it moves ever closer to its beta test phase.
The Repopulation introduces new event systems in its August updates
One of the major design goals of The Repopulation is a sense of a world in motion, shaped by players but also influencing player actions. August's updates to the game included the implementation of the Area and World Event systems, facilitating just that sort of gameplay. According to the most recent development blog, these systems track what's going on in the world, direct players to unexpected happenings, and then start to chain new events based off of those metrics. There are also NPCs in place to direct players toward hotbeds of activity. The game's other mechanics have also received further tuning. Cities can now benefit from new happiness-increasing structures and more flexible placement options, combat values have been tweaked, and new engagements have been added for siege warfare. There is also a variety of bugfixes and general balance tweaks, which can be found in the full patch notes included with the development blog.
PAX Prime 2013: The Repopulation hunkers down for a siege
If EverQuest Next is the big dog of the upcoming sandbox MMO set, then The Repopulation is on the other end of the spectrum. The title is still in alpha testing with only a few hundred players participating, the team is spread across the globe, and the studio is looking for a publisher to help give the title the financial backing it sorely needs. Even so, the folks at Above and Beyond Technologies have an obvious passion for the project and were plainly eager to talk about it at PAX Prime. Tucked away in the Indie Megabooth area, The Repopulation devs invited players to sit down with a laptop and take part in testing the game's siege mode. I chatted up the developers -- who are head-over-heels enthusiastic about The Repopulation, by the way -- and got my first look at what PvP a sandbox hath wrought.
The Repopulation adds vehicles, NPC inquiry system
It's a new month, which means Above & Beyond Technologies has released a previous-month progress report for its sci-fi sandbox known as The Repopulation. As per usual, the update post is exhaustively long, with details on major bug fixes, minor tweaks, and a bunch of stuff in between. Chief among the upgrades were inquiries, which allow players to query most of the game's NPCs, and vehicles, which now include hover-speeders, hover-cycles, and a mech. More info is yours at The Repopulation's official website. [Thanks everyone who tipped us!]
Chat up the NPCs with The Repopulation's new Inquiry System
Ever wondered what other information a NPC might be hiding behind the usual quest dialogue or vendor window? What secrets is that random NPC out in the world privy to? You can find out in The Repopulation. Lead developer Joshua Halls presents an overview of the sci-fi sandbox's new Inquiry System that allows players to glean additional information from NPCs throughout the world. The system works like this: You simply click the NPC to make an inquiry. After any quest dialogues and vending is taken care of, the inquiry chat bubble will appear. Players can then ask about directions to someone or something or try to elicit hidden information using diplomacy skill. Want more information about a particular NPC, such as personality traits and profession? Ask his NPC friends around town! If you are interested in learning more of the world backstory or obtaining hidden missions, you can weasel that knowledge out of NPCs as well. The Inquiry system will also be dynamic, with NPC moods and world events affecting what may become available during an inquiry.
The Repopulation gives an overview of its siege system
That's a mighty fine city you have on your hands -- mind if we take it from you? If you're part of a heavily armed group in The Repopulation, you might be able to say this. Doing it, however, is another thing entirely. That's why Above & Beyond has created an intricate siege system to allow players to assault and protect towns. The team said that it was quite mindful of typical tactics like zerging and 3:00 a.m. takeovers when it designed the system. Sieges have a cost assigned to them that goes above just a body count and will take place over three days to allow both the attackers and defenders adequate time to rally to their cause. There are also emergency energy shields and siege weapons to consider as well. The official site has an overview and sample timeline of a proposed siege, so check it out and see if this might be the next evolution of PvP battles.
The Repopulation's PvP explained
Curious about PvP in The Repopulation? Look no further than the latest dev blog by developer Joshua Halls. While the sci-fi sandbox features a significant amount of both PvE and non-combat gameplay systems, there's also "a lot in the way of PvP gameplay," according to the blog. The post delves into the game's nation system, it touches on sieging and contested regions, and there are some bits about PvP-specific roles. Halls also talks about The Repopulation's flexible combat system, which offers the ability to toggle between "simulated FPS-style combat" or a traditional RPG hotbar mode. Finally, The Repopulation will feature two distinct server rulesets. The specifics are still being finalized, but the "hardcore" version will remove safe areas and allow non-consensual PvP.
The Repopulation's June recap talks revamped tutorial
Above & Beyond Technologies has posted its monthly Repopulation development recap. The list of changes, additions, and fixes is typically lengthy, and June of 2013 was especially noteworthy due to the introduction of a new tutorial system for the sci-fi sandbox. The new system is designed for higher interactivity as opposed to the massive info dump that was the previous incarnation. The devs also improved some of The Repopulation's cinematic camera options and added ability-based goals for missions as well as a command alias system. The full list of June accomplishments can be found on the game's website.
The Repopulation gives much love to Rogues
The Repopulation transitioned into its second alpha test last month, and the team has a quite detailed report about all of the tweaks and features that it added to the game during that period. While there's a lot of everything in the patch notes, Rogues got a big piece of the attention pie. Above and Beyond Technologies reported that it improved the quality of life for Rogue characters through a number of changes. The thievery mechanic got an upgrade, pick-pocketing got several missions, and containers got stubbornly locked. As an aside, there are six stealthed Rogues in the above picture. See if you can spot them! Other changes to the game for the second alpha test include mission chains, random missions, 70 new crafting recipes, two new generic den types, and an overhaul of the reputation system.
New Repopulation dev blog gets down and dirty with harvesting details
You may remember that earlier this month, the folks behind upcoming sci-fi sandbox The Repopulation released a dev-blog that detailed part of the game's resource-gathering system which involved the ever-so-charming extraction of precious resources from your enemies' still-warm corpses. Thanks to the game's newest dev blog, we're now able to get some insight on the other half of the resource-gathering experience: harvesting. While extraction involves pilfering goodies from dead baddies, harvesting is the more uh... humane method of gathering resources from nodes such as ore deposits, trees, and so forth. Harvesting resources from a single node works in the same way as extracting resources from a corpse does, but harvestable resources are also available from rarely occurring resource clusters. These clusters "contain a larger stash of a single resource and [have] a better chance of yielding higher quality results." Up to four players can place a harvester at any given cluster, which will run dry after 2-4 hours, at which point the players can return to the cluster and pick up their share of the goods. This system, the diary mentions, encourages players to gather in groups or share the wealth with their hired help. If you can't wait to get your hands dirty and rob nature of her delicious bounty, you can find out all the details over at the game's official site.
Cutting to the heart of extraction in The Repopulation
If you want to craft items in The Repopulation, you're not going to go down to the science fiction equivalent of Ikea and buy the Martin Plasma Rifle. You're going to get out into the wild and get the resources you need. There are two systems for gathering items in The Repopulation, and the newest development blog for the game discusses one of the ways to grab those resources: Extraction, also known as "digging useful components out of corpses." Since the game doesn't feature levels, there's a more organic system to gathering these resources. Players first decide how difficult the extraction should be, with higher difficulties resulting in higher-grade resources. More difficult extractions take longer, however, and as a result, players have a higher chance to fail unless they've practiced harvesting a particular species. For more details on the specifics, check out the full development blog on the official site.
The Repopulation adds gore, stampedes, turrets, and more
The Repopulation's end-of-the-month progress report is here, and judging by the sheer length of the thing, April was one for the books. The new update takes a high-level view of development and it states that since the majority of The Repopulation's features are complete, the dev team is now focusing on content creation and an enjoyable new player experience. Highlights from April's patch cycle include the new harvester system, player turrets, AI tweaks, stampedes, and gore options. Of course, that's just the tip of the iceberg, so be sure and read the full post for all the details. [Thanks J.C.!]
Name this Repopulation zone, win a $100 Kickstarter pledge
Want to leave your mark on Above & Beyond Technologies' new Repopulation sandbox? You can via a contest that will allow players to name a newly created zone in the sci-fi game. Entries must be submitted via a forum thread or Twitter, and finalists will go into a pool of five from which the winner will be selected by a poll. Said winner will receive a $100 Kickstarter pledge to the game or a bump if you're already an early adopter. Full details are available at The Repopulation's official site.
