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Trove will rejuvenate MMO worlds by blowing them up
I'll confess that even after having chatted with Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman about this new Trove project and reading Shawn's very early impressions piece, I was still having difficulty understanding what, exactly, this game was about. Was it just some sort of kiddy LEGO hack-and-slasher with a nod to housing thrown in? How was Trion going to make good on its promise to continually provide a sense of new adventures? And was Trove just a blatant ripoff of Cube World, as some have claimed? Because Trove isn't quite a typical MMO, I needed another phone session with Trion to get a clearer picture of this game. Creative Lead Andrew Krausnick spent an hour with me patiently answering any and all of my questions. The big one had to be asked from the get go. Were you really going to be blowing up the world all the time? Krausnick confirmed that yes, Trion will be doing exactly that. More than that, he said that it would be the factor that would set Trove apart from all of the other games out there right now.
Block by block: Hands-on with the Cube World alpha
From an outsider's perspective, Picroma's Cube World might look like yet another Minecraft clone. It has the same blocky appearance and voxel design of Mojang's money-printing sandbox, and though the color palette is brighter and the graphics more crisp, it would be easy to dismiss the title as a "me-too" copycat. "If you've played one cube-based game," says the veteran gamer who lives in your brain, "you've played them all." Despite the visual similarities, however, Cube World and Minecraft are extremely different games. Minecraft is a crafter's paradise, a world where you can build anything you can imagine. Cube World is an adventure game, and fans of MMOs will find it far closer to World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 than it is to the game that threatens huts with Creepers and allows you to build full-scale replicas of pretend spaceships. Cube World is unique, and even in alpha, it's something quite special.
Cube World developer confirms development continues
In July earlier this year, indie developer Picorama's part-Minecraft, part-Diablo sandbox title Cube World made its way into a paid alpha stage of development, granting players access to the game's alpha in exchange for an early purchase. Despite some missteps, there were plenty of eager fans willing to surrender their cash for some hands-on time with Cube World. Many of those fans, however, became a bit worried when updates from the developers on the game's future grew silent. So of course, they took to the internet and bombarded developer Wollay's Twitter in search of an answer. And an answer is what they got. Wollay updated his Twitter for the first time since August 19th with the short message, "Don't be concerned, we're still working on Cube World. We just have a lot of additional work to do at the moment." Wollay elaborated to Kotaku, "At the moment there's just a lot of work going on behind the scenes, like customer support, server/website development, and [Picorama is] currently moving to a new [apartment] with more space for our development studio." He goes on to say that "the new update is coming along nicely," adding that the update is aiming to add "an option for a smaller user interface," plus reconfigurable controls and "a few new creatures." The team will also be making some balance adjustments to "make it easier at lower levels and harder at higher levels." Finally, he states that the team is "experimenting with some major changes," although he's unsure which will be included in the next patch. If you want all the details on Cube World's ongoing development, click through the link below for the full piece.
The Daily Grind: Do you genderbend in MMOs?
I've complained about genderlocked classes in MMOs before, but the truth is, genderlocking is abnormal for MMOs. Barring anomalies like Prime World, in which you're required to play a character matching your account's declared gender, most MMOs let us choose, and choose we do. Some people prefer to stick to their own gender with their characters, maybe because they feel more comfortable when roleplaying or don't want to confuse potential teammates on voice chat. Others welcome the chance to don different shoes, possibly motivated by a wish to see the world through new eyes (or cast those eyes on a shapely rear-end... ahem). And players of Cube World (shown in the pic) are thinking the question is silly since there's hardly any difference between the genders anyway, and besides, frogmen. So what about you? Do you roll characters as the gender you identify with in the real world, or do you genderswap? Why do you do what you do, and has it ever caused you any problems or provided a new perspective? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Cubeworld launches into paid alpha
Cube World, developed by Picorama, is billed as a voxel-based, randomly generated, action-adventure RPG with borderless worlds and infinite character progression. It's not exactly an MMO, but it's pretty darn close: It also has a crafting system, PvP combat, and cooperative play via LAN or the web. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, you're in luck: Cube World's paid alpha phase has officially begun. Well, sort of. In order to get into the alpha, you'll need to pay for the game via the Picorama shop. In order to use the shop, you'll need to register. And thanks to what the developer claims are regular denial-of-service attacks, registrations are currently disabled. Foiled again. In the meantime, you can get an extremely limited taste of the game's looks by checking out its mini demo.
