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The road ahead for Darkfall Unholy Wars
Darkfall Unholy Wars has seen its ups and downs during its operation, but the latest post from the team is about moving forward. The development team's roadmap was shared with players over the weekend, providing a peek at what's coming in the future to make the game more interesting. No dates are included with the roadmap, as it's focused on concepts rather than specifics, but it still includes plenty of things for veteran players to be excited about. Among the large-scale changes planned for the game in the future are improvements to the AI and PvE combat in general, along with systems to help players more firmly align themselves within the game world. The developers would like to minimize instant travel while promoting fast travel where possible, creating a more localized economic model that emphasizes journeying between markets. There's also an ongoing commitment to keeping all combinations of skills and powers viable, supporting a wide variety of playstyles. Take a look at the full roadmap for more details on what's coming around the bend.
Here is the current Shards Online dev roadmap
Shards Online's Kickstarter may be over, but Citadel Studios looks to be even more determined to finish building its player-driven MMORPG sandbox. The firm has posted a new development roadmap on the game's official website, and Citadel co-founder Derek Brinkmann explains how the team is tightening its dev plan "to get to an alpha state as soon as possible." Brinkmann also mentions that one of Citadel's goals is to "have enough replayable content on our first map to keep players engaged while we continue development." Click past the cut to view the full roadmap.
Matt Higby discusses PlanetSide 2's roadmap and server merges
It's unsettling for anyone to know that a game is undergoing server merges, even when it's a game that's received as much good press as PlanetSide 2. Fortunately for the game's gun-toting fans, creative director Matt Higby is on tap to provide players with a bit more clarification about exactly what the merges will involve. Ten total servers will be affected, bringing the game's total number to nine after the merges take place. Server transfer tokens will also be available afterwards for players who would prefer to move to a different server in the wake of the transfers. Higby also discusses the game's roadmap, a feature that the designers have been pleased with thus far. Going forward, the roadmap will provide more accurate dates regarding when players can expect to see the new content rather than the current system showing internal development targets. For more specific details, check out Higby's full address to the community.
Pirates of the Burning Sea outlines plans for 2012
Remember Pirates of the Burning Sea? Yeah, it's still sailing along after its 2010 free-to-play conversion, and the dev team at Flying Lab Software is gearing up to celebrate the game's fourth anniversary in high pirate style. Brain "Fodderboy" Taney has offered up a lengthy dev blog detailing what's next for the nautical MMO, and he outlines two main goals: immersion and the desire to "layer" the game. Immersion is fairly self-explanatory (and in case it's not, Taney says that it entails bringing more authentic 18th century elements to the game). Layering requires a bit more verbiage, but it basically boils down to improving "the game experience for all the different kinds of players we have in our community (e.g., casual, hardcore, PvE-only, PvP-only, etc.)," Taney says. There's quite a bit more, of course, but you'll need to head to the official PotBS website to read about it.
Final Fantasy XI gets an updated roadmap
The promised day is coming to Final Fantasy XI. Specifically, the promised day on which the level cap finally reaches its long-awaited new limit of 99, something that players have been waiting for more or less since the game's launch. But that's not the only thing that's coming around the bend, as detailed in the game's new roadmap stretching from this month out until March of next year. While the dates listed are only for the rollout of features onto the game's test server, it still gives a good idea of what players can expect shortly thereafter. Updates to jobs and Merit Points are pretty easy to predict as the game rolls to its last update of the level cap, as are the addition of new Magian trials. Players can also expect updates to the Voidwatch battles, new Burning Circle battlefields, and a variety of quality-of-life improvements to several facets of gameplay. There's no hint on what might be coming after March, but it looks as if Final Fantasy XI will at least be starting the year off on the right foot.
Wargaming.net publishes World of Tanks development plan
Wargaming.net has gifted World of Tanks fans with a development roadmap for the World War II-based action MMO, and a visit to the game's official website will give you a preview of what's coming down the pike over the next year. The post lays out quite a bit of information, most of it marked with vague release windows like Q3 2012 and so on. There's the standard "dates are subject to change" disclaimer, but it's nonetheless interesting to see what looks to be a fairly complete development schedule. What are the highlights? Well, more tank models, of course, followed by new game types including historical battle, escort, garage battle, assault, and company battle modes. There's also an expansion of the clan wars map in the works, as well as new customization options, vehicle physics, and more. [Thanks to Greg for the tip!]
Earthrise patch coming soon, roadmap features delayed
Fans of Masthead Studios' Earthrise MMORPG have waited a long time between patches. According to producer Atanas Atanasov, the wait is almost over. A new post on the official Earthrise boards details what players can expect when the new version goes live toward "the end of this week, or early next week at the latest." The patch will include fixes for the inventory stacking bug and the problems with party experience gain. The game's shadow renders are also being tweaked, and AI attacks through walls and other solid objects are being addressed. Atanasov also tells us that the previously reported development roadmap has undergone a few revisions, and most of the items on that particular list are being delayed in favor of improving Earthrise's graphical performance. "Due to changes in our priority list you can expect [a] delay of some roadmap features such as vehicles, inverse kinematics, quest hints on the minimap, and item painting," Atanasov explains. "Our expectations are that you will see them in game in June/July 2011."
Studio Shiny's Q2 viewer roadmap
Steve Linden, director of Linden Lab's 'Studio Shiny' development group has weighed in with the plans for the Second Life viewer for Q2 2008. Everything planned focuses on one (or both) of two goals: Making the viewer more stable, and making the viewer more usable. Most Second Life users can agree that these two goals are quite laudable.
Leopard's development roadmap outed?
Simmer down now, you won't find any super top secret features here but MacScoop has apparently nabbed themselves the internal development roadmap for Apple's OS X Leopard release. If true, developers can expect a bug fix seed before "early July" with a major build hitting in August. In fact, the August release is said to include some minor features, tweaks, and user interface polishing. The final candidate would then pop in early September allowing 4 to 6 weeks of testing before Apple goes gold for a late October release. Pretty ordinary release cycle stuff actually, but at least now your can time your torrent downloads more effectively.
