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One Shots: Home is where the Love is
With Eskil Steenberg's indie MMO, Love, set to launch in just a little over a month, he's been incredibly busy pushing out updates and refining the game further. The idea that one man has managed to bring a whole new form of MMO from idea, on through building all the tools, to creating the game, running the beta, fixing all issues, and soon -- publishing! Add to that how uniquely beautiful the procedurally-generated world of Love is, and you can see why we're glad to see players sending in One Shots from there. Today's image comes to us from Joshua P. who writes in to explain the scene: This is a screen shot taken just after Eskil sent out a graphics update. The Kadeshi Junction is one of the most beautiful places in the game. My character, Nathon (names are randomly generated), on Atlanta-1 server, had logged on and ran through legions of the genius AI to find a good spot for a settlement. I think this is it. Why not join the fun and send in your own screenshots to be featured here on One Shots? We can always use more to pick from. Just email them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the game its from, and whatever other information you'd like to give us. We'll post it for everyone to enjoy and give you the credit. %Gallery-85937% %Gallery-9798%
PSA: The Love Beta is out (or 'We feel like playing Love -- and now we can!')
Our illicit affair with pseudo-MMO Love has officially begun, with today marking the the opening of the game's public, but paid, beta. The paid aspect of the beta is minimal, we should note -- a €3/30 days price hardly seems like a lot. As the game's sole developer Eskil Steenberg explained to us in an email after last week's news announcing the public beta, "The Beta is open to everyone, but unfortunately I need funds to run the server farm, so it will cost 3 Euros to get 30 days of access." Moreover, Steenberg stands to make no profits from the beta entry fee, telling us he simply needs "to afford the bandwidth and hardware to keep it running." We're pretty okay with it, if only for the fact that we get to tell people that we're paying such a low price for Love.
Love opens up logins for alpha testers
A while back, we mentioned that the Love alpha client was available for download, so you can run the engine on your system and help the one-man-developer, Eskil Steenberg, with gathering data for his server. Eskil has gotten done that portion, however, and has now opened the anticipated game for alpha testing audiences.Eskil has stressed on his website that much of what Love is now may not be what the game is in a few months or years, and that alpha will be chock full 'o bugs. Things may have been going really well for him, but he is giving no one any assurances on how well the alpha will function.For those interested in Eskil's project, the open alpha will cost you 3 Euros (about $4.50) so Eskil can pay for the servers and bandwidth. Eskil has also posted the full information on what the account creation page does, which can be found in the middle of his information on Love's alpha test.
Eskil Steenberg on developing the Love MMO solo
Massively multiplayer online games are the result of millions of dollars of investment and the collective efforts of a large team of developers to produce... right? Not according to Eskil Steenberg, who has the distinction of being the only individual we've heard of who's developing an MMO by himself, titled Love. No doubt this is a Herculean task before Steenberg, but Love is by all indications rather far along in development, particularly in light of the video footage we've seen in the past. Steenberg recently did an interview with GameSource, discussing aspects of Love ranging from his motivations to take on a project of this scale by himself to the tools he's using to make his game concepts a reality. Eskil Steenberg will be in attendance at this month's Game Developers Conference, so it's a safe bet you can expect to hear more about Love at Massively in the coming weeks.
Eskil Steenberg interviewed about his one-man MMO project "Love"
Have you ever wondered what it would take for a single person to create an MMO? Is a task this monumental even possible? Apparently it is, given what we've seen and read of Love, an MMO being developed by a single man -- Eskil Steenberg. Love isn't being created by a team of devs, nor does it have a multi-million dollar development and marketing budget. It's just one man with a vision, building the best game he can and showing it off on his laptop. Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently got an exclusive first look at the Love trailer and Jim Rossignol from RPS followed that up with an interview with Eskil Steenberg. They discuss how Love's unique visual style evolved into what we see today and talk about the game's trinity of activities -- exploration, combat, and building -- namely the system of city building. It's a very interesting talk with Steenberg, and really is a must-read if you're enthusiastic about Love and the ambition of its creator.
First trailer of Love is absolutely breathtaking
What does it say about our industry when one man and a laptop can create a game arguably more artistically ambitious and breathtaking than anything to come out of SOE, Mythic, Funcom, Turbine, Cryptic, or Blizzard? We were left to ponder that question after watching the first trailer for Love, an MMO with a one-man development team.We were first introduced to the game at GDC, where we first witnessed its gorgeous impressionist art style and learned about its procedurally generated narrative and creativity-driven social gameplay. Trailer host Rock, Paper Shotgun says this new trailer is the first moving image of the game seen by the public, but we actually included an off-screen video in our impressions of creator Eskil Steenberg's one-on-one presentation. That said, this video is much more impressive. It's simply stunning. We're not able to embed it, so head over to RPS to watch.%Gallery-16906%
New screens from the art-house MMO called Love
MMOs don't have to all be about orcs, elves, and level-grinding. Case in point: Eskil Steenberg's Love, an art-house MMO that defies every conceivable expectation of what the genre is about. There's been a lot of talk lately about how there isn't enough innovation anymore. Quiet down, folks; Love is what you seek.When Steenberg showed the game to us at GDC this year, we were excited and alarmed at the same time -- excited because it was different and gorgeous, alarmed because we had to step outside of our comfort zone. The exploration-driven gameplay allows users to alter the painting-like world to match their dreams, but the world is all they'll be changing, as the game features no character creation or customization. Users don't even to pick their own names. So yes, it's challenging, but God, we miss being challenged. If only there were more projects like this for us to write about. For now, though, let's just swoon over Love. Steenberg released three new images from the game on his blog yesterday, and we have them here so you can soak in the impressionistic atmosphere. Be sure to check out our GDC gallery as well.[Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]%Gallery-26414%
