Today's sunrise brings updates to Earthrise
The Italian game site Alteregonline has a new interview with the CEO of Masthead Studios, Atanas Atanasov. In it which he reveals a few more nuggets o' knowledge about their upcoming sci-fi MMO, Earthrise. The site also has an exclusive new screenshot. When you first go to the site don't worry that it's all in Italian. Just scroll down until you find the English translation towards the bottom.
When asked about the endgame, Atanasov said that term was very broad. When players max out their skill development they can do other things, like fight the biggest and baddest monsters in the game. If that doesn't interest them, PvP dominance via territory conquest is an option. Players can also gain economic power via brokering the world's resources or focus on crafting and selling the phatest loot in the land. Endgame content is important them, and the gang at Masthead realizes that if there's nothing to do -- players will leave. They hope to circumvent this with enough content at launch, as well as regular updates and expansions.
While players can kill faction members, it's definitely something players will want to put a great deal of thought into because doing so is considered the worst crime in the game. One extra little tidbit that sounds very, very intriguing is that criminals are free game, and as in real life, players will be rewarded handsomely for taking down these virtual bad guys.
Earthrise will also provide huge PvP battles. They can be organized by guilds or part of an epic territory conquest. These things are so massive that a single player or even a small party will have no chance of capturing and controlling them. This should make for some interesting large scale fragfests.
Due to the size of the world, vehicles will be available in the form of hovercrafts. These floating landspeeders will range in size from a small skateboard to a small truck. The best part? They can be customized - both in performance and color - and will be player-crafted!
Right now Earthrise is in pre-alpha stage. Beta testing is scheduled to start near the end of this summer or the beginning of autumn. But as we all know, MMO development schedules are about as predictable as the weather. So don't hold your breath.
Be sure to read the whole interview, which includes Atanasov' favorite MMOs (the answers might give a clue as to what kind of game Earthrise might be), and check out their exclusive screenshot from the game.
