Twin Skies at PAX08: What makes it different?

There's a long list of unique features, but a prominent one is the business model. Meteor Games hopes to steer clear of the usual problems that modern games face with initial development times reaching several years, only to make a game that isn't what people expected at launch, or isn't complete at launch. Not only that, many games that are releasing now are 5-6 years in development already, which can make them easily outdated in this highly competitive MMO market.

So with Twin Skies, they've opted to be the first MMO that is released within a year of its first developmental stages. This means that they're aiming for a release sometime during summer of 2009.

How can they possibly do this? According to Matthew, the game will have minimal content at launch, to focus more on getting the game mechanics right the first time. Following launch, the game will be continuously patched with weekly content updates which will include anything from more achievements, clothing, pets, races, classes, levels, quests and so on. This helps to alleviate that initial grind that many players race through to get level cap in the first week, plus it helps the developers eventually mold the game's direction according to player feedback. This prevents them from being stuck with one solid direction that was decided upon several years ago by a room full of writers. The game can be more organic this way, which will inevitably evolve into something that the players have helped create through their feedback.

What about socialization and community?>>