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Get a good (and hilarious) overview of Trove with this video
Have you ever caught yourself wondering what Trove is, exactly? Is it a sandbox? Is it a Minecraft clone? Is it a bizzaro pixelated version of Second Life? It's certainly hard to adequately describe what this quirky Trion Worlds title is going for, which is why it's simply better to see it. TheHiveLeader created a four-and-a-half-minute video in which he touches on Trove's selling points, from its existing classes to what players can do with cornerstones. It's also pretty funny and moves along at a brisk pace, which is why it's earned today's Massively Seal of Community Approval. Check it out after the break!
Trion Worlds grows to over 12 million players
In an interview with Forbes, Trion Worlds CEO Scott Hartsman revealed that his studio's game portfolio and distribution has resulted in populations that number in the millions. "A year ago we were a company with two games," he said. "This year we are a company with three of our own MMOs, plus our first published MMO, plus 10 other distributed games [through the Glyph digital storefront]. So, we're seeing user numbers in the 12 to 13 million range." For most of the interview, however, Hartsman discussed the positioning of business models in a changing market. If you've ever wondered why MMOs keep launching with a subscription model in this F2P era, Hartsman has a notion: "There are two reasons why companies can't do it from the outset. Number one is that the larger the company, the more public, the more they have to aim for predictable revenue, and there's not a lot of information sharing on free-to-play on the PC and console markets. The other big challenge is the technology it takes to do sales effectively in a free-to-play game -– there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes than a lot of people would think, where an initial purchase plus subscription model doesn't take nearly so complex a model to drive sales."
Trove: 'Let everything in the game be made by the community'
User-generated content isn't just a pipe dream of the Trove team; it's the central tenet of its design philosophy. In a new video, the devs talk about why allowing players to design the world, both inside the game and outside of it, is vital to drawing the community into it. One of the results of listening to player feedback is the creation of a new biome called Dragonfire Peaks, which is full of canyons, lava, and most likely heartburn. "We've taken the development cycle and pried it open for everyone to see," says Art Lead Brian Clarke. The team goes on to show off several player-made dungeons and talk about how the community has made better content than the dev team thought possible. We've got the video after the break, so check it out and see if you've got the Trove stuff! [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
Trove adds the Fae Trickster class
Sparkle sparkle, my butterflies! Trove's alpha program has expanded to include a new class, the Fae Trickster. The new class skews to the magical, with illusion and pixie dust being its primary weapons against foes. The Fae Trickster uses an Ego Blast to attack, Blinks to teleport forward while leaving a clone behind, and shakes its wild thing during a Faerie Dance to bring out additional clones. The Fae Trickster is Trove's third class, and is available in the store for 1050 credits or 5000 source. [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
The Think Tank: Founder packs, exploitation, and choices
Free-to-play MMOs have learned at least one key lesson from crowdfunding: Some people will shell out huge amounts of money for pixels, far more than we've traditionally paid for industry-standard preorders and collectors editions. Most recently, Landmark, ArcheAge, Trove, and Transformers Universe have come under fire for offering pricey "founder packs" that provide a range of early access benefits, some of them significant, for what are otherwise F2P games. I polled the Massively writers for their take on this trend. Is it exploitative or just the reality of modern MMO funding?
Trove empowers community to pitch biomes and classes
Trion Worlds is empowering the Trove community even further by inviting players to pitch ideas for a new biome and class to be added to the game. A Reddit thread has the details of how this process will unfold. Players will begin by brainstorming ideas for biomes, and after some time, the dev team will pick the best (and top-voted) submissions and allow players to vote on the very best one. Following that, the team will poll players for decorations, dungeon designs, and enemy ideas, and then get the biome into the game within the month. There are also plans for a similar pitching-and-voting process afterward in regard to a new class. On a phone call, Trion told Massively that it's looking to push the crowdsourcing aspect further and further as time goes on. The team is incredibly impressed with what the community has created so far with weapons, hairstyles, dungeons, and hats, and it can't wait to see what comes from this experiment. One thing that the team revealed is the upcoming addition of music blocks: Physical objects that make notes (and even chords) when walked on. We asked if Trion was looking to crowdsource the soundtrack for the game as well, and while the devs said that no players had yet stepped forward, they promised that if some did with great tunes, those would definitely be included into the game proper.
Get Trove alpha access for $20
Brick by brick, Trove's world has been shaped by both its alpha community and dev team. Now, Trion Worlds has announced that the alpha program is about to get even bigger. Starting now, Trove has expanded the benefits of its Adventurer supporter tier to include instant access to the game's alpha. The Adventurer tier, which costs $20, also includes a few thousand in-game credits, an inventory upgrade, and other goodies in addition to alpha access.
Trove offers a peek at March improvements
If you want to invest yourself in voxel-based crafting and destruction, you're not starved for options. Trove might not be the highest-profile option within that field, but the game is still in heavy development and updating regularly. An official update shares what the team has been working on in March for anyone who hasn't been kicking around in the game itself, starting with laser mining. Yes, you're not hacking away with a pick any more; you're burning things out with laser beams. March also saw the inclusion of ultimate abilities for the Knight and Gunslinger and the rollout of Personal and Adventure worlds. Players can also forge their own dungeons and wear gear free of the threat of decay. For April, the development team will be hard at work with a forging system to upgrade equipment as well as the inclusion of the Fae Trickster. Isn't it nice to have options?
Trion Worlds introduces Glyph gaming platform
Trion Worlds is getting into the digital gaming platform business, as the studio announced today that it will be releasing its own "lightweight digital hub" called Glyph. Glyph was created to connect developers with audiences, and is purported to be friendly to use from both sides and DRM-free. The platform will take over the responsibility of being the launcher for Trion's titles, including RIFT, Defiance, and Trove (we'll believe ArcheAge when we see it). Trion says that the studio has already handled "more then 10 million gamers" in the past three years and that Glyph will be a great help to pair those players up with current and future titles. Glyph will also handle games from Trion's partners, as the studio has already begun signing on developers. It will launch shortly after GDC 2014. [Source: Trion Worlds press release]
RIFT, ArcheAge, Defiance, and Trove acquire new community managers
Three weeks after the departure of Trion Worlds Director of Global Communications Elizabeth Tobey comes the news that Trion has appointed two new community managers to helm its core MMOs RIFT, Defiance, Trove, and ArcheAge. Evan "Scapes" Berman, whom gamers might recall from his days on the TERA community team, will take over the Defiance and ArcheAge communities, while Eric "Ocho" Cleaver of City of Heroes fame will defend Trove and RIFT players from waves of angry trolls. May the planar gods have mercy on their souls.
The Trove Diaries: Exploring the wild, wild... peaceful forest?
In a recent Trove patch, the team added in a new chest at the central world hub for players to toss in gear to share with others. A community chest. Other than making me think about Monopoly for a minute, it gave me one of those brief, warm feelings that this game tends to do on a regular basis. It's a small thing but a good thing. Trove has a lot of that. So welcome to the Trove Diaries, a chronicle of my sporadic adventures through this developing quirky title from Trion Worlds! Let me bring you up to speed: Trove was a side project at Trion that got the internal greenlight to be developed into a full-fledged MMO. However, the team's taken a cue from recent crowdfunding projects by offering fans the opportunity to buy into the game and see first-hand how it's being developed on a daily basis. Trove is a strange combination of building and destroying that bucks the typical MMO trend while creating something that it light, breezy, and quite frankly fun.
The Daily Grind: Do login incentives work on you?
MMOs really, really want you to log in and play them every day, mostly because if you do, there's an increased chance of you spending money on them. So above and beyond hopefully providing an engaging game experience, the studios often outright bribe players with login gifts. I've seen these gifts in RIFT, Trove, and Lord of the Rings Online, as well as a particularly insidious gift system in Neverwinter that doles out rewards every hour. Soon we'll be hiring employees to just sit at our desks to keep our characters logged in while we sleep; mark my words. So do these login incentives work on you? Do you make a round between MMOs that have these, even if you're not playing them as much? 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!
Trove: You make it, we play it
Trove is growing by pixelated leaps and bounds week after week with the community directly contributing to the game's development, Trion Worlds Creative Lead Andrew Krausnick told us in an interview call earlier today. The title, which is still in deep alpha, has yet to implement core features such as world cycling and additional classes. But what it is adding, day after day, are items and weapons created by fans. Krausnick said that the decision to turn over the item creation toolset to players has been a resounding success, with over 100 weapons created and 10 to 20 player-created items going into the game with each patch. One player even volunteered to create housing trophies for each creature in the game, which the team is now putting in as rare drops. Trion is rewarding players who create chosen designs with credit in a tooltip for their effort, a special hat, and game access if they haven't paid into it yet. That's right: If you want an alpha invite but don't want to shell out cash, then making a good-looking axe could be your ticket into Trove. We've got more to share about Trove's ongoing development and a video walking you through player-designed items after the break!
The Game Archaeologist: A brief history of roguelikes
As with adventure games, it appears as though the mobile market has triggered a resurgence in the popularity of roguelikes with both developers and players. I've been stumbling over them left and right for a while now (I'm quite fond of FTL, which takes the roguelike into space), and every time I can't help but think of how this genre is almost the antithesis of an MMO. Instead of persistent worlds rich in lore, roguelikes favor randomized dungeon crawls with little or no story. Instead of immortal characters that grow with a player over months and years, roguelikes feature permadeath around every corner. Yet there's love for both in many gamers' hearts and perhaps even a few similarities that help to transcend differences. I find roguelikes fascinating because they are so hardcore, they yank me out of my comfy little leveling bubble, and they force me to use my brains for something more than figuring out whether it's time to use the "2" key once more. So what the heck, let's take a quick trip through roguelikes this week and see where -- if at all -- they connect with MMOs.
The Soapbox: Enough with selling alpha tests already!
The dam has burst, restraint has been cast off, and caution has been thrown to the wind. Seemingly overnight, game studios all over the place have thrown the doors open to the general public to get in on alpha testing, usually as a reward for loyalty and financing. Steam has an entire Early Access section that's dominating the sales charts, offering players a chance to hop right into an anticipated game while it's still in the middle of development. Kickstarter games routinely offer alpha and beta access to their financers as part of their reward structure. Trove, Elite: Dangerous, Shroud of the Avatar, Star Citizen, and EverQuest Next Landmark are among the vanguard of upcoming MMOs that have promised alpha or early access to players willing to shell out a few bucks right now. It's not enough to covet and chase after a beta key these days; all of the cool kids are in the alpha, apparently. The willingness of developers to wield alpha access as a reward and the enthusiastic acceptance by gamers to literally buy into it has me very concerned that this could poison the industry, the community, and the future of our games.
Perfect Ten: New MMOs to watch in 2014
Out with the old desk calendars that you didn't use past February 2013 and in with the new, I always say! It's a brand-new year, and while we don't know all of the twists and turns that we'll travel in MMO news in 2014, I dare say it promises to be a fascinating ride. Last January I gave my list of 10 new MMOs to watch for that year, and I'm a sucker for traditions. With 2014 a mostly blank slate right now, I want to lay out the up-and-coming class of games that at least have a shot at releasing by December. There are the big names, of course, but several other titles that could be sleeper hits if all goes right. Which will succeed, which will flop, and which won't even get out of the door? I don't claim to know all, but I know all, so here are my prognostications for 2014!
Perfect Ten: Biggest MMO news stories of 2013
As the light slowly fades from 2013, we spend our final moments quaffing eggnog, putting up President's Day decorations, and reminiscing about the year that was. We stare at the past and realize that it's a mirror reflecting our own journeys through the past 12 months. We contemplate the impact of one small decision that ripples out and touches souls everywhere. And then we stop getting so maudlin and start getting excited for what 2014 has to offer. For me, I live for end-of-the-year lists. Man, I love 'em. I will devour them, drinking up everyone's opinions about what what the best what, what movies or songs I should check out, and what idiocy drives some people to write top 10 lists. Seriously, am I right? Learn to use a paragraph format, people! Well, here's my top 10 list covering the year's top stories in the MMO industry. Some are pretty obvious, some will be up for debate, and all will be in the past soon enough. So what will historians say about 2013 and online games?
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.
The Game Archaeologist: Going forward by looking back at the past
Have you noticed? I'm sure you've noticed. It seems as though ever since this Kickstarter fad flared up, the avalanche of retro-themed game projects has exploded. And it's not just on Kickstarter, either. One of Guild Wars 2's most popular content additions over the past year was a tongue-in-cheek recreation of 8-bit games. And now we've got Trove, which above its controversy is definitely appealing to the glory days of gaming past. The Game Archaeologist has always advocated that the past can influence our present and future in surprising ways. It sometimes irks me that current developers have shown a lot of ignorance for past ideas when coming up with new content, although that irritation has lessened recently now that I'm seeing a growing movement to embrace and incorporate what's come before, both ideologically and aesthetically. So what does the past have to offer the future of MMOs and how can game developers capitalize on it? As usual, I have all of the answers.
Massively's first impressions of Trion's Trove
We're really driving home the "first" in "first impressions" with a look at the early-early alpha build of Trion Worlds' Trove. Trove is a voxel-based sandbox game that was first revealed two weeks ago. It's a game that focuses on exploration, building, and adventure, and hopes to do it with feeling. Since the game is still in early alpha, most of my impressions may change when it gets closer to launch, but we still wanted to show off the game in its current state to give you a taste of what's to come.
