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Camelot Unchained offers a status update for the end of January
So, is Camelot Unchained going to have those alpha servers ready in February? That's a great question! No, really, it is; the most recent official development update makes it clear that even the staff is unsure whether they'll be ready to go, as the team is currently a bit short on programmers and is trying to make do. A lot of bugs have been fixed up and several of the items on the game's update checklist have been crossed off, though, and the team is confident that any delays will be for less than six months. The update post also contains new concept art for camouflaged archers as well as a mission statement regarding some of the systems that should be coming to the test version soon. If you can't wait to see the latest news on the game's progress, head along and check out the full update now.
Pantheon previews Halnir, promises to show more soon
Still waiting eagerly for the release of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen? While development has been fairly quiet, the official Facebook page has just seen an update showing off the zone of Halnir in six new screenshots. They show a small hint of the game's day/night cycle, as well as a few other relevant landmarks in the zone. The post also promises that the development team is getting ready to demonstrate some major forward progress on the game. Although there's no exact time frame, the goal is before the weekend hits. Fans can take a look at the preview and keep their eyes peeled for more on the official Facebook page.
City of Titans nears the end of pre-production
Producing a game means doing a lot of things, and sometimes that means choosing not to do things. Missing Worlds Media is wrapping up pre-production on City of Titans, the upcoming spiritual successor to City of Heroes, and one of the things that's been mandatory is keeping a realistic perspective on what can and cannot be achieved on a limited production schedule. The latest development blog talks about exactly that, focusing on something very familiar to everyone who has played an MMO: respawns. One of the elements included in the Unreal Engine powering the game is a respawn system. The development team had originally thought about creating an entirely new set of systems, but developing all of that would substantially add to the amount of development time needed in the game. As such, it was deemed as not mandatory for launch. It's a bit of a disappointment, but as the blog entry explains, it's a choice that needed to be made as the game approaches the full production stage.
Camelot Unchained has rougher-than-expected development stretch
City State CEO Mark Jacobs has an update on Camelot Unchained's development, and it looks as though the recent "sprint" period was rougher than expected. "Unfortunately, this sprint was not as successful as the last one. Due to illness and travel, a number of items either were not fully completed or in a couple of cases, didn't get started [...] Now, we still had a good sprint but it wasn't as good as the last one," he wrote in his latest update. Jacobs said that the team is still working to get infrastructure in place but has basic combat functioning and animations improved. Other interesting tidbits from this dev cycle include hints of the next Camelot Unchained video, the initial concepts for a new race, and work being done on the game's magic system. He reports that the team is on track to begin IT testing in January.
Embers of Caerus newsletter updates beta development
Embers of Caerus' second monthly newsletter is out, and the various department teams are eager to share their progress in it. The landscaping is coming along, especially in regard to the quality of the trees. Populating the world is a different matter, however. The creatures have moved on to the modeling stage, and the concept team is also working hard at building up the city of Thaal. Lore, audio, and even ocean wave simulations are all in the works as well. The newsletter also contains a link to the recent game livestreams as well as a note about Gamer Safety Week. [Thanks to Flint for the tip!]
Embers of Caerus team puts out December newsletter and development update
Embers of Caerus has an ambitious feature list, a dedicated development team, and a long road to walk before the game is ready for public consumption. But as the year closes, the development team behind the game has produced a brief newsletter and a development update to let fans know where the game is now and what can be expected as we move into 2013. It's also a first look at the in-game environment, starting with the first major city of the game and its surrounding environs. The development update makes it clear that the programming team is hard at work integrating middleware solutions while getting the game servers to full functionality, while the art and lore team continues to flesh out the lore and models. Along the same lines, the newsletter mentions that the developers are moving toward working in a less volunteer capacity, establishing a central office and working for more than just a love of the project. If you're keen to see what the fruits of the game's Kickstarter project have been so far, take a look at the full rundown in both dispatches. [Thanks to Dave for the tip!]
Age of Conan's plans to borrow tech from The Secret World
Funcom's focus of late has obviously been on The Secret World, but that doesn't mean the company has forgotten about Age of Conan. Quite the opposite, in fact; the success of The Secret World's single server technology means that Age of Conan can start moving to an equivalent server architecture. According to the newest monthly update, the process will probably not be finished until early next year, but it will allow people to freely switch shards to play with friends and enjoy cross-server events. One of the other updates -- and one that will have far-reaching implications for the game -- regards the current pace of content development and deployment. The development team is considering moving away from large content updates and toward smaller updates at a faster pace. Feedback is being requested from the community on this and other topics, so if you're an Age of Conan stalwart, you should examine the full letter and give the company your opinion.
Anarchy Online's future is so bright, it's gotta wear shades
Game Director Fia "Lindelu" Tjernberg is absolutely pumped about Anarchy Online's future, and she's not shy about promoting it. In a massive March development update post, Tjernberg discusses many projects the team has in the works for the loyal citizens of Rubi-Ka. Probably the biggest change on the immediate horizon is a brand-new global market interface that will allow players to buy and sell goods to each other. The market will be accessed at special terminals in the main cities as well as portable terminals, and can trade across all dimensions. Free players can browse the market, but only subscribers can buy or sell in it. Work-in-progress screenshots of the market were also posted to the main site. She reports that while the team was happy to show off the upgraded graphics engine this past week, there's still a ways to go before it hits live. Other projects that occupy the devs' time are improving the new player experience, balancing professions, and a streamlined game launcher with a graphical character selection screen. [Thanks to David for the tip!]
The Repopulation update talks tutorials, testing
Development on The Repopulation is moving right along, and Above & Beyond Technologies has updated fans with a lengthy October recap. The lion's share of the work during the past month went towards preparing the sci-fi sandbox for testing, and the news blurb mentions a new tutorial system that focuses on repeatable training scenarios. While many sandbox MMOs have simply thrown players into the middle of the action and expected them to figure out complex systems as they go, The Repopulation looks to be placing a premium on educating new users before turning them loose. Also on the testing front, the devs are targeting "early 2012" for beta, and the exact date will depend on how quickly the team can develop content and stockpile enough of it "to keep players busy during the initial months." Finally, there are quite a few patch-note-style updates in this month's recap, and you can find the full post on the official Repopulation website.
The Anvil of Crom: Deconstructing the dev update - PvP Edition
It's been quite a while since I devoted an Anvil of Crom entry to deconstructing one of Craig Morrison's monthly Age of Conan development updates, and what better time to resurrect an old tradition than on the heels of one of the lengthier producer letters in recent memory. The end-of-July document took a decidedly pro-PvP approach, and since I've been spending the majority of my game time on the new Blood and Glory server lately, reading between the lines on the bossman's latest state-of-the-game manifesto seems like the thing to do. Join me after the cut for a bit of discussion on PvP, the future, and a bunch of interesting bullet points.
Rumor: Funcom readying new Age of Conan lands
Speculation and excitement are the order of the day on both the European and American forums for Age of Conan. What's all the hubbub about? Two new lands are purportedly in the works, and this jibes with a cryptic comment by Funcom game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison in last month's development update. "This is where we get to the stuff we can't quite talk about just yet... yes, a little teasing I know, but trust us, it is far more frustrating not being able to talk about what is coming just yet. These will be important updates, with two new and important elements incoming," Morrison wrote. Fans are speculating that the two new and important elements are in fact two Hyborian provinces filled with a multitude of new zones, specifically Turan and Ardashir. Massively has confirmed that bringing up the in-game player search tab and filtering by region shows two new headings labeled Turan and Ardashir alongside the pre-existing countries of Aquilonia, Cimmeria, Stygia, and Khitai. There is also a bit of conjecture on the official boards regarding Funcom's annual report, which says in part that 2011 will bring "significant content and story tie-ins with the [new Conan] movie." We'll keep you updated as this story develops and as we get official word from the devs. [Thanks to Nyan for the tip!]
APB Reloaded keeps us up to date on development
It's always good to see a games company keep the lines of communication open in regard to an upcoming title. It's especially nice to see those frequent morsels of communication presented in an open and downright amusing fashion! The team behind All Points Bulletin: Reloaded is certainly managing to do just that, as we can see in its most recent update. According to none other than the COO/CTO for GamersFirst, Bjorn "TechMech" Book-Larsson, the team currently working on ABP: Reloaded has made a huge find in terms of server bugs. Apparently, the way the current in-game death camera is coded, the entire sector hits a lag spike -- or as he puts it, "take[s] a brief 100ms moment of silence" when a player is killed. This, in turn, causes a lot of the rubberbanding that players see on their end. Finding this bug means that the team is now hard at work on a fix, and Book-Larsson is hopeful that we may even see it released to closed beta players within a matter of days. If you're curious about the progress GamersFirst is making on APB: Reloaded, then be sure to head over and check out the newest blog post or go get signed up for closed beta! [Thanks, Connor!]
Another batch of Final Fantasy XI answers for players
The times in Final Fantasy XI are changing, it seems, with the advent of an early February mini-patch serving as a sign of same. That's hardly the only thing players have questions about, but the most recent dispatch from the development team focuses primarily upon what the mini-patch will bring. Still, the improved communication goes across the board, discussing details of future updates and other system changes as well as some requested features that will have to remain omitted. New auto-translate phrases, for instance, are something that the team would like to implement but can't due to PS2 hardware limitations. The pattern for version update files, however, is being changed to better accommodate the same hardware limitations, saving the machine from having to download the full update and then apply the files one by one. Perhaps most heartening to veteran players, experience gains will be adjusted outside of Abyssea to try to ease the gap between the add-on scenarios and the rest of the world. Final Fantasy XI players can take a look at the full list of questions and get ready for the version update in early February.
Morrison chats about latest Age of Conan development update
Age of Conan's Craig Morrison has taken to the official forums for his latest monthly development update. While the proposed tweaks and additions are interesting in their own right, the epic amounts of PvP-focused QQ in the 18-page (as of press time) comment thread following Morrison's post can also be a fun read, depending on your perspective. As for the updates themselves, they include a summation of progress on the new Call of Jhebbal Sag PvP minigame, a Christmas (sorry, winter solstice) event that features new quests and rewards, and further content additions. This last bit looks to be considerable, and Morrison touches on new Pai-Kang 6-man dungeons, new tier four Jade Citadel raids, a level 80 solo instance designed as a daily quest, and two new solo dungeons that will scale between levels 40 and 80. If it sounds like a lot of PvE, it is, hence the temper tantrums from the I'm-canceling-my-sub-no-really crowd. Morrison, as he often does, actually responds to a good number of the comments in detail, and it's worth a read if you're interested in Age of Conan's near future.
Age of Conan's Morrison talks tech upgrades
Age of Conan's Craig Morrison is back with his latest monthly development update. The October edition is very tech-heavy, with a lot of emphasis on the tweaks and additions that Funcom engineers have been making to the game's Dreamworld engine. While a lot of the details may go unnoticed to your average player, the goal is to continue improving the game's performance as well as add tools to further content creation down the road. Of particular note are the additions of Lua scripting capability (to facilitate dynamic events), improvements to the game's collision detection (and the implementation of nVidia PhysX), and tweaks to both DX9 and DX10 clients. Morrison also confirms that Guardians will be the next class to receive a substantial update. He also clarifies the upcoming PvP minigame changes. Check out all the details on the official forums.
The Anvil of Crom: Ranting ranger is ranty (oh and some opinions on the dev update)
Yes, it's that time of the month again: It's time for another analysis of a Funcom development update. This time around, there's the added bonus of a new patch (2.0.7) to discuss, but for the most part I'll spend today rant... er, talking about Craig Morrison's latest monthly roadmap for Age of Conan. After two weeks of positivity, I guess the time is right to bring a little balance to the Force (or at least, to The Anvil of Crom), so join me after the cut as I break down the good, bad, and fugly in relation to where the Hyborian Express seems to be headed.
Age of Conan adding Conquest game mode, new PvP minigame
Age of Conan's Craig Morrison has been a busy man of late. When he's not generating discussion fodder on his personal blog or overseeing the setup of Funcom's new production studio in Montreal, he's finding time to chat up the AoC community on the forthcoming additions to the game via his monthly development update series. Morrison enlists the help of two additional Funcom developers in the latest installment, beginning with lead systems designer Einar Forselv, who talks a bit about the incoming PvP additions. Not only is a new PvP minigame in the works, but an entirely new game mode is coming along with it. The new mode, called Conquest, will make its debut in the new mini -- The Call of Jhebbal Sag -- and will find players fighting for control of a strategic location in the Pictish wilderness. Funcom has also added a new wrinkle in the form of resource points that fluctuate depending on how well your team is doing at holding capture points. The new mini will feature two groups of six for a total of 12 players per side, and it will also allow players to bring their mounts into a minigame battle for the first time. Lest you think the 2.1 update series is solely focused on PvP, Morrison also taps dynamic gameplay designer Tanya Short for a bit of an explanation about the social features coming soon to a server near you. She provides a bit more info on the activities briefly mentioned in last month's letter. "This patch introduces two major social content additions: guild events and horse racing. Both will hopefully provide guilds and roleplayers with some fun activities and offer an interesting diversion for everyone who wants to try them," she writes.
Rift: Planes of Telara team releases game development update
The latest news from the development team for Rift: Planes of Telara is a development update that looks back over the past few months and forward to the future. COO Scott Hartsman's forum post contains some insight into the development process so far, giving the developers' view of and excitement about everything that has happened until now. It's a fun read, but what's next? Well, the developers at Trion "have a long road of testing" still to come, and Hartsman says that there will be plenty of opportunities for fans to assist along the way. You can read the complete update on the Rift: Planes of Telara forums. [Thanks Malcolm!]
The Anvil of Crom: Deconstructing the development update
Crom bless Craig Morrison. Not just because Age of Conan is developing into a terrific MMO under his watch, but also because he's one of the rare developers who communicate with both the fans and the press on a regular basis. From a fan's perspective, it's gratifying to see the head honcho hob-knobbing with the customers and keeping folks reasonably well-informed. From a journalist's perspective, the monthly development updates (as well as the frequent forum postings) make the job of finding something to write about Age of Conan a veritable walk in the park. Speaking of development updates, Silirrion released the latest this past week, and with it a preliminary glimpse at Age of Conan's fall patch schedule. Join us after the cut as we break down what's coming, and what we hope is coming.
