perpetuum-online
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Perpetuum is dropping its sub fee on April 2nd
As Perpetuum approaches a rebranding of sorts with a new player experience and a new early access status on Steam after a successful Greenlight, the dev team at Avatar Creations has one more thing it'd like to announce: a payment model change. Starting April 2nd, Perpetuum will be dropping its subscription payment model to move forward with a single-purchase buy-to-play model priced at 28.99 USD/EUR. There will also be in-game item purchases that will include "previously unavailable services and cosmetic upgrades." As a special bonus for anyone who has ever paid for at least three months of the game's subscription, the game will be completely free. Be sure to check out the most recent blog post for more details on this new payment model and changes coming to the game with this Steam launch on April 2nd. [Thanks to Fredrik and Zoltan for the tips!]
Perpetuum Online plans a Steam-based marketing push via Early Access
While Perpetuum Online has already been Greenlit on Steam (and was launched almost four years ago), a recent forum post by DEV Zoom states that the team plans to re-brand on Steam as part of the Early Access program. This has caused a bit of a stir in the forums as some players believe this will send the wrong message. "Since the game's been released for 3-4 years or whatever," player Norrdec observes, "isn't going early access kinda... fraudulent?" DEV Zero later clarifies: "The main reason for it is because we have no idea what to expect regarding player numbers and how the servers will take it. We need to warn people that there can be server issues, lag, etc., in the beginning and stuff can break badly. And right now on Steam, being early access is the best way to bring this to people's attention. Obviously we'll tell them this in the developer's notes box and that we've been out for years already." Be sure to check out the entire thread for more on the Early Access plans and a proposed Gamma wipe in the near future. [Thanks to Anon for the tip!]
New Perpetuum patch introduces Sparks, Extension Downgrading
A new patch just hit Perpetuum, and it brings Sparks and Extension Downgrading along with it. No idea what either of those things are? Don't worry, that's why we're here. In the Perpetuum universe, Sparks are nanobots that grant small but permanent bonuses to a player's bot. A number of these Sparks are already available in-game and can be unlocked either by paying a one-time NIC fee, or by reaching "a certain level of relation with a corporation." Sparks will also be available for Energy Credit when the system goes live later on down the road. Extension Downgrading is exactly what it sounds like. It allows players to downgrade the level of their mechs' extensions in order to receive a full EP and NIC refund. The feature is largely intended for new players who aren't sure how to build their bots, so it will only be available to players for 30 days after the creation of their first character. However, since it's a new system, current players will be able to use the feature for 30 days after the feature goes live. For the full details on the patch, boost yourself over to the official Perpetuum site.
Perpetuum's Terra Incognita expansion coming May 4th
Avatar Creations has a bit of a surprise in store for fans looking forward to Perpetuum's next patch. The update will be a full-blown expansion titled Terra Incognita and will be free to download despite the fact that it's crammed full of content. Avatar has also announced the official release date as May 4th, 2011. So what's in store for the sci-fi sandbox's first expansion? The game world is doubling in size, and six new islands are being made available (three Alpha and three Beta zones, PvE and PvP respectively). Since you can't have a huge game world without providing players a way to avoid traversing it, Avatar is also introducing a new highway system, which will speed travel by an additional 36 kilometers per hour. Terra Incognita is also bringing a new event notification system to the table (and by events, Avatar means UI pop-ups, not in-game shindigs). Gameplay additions include AoE damage from exploding robots, new armor and weapon modules, internal corporation markets, and various mineral and mining tweaks. Head to the official Perpetuum dev blog to get the full scoop.
Perpetuum dev blog outlines upcoming tweaks
There's a new dev blog floating around the Perpetuum website, and it's got quite a bit of interesting info to share with players of Avatar Creations' mech-based sandbox MMORPG. Avatar's Dev Zoom writes that while most of the team is hard at work on growing the world of Nia, there's also room for "a few small but rather important changes, which we intend to implement in smaller patches before and around the world expansion patch." Chief among these updates is a global storage listing. Zoom says that this new asset list functionality will allow players to browse their items in both local and remote terminals. Avatar is also removing NPC buy orders for kernels, leaving the kernel market totally in the hands of players and dependent on player research needs. Also scheduled for a revamp are geoscanner folders, the market rates graph, and the game's event notification system, which the dev blog labels as an "age-old fossil." And that's just the tip of the iceberg, as Avatar has several more items on its to-do list. We've only got so much space though, so you'll have to head to the official Perpetuum dev blog to read the rest.
Perpetuum doubling world size, offering free trials
What's new in the world of Perpetuum? Well, free trials for starters, as Avatar Creations has officially introduced a 15-day grace period for each newly created account. Trial players will not be able to trade items or currency, and they also will be prevented from joining corporations in order to safeguard the game's economy from exploits. Perhaps the biggest update in the world of Perpetuum is, well, the world -- or rather, the world as it will look in an upcoming patch. Avatar's official dev blog details plans to effectively double the size of the planet known as Nia in a patch "planned for about a month from now." The new territory will include six new islands (three of them safe zones and three free-for-all areas). All of the zones will boast infrastructure, NPCs, and materials, and Avatar plans on introducing missions shortly after going live with the update.
Avatar Creations lays out plans for Perpetuum's future
While there are some still players steaming about the recent insurance fraud situation in Perpetuum, many others are excited about the plans that Avatar Creations has revealed in its most recent dev blog. After receiving player feedback indicating that the company wasn't doing as good a job of communicating its plans for the game as many players would like, the team decided to lay out its development goals well into the latter half of this year in a new dev blog -- and those goals look pretty awesome! Starting off, players will be glad to hear that the upcoming PvE content that the devs were hinting at isn't just more missions and mob grinding. Instead, players are going to be treated to a new system: artifact scanning and discovery. By scanning down hidden spots, players can net basic goodies like salvage containers all the way up to special alien intel revealing special missions or new Mk2 robots. What's better, the devs intend to add more things into the artifacting system as things develop, offering a plethora of possibilities for everyone from the solo carebears to the largest groups. Among the other plans are a new energy-credit system (which will give players the chance to pick up even more new modules and components), changes to the Assignments currently offered in-game, help for corporations seeking to recruit new players, area-of-effect explosions for your PvP fiends, new lands, terraforming, and much more. So if you've been curious about the plans for this fascinating indie sci-fi sandbox, then head over to the Perpetuum site and check out all the details in this wide-ranging devblog.
Perpetuum reels from robot insurance fraud
In an MMO so dependent on its economy, it's crucial to keep a tight rein on the flow of money so that the whole mechanism doesn't spin out of control. Unfortunately, it appears this started to happen in the relatively new Perpetuum when a number of profiteers began to unbalance the economy by manipulating the market on insured robots. According to a Perpetuum dev blog, the fraud came about when players figured out how to game the insurance system. The game's robots are insured not according to a fixed amount, but in relation to the global market average. Developer "Zoom" explains what happened next: "Due to some additional flaws in the mechanism, with good skills and good facilities it became very profitable to manufacture robots with the sole purpose of insuring them and blowing them up as soon as they roll out of the factory." While the dev team initially sanctioned the action as part of a free market economy, this post represents a changed stance toward such practices. Players have written to Massively telling of how their wallets were sucked completely dry by the company after months of what they assumed to be legitimate market techniques. The team retrieved over a billion NIC (Perpetuum's currency) from players and called out a number of corporations involved in these actions. Ultimately, the team elected not to ban any of the associated parties for the time being. Instead, all players should be seeing a modified version of this insurance feature within the week. [Thanks for all the tips sent in on this one!]
Perpetuum dev blog talks new features, Interference system
Wondering what's going on in the world of Perpetuum? Wonder no more, as the official Perpetuum dev blog has been updated with news of today's patch as well as a number of both client and gameplay tweaks. First on the agenda is the fact that Avatar Creations is now offering two new languages for its sci-fi sandbox, and we're sure both the Slovenian and French-speaking communities will appreciate it. The patch also features the introduction of a new heavy mech robot (the Lithus), which "can be thought of as the big brother of the Sequer, and will satisfy all your hauling needs" according to Avatar's BoyC. Next up are a couple of additions to the character screen in the form of trophies and losses followed by the coup de grace of this particular patch: the Interference system. In a nutshell, Avatar is attempting to address the fact that players are clustering together in PvP and one-shotting opponents due to a mass of concentrated firepower. The designers intentionally avoided implementing friendly fire and robot collision detection in Perpetuum, and the Interference system "simulates the effects safely fighting in a close group would have on the combat effectiveness of the group in the real world. Basically members of the group would have to be more careful not to shoot any of their comrades, and thus be slower to fire and would have to devote a lot of their attention to working together with their unit."
Perpetuum devs working on new mech, combat log, and more
It's been pretty quiet on the Perpetuum news front since the game went live towards the end of November. The indie sci-fi title is moving right along, and the developers at Avatar Creations are hard at work collecting player feedback and iterating on possible future additions. Quite a few new features are coming down the pipe for the mech-based sandbox, including robots that damage their surroundings when they die, a new freight-transport mech, and an oft-requested combat history log. Mancs, an Avatar dev and the personality behind the official Perpetuum blog, writes about these and other upcoming tweaks in the column's holiday entry (dated December 26th).
Perpetuum officially launched
Gear up, mechheads -- Perpetuum has officially launched. As of yesterday, November 25th, Avatar Creations' massively multiplayer sandbox is open for business. Early access accounts have been disabled, and you'll need to pony up for the $9.95 subscription fee in order to continue carving out humanity's destiny on the planet Nia. Newly created accounts will receive two weeks' worth of extension points (the game's skill point currency) for free, though a press release on the official website states that this offer will be for an "undetermined period." Perpetuum features time-based character development, real-time asynchronous combat, dynamically changing environments, and a single-server persistent universe. Register for your account at the official website, and we'll see you on the surface of Nia.
One Shots: Mine!
You know what we're thankful for? We're always thankful to see new, independent MMO games entering the market like Perpetuum! They generally take interesting chances and try out various new things, which in turn gives us great One Shots to check out. Today's example from Perpetuum is a great case in point. While this may look like a fierce, fiery flower against a rocky cliff at first glance, the actual story of what's going on here is much more interesting. Embolism, submitter of today's screenshot, tells us a bit about what this is: "A few nights ago our corporation, Gallowglass, figured out how to make some new toys. We also had the need for a few million tons of raw material. Given our current need for little toy robots that blow stuff up, we all got together as a corporation to strip the land of its precious resources." The other thing we're always thankful for is more screenshots in our One Shots email box! If you'd like to give us a reason to be thankful to you in particular, you can send in a cool screenshot from your MMO travels. Email it to us at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. Guild, corp, group, server, or anything else of that nature is welcome as well. Yours could be the next one we feature here on Massively! %Gallery-85937%
Perpetuum devs talk design inspiration, post-launch plans
You've probably heard of Perpetuum Online, the new mech-based title from indie developer Avatar Creations. What you may not know is that the sprawling sandbox is the result of a tiny 10-man development team. In a new interview with the devs over at Game Reactor, we also learned that even though the UI and certain gameplay elements resemble EVE Online, most of the Avatar team never played CCP's famous MMORPG and instead looked to the real world for design inspiration. "When designing the crafting system we looked at how humanity would react when faced with new and alien technology and built crafting around those core ideas. The idea of a complex sandbox single-server world might be very similar, but most of the Perpetuum team never played EVE," Avatar says. The interview also drops a few interesting nuggets including player beta reactions, post-launch development plans, and a peek at the dev team's stance on equalizing veterans and newbs. "Newcomers in any well designed game won't have a chance against seasoned veterans," Avatar states. Check out the full interview at Game Reactor and don't forget that Perpetuum launches November 25th.
UPDATED: Win early access to Perpetuum with Massively!
Early access to Perpetuum begins November 18th for those who purchased the subscription, but we've also got 10 early access codes to give away. They give you a little more than early access, though. These codes are good for the 7 days of early access, another thirty days of playtime, and 4 weeks worth of extension points to get you started. Extension points normally accumulate over time and are used to buy skills. Entering to win couldn't be easier. Just click that handy comment button and tell us why you want early access to Perpetuum. Everyone who comments before 11:59 p.m. this Saturday, November 13th, will be entered in a random drawing. So check out our contest rules, leave those comments, and good luck! [Update: All winners have been contacted. Congratulations!]
All systems go: Perpetuum launching November 25th
It's been five years in the making -- not to mention 18 months of beta testing -- but on November 25th, it all comes to a head. Perpetuum Online, which has been described as "EVE Online meets mechs," finally has a launch date. Avatar Creations' project is a persistent world at war, in which players can build, pilot and destroy robots across the landscape. According to Perpetuum's manifesto, the dev team strived to make an MMO that focuses on a social experience that utilizes crafting, economy and territory control as tools to connect large amounts of players. The download will be free, and Avatar Creations has announced that the pricing plan will be €8.95/$9.95 depending on the region. Interested players would do well to take the company up on the offer of early access, which costs the same but gives an additional week of play (early access players can start on November 18th) and four weeks of "extra extension points." Hit the jump to see Perpetuum's launch trailer and figure out if this is the virtual world for you!
Perpetuum offering early access subscriptions
Perpetuum is set to launch later this year, but the developers are offering players a chance to get in on the action a little bit early. Avatar Creations has announced the availability of early access subscriptions to Perpetuum for €8.95/$9.95. Early access players will begin playing a week before launch and receive four more weeks of extra Extension points. The subscriptions also carry 30 days of gameplay, just like normal subscriptions, in addition to the early week. So how soon can you start playing with early access? Perpetuum will announce a launch date in the coming weeks, so keep your eye out for that news. In the meantime, you can check out the Perpetuum store for the early access subscriptions.
Command line execute: Perpetuum powers up open beta and early access
Do you like robots? We know, look whom we're talking to -- of course you do. Who doesn't? Well, let us ask you this: Do you like piloting hulking robots with enough ordinance to take out a smallish city? Again, that's a mostly rhetorical question. Ergo, it might be of interest to you to know that Perpetuum, the giant city-killing robot simulation MMO, has not only booted up its open beta, but is looking ahead to an early access program as well. Avatar Creations is coming off fresh from a year and a half of closed beta testing and has its sights set on a launch in the not-too-distant future. Interested parties may get their hands on the open beta starting October 18th, and if the game tickles your fancy, you can pay €9.95 to enter the Early Access program, which includes the first month of launch and an extra week prior to Perpetuum's release. Perpetuum boasts a single persistent world where one robot can, in fact, make a difference. We've been intrigued by some of the interesting ideas this dev team has whipped up, so it will be great to get our hands on the beta at last. You can read the full press announcement over on the official site.
Perpetuum aiming for truly persistent world
Modifiable terrain, reverse engineering as a form of crafting, and futuristic robots. The more we hear about Perpetuum, the more promising it sounds. Our friends over at MMORPGItalia had a chat with the development team of Perpetuum recently to talk about these details of the game. The concept of a persistent world is nothing new for MMOs, but this game seems to be bringing it to a new level -- don't get too confident if you're using a tree for cover in battle, for example. Your enemies have the ability to blow it away, leaving you exposed. However, you can create new cover if you dig quickly enough. This sort of interaction with the world can be found throughout the game, and changes you make to the world are permanent until someone else comes along and makes another change. Perpetuum is a completely open, sandbox-style world in the truest sense: "anyone can go anywhere." While there are missions here and there, you're generally on your own. You interact with the world as a human who is remotely controlling robots, and where you take your robot is entirely up to you. Check out the full story at MMORPGItalia for all the details on the persistent world of Perpetuum.
Perpetuum launches major patch, approaches open beta
If you like giant robots, PvP, and a sandbox environment, you've no doubt been following the development of Perpetuum with no small amount of interest. After all, the upcoming game includes all of those, along with some stunning graphics and deformable terrain to help keep players invested. The game is currently in the midst of closed beta testing, and is rolling out new features and improvements, especially with the most recent patch. Referred to by the developers as the game's largest patch to date, it expands the game's quality of life significantly and brings the game that much closer to release. NPC corporations have gained more assignments, and there are six levels of security associated with them -- improved, naturally, by successfully completing more assignments for said corporation. They're now offering unique ammunition as a reward, which cannot be reverse-engineered. Prototypes have been improved, with the advantage that they now can have a slight edge over "normal" versions and are that much easier to reverse-engineer. Best of all for new players, the first stages of the game's tutorial have been added. While Perpetuum isn't yet in open beta, the team seems confident it won't be too much longer before everyone can try out the latest improvements. [Thanks to GM Gremrod for the tip!]
