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Maestros of the Anthymn begins its Kickstarter campaign
Will the melody be with Maestros of the Anthymn this time around? The rebranded music-based game has launched a new campaign to fund the development of its launch episode, "Dark Tide." The team previously told Massively that the episodic game will hopefully lead into a full-featured MMO. According to the project's new Kickstarter page, "One of the biggest drivers for all of us at the studio is knowing that one day we might have players creating, sharing and wielding music in hopes of completing The Anthymn." The story will follow a musical genius who uses his talents to reunite a country shattered by civil war. String Theory Creative Director Riley McDougall says that this game will use music in a whole new way: "Beat-matching music games are fun, but what if you could literally mold the world around you, solve puzzles and conquer impossible enemies through creating and wielding music itself?" Maestros of the Anthymn is looking to raise $200,000 CAD in pledges over the next month. The team has future plans to create three more episodes to make up the game's first season, as well as a story for four seasons past that. Each episode will contain sandbox, cinematic, and puzzle elements. [Additional source: String Theory Entertainment press release]
Maestros of the Anthymn is definitely still an MMO
MMORPG bard fans, furbish up your lungs! Earlier this week, we posted about Maestros of the Anthymn, a unique music-flavored MMO from indie dev house String Theory (whose name makes us grin every time). Under its original name, Anthymn, the game failed to reach its Kickstarter funding goals, but the developers prevailed and have plans for another run. However, the devs' reference to "episodic content" made us wonder whether the game might not be less an MMO than once planned. MotA's Creative Director Riley McDougall reached out to Massively to dispel those concerns. YES! Our end goal is to still make it an MMO. The episodic format is our way of getting there. I think a lot of people forget the legwork it took for Blizzard to gain such a massive and dedicated community with WC1, SC1, Diablo, WC2, Diablo 2, WC3 before even thinking about launching an MMO. Our intent is to follow the same format, use the episodic to build the brand and our community while dedicating more studio resources to the online RPG as we move forward. Long road ahead but we've come this far, no way we're giving up. The developers also posted an in-depth Facebook introduction on Wednesday. "What we believe makes Maestros of the Anthymn (MotA) so unique is the way in which sound and music are used in game," writes String Theory. "There's a ton of game design philosophies and methodologies out there but no matter what feature or mechanic we're crafting, we begin with the same vital question. What does it sound like? Building from a foundation of sound design has allowed us to breathe an emotional resonance into every part of MotA, from the way our mountain ranges are shaped to the revolutionary 'call and response' musical combat system. This is going to be something truly special and worth your attention come January 15th" -- which just happpens to be when the new launch trailer and Kickstarter arrive.
Music MMO Anthymn rebrands and preps Kickstarter campaign
After falling well short of fundraising goals in 2013, music-focused Anthymn is gearing up for another shot at a Kickstarter campaign in the near future. The title has rebranded itself as Maestros of the Anthymn, and according to its Facebook page, it is getting ready to make the case for crowdfunding. "To all of our amazing friends and fans -- we are proud to formally announce the name of our upcoming Kickstarter project," String Theory posted. "Welcome to Maestros of the Anthymn, a groundbreaking episodic adventure of song, sword, and sorcery for PC and Mac. Stay tuned later today for our big update on the game, our vision and what's next for the Kickstarter launch plans!" It is unclear whether or not Anthymn will be retaining its MMO focus or going another route entirely with this rebranding. The original concept was for an entire fantasy world where music and magic infused entire nations and where every class had a musical focus and theme.
Alt-week 12.14.13: who cares if intelligent life is out there, when everything's just a hologram
Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days. There are big questions, and then there are big questions. Pastrami or ham? That's a big question. Solid universe or hologram? That's a big question. New research has made some headway toward one of those. Spoiler alert, it's not the one about sandwich-meat. This is alt-week.
Making music together: An interview with Anthymn
It's safe to say that many of us on the Massively team were seduced by the promise and potential of Anthymn when we first saw its Kickstarter campaign. The concept of an entire fantasy MMO that revolves around music instead of swords and sorcery is a refreshing approach in this day and age. The folks at String Theory Entertainment are downright passionate about bringing the power of music to online games. While Anthymn is still in an early stage of development, the idea behind it stretches back a decade or so. The developers aren't just using music as a quirky feature for the sheer heck of it, either; this is a studio full of musically talented folks who know how infectious and bonding a song can be. We sat down with the creative leads behind Anthymn to get a better feel for the project and the future of the game, with or without Kickstarter's help. Check it out after the jump!
String theory finds an elegant use for itself with qubit entanglement and black holes
Sure, trying to wrap your head around string theory -- a study in particle physics that's trying to rectify the perceived contradictions between general relativity and quantum mechanics -- can cause more cognitive pain than a colliding god particle. That hasn't stopped anyone from trying to validate its corollaries, and in the interim, researchers like Michael Duff of the Imperial College London. Mr. Duff realized a few years ago there existed some strong relations between formulas pertaining to both black holes (relativity) and four entagled qubits (quantum mechanics). So, in his words, "In a way, there's bad news and good news in our paper. The bad news is, we're not describing the theory of everything. The good news is, we're making a very exact statement which is either right or wrong. There's no in between." We're sure some science cliques are already gearing up to get their troll on. Hit up the PDF below if you want to read it yourself.
Large Hadron Collider schedules holiday for 2012, full 7 TeV power for 2013
It's good to know that even huge inanimate objects appreciate the need for a work-life balance. After a nice winter hiatus, Switzerland's Large Hadron Collider is coming back online soon, set to resume smashing protonic beams at one another with the force of 3.5 trillion electron-volts (TeV) per beam, or 7 TeV in total. We have to swallow hard when we hear such force described as "low-energy," but that's what the LHC designers consider it, and moreover we're learning they'll skip past the middle and go for the full 14 TeV potential smashes after a retooling break during 2012. Although this may delay the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, other physics research shouldn't be stalled in the meantime -- scientists claim they'll be able to extract data from the low-energy collisions that could lend us more information on aspects of string theory, extra dimensions, and supersymmetry. Doesn't all this sound like nerds trying to avoid getting real jobs?
