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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]
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.
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!
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.
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.
Trove starts alpha testing, sells supporter packs
Trion Worlds has sent out its first wave of Trove alpha invites today as the game moved into its latest phase of testing. On Reddit, Trion devs addressed how players may gain access to the alpha: "We will be inviting people both at random from the pool of everyone who has signed up as well as directly inviting strong Trove supporters: community contributors, streamers, and so on." If you're not content to wait for an alpha or beta invite, you can cut the wait with a few bucks by purchasing one of Trove's new supporter packs. These start at $5 and go up to $2,500, with perks such as testing spots, in-game credits, in-game items, the soundtrack, and even the ability to help create a biome. Basically, $5 gets you the beta and $20 (on up) gets you the alpha, if that's what you're seeking. Additionally, the more that the community chips in for these packs, the more additional rewards will be unlocked for everyone in the form of "bonus milestones."
Trion officially reveals Trove: Endless adventures through endless worlds
Even with its recent "regroup and reorganize" strategy, there's no doubt that Trion Worlds is an ambitious company that enjoys having its fingers in many pies. But what about that yummy voxel Minecraft pie? So tempting... so trendy... so full of antioxidants. Well, Trion's baking one of those up too, and it's called Trove. So what is Trove, exactly? It's something radically different for Trion, though it's plainly drawing upon lessons learned from the studio's other titles. Trove is a multiplayer universe of worlds where creation, destruction, and adventure go hand-in-hand. It's a sandbox, an RPG, a toolset, a public space, a private space, a free-to-play experience, and according to CEO Scott Hartsman, a passion. We spoke with Hartsman to get a handle on what Trove will bring to MMOs and how it's looking to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack. So take one last look at the cute bug above and prepare yourself for an endless adventure through endless worlds.
Block by block: Hands-on with the Cube World alpha
From an outsider's perspective, Picroma's Cube World might look like yet another Minecraft clone. It has the same blocky appearance and voxel design of Mojang's money-printing sandbox, and though the color palette is brighter and the graphics more crisp, it would be easy to dismiss the title as a "me-too" copycat. "If you've played one cube-based game," says the veteran gamer who lives in your brain, "you've played them all." Despite the visual similarities, however, Cube World and Minecraft are extremely different games. Minecraft is a crafter's paradise, a world where you can build anything you can imagine. Cube World is an adventure game, and fans of MMOs will find it far closer to World of Warcraft or Guild Wars 2 than it is to the game that threatens huts with Creepers and allows you to build full-scale replicas of pretend spaceships. Cube World is unique, and even in alpha, it's something quite special.
EQN's Steve Klug talks voxels and making editing fun
Would you like to know more about EverQuest Next's voxel-powered sandbox? SOE technical director Steve Klug recently gave an interview at EQNexus that focuses on the technology used to power the fully destructible fantasy world. "There are many different approaches to rendering voxels, but they all boil down to what amounts to a three dimensional pixel," Klug explains. "Using voxels allows for a very editable world. They allow for meaningful destruction during combat situations. They also allow you to build the castle or dungeon of your dreams." Klug also says that players will have access to the same building tools that SOE's developers use. The company is attempting "to make all aspects of editing really fun," Klug says. "So we like to think of them more as games unto themselves than just plain tools."
Neo's Land voxel-based building demo now available
Did our Neo's Land preview whet your appetite for voxel-based MMO creativity earlier this month? If so, you'll want to know that starting today, you can log into the game's website and play around with a set of editing tools that allow for dungeon creation, terrain sculpting, house construction, and more! Though the building demo is web-based, developer NeoJac notes that the full game will feature a traditional client/server model when it launches in 2014. Don't forget that you can help fund Neo's Land via its ongoing Kickstarter drive. [Source: NeoJac press release]
Cubeworld launches into paid alpha
Cube World, developed by Picorama, is billed as a voxel-based, randomly generated, action-adventure RPG with borderless worlds and infinite character progression. It's not exactly an MMO, but it's pretty darn close: It also has a crafting system, PvP combat, and cooperative play via LAN or the web. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, you're in luck: Cube World's paid alpha phase has officially begun. Well, sort of. In order to get into the alpha, you'll need to pay for the game via the Picorama shop. In order to use the shop, you'll need to register. And thanks to what the developer claims are regular denial-of-service attacks, registrations are currently disabled. Foiled again. In the meantime, you can get an extremely limited taste of the game's looks by checking out its mini demo.
Guncraft is Minecraft with guns or Call of Duty with blocks, pick one
Insert a joke about us hearing you liked things and then putting those things inside of each other, dawg. Guncraft combines two massively popular gaming tropes, shooters and cube-inspired sandboxes (OK, one of those is more popular than the other), into a first-person shooter that looks as if it were made in Minecraft.As described by developer Exato Games, Guncraft has players construct their own levels and then share them in an online multiplayer battle, where every aspect of the environment can be destroyed. Levels are reset after each round, of course. "Voxel engines allow us complete and total environmental destruction," Exato writes on its Kickstarter page. "But wait, that's not all! We also have complete and total environmental CONSTRUCTION."Guncraft is looking to release a PC beta in March, with a full launch in June. Exato is also set on releasing Guncraft on XBLIG eventually. To finish its project, the Guncraft team is asking for $16,000 via Kickstarter -- they're on their way, but could use some love. If you're intrigued, head on over and support Guncraft here.
