www.projectgorgon.com Sandbox rpg style game from one of the guys that brought us Asheron's Call. I heard about it a long time ago and decided to download the free version off the website before it goes on steam (greenlit years ago) Imagine UO style skill system, and well, bla bla bla, lemme get a video of stoof. And here's an article about the soon[TM] early access launch of Project Gorgon on Steam http://massivelyop.com/2016/08/13/project-gorgon-aims-for-steam-early-access-soon/ And here is a photo of two monkeys riding a pig. So clearly I know what I'm talking aBOOT
I didn't respect your opinion, but after seeing that picture of two monkeys on a pig it all makes sense now.
Here is a very good read as well. Exactly, that's what Trump needs to do to win the election, two monkeys on a pig. I also just want to make a point to note that the graphics and UI that are currently in the game aren't the finished product at all, this game is done in Unity so there is absolutely no reason it won't look at 'good' at the very least and the UI for this game was originally done in Unity 2.5 so they had to code it from scratch. Now the Unity engine includes UI so the dev has outsourced someone to code it for him. Here are some main talking points from that devblog. Quotes are from the blog and italics are my notes. "The game is in alpha." "It's late alpha, where we are still trying to figure out how some of the key parts of the game fit together." Beta starts when early access on Steam begins. "It's important to understand that, during alpha, plans change -- a lot. We don't have a detailed roadmap; we have to experiment to figure out what works." "The characters you are building now in alpha will not be completely wiped out at launch. We will be wiping some aspects of your characters, but not everything. In particular, we will be wiping items and money, but we won't be wiping most skill levels." "One of the other important pieces of development that won’t happen until beta is optimization. During beta, the game will be made to run better -- and look better. But it’s not worth it to spend a lot of time optimizing during alpha, when entire areas often get redone." "This is primarily a PvE game. There will be an arena with ranks and points and so on, but there won't be "open world" PvP." "Why not do open-world PvP? Two reasons. First, we don't have the manpower to do it well, and half-assed PvP doesn't attract a lot of long-term players. Second, I don't want PvP to detract from the PvE game." I like the fact that the dev understands attempting to add in shitty pvp without having a budget for it will just result in shitty pvp. Dueling is one thing but a game with open world pvp really needs classes that are balanced for pvp and not just pve coughWoWcough. "The game has no ESRB rating or similar yet, but we consider it "rated R" for adult situations, language, drug and alcohol use. There will never be dramatic blood, gore, or (particularly sexy) nudity, however."
"The game is Buy-to-Play" "You will buy the game on Steam. We haven't set a final price, but I expect it to be around $40." "There will also be an entirely optional monthly subscription plan that provides some convenience features. We haven't decided on a price, but it'll be cheap." "Some convenience features we've already discussed for the VIP plan include extra inventory space and a skill called Autodidactism that lets your character slowly level skills by reading rare books while you're offline." Will feel like Eve in that sense then which isn't a bad thing at all. "...being a VIP will not give you access to any special gear or equipment that would make you more powerful in combat." This is huge for me and probably huge for most of you reading this as well. "We are aiming to produce new content updates every two months once the game launches." "There will be occasional expansion packs." "But since we are doing free content updates, I expect that our "expansions" will be pretty rare and mostly used to add entirely new dimensions to the game: like a seafaring system, or deep-world mining." "You will need to buy the expansion to access the expansion's features. I don't anticipate having an expansion for at least a year after the game launches." Seems similar to most B2P models like the original Guild Wars. "Early Access is at least a couple more months away." Blog is dated 13 August 2016 so it looks like late Q4 or early Q1 for EA. "When we go to Steam Early Access, nothing will be wiped -- all characters and accounts will remain just as they are now. You will need a Steam account to play: Kickstarter patrons will be emailed Steam keys early; others will need to buy the game on Steam and synchronize their Gorgon account with their Steam account." So expect a sale as soon as it hits EA, I will be following this game since I've been keeping an eye on it for the last 2-3 years. "We are also working on doing a "pre-Early-Access sale" to let players have a last chance at getting some of the perks that were available during Kickstarter." "There will be many, many more noncombat skills in the final game." "I can't say exactly how many skills will be in the final game – the design has hundreds more skills, although when I go to implement these designs they tend to clump together -- but it will be lots! And we'll add more skills as well with the bimonthly updates after the game is released." "You aren't intended to learn all the skills yourself -- at least, not in a reasonable time frame -- and at higher levels, specialized sub-skills will further differentiate what each player knows how to craft, thus promoting a vibrant player-trade economy." "Food and drink are expected to be used by every player." "It isn't always obvious right now due to balance problems, but the final game will be balanced around the idea that you are regularly using food and drink of appropriate quality level. ("Snacks" are optional and won't be factored into the balance.)" "It's really important for the game economy that players consume these items regularly. In fact, their exact purpose is less important than the fact that they're needed! So we may change what they do to make food more important." I think this is a homage to the reagents system from Asheron's Call, it was a very effective money sink and replicating it will replace typical lazy money sinks like repair bills or fast travel costs. "The game's server tech simply doesn't support instanced dungeons." I doubt this will be an issue, I doubt this game will have millions of players clogging up the dungeons and I seriously doubt it'll be profitable for botters to bot the game to make money since this game shouldn't be too popular since it's extremely niche. "We are experimenting with more intelligent spawners that can scale a bit better to the number of players in an area." *If* this game has a bot problem this *should* fix that. "You will be able to breed and raise new pets and mounts, and sell them to others if you wish." "A bunch of the game's data is available to third-party website developers." Check out http://www.gorgonexplorer.com/ "Guildmasters will be able to connect outside chat services to their guild chat. We'll see how things develop from there. (For instance, since players can create custom chat rooms, we might let players attach chat services to those custom chat rooms.)"
What impresses me the most is the serious lack of hand holding, things can be discovered, optional quests can be found and completed to gain access to skills that aren't 100% required but are still useful. I just completed a little puzzle and ended up unlocking animal taming, now I have a pet rat fighting for me, it's awesome. If I didn't look deeper into this random puzzle then I would have never have found this skill this early on, the game really rewards exploration.