I’m trying not to get too nostalgic here but looking back I just realized that I’ve been working on the game full-time for over two years now. Amazing.Anyways, here are the first three milestones we’ve hit so far:
- Pre-production (reached March ‘14)
- gameplay prototype
- art prototype
- backend decision
- project plan & budget
- production core team
- Alpha-0 (reached July ‘14)
- 1h game duration
- basic combat and abilities
- line of sight, foot steps & bushes
- Alpha-1 (reached January ‘15)
- 24h game duration
- settlements, resources, clans
- equipment, crafting, char development
Those three were all about setting the basics and actually turning our idea into something resembling a MMORPG. From now on our focus will be to turn our creation into an MMO that actually works as intended and is fun for monthsand years to come. Please keep in mind that these milestones are not completely set in stone. Some things might get done earlier, some might slip into a later batch. And we’ve left out a lot of smaller features and improvements to not make this list too long.
- Alpha-2
- 7 days game duration
- 400% map size increase (2x2)
- Basic training & crafting in a neutral city
- Upgradable buildings in settlements
- Settlement sieges
- Clan rights management
- Weight limits and item stacking
- Treasure chest spawn system
- Basic mob AI and abilities
- 1 char pro account w/ unique names
- Clan chat
- Alpha-3
- 1 month and longer game durations
- 625% map size increase (5x5)
- Server end events
- Custom rules per world
- World map
- Character creation
- Mentor system
- Trade window
- Party system
- Advanced crafting
- Advances char development
- Personal stash
- Advanced chat
- Web portal
- Beta & Launch
- polish, polish, polish
- player-suggested features
- top-secret stuff
You might have noticed that I have been very focused on game mechanics and mostly ignored content and art assets in my list above. That is because these parts of the game are on a more continuous development schedule that is loosely coupled with the core mechanics. These items on the list are also the most time-consuming and thusly expensive for our little team (we might even have to add a couple more team members to get them all done in time). But don’t worry - they will still make progress all the way along.
- Ongoing content expansion and improvements
- Skills
- VFX
- Chars
- Mobs
- Environments
- Buildings
- Balancing
- Performance
- Tools
I hope this makes it a little more clear what you can expect in future versions of the game. We’ll of course keep you updated on our progress as much as we can. And if you are missing a vital feature in my list then please head over to our gameloop page and add it as an idea - once it has gotten 50 votes we’ll consider adding it to the game.Alex
